From Sinful Pleasures to Stubborn Streaks

My most sinful pleasures in life have always been simple. A good piece of dark chocolate, a medium rare steak, a summer afternoon spent at an art-in-the-park show, an occasional day trip along Lake Michigan with the t-tops down on our classic '78 Corvette that wasn't a classic when we had it. It was just old back then. Now that I'm on a fixed income I have to think about where I'm at on my monthly budget before I can indulge in a gooey chocolate dessert or a steak. The Vet is long gone and even if I still had it, it was built too low to the ground for me to get my old bag of bones into it now. And I haven't been to an art-in-the-park show since Ring was a pup.

I’ve never had a dog named Ring but that phrase was a favorite of my husband’s to denote that something happened a long time ago. Don didn’t have a dog named Ring either. He picked the phrase up from his dad who got it from Don’s grandfather who---family folklore claimed---actually did have a dog named Ring that resided in the back pasture with a rock rolled over the grave to keep wild animals from digging up his childhood dog. I love family verbiage like this and wish I had another generation to pass it down to. A few years ago, out of curiosity I googled 'since Ring was a pup.' (Or maybe it was suspicion that made me want to fact-check three generations of males who were all gifted storytellers.) I found ten listings for the phrase, three of which were links to my own blog entries, four to other people’s blogs and three appeared in newspapers dated 1911, 1914 and 1922. I wish I could break that little tidbit to my husband! He would have laughed and loved to have one of his grandfather’s tall tales get exposed after so many years of blind faith in its accuracy. 

Digging even deeper in the google weeds today I learned that the 'since ring was a pup' phrase was derived from another phrase widely used in the 1860s---'As Dead as Hector.' According to the Historically Speaking website, 'As Dead as Hector' "was a reference to Hector, the son of King Priam of Troy...and one of the chief participants in the tale of the siege of Troy by the Greeks in Homer’s epic The Iliad.  King Priam, as we all know," the website wrote, "was killed in single combat by the Greek champion Achilles." Maybe you, dear blog readers, know the storyline of the The Iliad  but it's all Greek to me. I could go on like this all day drifting from one idiom to another. But I'll bet half of you already know that the phrase 'it's all Greek to me' was coined by one of the conspirators who assassinated Julius Caesar. <end of history lesson> But first I've gotta predict that Taylor Swift's lyric line 'just shake it off' will probably still be in use hundreds of years from now.

Yesterday I spent the entire day in my nightgown writing. It felt good and decadent and I produced a book report for book club, a poem, two writing prompt assignments for my creative writing group and a blog post. The latter of which disappeared into the jaws of my writing app never to be seen again. So here I am trying to reconstruct it and not doing a very good job of it. In that post I was mourning something that hasn't happened yet and may never happen but I've always been good at borrowing trouble from the future. I was poking fun of this foible of mine regarding if and when I get moved into Assisted Living or Memory Care and I won't be allowed to hang around in my nightgown all day long. The powers that be in geriatric care assume an old person is depressed if the don't care about getting dressed. Down in those buildings they wake you and and help you get dressed by 8:00 when breakfast is served and because it's the morning shifts duty to see if anyone died in their sleep.

Recently, in one of our morning emails here in Independent Living we got word that a woman who used to live in my building but was moved to Memory Care four months ago died in her sleep. We'd just been talking about her the night before and the general consensus was she had adjusted remarkably well and seemed to be happy and content with the extra layer of care. She had a room across the hall from where my brother was when he was still alive so I saw the change in her firsthand. She no longer had a panicked look on her face, no longer looked lost and afraid.

Change of topic: I downloaded a new audible book to listen to on the recommendation of Bill Gates titled How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Seen by David Brooks. (And that should tell you volumes about what I see as a character flaw that I can may be improve on before I die.) I like to listen to books while I'm getting ready to face the outside world. But usually it's a book we've picked for our book club. This coming month we're supposed to read Just like that by Gary Schmidt, a book written for ages 9 through 12 by a professor at a near-by faith-based college and is a friend of our retired art professor. I have a stubborn streak and I refuse to buy a children's book for book club---we usually get them free from the library. I'll probably be sorry I'm sitting this month out because Ms Art Professor is going to get the author to come to our discussion. We won't be discussing the book until July so I have time to change my mind. I've been known to do that from time to time.

Speaking of book club, in case you're wondering why I wrote a book report for the club: One day a year we pick a year's worth of books to reserve. The popular books in the Book Club in a Bag program get reserved very far ahead. This year we're asking everyone to review a favorite book to campaign for it to be added to our reading list so we don't get one or two people's choices dominating the list---that's how we got the children's book. I'm campaigning for You Before Me by JoJo Moyes which on the surface is a little too chick-flickest for this group to pick but is actually a good segue into a discussion of assisted suicide.

Until next Wednesday. ©

"I live in my own little word, but it's okay…they know me here."

quoted from a beverage coaster

Pardon my French and other Colorful Euphemisms

 

My husband used the euphemism I have to go see a man about a horse when he needed to use the restroom and we were in ‘polite society’ which is another euphemism meaning in today’s world we were out in public but in ye olden days the phrase polite society had more to do with having a so-called superior set of standards for behavior brought to them compliments of their wealth and breeding. As a man, for example, you’d never think of even whispering the word ‘sex’ to others of your social standing but forcing sex on a lowly housemaid was a different ball of wax. Though I suppose that example would be more along the lines of a dichotomy? Either way, there was a time when you could use the term ‘a different ball of wax’ and everyone knew you were talking about two things that might seem the same but were completely dissimilar. But I was shocked to learn that in today’s world you have to be more careful throwing the term ball of wax around. 

The urban dictionary is claiming a ‘ball of wax’ refers to the crud that builds up under a man’s balls when he hasn't bathed in a few days. I could have gone on playing the euphemisms game all day long if not for that bit of information. For one thing, I didn’t know that crud built up there and two, now that I do I can’t help wondering if there is a euphemism for the crud that builds up under a woman’s breasts when she’s doing manual labor in the hot sun. I spent the summer one year working on my husband’s asphalt paving and patching crew and I learned all about sweating my balls off which is another idiom my husband often used and in case you’re dumber than a box of rocks that means it was hotter than Hades. Side note: Does this whole paragraph remind you of belly button lint? Or is it just me?

I love idioms and euphemisms but they’re supposed to be a lazy man's verbiage. Still I don’t care. I don’t think I could talk without them and it’s common for me to edit one or two out of posts I'm working on because I do try to follow the rules of good writing---well, except for posts like this when I’m in a silly mood and I want to play with words, maybe make you smile or remind you of a phrase someone from you past was fond of saying. It's fascinating that word usage can sometimes remain the same for centuries and other times words can completely flip in its meaning. I’m over the moon for internet websites devoted to doing deep dives into where and when certain sayings and word usage started.

Shakespeare coined a lot of our English phrases like the green-eyed monster and wear your heart on your sleeve that both came from Othella. Love is blind and in a pickle both debuted in The Tempest. It’s all Greek to me appeared in Julius Caesar and a wild goose chase is from Romeo and Juliet. A method to his madness is something that reminds me of my mom and it’s from Hamlet which was written in 1602. 1602. I had to write that again so you’d know It’s not a typo.

Disney is probably the most comparable we have today to Shakespeare in terms of influencing a large market to use catchy phrases from their prolific bodies of work. And we’ll have to wait around a few hundred years to see it lines from Disney films endure the test of time. But I predict little girls who grew up singing Let it go with Elsa from Frozen will be be using that phrase as a coping tool their entire lives and passing it onto their grandchildren. But in our world things come and go in our media at a faster pace than in Shakespeare’s time and catchy phrases don’t have as long to peculate and take roots in society before another shiny new penny comes along to replace it. Did you know, by the way, that the Shiny Penny Syndrome is a real thing? It refers to when we get distracted by the newest whatever---the latest technology, a flirty party girl. Something that keeps us from sticking to our goals as in, “You won’t get far in life if you’re always chasing shiny new pennies, son." 

Back to my husband: I used to think it was a family idiom he was using about the horse. He was raised on a farm and they had work horses but the see-a-man-about-a-horse euphemism dates back to at least 1866 when it first appeared in print. In 1939 it was heard in a NBC radio program and during prohibition it was commonly used when a man was going to the back room of a super club to have a drink of bootleg booze. As euphemisms for using the bathroom go, I’ve always been grateful my husband didn’t use take a piss which I’ve noticed lately is showing up on TV---the phrase, not the action itself---and I hate that P word more than the other P word. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go powder my nose. ©

The Water Lecture and the Idiom Lover

A group of high roller developers are ‘pulling out all the stops’---an 1800s idiom that makes little sense today unless you own a pipe organ---giving presentations around town to drum up excitement for a river redevelopment plan---not along the river, but in the river. They plan to remove five dams and put in its place large boulders to turn a two mile stretch of the river that runs through our downtown area into a place where people can kayak. Yes, kayak at a cost 45 million dollars. Although I’d already made up my mind before going to the lecture that I was against the project, I decided I should go so I could at least bad-mouth it with a little knowledge-based attitude before running around like I’ve got a bee in my bonnet. That ‘bee idiom’ is from the 1500s and I think we all know what that means.

I figured if they were going to be spending that much money sooner-or-later they’ll be coming to the tax payers with their hands out. Surprise, surprise. The guy who put on the presentation said they have it 75% funded already through grants and private money pledged from the city’s big wigs. (He didn’t say it, but I can smell the Betsy DeVos family money in the mix. I am reminded of their family money four times a day as their helicopter flies too close overhead going to and from their home on Lake Michigan and their private, roof top heliport downtown.) Development along the river bank to make new parks is not part of THIS 45 million dollar project, but I’d bet my soul that a millage for new parks will be proposed down the road when they’re finished playing around in the water. 

What I learned is it's a waste of breath to bad-mouth “the river for all” project because it’s a done deal. They’ve been working on this project for five years getting the permits and jumping through the environmental hoops, getting an Army Corp of Engineers study and those from the EPA and the DNR and like it or not, the project will move forward with no public vote. It starts soon and will take between five-six years to complete. The first thing they will do is build a “floating dam” to replace another dam that is preventing the invasive Sea Lamprey from spawning upstream. Sea Lampreys are a major problem in the Great Lakes and there is an international treaty that covers trying to keep them from spawning in our streams. The whole idea of the ‘floating dam’ is that it can be lowered when it isn’t spawning season so kayaks and canoes can get downstream. Once this new dam is in place they will remove the five existing dams and some of the sea walls that controls flooding. All this so we can---and I quote---“create a more exciting river experience for everyone.” Yada, yada, yada.

I live upstream from this project and already we get a ton of spring flooding along the river as they do in the downstream communities but the man/child who gave the lecture assured us all that the DNR would not give them permits to revamp the river if more flooding were a possibility. Supposedly there are five-six other towns in the USA that have taken on similar projects with rave reviews. Where does all that federal and state grant money come from that we can throw it around like confetti? 

“As the late Doris Day’s signature song says, “Que será, será, whatever will be, will be, the future's not ours to see...” But in this case the future’s not hard to see. And my crystal ball tells me that the moneyed people are quietly buying up old buildings that front the river so they’ll be able to sell them to the county at a hefty profit down the road when the city fathers start talking about putting in a park system along the river. Wouldn’t want those kayakers not to have a place to have a picnic---I’m not making that up. The guy showed us an illustration of a future beach to pull up kayaks with picnic tables and tiny people meticulously drawn in colored ink.

Ya, I know, we wouldn’t have places like the fabulous Central Park in New York City without the visionaries in past centuries. We do need visionaries and I didn’t moan and groan when a wealthy owner of a grocery store chain here in town spearheaded a project with a gift of $300,000 that bought up 42 miles of abandoned railroad beds and paved them for walking and hiking trails. That project was accomplished with 2.9 million dollars in federal and state grants. I welcomed that project because nearly everyone who could breathe can and does use those trails which just goes to show that most of us will get behind a visionary project if we see something in it for us personally. But my kayaking days are over---actually they never started but that's beside the point. I'm too old to want to learn how to shoot the rapids like they claim the Native Americans could do in that stretch of the river back before the dams were added to help the timber industry bring logs down river to the furniture factories that our city was once famous for world-wide.

‘Shoot the rapids’, by the way, is probably a 20^th century idiom invented by people who don’t mind scaring themselves half to death while whitewater rafting out West. Try as I might I couldn’t find the origins of that phrase but it’s close to the 1920’s ‘Shoot-the-Chute’ which was the name of an amusement park ride in which boats went down a steep incline to a pool at the bottom.  ©

 

The photo above was of an annual raft race that my husband, me and assorted friends entered 4-5 years on the same river they want to reinvent. The races were discontinued after someone died and too many people got hurt. It was a lot of fun but very dangerous because so many people spent the day drinking and playing in the hot sun and water. We had a ten man Navy surplus survival raft that we turned into things like a giant turtle or a sea creature. The bottom line: when they build the rapids back into the river people will come and a 100 years from now people will thank the visionaries who took on this project. Sometimes we all have to look at our pasts to see the future---in other words the bees have left my bonnet.

Our survival raft and two of our friends