31 Days to Better Grammar: Day 1

Welcome!

As they say in Pitaiyo, you could be anywhere else right now, but you've chosen to be here. I thank you and hope I can make it worth your while.

Anyone who knows me knows I am passionate about good grammar and proper usage, so this is an obvious choice for my first 31 Days series. No matter where you are on the word-nerd spectrum, there is always more to learn—for me too—and my hope is that we can make it painless. Whether we like it or not, we are judged by our writing throughout life, so why not put a little effort into improving it?

There are a few things we're going to cover this month: some common mistakes, a couple of resources to help you figure out the correct way to write or punctuate something if you're not sure, and we'll even throw in some Latin and Greek roots because they're so much fun. (I see the eyes rolling.) And we'll find out that semicolons are useful for things other than winky faces. You might even find yourself using them!

Also, I invite your questions. Is there a construction you always have trouble with? Do you wonder what a comma splice is? Or what makes a participle dangle? Or why you can't split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition? This is your chance to ask the editor. We'll separate grammatical truth from fiction and have some fun in the process.

So let's get on with it!

Since this is day one and I'm trying to keep it short (you'll learn in time that keeping it short is not my strong suit), I'll direct the first lesson toward all the young people I know and love and follow on Facebook.

Your is second-person possessive; it's the possessive form of you. It indicates that something belongs to the person to whom you are speaking. Your car. Your mother. Your lovely smile.

You're is a contraction of the words you and are. It means you are. You're lovely. You're a good friend. Notice that when you form a contraction of two words, the apostrophe is inserted where the missing letter (or letters) used to be.

Your lovely smile indicates that you're happy.

See how easy that is? Now go forth and write correctly.

Be thankful ~

ps. There are more 31 Days series going on all over the web. Find links to them all here. And if you've missed any of my 31 Days and just can't sleep at night for wondering what you missed, I'll link each day's post here after it goes live. I think. At least, I'm going to try. (Is this where the disclaimer goes?)

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8 

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11 

Day 12 

Day 13 

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Days 25 and 26

Day 27

Day 28

Day 29

Day 30

Day 31

This and that.

This will be short since I am still suffering from flu-like symptoms, and my bed is calling. But I wanted to share a few photos before I forgot about them.

First, somewhere along the road of life, we came into possession of an old, wrought iron sewing machine stand. Ben just told me last night where we got it, and I've already forgotten. It's a gift I have. Anyway, we have a few things like this that we move with us from house to house that serve as points of joking contention between us. I ask why we keep hauling _________ around, and Ben says because he's going to build something/use it for something/etc. someday.

Well, the old sewing machine stand has finally made it to the big time. Ben built this beautiful table out of it. He told me what kind of wood it is, but I don't remember (that gift again).

Isn't it lovely?

At some point in its life, the stand was either broken and welded back together, or maybe it was just constructed this way to begin with, but the SINGER logo in the middle is upside down. I think it gives it character.

Second, when I woke up this morning in my flu-like fog, I noticed the weather was reflective of my head, and snapped a few photos of the woods out back.

I'm no pro, but I do enjoy playing around with my camera, and every once in a while I accidentally take a picture I like.

And finally, I don't remember what I was looking for last night (can you imagine?), but in my quest, I ran across this photo of Pete when we first got him. He was 10 weeks old. Look at that face!

And now I'm going to sink back into my fog. Nighty-night.

Be thankful ~

31 Days to Better Grammar and a huge headache.

So I just realized tonight that MONDAY is the start of the 31 Days blog series, and I have done not one thing to prepare for it. My thought was that I would do a 31 Days to Better Grammar kind of thing, but that thought originated in September when I had nothing but time on my hands. Time that I apparently did not use wisely because I am in no way ready for a solid month of anything other than regular NFL refs and pumpkin-flavored everything.

(On a side note, please go to Panera and have a toasted pumpkin pie bagel with cream cheese. Your mouth will have a party.)

Actually, I did do one thing to prepare, and here is the fruit of that labor:

I imagine for tech-savvy people, this button represents about ten or fifteen minutes' work, but for me it was the better part of two days spent debating the perfect shade of green around the outside (even now I want it to be more of a robin's egg blue) and the font that I'm still not crazy about. But do you think I'm going back to the editing software to change it at this point? Not a chance. It took me a week to recover from all the indecisiveness, which may be why I haven't tackled any other preparations.

And then just today I found out that I'm supposed to link to one spot on my blog where readers can find all 31 days of posts without searching high and low. I don't even know how to get all the posts in one place to begin with, let alone figure out how to give someone directions there.

So the stress of 31 Days hit all at once this afternoon and sent me to bed with chills and a headache, and here I lie (yes, it's lie, not lay), complaining about it in 500 words or fewer. (Please don't ever say 500 words or less—I will come completely unhinged.) (On second thought, disregard that last parenthetical statement. I might need to use the less/fewer lesson on one of the 31 days.)

In addition to the promise of a month's worth of daily grammar lessons, I have a few other things on my plate.

We've been trying to refinance our mortgage for quite some time, and due to circumstances way beyond our control, it's been put off repeatedly. We were supposed to close Wednesday for it to be final by the end of September, then found out on Tuesday that it wasn't going to happen until next Monday, which is the beginning of the next month, meaning we would have a big interest payment up front, and honestly, I can think of better things to do with a $1000. Like put a new transmission in my car. Or maybe half a transmission. Yes, it's gasping its last breaths. (Did you notice the its and it's in that sentence? Another lesson.)

On that note, I'm going to take a pain reliever and go to bed.

31 Days will be here soon enough.

Be thankful ~

Guess who came to visit!

Princess P!

It was kind of a last-minute thing when the regular fairy godmother wasn't available on what is usually Mommy's day off. I don't remember the last time I saw P, but her family moved away a few months ago. She's gotten so big and grown-up! She talked non-stop and kept us laughing.

Last time I kept her, she cried when Mommy left. This time, I told her we would have lunch and go for a walk. I asked her if she wanted lunch or a walk first, and she answered, "When Mommy goes," as in, "Hurry up and leave, Mother, so we can have fun."

So Mommy left and P decided on a walk first. Of course, we had to take Beastie-boy, but a funny thing happens when P is around—Pete is on his best behavior. We might need to keep P here.

Then we came back and had lunch. And we negotiated TV time (which never happened). She drives a hard bargain.

She was excited that she finished her lunch. I can't believe I'm saying I miss toddlers.

Then we decided we had to have a picture with Pete, but guess who wouldn't hold still . . .

Man-squared had to make him lie down.

Pete is the epitome of patience with P (until the huskies show up)

and he has a fascinating ear.

Then we sat in the rocking chair for a while, trying to chill out a little before naptime. That's when we discovered Monkey had a hole is his neck. Looks like he's had a tracheotomy.

I offered to fix him, and P considered. At first she wanted Mommy to fix him. But then she realized Mommy was at work and it would be a while, so she decided I could. We went to my bedroom to the sewing drawer and got a needle, thread, and scissors. When she saw the scissors, she got nervous and said, "You not going to cut him. No." and I assured her that I was only going to cut the thread, not Monkey.

So she sat in my lap and watched while I stitched Monkey up, and then she laughed and hugged him when he was all finished. It's stressful to watch your buddy go through surgery.

And we took a few more pictures

of those beautiful

blue eyes and

awesome freckles.

Then it was naptime, and before she even woke up, Daddy and her brothers were there to get her.

Come visit again soon, P!

Be thankful ~

The terrible, no-good, very bad day. At least it's bloggable.

And it's only 2:30 in the afternoon.

When I go to bed at night, I run through in my head what I'm planning to do the next day. That's so while I'm tossing and turning, I have something to fret over. But last night's plan was pretty simple: Get up, go to the gym with Man-squared, come home and spend the rest of the day doing not too much . . . a little laundry, a little cooking, take Beastie-boy for a walk.

All that changed when I got up this morning.

I made my coffee and read my Bible for a while like I usually do. Then I sat down to read my email and saw a message from Best Buy advertising the iPhone 4 for $0. And since Ben has been waiting almost three years to get rid of his Dreaded Droid, I clicked the link. That's where I found out they had the iPhone 4s (the one he wants) for $99. This was the day we'd been waiting for.

I went through the whole buying online process only to be given an error code at the very end. So I changed my POD (plan of the day, for you non-military types).

I went to the gym and did Strive, then headed for Best Buy. To make a long story short, I bought the last 4s they had in the store. Made deposits at the bank, and headed up to where Ben works (which, incidentally, could be any one of four places). Somewhere along the way, I figured out that he wasn't getting my "where are you today?" texts because, Hello? his only activated phone was sitting on the seat next to me. So I crossed my fingers and went to the place I thought was most likely.

I decided on the way that I would cruise through the parking lot to see if his car was there. When I pulled in, I drove down one lane and as I turned to go up the next lane, the transmission in my Honda slipped a little. Can you imagine? And with only 260,000 miles on it! (more on this later)

When I spotted his car, I parked and went inside to find him and give him his present. Met all his co-workers and his boss (in my sweaty gym clothes and no make-up), and we left for lunch and another Best Buy to get his contacts and pictures transferred to the new phone.

We decided on Best Buy first. Went in and they got started, but because the Dreaded Droid is so old, it gave them fits and no one could even tell what model it was, kind of like scientists gathered around a dinosaur bone.

After about 25 minutes, we decided to leave the phones with them and go get lunch, since Ben had to be back at the office by 1 for an important meeting. Went out to the parking lot, got in the car, turned the key.

Nothing.

No click, no sound; only idiot lights on the dashboard, so we knew the battery wasn't dead. Tried it a few more times and finally Ben said, "What's that sound? What's running? Pop the hood." He looked under the hood and figured out the starter was shorting and running continually. This is not good, Mav.

(And here's where his current hero status comes in . . .)

He got the tire iron out of the trunk, banged on the starter a few times, and it stopped. All of this in about 15 seconds. I would have been still standing there trying to figure out what the noise was, if I even heard it at all. I turned the key again and it started right up.

So we went to lunch (I'm really trying to condense this story), came out and (praise be unto God) the car started right away. I was really glad about this, because we were parked right in front of a Starbucks, where all manner of upper-class type people were sitting at outside tables enjoying the lovely weather, and I really didn't want them to be subjected to the sight of us banging our starter with a tire iron.

Went back to Best Buy where I stayed in the running car and Ben ran in for his phones, then headed back to Ben's office so he would be on time for his meeting.

This was the ten-minute interval today in which nothing went wrong.

We pulled in the parking lot at the office and Ben asked me to just drop him off at his car, since his wallet was in there and he needed it. So I pulled up behind his car, we kissed, he thanked me for his new phone, and we made goo-goo eyes for a few seconds. When he got out to walk toward his car, I saw something  moving out of the corner of my eye, and before I could reach for the horn, the car next to his backed into me.

I wish I were kidding.

Understand, this man who put his car in reverse and stepped on the gas without ever looking in his mirror or turning his head is a government contractor. He is responsible in some small way for our national defense. Don't you feel safer?

Came home to find Man-squared lying on the couch with strep throat.

I'm hiding in my bathtub for the rest of the day.

Be thankful ~

Change is good.

I thought it was time for some new pictures. I still have a little work to do, but it will have to wait. My pillow beckons.

Be thankful ~

Thursday thoughts.

Alliteration abounds!

I had no intention of writing a post today, mostly because I did absolutely nothing of consequence. The highlight of my day was when I got to give the class an explanation of why we include Tai Chi in Pitaiyo. It doesn't take much to get me excited. But I'm waiting for Picasa to import all my pictures from iPhoto, and after 10 minutes, it's copied 1610 of 4369, so I have some time to kill.

I came home from the gym and took Pete the Terrible for a walk, and he once again lived up to his name, but that may be due to my hasty decision to run him past the two border collies who have gotten quite mouthy with him in the past, and he mistook my breaking into a run for excitement over the prospect of chewing their snouts off, and he took off too, only in the wrong direction. It's a good thing I had his leash wrapped around my hand four times and the prong collar didn't slip off, and let me tell you, I've never heard my sweet little muffin-cakes snarl so nastily! I've begun to wonder if someone around here didn't cast out a devil and let it take up residence in Pete, like the ones in the Bible went into the herd of swine. If Pete runs off a cliff into the sea, I'll have my answer.

Anyway, I just thought of something noteworthy. (It's all relative, right?)

I grew up on the Jersey shore where we had fresh fish all the time. When I was little though, bluefish was cheap, so that's what we ate a lot of. Have you ever had bluefish? It's the fishiest, gamiest fish God ever made, which is probably why it was so cheap. Anyway, on the rare occasion we got flounder, we thought it was a gift from the seafood gods, and we were thrilled.

Well, for the last couple of years, we've been seriously upgrading the way we eat,  buying only organic beef and eating way more seafood. The fish of choice around here is salmon, but since you can only get so many mortgages on your house, we eat a lot of tilapia. I usually just brush it with melted butter (organic) and sprinkle it with Old Bay Seasoning and bake it at 425° for 12 minutes. DE-LISH!

But last week, both the commissary and Walmart were out of tilapia, and since we can't go a week without fish, I bought flounder. Tonight I cooked it. I also made some jasmine rice and roasted cauliflower and broccoli.

In my own words, that. fish. was. nasty! I can't imagine how I ever begged my mother for it, and I don't even want to think about how horrible bluefish must be if flounder was our preferred poison. Also, the rice was quite crunchy, like I didn't put enough water in it.

The veggies were awesome, and eating a meatless meal once in a while is good, right?

Pete loved the fish. I thought about giving him the rice, but I was afraid it would soak up more liquid in his stomach and he would explode.

Maybe that would solve all our problems . . .

Be thankful ~

Tuesday Tidbits.

Not that I adore alliteration or anything.

You know that I've been struggling with a sore Achilles tendon for a few months now, and in that time, I've flip-flopped on whether I should just stop running. One day I decide my running days are over. The next day I'm thinking maybe I'll recover. One day I wonder if I'll ever be able to run a 5K again. The next I'm wondering what it would be like to do a marathon. If Sybil had a runner personality, I'm it.

My latest thought was that if all I can do is walk for exercise, that's really not so bad. It's still good for me, gets my heart rate up (albeit not quite as high), burns a few calories, and it's good for the dog too, because I slap the pinch collar on him and take him along.

So what did I do this rainy morning? Got on the treadmill to walk before yoga and wound up walking a quarter and running a mile. I just couldn't help myself . . . that treadmill just sucks me in. I feel like the chocolate addict who keeps a stash of Dove Promises in her bottom drawer under last year's bathing suit. And the tendon doesn't hurt any more than it ever does, so I think I've proven it doesn't matter whether I run or not.

My ability to justify what I want is a gift.

In other riveting news, tonight I made a pot of chili for dinner. I didn't really want chili, but it was a good excuse to make cornbread, which is what I was craving. I could have eaten cornbread and milk and been perfectly happy. I think I remember someone telling my that my great-grandfather used to put a piece of hot cornbread in a bowl and eat it with fresh cream poured over it. Carbs are my love language, and apparently, I come by it honest.

And finally, I have been contemplating doing a 31 days blog theme on October. I've read a few in the last couple of years that were pretty interesting: 31 Days to Better Photos, 31 Days to Decorate Without Spending Any Money, 31 Days to Eating Better . . . but I can't figure out what subject I would cover. 31 Days to Better Grammar? I can't see people flocking here to read that.

So I don't know. I'm still contemplating. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them. I'm in need of ideas.

Be thankful ~

Pete the Terrible still is.

Have you ever met a person who says, "Oh, my dog would never bite anyone. He's so sweet and friendly. He just loves everybody. He'll never bite."?

I am not one of those people, and for good reason. It's a dog. An animal. With instincts you neither share nor understand. You can train and socialize and do all the things you're supposed to do, but when something flips the bite switch, you're not going to turn it off.

People have asked me about Pete, "Does he bite?" to which I always reply, "Well, he hasn't so far, but I make no guarantees." Pete has always been a nervous dog, getting his hackles up—which stretch from the top of his head to the tip of his tail—at the slightest thing, even when family members who've been gone for a while come home. I attribute it to his expansive stupidity. Because of all this, I've always walked him with a pinch collar on six inches of leash. When neighborhood children ask to pet him, I tell them I'm sorry, but he's too nervous and they shouldn't get close to him. Pete does run loose around the yard, but only when someone's out there with him.

Pete's favorite thing to do is go to the dump with Man-squared, because he gets to ride in the back of the truck. So today, Man-squared was getting ready to make the weekly dump run, when Pete started acting really fidgety to go outside. Man-squared thought he was just excited about the truck ride, so he opened the door and let him out.

Pete took off like a shot across the front yard and into the cul-de-sac, where he never once hesitated to sink his teeth into one of the two huskies being walked by their owner. Thence began the yelping, howling, barking, growing, and screaming that alerted Man-squared that something wasn't quite right. He bolted down there to find the guy holding the two leashed and muzzled dogs, yelling STOP! STOP! as if that would change Pete's mind about things. Man-squared tackled Pete and pinned him down so the guy could get his dogs out of there.

A few hours later, the wife showed up at our house and very kindly presented us with a veterinarian's bill for $134 for the five staples required to close up her dog's wound.

Ouch.

Obviously, we wrote her a check, and I feel bad that my dog attacked out of the blue. As I said, he's never done that before. But as I also said, he's an animal, and because of that, he's unpredictable.

My one wish in the whole thing is that her dogs hadn't been muzzled. A good bite from the other dog would have done more to discourage that behavior in Pete than anything I can do, especially now that it's over.

So we're back in training mode, going for daily walks where I jerk the pinch collar every time Pete looks at another dog. And somehow he still gets excited to go for his walk. As I said, expansive stupidity.

 

 

But cute.

Be thankful ~

Keeping it real.

I just had a great conversation with my daughter, Deb, the mother of my two grandbabies. Bean is now a little over three years old, and Button a little over one. They are normally very well-behaved boys, and she doesn't even think twice about taking them everywhere with her.

She was telling me about going to a consignment sale with the boys yesterday to get them some winter clothes. Button has been cutting a lot of teeth lately, so she was wearing him in some kind of sling-thing. He screamed in her face the entire hour. There were no shopping carts, so Bean had to walk alongside her, which made him quite unhappy. He whined and fussed and finally fell down and had a screaming-kicking fit. Can you picture this? One small woman wearing a squalling baby, watching a defiant toddler thrash about wildly on the floor. And of course everyone there had to stop and watch.

Later when they were in the van heading home, Bean said to her, "Mama, why was I acting like that? That was bad!"

He was a little late on the uptake.

Then we were talking about being on conference calls for work with little ones in the house, especially when your mute button doesn't work. Hers doesn't. She said one time she was on a call with all of her co-workers and boss when she spied Bean on the deck. She ran out and, pressing her phone into her stomach so the others couldn't hear what she was saying, hollered, "Bean, stop peeing on the cat!" Unfortunately, all of her co-workers heard her words of wisdom, and their company meetings have never recovered.

I love hearing all the toddler stories without having to be responsible for them. ;)

Be thankful ~

An essay on 9/11.

This essay was written by my son, Mike, who is in the Air Force getting ready for his second deployment.


I was at work, caulking cracks around baseboard so we could paint the new house the next day.

Mike, my boss, always insisted on the radio being tuned to an oldies station -- something that made me wear this ridiculous headphone-radio contraption so I wouldn't have to listen to it.  But, as luck would have it, I was out of caulk in the tube I was using, so I came out of the master bedroom with my headphones around my neck, looking for wherever the guys had stashed the rest of the case.  Walking by the radio, I realized that the deejay sounded...weird.  Like his dog had gotten shot, or something.  I was 16, that was the worst thing I could imagine happening.  So I listened for a second.  He said that a second plane had just hit the World Trade Center, and that nobody really knew what was going on.

So he played a Beatles song, or rather a Paul McCartney song -- Yesterday.  It sounded more sad than I remembered.

I remember calling home and finding out my dad was already at the Navy base (he was supposed to be off that day, I think).  At that point, the news was starting to speculate that it was a terrorist attack by some guy I'd never heard of, Osama bin Laden.  He lives in Afghanistan? You're kidding me, some yokel in Afghanistan attacked the World Trade Center?

And now they're crumbling...with people still inside...deejay is crying on the radio.  I still don't get the magnitude of what's going on, I never had anybody close to me die, and now I remember my uncle Tommy works in New York City.  Is he okay? I can't even remember if he worked in Manhattan...

-----------------------------------

I didn't understand, didn't feel the sadness and rage that most of you felt, for eight years.  On September 11, 2009, mere months before I joined the Air Force, I rode the VRE train from Fredericksburg to Alexandria, to work at the Media Reseach Center.  My job was to watch the news for political bias, you see.  I didn't think much about what day it was -- there was a little joking around the office regarding how the media would present the news of the day around the anniversary of the attacks, and still remain as hopelessly in the tank for the left as they possibly could.  We wondered how they would do that, and not further destroy whatever shreds of credibility they had left.

I got off the train at roughly 8:30AM -- thankfully, no delays.  I walked the ten or so blocks down to South Patrick Street, picked up my bi-weekly bag of Mischa's Ethiopian Harrar (still the best coffee I've ever had, by far), went upstairs, started the coffeemakers, and settled into my chair by about 8:55AM.

The news came back from a commercial, and my first thought was that they must be using a terrible camera -- the picture was awful.  Then, I realized that NBC was playing their complete coverage of that morning from 2001.  It was the first time I had ever seen the video, believe it or not.  Youtube was not as ubiquitous then, in 2001, as it is now.

They broke into their normal morning-show pablum to report that the World Trade Center appeared to have been struck by an aircraft of some sort.  NBC had some kind of roof camera on a building nearby, so they showed that angle for the next few minutes while the hosts dithered about what to call it.

Then, I saw the wingtip of the second plane come into view.  I have never, not in any horror movie or on any roller coaster, been more crushed to know what was coming next.  I wanted to scream at them to run...but it was eight years ago, how would that do any good?  No feeling is more terrible than being completely unable to do anything to save someone from disaster.


That was the first time I cried.  My boss walked in and saw me weeping into my coffee, stopped to watch with me, and told me that it never got easier for him to watch, either.

---------------------------

Fast forward to May 1, 2011.  I had just completed SERE training -- which, for people who experience it, is especially entertaining (read: painful) -- and was coming home from dinner in Spokane with my friends.  I check the news on my phone habitually -- one of the side effects of having worked at NewsBusters is that I can't stop reading the news.  I just NEED to know what's happening, all the time.  Anyway, there was a short-notice drop on a network-televised, very important Presidential speech, due for 10-ish that night.

Everything I know about politics and media says that this just DOES NOT HAPPEN.  You don't save earth-shattering news, requiring a Presidential speech on all networks at once, for Sunday NIGHT.  You leak Thursday night, drop a couple details on Friday, negotiate Sunday show appearances on Saturday, and break the big news on Sunday MORNING, when everyone reads the papers and watches TV.  So I knew that whatever it was, it was big, and it just happened.

I ran up to the dayroom, and told the guys that their crappy movie had to wait an hour.  They weren't too happy...until I started explaining to them WHY this speech was different.  The timing was all wrong -- so it had to be something that the White House didn't completely control.  It wasn't another budget speech.

The speech was delayed, at first.  We were all speculating, hey maybe this is why we upped the security stance.  Has anyone seen the pizza guy yet?  Hey throw me my Gatorade, willya? until, just after ten our time, Chuck Todd confirmed that a team of Navy SEALs had fast-roped into Osama bin Laden's front freaking yard, kicked the door in, and shot him twice in the face.


It was bedlam.  These kids, most of whom were in middle school when 9/11 happened, went completely banana sandwich.  One guy fired the Oreo he was holding across the room so hard, it shattered into dust on the wall.  Left a dent there too, if I remember correctly.  Between the smiles and high-fives, there was a feeling...one, of grim satisfaction, and two, that somewhat ridiculous frustration that we weren't the guys who got to kill him.  But most of all, I remember one of the older guys (okay, he was my age) in the group muttering something under his breath as he left the room to catch some sleep before the next day's punishment.  This was the way he said it:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands.  One nation, under God, with liberty.

And justice, for all."

--------------------------

These are the things I remember when I'm about to deploy.  I think about why I'm going, about what that yokel in Afghanistan did to my country -- what effects he still has, every day that we live here, and we don't even realize it.  This is the new normal, after all.  But most of all, I remind myself of this: Justice, sometimes, is disproportionate.  If some kid is getting bullied, gets hit once in the face, nobody complains when he body-slams the bully.  Heck, nobody would complain if he kicked the bully while he was down -- it's a bully, you're supposed to crush them.  That's justice.


And I know that some people would disagree with me on that.  So for those people, let me remind you of the best way to not get crushed: Don't bully the weak son of a biker-gang chief on the playground.  He'll hit you with brass knuckles, and you'll deserve it because you're stupid for trying to bully the son of a biker-gang chief.

And especially, don't pick on Manhattan.  They'll just sic the Brooklyn rats on you.  And no, I'm not talking about the actual animals.

'Murica.




God bless you and your teammates, Mike. Thank you for your service to our country.

Be thankful ~

My hero.

It's no secret that I've been in a workout funk for a while. Ever since I did some kind of damage to my Achilles tendon in May, things have gone downhill. I stopped running so I wouldn't make it worse. I got out of the habit of going to Strive (the weightlifting class). Too many Tuesdays went by that I missed Pilates. Pitaiyo fell by the wayside, except for the weekend I did their instructor training. Every once in a while I would try to run a mile or ride the bike or whatever, but I just never could get my mojo back. And of course I gained a few pounds, didn't sleep well, etc. It was getting pretty discouraging.

I'm still waiting for approval to do physical therapy for the tendon, so I really can't run much, if at all, until that happens. But today I forced myself to go to Pitaiyo and in one short hour, I remembered why I love it so much. There is no other class that all in one session helps you relax, focus, stretch, strengthen, and realize just how much your body can do. It's amazing.

So after Pitaiyo, I left the gym with a spring in my step. I needed to get a few things at Walmart (right across the street), stop by the library, and then go home to clean the bathroom and make bread for a dinner guest.

As I was pulling out of the gym parking lot, I stopped long enough to take this photo for Man-squared and Ben:

I couldn't tell you what it is, but I'm sure it's cool.

Then I went to Walmart, got my four things, and headed for the library. About a half mile up the road, I noticed the air conditioning suddenly got pretty warm. I fiddled with the controls for a minute, thinking, Nooooo! Not the air conditioning! Then I saw that the temperature gauge was pegged. Not merely inching toward the big red H, but hanging right there on top of it. I got this vision of my hood exploding right off the car.

At that moment I was pulling up to a light in the left-turn-only lane. I put it in park, turned the car off, and put the flashers on, knowing how much everyone in Northern Virginia loves when you do that on a busy Saturday morning, but I didn't want the engine to blow. I called Ben to tell him what was happening, and he said to get it to a parking lot and wait there.

In 20 minutes, he was there to rescue me and my three Walmart bags and two library books. He and Man-squared went back later and found that all the coolant had leaked out, which would explain why the temperature was all the way up but there was no steam. They fixed it all up and brought it home, good as 256,000-miles-new.

This story shows why I love this man. You see, I have three paranoias about cars: the tires, the brakes, and the coolant. I am forever saying one or the other tire is low. I can actually walk around my car and tell just by looking which tires need air and which don't, and it doesn't have to be more than a pound or two. Ben says I have calibrated eyes.

And I am always nervous about brakes. Two months after new pads are put on, I need Man-squared to check them so I can sleep at night and drive without my stomach being in knots. Then it's about every month thereafter. He's gotten very good at checking brakes over the years.

And coolant. Oh, my word. It's a wonder I don't run off the road for all the time I spend watching the temperature gauge. I could never have a car with an idiot light instead of a gauge; I would have a nervous breakdown not knowing what the temperature in the block is. And yet the whole family knows that I overheat everything I ever drive. It's a sick joke the devil torments me with.

Ben is very patient with me and all my weird-isms about cars. He rescues me, he fixes my car, he pats my hand and tells me everything will be fine. He's a hero.

Be thankful ~

Friday art.

Last week I went to see Abbey for a day and half. The first day I got there, she took me on a tour of Demoss, which is the huge building right in the middle of campus. On the fourth floor, the art department has permanently displayed some works that students did last semester, and here's the one that Abbey and her friend Noah did.

They created this by pouring paint over a bowl in the center. It's hard to see in the photo, but the texture is pretty cool. It's thick and lumpy and cracked like a dried up riverbed.

And then there's this spot that's like a relief map of the ocean floor. So cool!

This one is Erin's. I would pay money to have this hanging in my house. It's at least six feet long, maybe more. I just love the city with all its light and energy and then the calm of the country at the far end.

I don't remember whose this is, but I liked the colors and the quiet movement.

I just think it's cool that my daughter has a piece of art on permanent display. I'm a proud mama.

In other news, I dragged my behind out the door tonight for a walk, since not exercising doesn't seem to be helping my body heal. I told Ben I was going to take Pete with me and he immediately tried to talk me out of it. I can't remember the last time I took Pete on a walk, but I do remember that it was an exciting event, and not the good kind. Pete doesn't do well with certain dogs in the neighborhood, mostly because they come charging out of their yards, barking and growling, and he gets a tad nervous, which leads to a lot of lunging and yelping and smashing into my legs because he's scared. (Yes, Pete is 70 pounds. Yes, he is afraid of two Yorkies.)

Anyway, I decided to take him, and it turned out well after all. He was the model of good behavior, even sitting patiently when I stopped to talk to a guy on his riding mower. Of course, the Yorkie twins were nowhere to be seen tonight, so that helped. We'll see what happens next time they meet.

Be thankful ~

What I did today.

I skipped going to the gym because it mercifully started to pour torrential buckets of rain right before I was supposed to leave. But to make up for it, I lay down on my bedroom floor and did a set of Pilates hundreds and some leg work. That gave me permission to have a second cup of coffee and blueberries in my granola and yogurt.

Then I got out all the busy bag stuff (I guess I should take some pictures of it) and worked on hot-gluing popsicle-shaped thingies and little felt fish with metal washers inside that will eventually be a color-matching game and a fishing game for Bean and Button.

Played some Words with Friends. I won the first game, am still in the process of losing the second, and I'm heading for a good thrashing in the third one.

Did some editing and photo captioning for a customer.

Changed the sheets and spun the mattress on my bed.

Made dinner: barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus. (BTW, there is no such word as barbeque. Go ahead, look it up. I'll wait. ~~~~~~~~~~~ See? The only time you get to use a Q in that word is when you write it "BBQ," which is not really a word either. The word is barbecue.) Ben and I listened to Clinton's speech while I was cooking. I will refrain from commenting, except to say he just as much a liar as he was when he was in office. Sorry. I couldn't help myself.

Texted a bit with two children. Mike wrote to inform me that he had just run 8.5 miles in 73 minutes. I resisted the urge to write back, "Jerk," instead telling him he was going to crush his half marathon later this month. And he is. I'm totally jealous about the long run though. I know it sounds ridiculous, but what I miss most about running are the long runs. It was just so much fun spending two hours winding through the beautiful college campus and Old Town Fredericksburg in the cool early mornings. I miss the peacefulness and how good I felt when I was finished.

The other child wanted to make sure I had paid her rent. I had.

Sat down to write a blog post about nothing, and here I am, 350 words later, trying to figure out if blogger has a word count feature. I'll spare you my discourse on that.

Be thankful ~

Thoughts for Monday.

1. I am very over summer and its accompanying humidity. It seems to have become much thicker around here in the last week, to the point that I can hardly get a brush through the frizz on my head. In three months I will be complaining about the static electricity because it's so dry, but I can't be bothered thinking about that now.

2. Man-squared has a nickname at work: Captain America. His newest manager gave him that name based on his amazing physique. This has not at all gone straight to his already-over-inflated ego. *eyeroll*

3. Orange Roughy is delicious. Especially when it's crusted and grilled and topped with crab. Served at a Bonefish Grill near you.

4. I am paranoid about my daughter Abbey's intestines. She's been having random pains and nausea on and off for a week now, and every time we talk about it, our diagnosis gets worse. I have just a little of my mother in me.

5. I like lifting weights. I enjoy yoga and Pilates and stretching. But I really miss running. I'm scheduled to do a few weeks of physical therapy for my Achilles tendon, and I hope it works.

6. In Luke 17:11–19, all ten lepers were "cleansed," but only one was "made whole." I'm going to have to study that.

That's all. Happy Labor Day.

Be thankful ~

Another moving day.

Not emotionally moving . . . well, actually a little emotionally moving, but mostly physically moving. Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that says, "Yes, it's my truck. No, I won't help you move."? Man-squared needs one. For the second time in two weeks, he is helping one of his sisters move out.

Leah got a job teaching at a great secondary school about an hour north of us, and unlike the other half million people in our area, she is not a fan of commuting. In fact, she gets pretty twisted about it. Easily stressed out. Hot under the collar.  Really, her blood boils. So as quickly as she could, she found an apartment not too far from school and the church she'll be going to up there. She went last weekend and took just enough to get her through the first week. She's been sleeping on two foam pads on the floor.

So she came down Friday after work, got a chiropractic adjustment Saturday morning, and today after church she and Man-squared loaded her car and his truck with almost all the rest of her stuff, and off they went. Man-squared is probably glad he's out of sisters. I know he's glad to get the bathroom back to himself.

 After watching the two girls move out, I'm wondering how we ever got all three of them in that room. It may be one of the great mysteries of life, but I think the "stuff" procreates while we're not looking. In scientific terms, girls are like a gas: they fill the available space.

 I can tell you everybody is glad Man-squared has a full-size truck. 

In other news, I made tostadas for dinner today—first time since 1997—and quickly remembered why I haven't made them in 15 years. They taste delicious, but they're the most impossible things to eat.

Basically you take a crisp corn tortilla, smear it with refried beans, and top it with shredded chicken or beef, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, shredded cheese, sour cream, and salsa. Sounds good, right? Now try to eat it. Take a bite and the tortilla disintegrates. Sour cream goes up your nose, and you use every available finger to push the stuff back on what's left of the shell. If I'd had a clean hand, I would have taken pictures. We all agreed we would not have them for dinner when Grandma comes. Or the admiral.

Somehow, though, none of that stops us from eating way too much. So now I'm going to go sleep off my food coma.

Be thankful ~