Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Blog Fodder #11

By 7 Comments

Which is worse? Poor manners or poor grammar? Why?

OK, first of all I must tell you that my initial reaction to this question was TOTALLY that of a girl, meaning, “If I were going to gossip about someone who was committing one or the other of these faux pas, which one would get the most reaction out of my fellow magpies?”

And I must also tell you that, from my own personal experience, it’s pretty easy to get a reaction to a statement like, “Oh my gosh, can you BELIEVE that he just referred to his wife as ‘my servant’ in front of all their friends?!”*

But when you are on vacation at the beach and you flounce into your hotel room in regally high moral indignation and announce to your husband that in no way, under any circumstances whatsoever, will you condescend to eat at the “Western Sizzlin” because its name is composed entirely of adjectives and contains no proper nouns whatsoever (if you can even comprehend such an abominable travesty against grammar), well in that case you’re pretty much on your own. (Fortunately for him, he’d packed A Lot of tequila.)

But you see, this is where the danger lies-this is the top of a very slippery slope. Because just about everyone has at least some sense of what is and what isn’t appropriate behavior. But what no one is talking about are the incalculable examples of violence done EVERY DAY to English grammar.

Like the people who use “myself” as a subject and think that this makes them sound “extra specially edumacated”:

-“John and myself attended the meeting”. Really-“Myself attended the meeting”? Did you now? And did they then take the only sensible course of action and FIRE YOUR ASS so that all of the people formerly at the mercy of the barrage of your constant verbal and written assaults could finally be put out of their misery?

Or the people who use the subject “I” as the object of a preposition, and think they are being SO MUCH SMARTER than the rest of us peasants who couldn’t correctly conjugate a verb if it knocked us down in the street and then sat on our head:

-“They presented the report to Todd and I”. Really-“They presented the report to I“? And did it say, “Could you please learn a freakin’ grammar rule once in a while?!” Or at least sound out your sentences to see whether or not they make sense?

-Also bad: “They presented the report to Todd and myself.” Really? In that case, I have no choice but to smite you with my Condescending And Inappropriately Superior Attitude Of Someone Who Actually Knows How To Use Reflexive Pronouns. I’m sure you will now feel suitable chastened.

It can be very lonely at times, this walking the path of a Grammar Snob. But that is a price I’m willing to pay. Even if it occasionally means floating up from the brink of a nitrous-induced coma to inform my dentist (who incidentally is just about to poke me with The Smokin’ Hot Drill Of ‘Thank God For Novocaine Because Otherwise This Would Really Hurt’) that the saying actually describes “killing multiple birds with one stone”, not throwing multiple stones at one bird. (Because I may be Book Smart, but sometimes I’m Life Dumb.)

*This actually happened. (Not to me.)
**Man, can I work myself up into an absolute rant about nothing or what?! I’m good.

Blog Fodder #9

By 9 Comments

Name a sensory input(s) which trigger a mood change be it uplifting, depressing, poignancy or remind you of a past event or period in time.

For me that would have to be the smell of pine-every time I smell that it catapults me directly to Christmas, and the special holiday traditions that my family has built up over the years.

And if I were going to sum up the essence evoked by my own family’s holiday rituals in one word, that word would definitely have to be…”speed”. Here’s what I mean.

Take, for example, the cherished tradition of the Christmas tree. Sure, there are many people who go out immediately after Thanksgiving, comparison shop to find The Perfect Tree, lovingly position it in the best spot in the house, and then create beautiful holiday memories of decorating the tree filled with homemade foods, holiday music, warmth, and laughter. Not us. We prefer the thrill of the hunt. When Christmas trees are readily available at every home improvement store, grocery store, drug store, and church parking lot, well then we’re just not interested. Where is the challenge in that? But you just try and find a viable tree on Christmas Eve afternoon; that’ll get your adrenaline pumping.

[Read more…] about Blog Fodder #9

Blog Fodder #8

By 5 Comments

How does one handle work, home and family (or a combination thereof) without having a nervous breakdown?

I had to sit with this question for a couple of days, and then I ended up going back to my first, knee-jerk response which was, “I don’t.”

I have a very all-or-nothing personality, which was summed up perfectly once by a comment that my coach made to me.

“Jenny,” she said to me, “you do not have a dimmer switch. It’s like you’ll be sitting in a house, in the dark, with all the lights off. And then all of a sudden you’ll look around, notice that you’re in the dark, say, ‘Why the f*&# am I in the dark?!’, and then get up and flip on every single light in the entire house. So you’re either completely in the dark, or sitting there with all your lights ablaze. There’s no dimmer switch for you.”

That is so true. So to answer this question I will say that I don’t try to balance things, really. I’ll go all out on whatever catches my attention for a while-my blog, the house, Spanish lesson plans, etc. Then I’ll suddenly notice something else that isn’t getting done, drop whatever I’m working on, and focus on the new area full-throttle. I think the key for me is that I know this about myself, and I don’t judge it (so much :P) anymore.

Something else that’s helped me is a new definition of balance that I learned from Peter Reding and Marcia Collins, founders of Coach For Life (the training program I went through to become a Certified Life Coach.) They said to imagine that you are standing on one leg, with the other leg lifted off the ground. You are balancing while you do that, obviously, but that balance is not a static, once-for-all, never-changing thing. It is constantly being adjusted, even if just in small ways, by your body. It’s organic, and flowing, and changes as it needs to. So that is the view I take of balance now.

The final thing that helps me is that I also have a very highly developed inner drama queen, as well as a great sense of humor. So when I do get completely frazzled I re-align myself by making up a highly entertaining, and completely improbably story about what’s going to happen to me (“…and I’m going to end up living on the street in a box, and then die all alone.”) Then I laugh at myself, and am able to get back to a place where I can better deal with my life. So, no matter what, I’m never bored.

Read more responses here.

Blog Fodder #7

By 4 Comments

Which is more important: intelligence or common sense?

In my opinion, I think you can get in trouble if you go too far to the extreme in either direction. Here’s what I mean.

One day I was talking to a friend of mine who is very smart. During the conversation I mentioned to him that I consider myself to be kind of a “Renaissance Woman” in that I have a lot of different talents and interests. He replied that women didn’t actually do anything during the Renaissance. After gasping so hard that I nearly inhaled the contents of my entire office, I gently suggested that women might possibly have had more of a role in the shaping of our history than would be suggested by the traditional, “accepted” texts, and he went off on a rant against “revisionist” history, where clearly “revisionist” was a code word for “fascist, communist, anti-American, mother-hating, puppy-killing, Nazi brainwashing propaganda.”

So intelligence? Sure. But spouting remarks that will alienate half of the world’s population, especially when you are a single guy looking for a girlfriend? Not really that smart. [Read more…] about Blog Fodder #7

Blog Fodder #6

By 8 Comments

What is your most memorable meal? Why?

My most memorable meal was one that I did not actually attend in person. But I still ended up with a great story.

Back in November of 1996, five months after my husband and I got married, our families decided to have Thanksgiving together honor our new union. At the last minute the two of us ended up not being able to go because I got sick. But our families had dinner together anyway.

Included in the invitation was my husband’s eighty-something-year-old grandmother, who when greeting my twenty-year-old brother (whom she had only seen once before, at our wedding, decked out in full wedding regalia) said, “Well hello there. I didn’t recognize you with all your clothes on!”

Read more responses here.

Blog Fodder #5

By 11 Comments

“Tell us something about your in-laws (funny, memories, etc.). If you don’t have any in-laws, pick a relative like siblings, parents, etc.”

I have the perfect story for this question, which you can read here in this post from last August. It is called, “Do You Think My In-Laws Are Trying To Tell Me Something?”

Here’s why I ask. My husband just called them because he just remembered that it was his dad’s birthday 2 days ago and we did not call or send a card and now we are totally on their *&%# list.

So he came out into my office after he got off the phone and he was wearing the face you’d expect on someone who has discovered that, even if you’ve been married for 10 years, and are a responsible, hard-working, law-abiding, home-owning grownup, you are never to old to be in big trouble with your parents.

Then he said, “My parents have a new pet.” So I thought that maybe he was looking down because their dog, Riley, had died.

But no. Riley is just fine. It was that he was responsible for breaking to me the news that, “They have adopted a snake.” (Snakes only being, to my mind, The Most Terrifying Things In Existence.)

Apparently they had some people working on their lawn, and these people brought them outside to show them the snake they’d found.

“We need to get rid of this snake,” said the lawn people. What an excellent response.

Other appropriate responses:

“Bring me the flame thrower!”

or, “Why the *%$@ don’t we have a flame thrower?!”

My father-in-law’s response? “Wait. Let me look that snake up on the Internet.”

Long story short, the snake is now living in a special snake spot in their backyard, almost directly touching the outside of the room that my husband and I stay in when we go to visit my in-laws. And I just can’t help wondering, is there a message in that for me?

Blog Fodder #4

By 11 Comments

What is the best practical joke you have ever participated in, or one that was done on you?

A couple of weekends ago my husband and I went out for Chinese with a friend of ours. I was off in my own little world (as I frequently am), and eventually I started singing along with the Christmas muzak that was playing in the background.

“Uh, what are you doing, Jenny?” my husband asked me.

“I’m singing along with the Christmas music.”

“What music?”

“You know, the music.” I sang a few additional bars to demonstrate.

“I don’t hear anything.”

This was alarming for a number of reasons. First of all, I wasn’t just hearing a faint tune in my head. I was hearing completely-scored, full-orchestral arrangements. So if I was having delusions or hallucinations, they were pretty far advanced. Second, much of the music I was hearing prominently featured the pan flute, and I was very concerned that my hallucinations chose to express themselves through such an odd instrument.

I tried everything to get them to hear the music. I sang louder. I switched seats with them. I had them stand in different spots in the restaurant. Nothing.

Now I was really freaked out because, as inventive as I am, I could not come up with an explanation for this. Fortunately my husband noticed that I was fast becoming A Woman On The Edge, and before I could announce that I was leaving the restaurant and immediately checking myself into some kind of treatment facility, he let me know that they were just messing with me.

View More Responses Here

Blog Fodder #3

By 20 Comments

Do You Have Any Memories Of A Childhood Illness?

In 1984, when I was in the sixth grade, I got the Chicken Pox. Back then, if mothers heard about a child who had the Chicken Pox, they would rush to bring their children over to the afflicted child’s house and expose them to this virus. A child with the Chicken Pox had a kind of weird, twisted, Simon Cowell-esque celebrity back then with other parents: “Oh, pick my child! Expose my child! Infect my child, please!”

So I missed two weeks of school, and when I finally went back I was covered with tiny red scabs, which of course my classmates never noticed, and certainly never used as an excuse to invent rumors of my contracting wacky and exotic diseases. Twelve and thirteen year olds are so sensitive and gracious in that way.

One day I was bored, and I decided to circle each and every scab with a ballpoint pen. That, of course, was the answer I was looking for, as inking up my scabs made them practically invisible to the naked eye (NOT!)

And to cap this all off, I vividly remember that as soon as I had finally recovered, an article appeared in the newspaper describing how researchers had finally discovered a vaccine for the very illness I had just suffered through. Twelve years old is so young to learn about the concept of irony, don’t you think?

Read more responses here.

Trying Something New, Again

By 8 Comments

Never really being one to leave well enough alone, and apparently not having yet met my internal quota of Things To Obsess Over by demanding of myself that I visit each and every one of the almost-300 blogs that participate in the Thursday Thirteen meme, I’ve been shopping around for some new blog activities in which I can participate.

So this week I participated in the Friday’s Feast meme, which was a lot of fun, and tomorrow I’m planning on participating in Blog Fodder. But not only do these new memes offer me the opportunity for some high-quality obsessing over these brand-new participant lists, this Monday will only be the third week that Blog Fodder has been around. And they leave up all the previous topics. And there really aren’t strict rules about how you participate. Which means that I can go back to the very beginning and answer all the questions starting from Week One. Because having a perfectly complete and uninterrupted set of Blog Fodder posts of course matters a great deal to…um,…absolutely no one. But it sure does make my inner OCD girl happy. So here we go.

Blog Fodder #1: What Are Some Of Your Memorable Experiences At School?

[Read more…] about Trying Something New, Again