This is why I need therapy...

I have been blogging for over a year, but just today I finally figured out (or took the time, blood, sweat and tears needed) to post a picture on my blog. I can't believe I did it! And the photo isn't upside down or sideways!! Woohoo!!! Miracles do happen. This photo is my daughter, Brynley, and me, taken during her visit (which ended today...sniff, sniff) to Louisville, KY in mid-July. But, after all the mental straining required to get the photo from one place on my computer to another, I either need a serious nap or some serious therapy. I think I vote for the serious nap--it doesn't cost anything and I don't have to be on someone else's schedule or be cut off mid-sentence when my "time is up".

Maybe tomorrow I'll put some other photos on my blog of other family members. I'll need a good night's sleep and sturdy breakfast to attempt another such feat, but I think I'm up for the job. I'm feeling confident. I'm feeling knowledgeable. I'm feeling superior to those who still can't do what I did (but that won't last long because I may forget what I did and how I did it and I'll be back to the blood, sweat and tears and the phone call to one of my computer-savvy children). For now, I am celebrating and then napping. Success is good and there is much rejoicing, except for Wilbur, my papier mache pig, who is just a little jealous because he will never be able to post anything on a blog. Good night and good luck....to me that is, hoping that, in the morning, my slippery-as-grease-in-a-pan memory will serve me well.

Grammar School

I have noticed of late that the English language is being misused and abused, mostly by people who think comic books are classic literature and video games are Oscar-worthy "screenplays" (well, there is a screen involved and there is play).

I am not the perfect grammartarian because I still haven't quite got the "lie" vs. "lay" issue figured out, which is why I avoid using those verbs and get mental hernias trying to find suitable substitutes. However, I know most of the rules of the verbal road and I obey them. I like the sound of a language being spoken properly. I wonder about the upbringing and education of individuals who, on a daily basis, mispronounce, misuse, misapply, and otherwise ignore the basic rules for speaking and writing.

Me and her went to the store. Yep. You did. Too bad she and you didn't purchase a book on the proper use of pronouns while you were there. We was doing real good on our project. Well, except for mangling the language perhaps, yes, you was, I mean were. And this grammartrocity isn't limited to the spoken word, it is also rampant in the written word. Verbs and nouns don't match up
--plural needs plural and singular begs for singular. Participles are left dangling (a very uncomfortable situation). Sentences end before fully formed. Punctuation has taken a vacation and is not returning. Spelling has checked out, left the building.

I had an excellent English teacher in high school. He always told my class that we are what we read. If we read well-written, well-thought-out verbiage, we will speak and write it. If we read Harlequin Romances, the joke will be on us. I know that math and science have been put at the forefront of education these days, but not everyone is going to be an Albert Einstein or Werner VonBraun. The percentage of mathematicians and scientists in an adult, working population is small. The vast majority of students will not be wearing lab coats or focusing on whether the theory of relativity is still relative. Doesn't it make sense to include instruction in other subjects, not the least of which is one emphasizing the proper use of language? And while we are at "it", let's lose the R-rated words that appear to have a unique ability to shift from verb to noun to adverb to adjective. Pretty soon we'll have a vocabulary that consists of approximately 10 words (ones that would prompt your mother to lather up your mouth with soap back in the "good ol' days"). We will be unable to precisely express ourselves and much will be left to interpretation. Perhaps the only people who will still be using $5 words that won't require that you be accompanied by an adult when reading, will be the lawyers. They will continue to use words to detail legal documents, etc. and, at $5 a word, we will all pay dearly for this language skill. If the Bible is right and there will be no lawyers in Heaven, does that mean life will be Hell when we find ourselves in a verbal traffic jam at the crossroads of "Whatssup" and "Hey Dawg"? Hopefully not. Hopefully me and her and everyone else will have decided that William Shakespeare (and other great writers) isn't just a dead guy with nothing to say to us. And hopefully enough people will think a return to the use of proper language, decorum and social mores isn't "Bunches of Stuff about Nada" but will still be called, "Much Ado About Nothing"....

Returning the corner

I purchased a watermelon (interior unseen) the other night and I looked forward to juicy, red watermelon for a summer treat. I planned to cut it up the next day and put it in the refrigerator to make it nice and cold for eating. I had a plan. I had a watermelon. I had a knife. I had a cutting board. So, there I was implements and food item in place. I cut the bottom end off to give the melon a flat surface to "stand" on--a culinary trick I learned from a bona fide chef, who graduated from the Cordon Bleu in Paris, while I was serving as the main cook at a girls' camp several years ago. Monsier Chef Bleu was the chef at the "resort" where camp was held. He taught my staff and I to cut both ends off, then the rind, then cut the "meat" in half, quarters, slices and cubes. It is a fast, effective and efficient way to cut up a watermelon.

Back to my current melon story--I made the second cut and noticed that the meat of the melon was not exactly red. It also wasn't exactly pink. It was, however, an orange yellow color and there didn't seem to be much juice in it. I thought I had purchased, by mistake, a yellow watermelon, normally a food I couldn't afford. I continued to do my Cordon Bleu cutting and saw that the inside cuts on the melon yielded yellow, orange and light pink innards. I cut a small piece, tasted it and realized that I had purchased the Roswell, NM watermelon. It was a mutant, an alien and definitely not a watermelon meant for eating, unless your name is Wilbur and you like leftovers served in a trough or the mud. Since I paid $3.49 for the melon, I decided I would return it for a refund.

How does a person return a melon that has been cut up? In a plastic container with evidence of the outside skin included so the Customer Service person will believe you when you say it's a watermelon. Today was "Return A Watermelon" day and I drove it back to Wal-Mart. There is not only a greeter at the entrance to Wal-Mart, but a person who puts pink stickers on returns. I had the watermelon slices in my container and, when asked by the Return Policeperson if I had something to return, I responded, "Yes. I have a watermelon." Well, I got a look. He asked me how I could return something that I had mutilated. (My knives may not be Ginsu, but I had definitely not mutilated my melon.) He wished me good luck (that didn't sound promising), told me he wished he could be at Customer Service when I made my pitch and asked me to let him know what happened. I expected to be handcuffed, put in an orange jumpsuit and made to parade in front of Wal-Mart with a placard declaring that I made an inappropriate return request. Instead, the young lady, who helped me, looked at the melon slices, declared them "Gross" and asked, "What is that?" and handed me $3.49. With a triumphant smile and a swagger, I walked out of the Wal-Mart, past the Return Police, letting him know that I had been successful in obtaining a refund and then I promptly dumped the slices into the garbage container and went home.

I probably will not purchase any more Roswell watermelons, but, if I do, I know I will have another story to tell and at least $3.49 coming my way--about the amount I'll spend on gas to return it....

Ta dah!

I'm bbbbbaaaaaaaaccccckkkkk! Yep, the Big Apple was great. I didn't do anything to get arrested, including speeding to and from New York on the highways and byways of life. Spent one day in the City, but it was good and there was much rejoicing, especially by the cafe that overcharged Barrett and me for salad and flat bread, but who cares! It's New York and if I weren't overcharged, I'd be in Topeka!

Spent time with the family and everyone survived with most body parts intact and only minor mental dents and dings. That's why there's therapy. And that's why Brynley is going to be a therapist, so our family can get "fixed"--not like what you do to the dog or cat so they can't reproduce, although maybe, in some instances, that's not a bad idea. Oh, too late. I've had children, and I'm not reversing the process!

I arrived home this evening and, after stopping for some groceries so I won't be forced to eat cardboard for breakfast, I put everything away and headed straight for my compooter. Missed e-mailing and blogginess. Thanks to the three lovely individuals who commented on my last entry. It made me happy. And my invisible friends are happy because I've stopped kvetsching (spelling?). I will continue to write regardless of "commentors", but everyone likes to be recognized every once in a while, well, except for people in a police line-up who are trying to make facial "changes" whilst they are being scrutinized so they won't be recognized for their dastardly deeds.

A bite out of the Big Apple...

I'm leaving tomorrow morning to drive to New York. Didn't think I'd make any long drives for a while, after the cross-country adventure of late April, but with a slippery mind and a gluttonous appetite for punishment, I'm off on another long drive!

I won't be posting anything for the next several days as I spend a gazillion dollars on gas cruising through Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and, finally, New York, but, since it appears that my readership has "left the building" along with Elvis, it mattereth not.

When I return from my sojourn in the Big Apple (not to be confused with the computer manufacturer), I'll check to see if anyone besides my invisible friends has been reading my blog. My invisible friends won't leave comments since they're invisible and no matter how hard they try, they can't depress the keys on the keyboard and I don't have "speak and type" software for my computer. My papier mache pig has no interest in reading or leaving comments, so that leaves me with a very small fan base. Actually, it leaves me with no fan base at all, but, being a Pollyanna, I write regardless of the strength or length of the readership. So there....

Why it's dangerous to write after midnight

Well, for some people, it's dangerous to put anything in writing at any time. There are always critics out there (wherever there is) waiting, no, lurking in the proverbial bushes ready to pounce on anything that someone else dares to put in print. These self-appointed critics love to find grammatical errors, misspellings, poor sentence structure, lack of logic, etc. I know this because I am a "lurker". Yep. I admit it. I'm currently in a twelve-step program to unlurk myself and I've been doing reasonably well. The downside is--I can't read anything except the labels on cans and boxes of food, and then I can only read the ingredients or nutritional facts. That's part of the therapy. I have become so much less critical over the past few days as I've limited my reading material. However, I find that I am only able to speak or write about food items and nutritional values, which is rather limiting and quite boring unless you get excited about serving portions, sodium amounts or how to pronounce certain preservatives that the government allows food producers to use so we won't be offended by odd colors or smells when we open cans of food. I'm working my way up the food pyramid, but meanwhile, it's after midnight, so I'd better mind my peas and carrots and sign off before I'm tempted to venture beyond the "safe zone" and backslide into my critical mass mode....

Am I losing my mind?

Probably. But I think I've lost the part of my brain that tells me I've lost my mind and so I can't be sure. I have noticed a windy sound whenever I tilt my head to the left, so I'm thinking (with much smaller results) that the vacuous place is where the gray matter used to be that helped me keep my brain intact. Or it could just be the alternating stuffy and runny nose I woke up with this morning. Some people hate to wake up alone....

I went to bed last night feeling a little under the weather--now where in heaven's name did this saying come from (or should I be Englishly correct and say "from where did this saying come")? Does the saying mean we can actually avoid the weather patterns by crouching under them (crouching is not an easy feat for me anymore, so I'll have to weigh the merits of that versus ever walking upright again)? At any rate, I fell asleep wondering if my nose would still be with me when I awakened in the morning. It was, but it was elusive--running all over the place. And when it isn't doing its best imitation of a small, fleshy waterfall, it's doing a rendition of a plumbing pipe that desperately needs a Draino fix. Since I'm home alone (and not attacking two burglars at the moment, like the kid in the movie), I can stuff tissue up each nostril and call it a "look" or I can test myself to see how quickly I can sprint for the box of Kleenex when my nose bolts out of the starting gate, running wildly down the track.

Whenever I have a stuffy nose, it feels as if my brain is also stuffy (and not the British stiff upper lip kind of stuffy either). No. My head feels as if the six visiting spiders, who have been assigned to be swallowed by me this year, have been pushing dense, web-like materials up my nostrils all night long, and I realize that I have a lot of empty, open space in my cranium. Poor spidies must work all night just to fill it up. Now, having a stuffy head means sleeping with one's mouth wide open and we know what the spiders plan to do with the gaping yaw. Beyond the tickle in the throat that may just be an arachnid slip-sliding his or her way into oblivion (also known as the stomach), there is the issue of a very dry mouth, and the question of whether to quench one's thirst and risk middle-of-the-night bathroom trips or to stay parched and sleep poorly, dreaming all the while of large lakes and running water that you walk toward but can never reach. Another side effect of "mouth open and dry" is snoring. If you are sleeping with another individual right next to you, there may be a homicide in the offing. If there are others in the household with normal hearing, there may be a group beating. No wonder I'm losing sleep and my mind worrying about my personal safety. Maybe I'll give the NyQuil to everyone in my household so they'll sleep soundly and my blowing, sniffing and occasional snoring won't disturb them. I can spend the time while they're asleep searching for my mind amid the mountain range of rumpled tissues....