I Am Forever Out Of Season
Mamacita says: We don’t use our front door much unless we have houseguests, and then mainly because we don’t want anybody to risk tripping over something as they follow the tiny path of nonclutter through the garage to the outer door that we mostly use when entering and exiting the house.
No, we don’t really even SEE the front door much, unless it’s December and I’m hanging a big beautiful wreath on said door.
I mention this tonight because said wreath is still hanging on said door. I use my non-use of the door as my main excuse; who remembers what she never sees, after all?
However, whenever we have day after day after day of pouring incessant torrential rain, for some reason I can’t STOP think of that out-of-season wreath hanging on the front door for all the world to see and pass judgment on as it hangs helplessly, in March, and dripping because it’s thoroughly soaked and can’t be brought into the house until it’s completely dried out which will take more weeks and by then I’ll have forgotten about it again and won’t find it until it’s time to hide Easter eggs, and I’ll be so embarrassed at being THAT PERSON who still has a wreath on the door in springtime that I’ll probably seclude myself in the dining room and devour all the Reese’s Eggs in spite of my diabetes and overall fatness.
I’ve been obsessing so much over that soaking wet Christmas wreath that I’ve hardly had time to notice the large black iron basket overflowing with golden balls and candles sitting there on top of the tiny little corner table in the foyer right beside the front door, and which I walk past at least a dozen times a day. Apparently, it has mutant powers and is fighting so hard for survival that it becomes invisible whenever it senses my presence.
I don’t have the excuse of it being soaking wet, either. I haven’t thought up my excuse for leaving it be yet, in fact. If you have any suggestions, please, bring ’em on.
Because the fact is, whenever I DO “see” the basket of golden glowing balls and candles there, it still makes me smile. In fact, I usually smile twice. Once for the general coolness of the black basket full of golden balls and candles, and once because I’m such a tool for having a Christmas basket of balls in my foyer in March.
Come on over and see it. Use the front door so you can see the wreath.
Every Day Is Grammar Day
Mamacita says: Every day is grammar day for people who know how to use their own language correctly. This, of course, should be everyone who lives in any given country, and it is, for most countries.
Except ours.
The sad fact is that far too many Americans don’t know beans about how to use their own language. This is inexcusable. Poor language skills are also poor communication skills, and poor communication skills are responsible for more losses, heartache, and laughter at the expense of the ill-equipped person, than we’ll ever be able to count.
I’d even go so far as to say that ignorance of one’s own grammar is a handicap, except that I fully believe it’s self-inflicted – after a certain age – and self inflictions are one’s own choices and doings bad habits, which are choices, which we are personally responsible for.
I have little sympathy for an adult with no grammar skills who isn’t working like the very dickens to improve those grammar skills I consider bad grammar to be the easy way out for people who really don’t care about clear communication or how they come across to others, including prospective employers. I feel that unrepentant bad grammar shows blatant disrespect to our nation, our collective culture, each individual culture, and every person within earshot.
In today’s economy, it’s even more vital that people brush up their communication skills, ie grammar, because for every one highly coveted job opening, there will be several hundred applications. This gives HR permission to be highly selective, HIGHLY selective, and if your cover letter has a misplaced comma or a misspelled word, why would you even be considered? There are probably dozens of applications in the stack that were filled out by people more careful than you, better at communication than you, and who want the job badly enough to do a better job of presenting themselves than you did. Having only to choose between a candidate whose cover letter earnestly vows that the applicant has “always stroved, to prefection” and one whose cover letter vows that she “is a hard worker and a quick learner,” guess who deserves to get the job, and who needs to sign up for a quickie grammar/spelling review course down at the learning center?
It ain’t rocket science; it’s a simple matter of learning how to use one’s own language. I tell my students at least once a month – ask them; they’ll tell you – that if a business has a misspelling or grammar error anywhere on the premises on anything official, there are probably worse doings back in the kitchen. Error in the front? Error in the back. Misspelling on the signs? COUNT YOUR CHANGE.
Check out the signs at any place of business; they’re mirrors of the communication skills of the workers and owners. “No checks excepted?” Nice! I’ve got a third party check from Outer Mongolia I’ve been trying to cash for ages; good to know this place is willing to take it. “Eggs: .99¢” Super. But where in the world will I store all those cartons? The tomato’s are on sale? The tomato’s WHAT are on sale?
And don’t you hate it when you loose your dog? Then again, that’s how many of us lose our dogs.
Social media indeed – Every single communication attempt in a place of business is social media, and sometimes it’s telling us to go elsewhere rather than risk our money and our lives in a business that cares so little about communication, ie what its employees and representatives are actually telling prospective customers or clients.
The easiest way to improve one’s grammar skills is to do the same things we did when learning how to speak in the first place: imitate the grammar of those around us. Sometimes this must be adapted, naturally, if those nearest to us are Jethro Bodine or Larry the Cable Guy; then again, those people are paid to speak like illiterates and in real life probably have mad grammar skillz that persuaded someone to hire them as spokesmen for Stupid Inc.
Pretending to have bad grammar for big money is one thing, but having bad grammar because one doesn’t know any better is quite another, and quite without excuse.
Students are sometimes offended when the school tries to teach them proper grammar because that’s not how anybody they know speaks. Families are sometimes offended when their children come home from school trying to speak properly instead of speaking the same way the family speaks.
These families are. . . . well, perhaps I’ve said too much already about mentality and insecurity. And when people try to play the culture card, I’m further convinced of their contempt for education and intense fear of questioning. Besides, educated people often speak one way on the job or out in the world, and quite another way when they’re at home. Knowing how to speak properly doesn’t mean abandoning a culture; it means adding another culture to the one you already have. Who says one of them has to go? Nobody. Keep them both; just know when you need to use them.
Everyone’s grammar skills could use some improvement. Let us all listen to those around us and learn to differentiate between good language usage and poor communication skills, and try to imitate the speech patterns of people who know their language.
“Enquiring” minds might want to know, but “inquiring” minds want to know the truth. Statue Of Elvis Found On Mars, indeed.
P.S. “Done” is not a helping verb. I done checked; it ain’t on th’ list.
"I Base Most Of My Fashion Sense on What Doesn't Itch"
Mamacita says: I’d like to tell you that my fashion sense has improved since I wrote this post so long ago, but even though I’ve awoken somewhat to what people are wearing these days, I’m still a flat-out C minus in fashion awareness.
Fair warning: I have no sense of taste when it comes to clothing. My daughter and my sisters and even my son can attest to that. I have a horror of going out in public wearing old-lady clothing, but I don’t always know when I do it. My tastes somehow never graduated from Spencer Gifts and little boutiques and shops that carry only sizes so small they really should be selling Pampers alongside the hemp; you remember – well, some of you remember – those shops that sold the kind of dresses we could wad up in one hand and still have room for a cheeseburger. I can’t wear the clothes I still gravitate towards: for one thing, it would be ridiculous, and for another thing, they only come in size negative-ten. They’re still the clothes my mind likes best, though. In my day, we couldn’t wait to grow out of the “girls” sizes and into the junior sizes. Girls today brag that they “have” to shop at Baby Gap. Size zero, with Victoria’s Secret underneath. A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair, indeed.
Me, I love hippie clothing; broomstick skirts and long low-necked tops, but fat women don’t look good in broomstick skirts; I think you have to be shaped like a broomstick to look good in a broomstick.
Hush now; I like broomstick skirts.
I am happiest in jeans and old t-shirts, but the t-shirts I like best – my Broadway shirts and a few select sarcastic comments about other people’s mentality – I can’t wear out in public. Why can’t I? Because I think people over a certain age really can’t wear “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” Tommy shirts without people wondering who would want to do that in the first place. If you’re 80 years old * and wearing a “Truckers do it in the road” shirt ** at Marsh, people will laugh. Well, I do. I have a drawer full of favorite t-shirts that I can only wear around the house for fear of my own critique. Fortunately for my fashion sense, and for the feng shui of the universe, I spend a lot of time around the house.
* Note: I am not 80 years old. But some day, I hope to be.
** Neither would I EVER own or wear a “Truckers do it in the road” shirt. But I’ve seen my share of grandmotherly types wearing it. Out in public. Without shame. This scares me.
My children have promised to kill me and bury me in the back yard if I EVER become one of THOSE women.
I’m also way too large to wear what I like best in “dressy” mode. I used to wear dresses and skirts almost daily when I taught; now, I usually wear black slacks and, I dunno, some kind of top that looks teacherish.
That’s why I let Kohls guide my fashion sense much of the time. Heaven knows I need a guide.
I had a favorite dress once. It was green, pale-ish green, and was made of some soft fabric that was, at the time, quite unique. It might possibly have been a forerunner of those microfibers, but a little more silky and less like a blanket. It had three-quarter sleeves – still my sleeve of choice – and a rather low, narrow v-neck with those massive curvy 70’s “woman” lapels. I recognized the lapels as monstrosities even at the time, but as they were a part of this dress I embraced them, too.
The dress hit me between knee and ankle, and had a wide sash that tied in the back. I felt so good in this dress. That dress emphasized my small waist and hid my skinny chicken legs. It showed just enough cleavage that I could wear it to school and still feel sexy. I bought it with my first teacher paycheck and I wore it at least once a week.
I have no pictures of me in this dress, and I’m actually glad, because that frees me to picture myself looking so fine, feeling the dress swish around my legs as I walked around the shared teachers’ office space, knowing everybody else in there was well over forty while I was 23, and I am not even embarrassed to tell you all that when I wore this dress, I would occasionally spin around so I could feel the skirt breathe with me. . . . yes, my dress and I liked to twirl.
When I remember this dress, I can’t really picture the entire thing. I remember parts of it, but not the parts fitting together in any logical way. Possibly that’s because my brain is protecting me from seeing the dress as it really was: a 70’s horror, complete with extra-long attached sash and lapels that would make me gasp and back away if I saw them today, made of slightly ribbed light-weight blanket fabric and the color of green goth Big Lots nail polish.
That dress and I were both a size 5. I bought it at the Diana Shoppe, which burned down shortly thereafter, possibly sparing the world from similar dresses which I probably would have bought and worn and twirled in as well.
Perhaps some disasters were meant to save us from other disasters.
I do own a dress now but I can’t for the life of me remember what color it is.
Maybe I need to start getting out more.
The title? Gilda said it.
No picture of the dress, but I found a picture of 70’s lapels. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The hip-hugging bell-bottoms came back; it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be wearing big rounded lapels, too.
Most of you are watching the Oscars as I type. Keep your eyes open for lapels, if you can take your eyes off the rear cleavage that, this year, is rivaling the front cleavage.
My home ec teacher would have given most of these high-priced designer-name monstrosities a D+ at best. Some of them look like the rec room busy-work from down at the nursing home.
Then again, what do I know? I used to twirl, at work, in a green dress that was probably made by the Keebler elves out of leftover tablecloth fabric.
