Thursday, July 28, 2011

Does this murse go with these deck shoes?

I'm not good with fashion, and I'm somewhat suspicious of people who are.  Especially men.  Anyone who knows my husband understands that this is a math equation for me.

Dave=trustworthy; Dave=fashion neutral; therefore, fashion=NOT trustworthy. 

It's not that he looks bad. He just looks plain.  You know: like a guy.  There are many days that I look at men out in public with accessories (!) and thank God for my husband and his utter lack of attention to fashion. I was delighted last weekend to see my husband and his father wearing shirts in the same style, undoubtedly from the same store.  Shopping for these guys is easy, if uneventful.

I was driving to work one day recently and saw a man dragging his trash can to the curb.  He was wearing tan shorts, a white, short-sleeved, button-down shirt, untucked, and deck shoes.  The shorts were probably linen, and the shirt was most likely Tommy Bahama.  It was that kind of neighborhood.  There's no excuse for the deck shoes, though, because the neighborhood isn't a bobbing row of house boats.  My first thought when I saw him was "He's cute. But he's dressed like a Ken doll.  I wonder if he realizes."  My second thought was "I'm evil, and probably deserve to be punished."

I think the reason I need for men to be unaccessorized is so that I look fancier.  I am not good with accessories, and may have spent the most of my life hiding some sense of inadequacy with feigned disdain for them.  I look at handbags and jewelry in stores, but can seldom bring myself to purchase anything, because I'm afraid I'll look like a geek with just the one item.  It's a whole interlocking system, it seems, and I'm too far behind to catch up.  Any outfit that consists of more than three pieces, not including shoes, is just too fussy, and I run out of patience before I'm fully dressed. And really, no one wants to see that.

But I maintain that deck shoes are unacceptable, unless accompanied by an actual jib.  Whatever a jib is.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Sometimes cupcakes just aren't enough.

What a week.  Complete with Near-Meltdown-Thursday.  Before the day was over I was throwing stuff.  Not heavy stuff, and not at people. But I was, indeed, throwing stuff. 

Someone brought me a tiny cupcake.  Then I went and found another one.  The last one, which I unashamedly announced I was not sharing. So there.  Not that I think anyone would have asked, given my mood.  Neither of them really helped.

When I left work I went to Publix and bought a pint of expensive gelato. I gave one spoonful to my daughter, and took the rest to my bedroom, where I ate it while I stared blankly at the computer screen watching other people Facebook about their less-crappy day. I did some other stuff, blah, blah, blah, and then my husband sent me to bed at 7:30.  It was the best idea I'd heard all day. 

It's a pretty bad day that can't be salvaged by cupcakes and ice cream. I might not have believed such a thing possible if I hadn't seen it myself.

The gelato was really good, though.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Pay attention to me, Blogspot!

So, Blogspot, WTH?  Why can't I post a comment on my own blog?  Why do you call me "Anonymous"?  Did you break up with me without telling me?  Stop with the endless loop of type in this verification code, now sign in with your Google account, now type in this verification code, now sign in with your Google account...
You get the point.

This endless non-recognition is not helping with my sad feeling of facelessness and non-efficacy on the internet.  Although after the photo included in the last post facelessness might be an improvement. 

Friday, July 15, 2011

Who needs to read? I've got Google.

I'll admit it.  I'm a snob.  Not about stuff to have. But I am a snob about stuff to know.  I look down my nose at bad grammar and careless use of homonyms that spell-check can't detect as errors.  I get annoyed with others' poor use of apostrophes and sad neglect of semi-colons. I went to a regular old high school with some seriously demanding English teachers.  I remember having a grammar text book in addition to the literature book in 10th grade that we were expected to work through pretty much on our own. All the exercises in the book had to be submitted by the end of the year, but I don't recall a single lesson out of that book. Were were too busy studying Greek Dramas. That was an interesting year.  That teacher was the drama coach who is responsible for this get up:




It's a production of Medea by Euripides. Don't you recognize it? Good stuff all around.  I'm not telling you which one is me.
But I digress.
I was talking with a guy yesterday who has in the past told me how he prides himself on not talking smack, and keeps his trap shut if he's not informed on the topic of any given conversation.  This I believe.  What I thought was interesting is the fact that he wanted to fact-check me on a reference I made. He clearly doesn't give me the same benefit of the doubt.  I referenced Pygmalion while we were talking about a company he's considering going to work for.  I have worked for that company, and I said they like to start people at the bottom and promote them throughout the course of their education. They have a kind of Pygmalion thing going.  He asked me what that meant, and when I told him, he still whipped out his iPhone to Google it.

Am I in a habit of making stuff up?  Do I routinely mislead you?  Don't I specifically admit cluelessness when cluelessness is present?  No, no, by all means, verify my information.  Thanks to the unacknowledged wisdom of Diane Brenninger, I have these pointless references at my fingertips. Hit me up anytime for something else about which you won't believe me.

I'll be here all month.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Bow-chicka bow-wow.

I have some kind of Butterfly Brothel going on at my house.

We bought Hannah a butterfly habitat. It comes with a cup full of caterpillars and caterpillar food-goop, and a kind of pop-up tent to hang the chrysalises in once they're all wrapped up. Our kit came with 6 caterpillars, and they all managed to pupate and eventually emerge.  The first three came out Tuesday, and the others on Wednesday. We filled up the little feeder cup with sugar-water and watched them for another day before we decided they were getting antsy and needed to go.

By the time we got home this afternoon it had started to rain, so we waited until after dinner to take the pop-up tent outside. by the time I got those little suckers out there, 4 of our 6 butterflies were gettin' it on. Seemed a little precocious to me.  But butterflies only live for about 2 weeks, so I guess they can't waste a lot of time making sure their religious beliefs and genetic profiles are compatible and stuff like that.

So the first two butterflies take off, and who could blame them.  I wouldn't want to hang around that scene either.  The other four are paired off, so I'm hoping they can wrap things up before the rain starts again.  I manage to jostle the habitat around enough to break up one party, and they fly off. This pair includes the gimpy butterfly with the twisted wing that I thought wouldn't be able to fly at all anyway, so I was very excited to see him (or her) flutter away.  The other two, however, showed no sign of letting up.  Eventually it started raining and we had to bring the habitat back inside and hope they knock it off before school starts.

By the way, I did NOT make good use of this opportunity to talk with Hannah about birds, bees, or any other quaint euphemism for reproductive or recreational sex. She's six. I'm procrastinating.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Fun, and not so fun, with words

In response to the singular comment on my last post, I've added to this one I started a couple of weeks ago when I saw the name Throckmorton somewhere. Admit it: it's a cool-sounding word, whoever that guy is.

Words of which I like the sound:
Culpable
Comfortable (you have to pronounce all the syllables.)
Clavicle
Throckmorton
Pulchritude
Fecund
Blandishment
Garrulous

Now, why do people have to make up stupid words?  And why does the Oxford English Dictionary insist upon letting goofy pop stars and semi-literate chatterboxes make up their own words to add?  Just because a lot of people say a string of phonemes DOES NOT MAKE IT A WORD.

Some strings of phonemes that are not words, I don't care what Revised Editions of dictionaries say:
conversate
orientate
irregardless
voisterous

and the one I find particularly offensive, just because of the intentional idiocy behind it:
bootylicious.

Not a word. Not even a sensible collection of sounds to smash together. The other ones at least grow out of honest mistakes.  I don't want to think about the implications of transliteration to some other language.
That woman is "Tasting like the hindquarters"? 
"As flavorful as posterior"? How is this a good thing? 


What must other languages think of you, Oxford English?  You should be ashamed of yourself. You've been downgraded to Third Grade Reader Glossary.  How do you like that?