Archive for January, 2011:
Just a Phrase . . .
There are so many phrases in the English language that foreigners claim it is one of the hardest to learn. Idioms abound. And phrasal verbs make things much more complicated – it’s very different to ‘hold on’, ‘hold out’ or ‘hold up’! So it gets even better when we add phrases that don’t make any sense at all.
Some are just idioms . . . like “It’s a piece of cake” – from the idea that a piece of cake is actually easy. Martha Stewart will tell you this is so. Martha lies.
Some are from analogies that may have made sense the first time . . . “cost an arm and a leg” or “beating a dead horse”. You probably didn’t flinch, but in reality both of those are disgusting!
Some have roots way far back . . .
I have sometimes read about someone referring to their “salad days”, and though I knew this referred to their youth, I wondered how this phrase came about. Was it about courses in a meal? Was my grandfather in his dessert days? Would I still be considered soup, or had I crossed the age into main course? Or the other possibility, that “salad days” actually was some sort of a lettuce reference . . .
Top However Many . . .
It’s that time of year when everyone posts their ‘best of’ lists for the previous year . . . So you’ve seen a lot of those. Stephen King put up his top ten TV shows. Celebrity baby names recently hit the internet for ten best and ten worst (though honestly, I thought it was a ho-hum year for these poor kids.) Even reality TV is inviting back the ‘best of’ people to have a whole season of ‘best of’s (realize that this involves a very loose definition of ‘best’). The Academy has posted their own ‘best of’ list and will reveal all in a glitzy, too-many-hour show that isn’t as funny as it thinks it is. I won’t do that.
So here’s mine . . .
But wait – I’m not going to stick to ten things. I’m not even going to count. I’m won’t bore you by staying in the same genre. Everything is fair game! And by the end you will have learned a lot about you and me . . . and you may even become concerned. Rightly so!
Best Coffee Place:
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf – hands down. Sorry Starbucks, I won’t even set foot in you. Because there is no Coffee Bean east of Phoenix (a tragedy if you ask me), I import this stuff. The beans are never burned. They post the recipes for all their drinks online and on the packaging. I’m drinking a Mocha Iced Blended right now. Mmmmmmm.
15 Things I Learned from Puppies
Just two and a half weeks ago my family adopted two puppies. We had to put our oldest puppy to sleep in February of last year. First, let me clarify – our oldest ‘puppy’ had just turned thirteen, achieving a good old age for a dog of his size. In our house, they are always puppies and are always referred to as such. We miss him a lot, though the two new ones help ease that.
The two new ones are, in fact, baby dogs – what everyone else would call puppies, too. All of ours are rescues, and these are #10 and #11 of a set of thirt-uplets. (No, I didn’t misspell triplets, there were thirteen of them.)
To our family, these dogs are #3 and #4. There’s more about our two older dogs – Chaos and Felony – in previous entries. Now welcome Travesty and Mayhem!
We have gotten much better at this puppy stuff over the years. With the help of a number of rescues that we have sent on to other good homes, we’ve learned how to be a team, what really works when housebreaking a puppy and what doesn’t. This time around, I’m not worried about finding them a home, because they are ours. I’m not upset because I can’t get the dog to pee outside. And no one’s mad at anyone because ‘I thought you were going to clean that up this time!’
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