Film Chris and I leave for Hawaii early tomorrow morning. I am making sure to have the most important items: sunscreen, books, and wine. (Just two bottles, in case we can’t find any decent wine on Molokai.)
At the suggestion of one of my favorite readers, I am taking Dear and Glorious Physician with me. I am hoping to finish Outliers on the plane, and I also have The World As Stage (The brilliant Bill Bryson’s book on Shakespeare) as a back-up. Oh, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. We’ll be gone five nights, you know, so I need to have options.
Aloha!
We had friends from Australia in town for a few days, and we picked up some excellent Aussie slang.
“Mackers” for McDonald’s
“Dunny” for Toilet (originally an outdoor one)
“No Wuckas” for No Worries
“Onya” for Well Done, or Good on You
“Whinge” for Complain or Whine
And the same week, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is on prime time television! Nerds like me* are in heaven this evening.
* I want to tell you that I was the spelling bee champ for my school in the 7th grade. I made it to the county bee, where I lost in the third round. (Oddly, I don’t remember the word I misspelled.)
When I was laid off, my company said they would ship the contents of my desk to me. The boxes just arrived today.
A picture frame, hand-made candy dish and light bulb (random object, I realize, but there’s an uninteresting explanation) had all broken in the box, leaving everything else covered in tiny shards of glass. And as I was unpacking the box, I cut my hand and bled on some of my personal effects.
Injury to insult, actually.
Hello, interweb. I’m climbing up on my soapbox for a much-needed rant.
There are few things I care about less right now than whether Miss California gets to keep her crown. I have a job to find, an apartment to clean, and menopause to go through. But Carrie Prejean pissed me off enough today that I need to speak out.
No, I’m not bothered about her views on gay marriage; she’s entitled to them. I’m also not annoyed or offended by her semi-nude pictures. (I’m more surprised when these women don’t take off their clothes every chance they get. They are drop-dead gorgeous.)
What has pissed me off today is Miss Prejean’s statement during her press conference with Donald Trump. (By the way, the only thing I might care about less than all of this is anything that Trump does.) She suggests that her right to freedom of speech has been threatened.
4:22 into the video: “On April 19, on that stage, I exercised my freedom of speech and I was punished for doing so. This should NOT happen in America. It undermines the constitutional rights for which my grandfather fought for. ” [sic]
Nope, sorry. This is exactly what happens in America, and it in no way threatens the constitutional right to freedom of speech. The constitution protects her right to speak out against gay marriage. But it also protects the right of Perez Hilton and any other critics to speak out against Prejean. It does not protect her right to be liked for what she says. There is no such right. She has the right to speak her opinion; you have the right to judge her for what she says. That’s the beauty (or folly, if you want) of our Bill of Rights. That’s what Grandpa fought for.
Prejean can be as pissed off as she wants at the “media storm” against which she rails. But she should not be pissed off that someone exercised their right to speak out against her.
(Steps off soapbox.)
I was thinking today about Mother’s Day. And I wondered if I should be thinking about Mothers’ Day. I knew I wasn’t thinking about Mothers Day. (Not that I haven’t seen that far too often.)
Here’s the difference: If I’m celebrating Mother’s Day (singular possessive), I am celebrating my mother. If I am celebrating Mothers’ Day (plural possessive), I am celebrating all mothers. If I’m celebrating Mothers Day (just plural, no possessive) I have no idea what I’m celebrating.
Why is it Mother’s Day? Because when it was established in 1912, Anna Jarvis, who filed the trademark for Mother’s Day and founded the Mother’s Day International Association,
“She was specific about the location of the apostrophe; it was to be a singular possessive, for each family to honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”
(From Wikipedia)
Now you know.
Happy Mother’s Day to the two mothers to whom I belong. Though I am not meant to commemorate all mothers, I send out greetings to all of you as well.
Just wanted to let you all know that I’ve created a new blog. I’ll still be judging your grammar here, don’t worry. But if you’re interested, you can also read about the treatment my doc is putting me on to make sure my abdominal pain is gone for real.
I’ll warn you that I’m going to be talking about some girl stuff over there, and I plan to be pretty candid. So Pausing For Six Months might not be for everyone. But you are welcome to take a look.
Back to grammar soon, I promise.
