Scattershot

Cranky language lady throws in the towel

• Language changes. It evolves.
• It is created by human beings.
• God didn't write the grammar books.

    Those are all points I try hard to keep in mind as I cringe sometimes, listening to people on the radio or on television. Two trends that hurt my ears have become so entrenched that I've decided to just try to breathe, accept them, and not fuss about them like a little old schoolmarm.

    The first change I need to get over is "me and my friends." It's not going to go away. I can't tell you the last time I ever heard anyone say "my friends and I." It just doesn't seem to happen anymore. "Me and my friends" is the norm. I don't have to like it, but I don't have to "tut tut" about it, either.

    The second change is what seems to be the gradual disappearance of "an," at least in speech. Increasingly, I hear people say things like "a ethnic..." or "a  international..." or "a absolute..." Even President Obama frequently uses "a" with words that begin with a vowel, and few speakers are as eloquent as he is. (Interestingly, he doesn't do it in his writing--just his speech. I think this trend is limited, at least for now, to spoken English.)

    So I'm throwing in the towel on these two language no-nos. I'll stick to the "proper" usage in my own writing, and I'll insist on it from my staff. But I'm going to stop groaning or yelling at the radio in the mornings as I listen to the news.

    I think my husband will be pleased.

Spam Scam Consulting

If I ever decide to put ethics aside and work on making a fortune, I think I'll become an e-mail spam scam consultant. (Love the thought of my business card: Cheryl Miller Thurston, Spam Scam Consultant.) I'll charge only $100 to make a letter halfway literate before it is sent out to the universe. With the bazillions of letters going out each day, I'll easily become a wealthy woman.

    Why is it that all e-mail scams broadcast their illegitimacy with terrible writing? Are they really written by Nigerians who are struggling with English as a second language? Or is there maybe an e-mail scam guidebook somewhere that dictates that people should make terrible errors, in order to garner sympathy?

     Here are just a few of the gems I've found in my spam folder this week:

• From (supposedly) the "IRS": We apologize for any inconveniences caused, and is very appreciative for your collaboration...Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.
  
• From an alert about my supposed inheritance payment: I found out that you have not received your payment due to your lack of co-operation and not fulfilling the obligations giving to you in respect to your inheritance payment, and more importantly, the dishonest of the officials you have dealt with, coming up with lies and cheats...

• From Mrs Mercy Ufanga in Sierra-Leone who is on her way to the "bossom of the Lord" and wants to give me $15 million "to fund churches, Orphanages and Widows": Recently, my Doctor told me that from all the test conducted on my health, I am not going to last long, expecially, due to my cancer and stroke.

• From Svetlana in Russia, who wants a man and has decided I'm it: I have decided to change my life, and to find the man for me. The man for serious attitudes.
  

    Sometimes the letters look legitimate, as with those from, supposedly, my bank. The logo is there. The type style is correct. Everything looks real, but then I'll start reading and find, almost immediately, jarring syntax, willy-nilly capitalization, bizarre punctuation, strange constructions. What if these scam perpetrators actually had someone go through their work first, to clean it up? Wouldn't they find more success? Why haven't they thought of it?

    As I said, if I ever decide to give up ethics, I'm their man. (Just ask Svetlana.)

Aging stars...

Last night I had to, literally, avert my eyes when "American Idol" featured three aging stars of the disco era--Freda Page, Thelma Houston and Henry Wayne Casey of KC and the Sunshine Boys. It was painful to watch, and I had to pick up the New Yorker and read to distract myself, glancing up only now and then to be appalled.

    No, this is not ageism. I have nothing whatsoever against performances by stars of yesteryear (Is "yesteryear" too strong a word for disco days?). However, I think such performances should be handled differently than performances by sexy young things at the peak of their careers. My ideas:

1. Don't put them in clothing that tries to make them look young. It doesn't work and only makes them appear ridiculous. If someone is close to 70, for example, don't squeeze her into a tight, sleeveless gown, or a teeny skirt, even if she's still got a good figure. The television closeups will not be flattering, especially when you add the frozen Botox face.

2. Don't have them trying to run around the stage like a rock star, unless maybe they are Mick Jagger and can still pull it off. If they can't, have them stand at a stationary microphone and just sing. Add dancers or a funky young back-up group if you need more interest. Just singing is way more dignified than prancing when you can't prance effectively any longer.

3. Have someone find out if the person can still sing or not. If she no longer has a decent voice, perhaps do a video montage of old performances, honoring the star by having her make an appearance and acknowledging her contributions to music. If the person's voice is painful to listen to (as one of them was last night), having her sing is just sad. The sad image erases positive images of earlier years.

4. Have them take a lesson from a television appearance I remember from eons ago. Lee Marvin appeared to promote the movie Paint Your Wagon. I remember it this way: He opened his mouth and croaked out the first seven words of "I Was Born Under a Wandering Star." Then the Mormon Tabernacle Choir chimed in and completely drowned him out. (Okay, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but I always think of it that way. It was a BIG group, whoever it was.) You couldn't hear another word poor Marvin sang--and that was a good thing. I smile every time I recall this performance...

And that's a whole lot better than feeling sad, which I do when I think about the performances last night.

Advice coming too late

Last Friday I had my hair colored, asking my hairdresser to take pains to match what is left of my original red hair. Today I opened the newspaper to a huge, two-page article with tips from Charla Krupp's book, How Not to Look Old. Tip #2 was, "Lighten your hair, going two shades lighter than your natural base color."

    Sigh. Too late.

    Cautiously, I read on. I'm in trouble on other fronts as well. I'm supposed to lose my hoop earrings. (That's pretty much all I wear for everyday.) And my acid-washed jeans. (My favorite pair is acid-washed.) And my choker necklaces. (My husband gave me a choker I love.) I'm supposed to buy jeans that fit and flatter me. (The only pair I have that fits me well is acid-washed. I have no jeans that flatter me.)

    I'm supposed to wear a "make-up primer, which fills in wrinkles." I have no idea what a make-up primer even is, but she assures me that if I spend more time getting my "canvas" to look great, then I can get away with wearing less make-up.

    Still, there is hope for me. I'm supposed to cut some bangs. (I have bangs.) I'm supposed to avoid dark nail polish. (I'm lucky to have on any polish at all.) And I'm supposed to lose my tube tops and bustiers. (Like I would have any tube tops and bustiers!)

    What's sad is that I read every word of the entire article.

    What's even sadder is that I ordered her book.

Cars or people?

It's been two weeks since my car was rear-ended by a drunk driver as I sat at a red light. During this time I have received at least 25 phone calls and emails from my insurance company and the driver's insurance company, asking me for information, checking on the progress of the work being done, assuring me that everything is being taken care of. My car is now repaired and paid for, and I never had to lay out a penny. I am impressed.

    It probably doesn't hurt that I was clearly not at fault in the car accident. There was nothing ambiguous about the situation. 

    But let's contrast the way two car insurance companies treated me with the way my husband's health insurance company has treated him in an equally unambiguous situation.

   He has a chronic, expensive illness, so I'm not even going to address the difficulties dealing with that. (Believe me, no one calls to check on the progress of payments or arrival of drugs or anything else. He does, however, have to spend a lot of time calling them. It's no fun.) Let's look instead at something simpler--some expensive dental work he had done in November. The policy clearly states that this kind of dental work is covered. So, of course, he submitted his claim for the first portion of the work.

    It was denied. This kind of dental work is "not covered by the policy," they said. 

    By this time, he'd had more of the same kind of dental work done and had submitted another claim. This one was denied as well. This time, however, the reason was that the policy wouldn't cover "two instances" of the same kind of dental work.

    What? They hadn't actually paid for the first instance.

    He appealed. They denied the coverage again.

    He appealed a second time. Yesterday he received word from his company's policy administrator that he had won the appeal and would be reimbursed for one of the dental procedures. Looking at his information on the insurance company web site, however, there is no indication of this. We're not holding our breath.

    So work on a car: everything taken care of in two weeks. Work on a person: six months later still no reimbursement. Are cars more important than people in our society? You have to wonder...

A positive spin

Last night my husband and I grabbed a quick bite before going to the theater in Denver. It was happy hour, and the featured red wine was only $4.00 a glass. I was skeptical about ordering it but didn't want to pass up a bargain, so I asked the waitress, "How is it?"

    She wrinkled her nose and did a head shake, "No." I didn't get the wine.

    Later we asked her if the fish taco appetizers were good. "They're really, really small," she said. "But they're a lot better than the steak tacos. I don't like those at all. They're really, really small, too."

    We decided to skip the steak and get two orders of fish tacos. We also ordered the half a pound of king crab that was on special.

    But the waitress warned us again. "Just so you know, half a pound of king crab looks really, really small....a lot of people are surprised." We thought it over and decided not to get the crab.

    Finally, when it was time for dessert, we ordered the "mini banana split" to share. I should have known that wouldn't pass without comment. "It's really, really small," she warned us. We ordered it anyway. And it was.

   Usually, I think of "spin" as a bad thing. But this young woman could probably have used a lesson in putting a positive spin on things.

    Maybe a really, really small lesson.

Too much school?

When I was a freshman, I attended a rambling, old brick high school that covered most of a city block. We had an entire class period for lunch, and I remember those lunch periods fondly. There was no hot lunch program, so my friends and I grabbed our sack lunches and sat under the trees outside whenever the weather permitted. We moseyed over to the little store across the street for candy. We talked and laughed and relaxed, and one of the things I remember best was learning that I could tell stories that made my friends laugh. It was a wonderful discovery and one that I built on in the years to come.

    The following year, the new high school opened. There was a hot lunch program, so lunch changed from one leisurely period to three rushed sections of around 25 minutes each. We spent most of our short lunch period standing in line, getting our food, hurrying to the auditorium to eat, rushing to clean up, finding time to go to the bathroom and our lockers, and then getting to class. Lunch period became a hectic time. For my sophomore through senior years, I have no more fond lunch memories. I remember no more lunchtime discoveries about myself.

    I think about that when I think about the push lately for longer school days and longer school years. I'm not a proponent, at least if it means simply adding more of the same to the school day. Kids don't need more of the same, in my opinion. But if it means bringing in an emphasis on music, art, physical education, and creative time in the classroom, then it might be different. If it means slowing down and allowing kids to eat, play, let off some steam, and nurture friendships during a longer lunch hour, I can see it. If it means truly enriching the school day rather than simply adding more test drill time, I can see it.

    But, sadly, I worry that that's not what proponents have in mind. I'm afraid their eye is on the tests, rather than on the kids and what they might really need. Sometimes a little more time to do a little less can be a good thing.

The sadness of not singing

Many, many years ago, I was driving in my car with a friend, and for some reason related to whatever we were talking about, I opened my mouth and started singing. My friend was absolutely shocked.

    Now it wasn't the quality of my singing that shocked her. (I can carry a tune; that's it.) What shocked her was that I would sing at all, with no embarrassment or self-consciousness whatsoever. She told me she could no more do that than she could run naked down the middle of a busy street.

    Further discussion revealed that her family hadn't sung when she was young. She hadn't learned songs at home or in school or Sunday school or 4-H or Girl Scouts. She found singing a foreign and strange and scary thing.

    I find it incredibly sad that anyone could be missing the joy that comes from singing. I'm so thankful my family sang. My dad would sing from an old commercial from his childhood, "Feed your chicks Purina..." or "Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, how you can love..." Mom would sit in our old rose-colored rocking chair and teach us what I still think of as the "Mom" songs: "The Little Skunk Song," "A Cannibal King with a Brass-Nosed Ring," "I Love MyPuppy, my Puppy Loves Me," "John Jacob Jinkleheimer Schmidt." Interestingly, my family did not even own a radio or a stereo for most of my growing up years.

    In Bible school and Sunday school we learned every Christmas carol in the universe, and my brothers and sister and I would sing as we drove off to Grandma and Grandpa's house, or drove to town to look at the Christmas lights. Through 4-H and church youth group activities, we learned "They Built the Ship Titanic," "The Crocodile Song," and "My High Silk Hat." My sister and I would often sit outside on our swings on lazy summer days and try to harmonize or sing different parts. We still do it today when we get together, though, really, neither of us is a great singer.

    After I learned to read music, I remember the joy of learning my very first song, simply by reading, and then teaching it to my sister. I can still sing it: "The Cat Came Back."  My sister and I even invented a singing game for long car trips. The rules: Someone starts singing a song and must continue until the other person hears a word that is in a different song. Then she starts singing the new song. So I might sing, "Underneath the spreading chestnut tree. There I sat you on my knee. We were happy as can be, underneath the spreading chestnut tree...." She might interrupt with, "Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet ..." And then I'd interrupt with "Sweet Caroline...." 

    Years ago, a friend and I double-dated on a trip to Cheyenne Frontier Days. Much to the chagrin of our dates, we discovered on the way home that we knew all the same Bible school and Sunday school songs, despite growing up on opposite sides of the country. "The Lord built Noah and Ark-ie, Ark-ie, Ark-ie." "This Little Light of Mine." "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." For the entire hour ride back, we sang these songs, delighting each time one of us remembered a song the other one knew. The guys were not pleased. (They are also not around any more, for either of us. Who wants a guy who can't appreciate great music?)

    Just yesterday at work, I found myself walking across the office to get something from the printer and singing, "Oh, a capital ship on an ocean trip was a walloping window blind..." When I became aware of what I was singing, I tried to remember why I knew the song. I went to my co-workers and said, "Do you guys know this song? Or where it comes from?" To my surprise, I could sing all the words for the whole song. No one else knew it, and I'll be darned if I can think of why I know it. But I do. (I can't remember where I put an important file folder ten minutes after I've been using it, but I can remember all the words to an obscure song I learned God only knows when.)

  As I write this, I surprise myself with how much I have to say, and how much more I could say. Songs are intertwined with joy and memories and fun and sharing and togetherness and words and language and.....you get the picture. I wish every child could experience life filled with singing.

Cat people

The woman stopped me in the library parking lot, a big smile on her face. "Hi...," she said, clearly not remembering my name.

    "Hi...," I answered, remembering her name, sort of, but not how to pronounce it. Was it Cor-RIN or Cor-RIN-a? Cor-REEN or Co-REEN-a? 

    Whatever her name was, she was living in my neighborhood again after several years of living in another state. Not knowing each other well, we turned for our chit-chat to the only thing we have in common: cats.

    Now I am a cat person, but this woman is really a cat person. At one point years ago, she had nine of them when another kitten arrived on her doorstep. (How do animals know who the softies are?) Her husband put his foot down--no more cats. She asked if my husband and I would take the kitten.

    We told her to bring the kitten over, and we would see if our thinks-she's-the-center-of-the-universe Cassie would tolerate her. Cor-Whatever brought the kitten over in a basket, set it down, and watched Cassie go nuts. Cassie growled, threw a little hissy fit, and acted as if she would tear the kitten from limb to limb if she ventured all the way out of that basket.

    We didn't take the kitten.

    Back to the library parking lot...."We finally did get another cat," I told the woman. "Now we have two."

    "You mean Cassie actually tolerated another cat?" she asked, surprised.

    And that's what got to me. After all these years, the woman remembered not my name but the name of my cat, a cat she had met only one time, ever, for just a few minutes several years ago.

    Now that's a cat person!

Satisfying fluff

This week-end I grabbed the latest Janet Evanovich mystery off the "new" shelf at the library and spent a satisfying Sunday afternoon reading it in between loads of laundry. Her books will never make any recommended lists of great literature, but who cares? They make me laugh.

    I make no apologies for what I call my "fluff" tastes. Fluff tastes are those things I love to indulge in now and then for absolutely no other reason than that they are pleasant. I'll read Janet Evanovich or Jennifer Weiner or Andrew McCall Smith and know I'm going to enjoy the experience, just as once in a blue moon I will stop on the way home from work and buy a little bag of greasy, crunchy chicken wings. I know I'll enjoy those, too.

    Sometimes--especially when my husband is out of town--I'll flip to a "fluff" movie on the Hallmark channel. I'll know that the girl and the guy will wind up together in the end and all will be well. No one will be tortured or murdered. Things will be fine. Sometimes--not always--that's all I want from a movie. Niceness. Safety. Things to be fine.

    I may come by this trait naturally. My father reads a lot of westerns, but before he commits to a book he always turns to the last page to see if the guy gets the girl. If he doesn't, he won't read the book. In picking out westerns to give him, my sister and I have learned to follow this rule explicitly. There is no varying from it. Period.

  I read serious things in the New Yorker magazine every week, but I also love catching up on all the old People magazines when I go to a salon to get my hair cut. Fluff. I read two newspapers each morning and part of another, but I'll also turn on "The Soup" sometimes at night to watch funny "entertainment" news. Fluff. I'll go to the theater and enjoy a serious play like "Proof," but I'll also go and get a huge kick out of a good production of "Greater Tuna." Fluff.

    There are limits to fluff, though. There are certain popular fluff authors whose work I can't read. Fluff has to be decently written before I can stand it, and sometimes things are just, well, too fluffy, even for me.

    People who love her books will hate me for this, but I could get through only half of the first book in the "Twilight" series. When I found myself counting how often the author uses some form of the word "smolder" or smirk" on each page, I knew the book was not for me. The writing simply started driving me nuts. Luckily, my sister has read the entire series, so I just made her tell me what happens, from start to finish. Now I know what people are talking about and I got to enjoy the story without having to endure the smolders and smirks.

    I can go on to fluff more suited to me.