The ophthalmologist has of late been recommending that many (most?) of his, ahem, more mature patients embark on a regimen of eye vitamins--omega, fish oil----for their eye health, and specifically to prevent or ease the symptoms of macular degeneration. That condition occurs in a whole lot of older adults, and if you don't have it, you well may get it, if you just live long enough. But Dr. S. doesn't want his patients taking drugstore vitamins; his office will take your information and a drug company in Pennsylvania will set you up with a monthly subscription, at about $35-$50 a month, depending on your condition. The doctor says that company's vitamins are purer than those in your neighborhood drugstore. The office even provides a goody bag with information about the company and free samples of the vitamins, just to get you started. Then the company rep will telephone you and set you up with your monthly supply.
I don't like to cause waves, so of course I accepted the information and samples. However, something besides the fish oil smelled fishy to me, so when the rep called me a week or so after my appointment, I politely demurred, saying I would call her back when I was finished with my medical treatments, which were real---and included a kidney stone retrieval and a couple of lithotripsies plus the TKR. I put the subject out of my mind; I don't like fish very much.
Three months ago, when I returned to the omega-doctor for my follow-up appointment, he asked if I took vitamins. Without thinking, I said no. He then went into a brooding mode, saying they might be of benefit and he wasn't pushing them, just suggesting. Only then did I make the connection as to what he was talking about.
Today I visited Dr. S. again. He asked if I were taking a daily vitamin, and I said yes. He said, "They're good for you." We all seemed much happier.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
What's Up, Docs?
I've been a patient at my current ophthalmologists' office for a long time. The practice has grown, and moved, operating at several locations now, and so has added new doctors as well as other medical professionals. But something seems to be in the works, as sensed by my investigative gene. A month or so ago, one of the senior doctors ran a newspaper ad for several weeks, with his picture and in his name only, though he's usually fully booked for his specialty and surgical appointments. Today, on the checkout counter, was a stack of full-page flyers with the picture and vitae of one of the other esteemed senior doctors. Perhaps they're having an identity crisis, with all those other big fish in the pond.
Takeaway
There's no explanation for it, but whenever I have an appointment with my retinal specialist, I have the thought that his shoes are the type that Rahm Emanuel would wear, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of shoe Mr. Emanuel wears.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Home : Alone
I don't remember the second day or the legions of days after that, but I have a vivid picture of the first day. My father drove the car into the middle of the back yard, whatever driveway that had been there long since unused and gone back to nature. When my sister and I opened the doors to get out of the car, we were up to our shoulders in grass, or hay, as it were. My brother, a few years older and quite a bit taller, was probably not so overwhelmed. Since I was not quite six years old and my sister only four, the overgrowth may not have been as wild and exciting as we perceived, but to us it seemed like the wild west. And there was the house, empty of life, waiting for us. It was pale yellow with the more prominent side boards and finishings painted a darker tone of peach.
We were too young to understand what home ownership must have meant to our parents, but now I realize it must have been a monumental triumph. Both my mother and father had come from homes where a parent had died, and following the throes of the Great Depression, money was hard to come by. When my parents first married, they lived in an apartment building which used to stand by the entrance to the Valley Falls Mill. Later they moved to a tenant house on the Bates farm in Melrose, from there to a house on what is now Brundige Road, after that to a farmhouse near the Reservoir, and the last rental on the curve outside the village, owned by a woman named Schmidt.
Back in the day, when people were to leave their homes for one reason or another, it was customary to let family and relatives know in case they had any interest in acquiring the property. I understand this is still an expected tradition, especially when it comes to farmland. So when my mother heard that the Barrett home was going to be put up for sale, she went to work to try to get it. How she even heard is a mystery; we lived in the boondocks, with no telephone, and the only transportation was my father's car, which he mostly drove only to work, where he was gone all day. So it must have all been done through the mail. After she learned the price from my father's sister Kate and her husband, who had decided to live separately, Ma set out trying to make the sale happen. We could get a mortgage, since my father always worked, but we needed a down payment. Again, a flurry of letter-writing: she asked her brother Matt to lend the money for a down payment, probably around $200 since the price of the house was about $1200, a considerable amount of money at the time, at least in our circle. I can still see the calendar on the kitchen wall marked with the scheduled repayments of the loan to Uncle Matt. My father would have been equally gratified to have become a homeowner, after all those rentals, but he was not as optimistic about the possibility, and may have been too proud to ask a relative for a loan.
The history of the house is a little blurred now. When we moved in, there was a very tall pine tree in the right side of the front yard. My father recalled that when his sister Lizzie was a little girl, his father cut a branch off that tree to make a Christmas tree for her. And once, only once, I heard my father say that his own father died in what we called the Middle Room. I never asked for any more information because kids then didn't ask questions, at least not us kids. But my grandfather had been dead for years before my parents married, so family had to have owned the house since some time in the 1800's. When we moved in, there was a long porch across the front of the house which extended to what used to be a barroom, but by then an empty shell. That space would later be renovated and leased to Jack's Confectionery Store, a business forced out of its previous location, which was to be Kerr's Variety Store, I think.
The front porch was the center of childhood life, especially in the summer. The porch pillars were fitted with thick substantial molding a few feet above floor level. When we were little, standing on those wooden wedges gave us a perfect view of the train tracks, a treat since we weren't allowed to cross the road. And even more intriguing, the last post at the far end of the porch had gnawed areas where people going into the bar would have hitched their horses. Those bite scars gave a lot of credence to what was then a favorite pastime of playing Cowboys and Indians. Yippee!
We were too young to understand what home ownership must have meant to our parents, but now I realize it must have been a monumental triumph. Both my mother and father had come from homes where a parent had died, and following the throes of the Great Depression, money was hard to come by. When my parents first married, they lived in an apartment building which used to stand by the entrance to the Valley Falls Mill. Later they moved to a tenant house on the Bates farm in Melrose, from there to a house on what is now Brundige Road, after that to a farmhouse near the Reservoir, and the last rental on the curve outside the village, owned by a woman named Schmidt.
Back in the day, when people were to leave their homes for one reason or another, it was customary to let family and relatives know in case they had any interest in acquiring the property. I understand this is still an expected tradition, especially when it comes to farmland. So when my mother heard that the Barrett home was going to be put up for sale, she went to work to try to get it. How she even heard is a mystery; we lived in the boondocks, with no telephone, and the only transportation was my father's car, which he mostly drove only to work, where he was gone all day. So it must have all been done through the mail. After she learned the price from my father's sister Kate and her husband, who had decided to live separately, Ma set out trying to make the sale happen. We could get a mortgage, since my father always worked, but we needed a down payment. Again, a flurry of letter-writing: she asked her brother Matt to lend the money for a down payment, probably around $200 since the price of the house was about $1200, a considerable amount of money at the time, at least in our circle. I can still see the calendar on the kitchen wall marked with the scheduled repayments of the loan to Uncle Matt. My father would have been equally gratified to have become a homeowner, after all those rentals, but he was not as optimistic about the possibility, and may have been too proud to ask a relative for a loan.
The history of the house is a little blurred now. When we moved in, there was a very tall pine tree in the right side of the front yard. My father recalled that when his sister Lizzie was a little girl, his father cut a branch off that tree to make a Christmas tree for her. And once, only once, I heard my father say that his own father died in what we called the Middle Room. I never asked for any more information because kids then didn't ask questions, at least not us kids. But my grandfather had been dead for years before my parents married, so family had to have owned the house since some time in the 1800's. When we moved in, there was a long porch across the front of the house which extended to what used to be a barroom, but by then an empty shell. That space would later be renovated and leased to Jack's Confectionery Store, a business forced out of its previous location, which was to be Kerr's Variety Store, I think.
The front porch was the center of childhood life, especially in the summer. The porch pillars were fitted with thick substantial molding a few feet above floor level. When we were little, standing on those wooden wedges gave us a perfect view of the train tracks, a treat since we weren't allowed to cross the road. And even more intriguing, the last post at the far end of the porch had gnawed areas where people going into the bar would have hitched their horses. Those bite scars gave a lot of credence to what was then a favorite pastime of playing Cowboys and Indians. Yippee!
Friday, July 26, 2013
FB Mystery
I like people and the idea of having friends, but how to explain the surprise acquisition of friends on Facebook is beyond me. In the last few weeks, I have 2 new "friends" who I didn't request. I don't understand how it happened, but I hate to seem like a stalker......
Thursday, July 25, 2013
An Onion in Holliston
My parents, in their earlier, more communicative days, had an ongoing argument about knives, and how sharp they should be. My mother was fearful of sharp knives, and would have preferred they not be honed to a razor edge. My father, on the other hand, maintained that sharp knives were actually safer because dull knives were more likely to slip, and therefore cut the hand that wielded it. As a child, I had no opinion (as expected of children in those days), and I hadn't thought about the subject until the other day.
I was cutting an onion with a super-sharp knife when it slipped just slightly, but not before it sliced into my left index finger and the fingernail of the adjacent middle finger. Just a small cut, though quite a lot of blood to the cut finger, but no problem after a few days. The ongoing issue is with the vertical cut to the nail of the middle finger. It wouldn't seem that a split nail on the middle finger of the left hand would interfere with daily life, but, annoyingly, it does. From everything from washing my hair to opening the newspaper, the nail throbs, sensitive to anything that involves the slightest pressure. Where horizontal splits or bend-backs of the nails usually resolve in a few days, a vertical slit in the nail is going to require a longer time period, yet to be determined. Meanwhile, I'd started out protecting it with a Band-Aid, but after going through a whole box, replacing one every time I get my hands wet or use lotion, I've switched to just using Scotch tape.
Ma, I think you were correct about those dang sharp knives. And, Daddy, I remember those stories you used to tell about Nazi World War 11 torture methods involving the pulling out of fingernails. I feel sorry for those poor war victims.
I was cutting an onion with a super-sharp knife when it slipped just slightly, but not before it sliced into my left index finger and the fingernail of the adjacent middle finger. Just a small cut, though quite a lot of blood to the cut finger, but no problem after a few days. The ongoing issue is with the vertical cut to the nail of the middle finger. It wouldn't seem that a split nail on the middle finger of the left hand would interfere with daily life, but, annoyingly, it does. From everything from washing my hair to opening the newspaper, the nail throbs, sensitive to anything that involves the slightest pressure. Where horizontal splits or bend-backs of the nails usually resolve in a few days, a vertical slit in the nail is going to require a longer time period, yet to be determined. Meanwhile, I'd started out protecting it with a Band-Aid, but after going through a whole box, replacing one every time I get my hands wet or use lotion, I've switched to just using Scotch tape.
Ma, I think you were correct about those dang sharp knives. And, Daddy, I remember those stories you used to tell about Nazi World War 11 torture methods involving the pulling out of fingernails. I feel sorry for those poor war victims.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
A Moment in Time
It must have been about 1996, and there was a cookout at the Remington's home. A lot of people were there, including Dorothy, and, to most everyone's surprise, Gus, her ex, whom we hadn't seen or heard from in 20 years or so. Two decades of marriages, births, deaths, divorce, graduations, and the stuff of life. Rosemary walked over to Gus, greeting him with a casual, "Hi, Gus, so what's new?" (How he may have answered is now lost in time.)
High Water Mark, Part 11
So I registered my address with the FERC. For those of you uninitiated in government-speak, that is the acronym for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For future reference, the FERC Online Support number is 866-208-3676, and Local # is 202-502-6652. The case # assigned to the Johnsonville Dam is F257717. The Compliance Report was filed 7-03-2013; Docket # is P-266-000. Any questions or problems, email fercolinesupport@ferc.gov
This is all I could locate. I guess I can receive an email if the dam breaks, but don't expect I can count on it. But if I hear rushing water, I'll go to this post and contact all above. Glug, glug.
This is all I could locate. I guess I can receive an email if the dam breaks, but don't expect I can count on it. But if I hear rushing water, I'll go to this post and contact all above. Glug, glug.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Ark! Ark!
There was a meeting at the Hoosic Valley High School last Wednesday . It was hosted by Brookfield Renewable Energy Group (BREG) to provide residents and business owners information regarding the potential for flooding along the Hoosic River downstream of the Johnsonville Dam.
The information disclosed evidently included that BREG has a Johnsonville Dam Emergency Action Plan (EAP), that an EAP exercise was conducted earlier that day, and that there exists a notification procedure for Johnsonville Dam high flow events.
The notice was published in the Legal Notices section of the Troy Record, one meeting only. I wonder who would be affected, how badly, and why the people deemed to be potentially affected would not be notified personally. How much notice would be available----if flooding caused the dam to break, not merely overflow? Does this single meeting relieve BREG from any liability if chaos were to ensue? I'll have to see if I can retrieve minutes of the meeting before I head for higher ground.
The information disclosed evidently included that BREG has a Johnsonville Dam Emergency Action Plan (EAP), that an EAP exercise was conducted earlier that day, and that there exists a notification procedure for Johnsonville Dam high flow events.
The notice was published in the Legal Notices section of the Troy Record, one meeting only. I wonder who would be affected, how badly, and why the people deemed to be potentially affected would not be notified personally. How much notice would be available----if flooding caused the dam to break, not merely overflow? Does this single meeting relieve BREG from any liability if chaos were to ensue? I'll have to see if I can retrieve minutes of the meeting before I head for higher ground.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Exclusive Usage
If only black people can use the N-word, then only people who've been f*#*ed should be able to use the F-word.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Why, O Why, Obama?
From what I've understood, the jurors on the Zimmerman trial attempted to eliminate race as a factor in their decision. Those who spoke out seemed sincere in expressing how they arrived at their decision to disregard the race of the accused and of the deceased. Now the President speaks out, and with but a perfunctory nod to the efforts of the jury and the workings of the court system, ties the entire proceedings to race, pure and simple. He takes this opportunity to mention that when he was in Illinois he passed racial profiling legislation. He could have been Trayvon 35 years ago, he says, meaning what? That he could have been shot to death if he'd assaulted an armed man who'd been following him?
Very few African American men haven't had the experience of hearing car door locks click when crossing the street, he says. Really, very few? Where does that statistic come from? Who surveyed African American men on that issue? And how long has it been since locks were manually depressed? Quite a few years, I'd say.
Likewise, that same number of very few African American men have not had the experience of "women clutching their handbags" in their presence. Would that sexist and insulting image of women apply to white women only? What about black women, or other races? I would suggest that if that majority of black men paid such close attention to how a woman holds her purse, that alone might give cause for women's concern.
And let's take that observation still further: those black men are on an elevator this time, and observe a woman "clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she gets off." Is there a nervous and non-nervous way to clutch a purse? Who can tell that a woman is holding her breath? And "until she gets off the elevator": do the black men not only diagnose nervousness, but also follow women off the elevator and note when she stops holding her breath? Obviously our president is not very familiar with the scientific method upon which statistics should be based.
He cites that Stand Your Ground allows someone armed the right to use a weapon even if there is a way to exit the danger. He speculates: "If Trayvon Martin were of age and armed, could he have stood his ground and shot Mr. Zimmerman because he felt threatened by him? " Throwing down the gauntlet in this fashion is a dangerous statement for the leader of our country to make. Our president's egotism and desire to leave an even more distinctive legacy are not valid justifications to add fuel to the racial fire.
Very few African American men haven't had the experience of hearing car door locks click when crossing the street, he says. Really, very few? Where does that statistic come from? Who surveyed African American men on that issue? And how long has it been since locks were manually depressed? Quite a few years, I'd say.
Likewise, that same number of very few African American men have not had the experience of "women clutching their handbags" in their presence. Would that sexist and insulting image of women apply to white women only? What about black women, or other races? I would suggest that if that majority of black men paid such close attention to how a woman holds her purse, that alone might give cause for women's concern.
And let's take that observation still further: those black men are on an elevator this time, and observe a woman "clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she gets off." Is there a nervous and non-nervous way to clutch a purse? Who can tell that a woman is holding her breath? And "until she gets off the elevator": do the black men not only diagnose nervousness, but also follow women off the elevator and note when she stops holding her breath? Obviously our president is not very familiar with the scientific method upon which statistics should be based.
He cites that Stand Your Ground allows someone armed the right to use a weapon even if there is a way to exit the danger. He speculates: "If Trayvon Martin were of age and armed, could he have stood his ground and shot Mr. Zimmerman because he felt threatened by him? " Throwing down the gauntlet in this fashion is a dangerous statement for the leader of our country to make. Our president's egotism and desire to leave an even more distinctive legacy are not valid justifications to add fuel to the racial fire.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Cluck! False Advertising
Spokesperson Perdue Jr. says, "All our chickens are cared for in a clean, safe environment." Chickens sense irony.
Urine--All In
A researcher at Johns Hopkins has discovered we have smell detectors in our kidneys. I wonder if the kidney detectors are in synch with the nose detectors.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Care-ful Now
The mother of a critically ill child cries out for help, on Facebook no less. She is frightened, alone, and isolated without any resources. She says no one cares. Her FB friends deny her accusations, assuring her that they love her and the child and send their best wishes, claiming that they are doing as much as they can, as far as their circumstances allow. They do care, they tell her. The problem is that while they do care, they don't care enough. Not enough to give her the help she pleads for. Such is life.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Frozen
You can't move, or speak.
You fight fiercely,
Every cell and sinew,
Struggling to gain control
Of your mind, your body,
Whatever is required,
Just enough, please,
So you can call for help.
At last, a measure of success;
Just enough consciousness,
A whispery, strangulated voice,
But enough to call for help.
Then the isolation of truth sets in.
Overcoming the haze,
Finding your way back to awareness,
Does not diminish the anguish.
The hope you wished for
Does not exist on either side.
Nightmares are just a little more tolerable
When your eyes are open.
You fight fiercely,
Every cell and sinew,
Struggling to gain control
Of your mind, your body,
Whatever is required,
Just enough, please,
So you can call for help.
At last, a measure of success;
Just enough consciousness,
A whispery, strangulated voice,
But enough to call for help.
Then the isolation of truth sets in.
Overcoming the haze,
Finding your way back to awareness,
Does not diminish the anguish.
The hope you wished for
Does not exist on either side.
Nightmares are just a little more tolerable
When your eyes are open.
Monster Universal
In the movie, Monsters University, one of the protagonist monsters is a huge blowhard named James P. Sullivan. He fancies himself a hotshot who can coast through the university, and life, because of his size and appearance and his family legacy. Though he possesses certain skills, his unwillingness to work at anything combined with his false image of himself and his assumption of entitlement as the son of a famous Irish alumnus make him of limited use to his group's attempt to win the college Scare contest. And he eventually causes the loss of the title due to his lies and deception. He is voiced by John Goodman. Besides the characteristics listed, the facial expressions as well as his physical demeanor bear an uncanny resemblance to a real person I came to know all too well.
That "gentle hand" makes me want to puke...
.....I can't explain, even to myself, how much I abhor a certain style of writing or narration that poses as positive but plunges me into the vilest of depths. For example, FB recently relayed the story of "Rose," an elderly college student, who inspired a number of youths by her desire to attend college, DESPITE HER ADVANCED AGE. I can't believe the story is true to fact, especially since there are several venues utilizing the old lady's picture, some of them solely for the snarky value. And the cloying narration: "I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder." Really, does anyone who is unexpectedly tapped on the shoulder perceive the quality of the touch? Possibly I suppose, but what if she were a wiry, graspy sort of elderly lady; would that preclude her from being the subject of a romantic, smarmy anecdote?
I say great if the fictional or real Rose was made to feel good about the story, but there should be something better to aspire to, other than being patronized for breaths taken and years spent being alive. If someone wanted to honor an eighty-year old, they should be aware it would take a biography of at least 500 words or so to do justice to any sort of life lived. Rose is now an old crone: a picture of her with a recent hairstyle may or not reflect what she looked like as a young woman. That she is now interested in education may or may not be indicative of what she ever learned in her youth. Slobbering sentiment belies who Rose used to be; nobody knows anything about her,except what is manufactured to make the inspirational article work. Forsooth!
I say great if the fictional or real Rose was made to feel good about the story, but there should be something better to aspire to, other than being patronized for breaths taken and years spent being alive. If someone wanted to honor an eighty-year old, they should be aware it would take a biography of at least 500 words or so to do justice to any sort of life lived. Rose is now an old crone: a picture of her with a recent hairstyle may or not reflect what she looked like as a young woman. That she is now interested in education may or may not be indicative of what she ever learned in her youth. Slobbering sentiment belies who Rose used to be; nobody knows anything about her,except what is manufactured to make the inspirational article work. Forsooth!
Take me too.
Today I was stopped at a redlight in the city when a large travel trailer passed by, passenger side facing me. A man was driving, and a dog sat in the passenger seat, sitting straight, facing forward out the front window, looking calm, content, and eager to be heading wherever it was they were bound for. There was a van attached to a towbar in the rear, so I suppose there were family members in the trailer, sleeping or eating or such. The dog appeared to be a regular, old-fashioned farm type shepherd collie mix, the kind we and our relatives owned when we were little; it made me kind of wish I were part of that dog's family. Jeez, now I'm nostalgic for things that never happened.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Shades of Bacon
Today I met a woman who is the mother of my grandson's friend, a girl, the aunt of his other friend who happens to be a girl, and also the neighbor of another friend, who is a boy. As a substitute teacher, she knew the accused Schaghticoke murderer. She said he was pleasant and polite when he was a high school senior.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Peccadillo
I don't like restaurants that are in old houses, and I feel the same way about medical offices. They seem a little creepy.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Did'ja ever.......
meet somebody who had a story to tell, but wanted to wait to tell it until somebody else was present to hear it?
The Long (Gone) Ranger
My brother used to read us the "Funny Papers" as the Sunday comics were called back then, at least by us. Anyway, my sister and I thought he was reading, but possibly he was only story-telling. Because there was an epiphany one day, earth shattering, when we learned it was not the Long Ranger, but indeed the Lone Ranger. I'd thought his name was because he was tall, identifying him with my Uncle Matt, the tallest man we knew, and also a handsome and heroic figure.
Forward to several years later, after we'd moved to V.F. Now that we had electricity, we listened to the radio, which broadcast episodes of "The Lone Ranger." The show was probably on Saturday; I remember my brother had to sit in view of the radio when he listened to it. The radio was wooden, with an illuminated green "eye" front and center, which he must have fixated on. Other "kid" programs were "Sky King," "Captain Midnight" and a program called "Tennessee Jed," which opened with a rifle shot, as I recall.
Television had been invented by then but was not available in our area; no one we knew had a television set until the Village Tavern installed one in the barroom, and the village turned out to view its offerings, boxing matches as I recall.
I must have been about 7 years old when a neighbor lady told us that television was going to be more widely introduced to where we lived. I clearly remember her saying to me, "Just think. Now you'll be able to watch "The Lone Ranger" instead of just listening to it on the radio." Of course I said nothing to contradict her, just smiled and agreed, but I knew better. A cynic at 7, since my father had assiduously detailed the principle of sound effects: hoofbeats---the sound of hands clapping, campfire----crinkled cellophane---and so on-- the demystification of a myriad of other western-style sounds. I knew that was what was behind our radio programs, and I could not believe that there was the slightest chance that anybody anywhere would ever take the time or trouble to translate the telling of a story from characters reading into a microphone amidst various sound effects into a full blown acted-out story, with real horses! And certainly not just to please kids. That was way before the time kids were king. Our expectations were low. Surprise.
Forward to several years later, after we'd moved to V.F. Now that we had electricity, we listened to the radio, which broadcast episodes of "The Lone Ranger." The show was probably on Saturday; I remember my brother had to sit in view of the radio when he listened to it. The radio was wooden, with an illuminated green "eye" front and center, which he must have fixated on. Other "kid" programs were "Sky King," "Captain Midnight" and a program called "Tennessee Jed," which opened with a rifle shot, as I recall.
Television had been invented by then but was not available in our area; no one we knew had a television set until the Village Tavern installed one in the barroom, and the village turned out to view its offerings, boxing matches as I recall.
I must have been about 7 years old when a neighbor lady told us that television was going to be more widely introduced to where we lived. I clearly remember her saying to me, "Just think. Now you'll be able to watch "The Lone Ranger" instead of just listening to it on the radio." Of course I said nothing to contradict her, just smiled and agreed, but I knew better. A cynic at 7, since my father had assiduously detailed the principle of sound effects: hoofbeats---the sound of hands clapping, campfire----crinkled cellophane---and so on-- the demystification of a myriad of other western-style sounds. I knew that was what was behind our radio programs, and I could not believe that there was the slightest chance that anybody anywhere would ever take the time or trouble to translate the telling of a story from characters reading into a microphone amidst various sound effects into a full blown acted-out story, with real horses! And certainly not just to please kids. That was way before the time kids were king. Our expectations were low. Surprise.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Food-- for Thought
I wonder what will happen when the celebrity TV hosts, chefs, and cooks have exhausted all possible recipes, including those dishes modified by any combination of exotic and arcane spices. Today I saw a recipe for grilled pound cake. I shouldn't knock it because I haven't tried it, but Yuck, who needs it?
Pelf
Sir Walter Scott used the word in "My Native Land." My mother had to memorize this poem in school, which she despised---both the poem and school. She could recite this poem until the end of her days, and after doing so would say that she had never had the slightest notion of what it meant. Do you know what pelf is?
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
DOG SPEAK
Dogs evidently have definite language processing problems, or at least that's what it seems like in the Beneful TV ad where a black lab is playing catch with his master, or playmate if you will. The dog is narrating and refers to that "wonderfully bouncy roll-around thing." What kind of mentally defective dog can use adjectives and adverbs to describe something, yet can't come up with the simple word BALL? Bad dog!
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