Digital Shortcuts Are Great . . . if You Don't Come a Cropper

        "Pay your bills online."  Easier and faster than checks and snail mail.  And then you get emails about it, bills upcoming, bills just paid, and shortcut language accompanies it.

        Verizon says, "Thank you for your auto payment."  Wait!  What?   Did we buy an automobile?  Oh. automatic!  Still,  each new email reminds me we are paying for a car we never bought!

        Then other companys' thank yous, and I'm suddenly seeing the word "autopsy."   What have autopsies got to do with bill payments?  And remember, we're older, don't start talking death with us!

        No the word wasn't autopsy, but "a" between "p" and "y" can look a lot like "s" to older eyes!  The word was "autopay."

        Look out with us over-eighties.  Your shortcut may be our painful detour!
      

         

"Never Reapply Iodine!"

       How such dire warnings stick with one.   I learned it from Miss Swihart in Groveland Park grade school, who taught gym, but also health and First Aid.   Big-voiced Miss Swihart made it stick.

       But the language by itself.  "NEVER" is a long-lasting word.  Perhaps you recall such an admonition from when you were young and impressionable.

       I was tending to a cut this morning, using some Polysporin to hold off infection.  But  I had put some on with the original bandage four days ago,  Did the admonition apply to Polysporin as well?    

       We are enlightened but also encumbered by every learning.   I'm not going to worry about my second application!  And besides, what ever happened to iodine? 

Hooked! A Minnesota Fish Story

       
         I told Connie my "Life's Little Instruction Calendar" today said, "Get to know a woman who baits her own hook." 

        Three times she was puzzled,  couldn't quite hear those last words.  When she finally got them, I said, "You were one of those women."  I remembered her dad made her learn to put the worm on the hook on one of those 10,000 Minnesota lakes each summer.  Connie smiled and said, "Yes, and gut the fish too."

        I told her I had an extension to that instruction that goes it one better.  "What's that?"  Connie said.

        "Get to know a woman who baits her own hook and knows what it's intended to catch."  This time Connie smiled big right away.
        
        "And you swallowed it," she said. 

        Yep.  I married that woman too.



         

For Clocks, Telling Time Isn't Enough

        The latest Hammacher Schlemmer catalog has arrived.  It's the "Mid-Spring Supplement 2020."  Not enough to come out four times a year, plus a holiday issue.  Now "Mid-Spring" is upon us. 

     

     
        The cover tells why, I suppose:  "The Virus Eliminating Filterless Air Purifier."
        I say,  Caveat Emptor.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            But  my real favorite in this issue is "The Easy Read Full Disclosure Clock."  I never thought of a clock as hiding something I needed to know.



        Plus,  in case you weren't sure it was light or dark out, you get MORNING and A.M. BOTH.    Maybe full disclosure includes the meaning "redundant."  But including the month, date, and YEAR may reveal the true intended buyers:

        This is one of the first questions a gerontologist will ask you.
   

iPhone's perceptive dictation translation

        Son David texted me today that he "braved the outside [of his apartment] to get a fancy donut down the block" (referencing the "stay home" orders we are under to contain the virus).

        I texted back:  "Sounds good.  I know when I had the craving for brownies, I just couldn't resist."

        While I was voicing my message to iPhone, I noticed it typed "grieving," but later in the sentence and before the period, it changed its mind and realized I had said "craving."

        Now that's perceptive and resilient of it, I opined to David.

        He texted me back:  "It wises up mid-dictate."

        Yeah.  How'd it do that!


        

This snack does double duty

        In the midst of our wonders and worries about coronavirus, things like this keep happening.

        I gave Connie a kiss or three and wished her a good night's sleep (I usually go off to dreamland a couple hours later),  and she asked if I had a munchie.  Since I myself just ate half of something I had put away in the freezer, I said:

       "Would you like half a Drumstick?" (the sweet, ice cream cone-like confection I slice lengthwise down the middle to reduce the fat and cholesterol).  She looked sort of upset and a bit dismayed.  Thinking she didn't quite hear, I repeated it a little louder.

        "Oh, a Drumstick," she said, "I thought you said 'dumpster.'"
     
        Age does bring some mishearing, but the other side of it is delight.


        

Do Public Service Messages Live On?

        A few blog posts back, I said a clever bit of public interest ad language won me over for wittiness and the value of its point, but was otherwise a "stretch."   And that was "Don't drive intexticated."

        It reminded me of an earlier public interest ad (or maybe poster?) by a writer in a public health department in Minnesota.  I believe the writer was assigned to get the word out that public spitting was not de rigueur in Minnesota.

       The words that came out of his brain and therefore out of his pen and into the public sphere were

                IF YOU EXPECT TO RATE, DON'T EXPECTORATE!!   

I have long chuckled about that motto, which I think never caught on...anywhere...in my home state or elsewhere, but which, in my opinion, deserves to be immortalized.


 
     

The Wednesday Torah Study class was on--line.

        I attended my first "Zoom" class on this, my home computer.

        I was nervous.  I got there...here...40 minutes early; I even dressed up.  I didn't want to be shabby for teacher and others in a new environment.

        Our group's need (coronavirus) and the technology's arrival and installation occurred at once!  People could be together in sight and hearing from their own homes!

         I didn't make a single move but sat in wonder.  I listened to voices, saw faces, and read text on the screen, I experienced teaching that was more in-my-lap and accessible than if it were in person.

         85 years ago Mom left me off for my first exposure to new people and location and learning at Groveland Park Grade School.  Today felt like that first day of kindergarten.


1

An Occasion for Poetry

        March 21st was World Poetry Day, just the other day.  It was established by UNESCO twenty one years ago, thus bringing it "of age" this year. 

        It takes me to a poem I've cherished in these senior years.  I was actually in the audience at the Dodge Poetry Festival when the author read it aloud, beautifully.

        I can send that very occasion to you, or rather you to it, with the whisk of a digital wand:

                                                        "Touch Me"

Is Joe Biden a Secret Stutterer?

        That is the informed observation of one Dan Roche on the op-ed page of Thursday's L.A. Times.

        As a life-long (since he was 7) stutterer, Roche recognizes in Biden the signs of what Roche calls "a master stutterer:  the savant-like ability to rephrase a thought or paragraph, on-the-fly, to avoid a problematic word or phrase."

        What some have called signs of oncoming dementia, Roche recognizes as what he and other stutterers have done their whole lives.  Yes, they get help from therapy, but often a lot more from their experiences in real situations, trying to avoid embarrassment or teasing and ridicule or maybe the worst:  people wanting to help, finishing words and reminding you you're "incomplete."

         I hadn't thought of this explanation.  I'm going to record Biden and try to discern it.


            

Tense Times, Language Makes Us Laugh

        Son David insists either he or our helper Sonia, who is here part of weekdays,  get my two-week grocery shopping list instead of me, while Connie and I stay away from public contact.  David shopped yesterday.

        Today Sonia took my remaining list to Ralph's and came home with the goods, our joint pleasure unwinding the tension that had accompanied this whole process.

        Sonia wondered about one thing, why I wanted two boxes of what she pulled out of the bag last:  drumsticks;  yes, I had requested them, but these were chicken drumsticks, and I intended the ice cream cone product covered with chocolate and nuts!

        We laughed heartily about that; in fact, we laughed infectiously, from one person to the other, in one part of the house or another, the whole rest of the day.
  

Can language do this much?

        The Automobile Club of Southern California produced a public service announcement.  

        The video showed a woman driving with her kids, curving all over the road, and she's got a bottle of beer in her hands, and it says, "You woudn't do this; so . . ."  And then it changes, and she's driving distractedly again all over the road, "so why would you do this?"  And she's reading her cell phone.

        The two scenes jumbled together for me, and I thought, the beer has got her reading her cell phone.  No, they're just trying to make a comparison, and then she's curving all over the road and drives into the car ahead of her.  The following text then appears: 

                                     Don't drive intoxicated.
                                     Don't drive intexticated.

It's a stretch.  But the witty connectedness wins me over.
  

"Coronavirus"--a Sleuth's Expose´

        The word "coronavirus" has been bothering me for days, ever since the "Rise of the Planet of the Coronavirus" amongst us all.

        I couldn't say it right, I couldn't spell it right, I couldn't remember it right.  It worried me.

        Finally, it snapped into a sudden surprise, a sudden surmise:   "coronavirus" is an exact anagram of the word "carnivorous."  Yes, eleven letters in a perfect match with each other, but in different words.

        And yes, the virus is kind of carnivorous; it likes to "eat" animal flesh, or at least thrive on living there, especially human.

        That's why it agitated me.   It seemed to want to withhold something from me.  It had within it the guised message of what it was, its pathway and chief ambition, in so many letters.

Hello to Blog, coronavirus, toilet plunger?

        Hello, Blog!!!!  We meet again, and I am humbled by you.  Plenty of fun and juicy entries I have planted here, but not for a long time.  Uncramp those fingers, Don.


        My "Life's Little Instruction Calendar" tells me today:

                "Place a toilet plunger in every bathroom in your house."

That's probably the most concrete,  practical, and considerate advice life ever let you in on.  Presuming, of course, you have more than one bathroom and presuming you even have a place to live. . .these days.

         But in these days also of the coronavirus, when almost everyone seems to be ensuring him or herself of a surfeit of toilet paper, maybe the toilet plunger isn't "beyond the pail."

        

What did this say. . .?

       Sometimes a music review doesn't quite add up.

       Three worthy artists were playing a program of trios for violin, piano and cello.  One sentence from the review reads:

       "Shostakovich, the great poet of 20th century anxiety, was also a folklorist.  Bell and Isserlis [the violinist and cellist] conveyed the sad intonations of his dancelike Jewish themes in the Allegretto finale with bittersweet urgency and a gripping life-affirming anger."

       It may not be too surprising, therefore, to find in the sub-headline that leads the review these  words:

       ". . . this ensemble's stirring and thrilling playing inspires quiet respect."


("All-star trio and argumentative couple," Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2019, Calendar Section, p. E3)

  

Unwrapping an Unconscious Rap

       For too long, I was without the map on my iPhone home page.  I needed it and somehow got it again--pulled it down, uploaded, downloaded it--I don't know.  And I suddenly, joyfully, found myself proclaiming:

"I got my Apple Map App Back!!"
 

Simple word: "Dashboard"

       I was wondering about the word "dashboard."

       You may not be surprised to know it comes from the days before "horseless carriages" (later  shortened to "car" when the "horseless" was presumed and "carriage" was too long a word for this new fast-moving motorized vehicle of maybe 30 miles an hour).

       From 1846, says etymonline, when carriages were still "horsefull" the dashboard was on the front of the carriage, not where the passengers were,  a "board or leather apron" "to stop mud from being splashed ('dashed') into the vehicle by the horse's hooves."

       Remember the wonderful Oscar Hammerstein lyrics from Oklahoma's "Surrey with the Fringe on Top":

              The wheels are yeller, the upholstery's brown,
              The dashboard's genuine leather
              With isinglass curtains you can roll right down
              In case there's a change in the weather.

Krazy Senior Reading Can Get Sticky

       I found  Krazy Glue does more than just put together balsa wood parts on a model airplane, which I learned years go; it manages to hold together plastic and metal parts as well, as so it proved today in helping repair my sunglasses.

       What Krazy Glue also made me realize today is my regular prescription glasses may need some "repair" too.  Either that, or I'm guilty of "creative," perhaps neglectful (?), misreadings.

       We all knew too Krazy Glue can get fingers to stick to one another, but I was surprised even more to see under "PRECAUTIONS":  "Avoid indigestion." What!!  I don't swallow this stuff.  A belated re-look turned the word into "ingestion." 

       Then I relaxed through more directions until I came upon " . . . contact a prison [LINE BREAK]."  WHAT again!  Rereading produced " . . . contact a poison / control center."


       

       
      

Cute twenty-something with blond curls

       Tongue-twisters come from many different places, including a random newspaper story.  A baseball player is making his first entry to the major leagues, and as the son of a former great player for the same team, he's of interest, anything about him, including Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.'s

                                     "bleached-platinum dreadlocks."

       Well, they're not so much a tongue-twister as a "mouth drencher."  Get in all those syllables distinctly, say it ten times, at moderately fast pace, and I could almost guarantee your lips will churn up a mouthful of moisture.  Not too easy to say without fumbling either. 

"Just Fill In the Blanks"

       One of the least likely to be successful telemarketing campaigns: 

       A phone call came.  There was no sound, no voice              
                    for a number of seconds


       and then, "Just fill in the blanks."


       And that's all that was said.

"Waldorf Salad for Taurus Study"

       This title appeared among the voice memos on my iPhone, dated 10/2/18.  In looking back recently, I asked myself, "What the heck was this?"

       Oh.

       Periodically, I bring part of the repast we provide ourselves at Temple on noon Wednesdays.  I recorded the note while eating a Waldorf Salad at a restaurant, listed the ingredients I saw before me so I could put them together for such a salad.

       iPhone made no mistake as I dictated the title of the memo orally.  The pronunciation would have been no different from what I uttered, but what Apple chose to hear was quite different from what I was saying:  "Torah Study."

       "Taurus" being from Greek through Latin:  "Bull"

Who Says Birds Don't Have Home Addresses?

 I would have knocked, but I was afraid it might frighten them.

And who am I to upset a household?


But I heard them.





      

A Selfish Post?

 

 I told my daughter Elizabeth, who is standing by the poetry peddler bicycle (Elizabeth started and leads the community organization Urban Poetry Pollinators in Tucson) that the bottle, her hand, and the decorated red flag on the poetry mailbox make her look like a sylph.  In fact, you could call the photo a sylphie.

Coal Train and Coltrane, 2 Different Tracks

       In November, 2017, there was news about Canada wanting to carry coal they'd dug at home over U.S. soil to reach a port on our West Coast to ship to China.  This was the fastest and shortest route for them.  But it was encouraging fossil fuels, and environmentalists were disputing the use of such "coal trains."

       My head of a sudden knew that I had both coal train and Coltrane rattling around in there. Pronounce them exactly alike, and everyone would know exactly what or who you meant in either case!  But one was a much honored jazz saxophonist, and the other was . . . a coal train!

       Our tongues and minds don't blanch in the least at such tasks--they're proud multi-service organizations.


        

Sign-age

       Rough Roads 
                  Loose Gravel 
                            Uneven Lanes


 --three signs right next to each other at the side of the road in such a way as to not be applicable to anything within sight.

       But they certainly seemed to apply to my life, at times.

I MUSICI

       I pulled up to a red light behind a car with a license plate that caught my eye.  It said IMUSICI.  

       A vanity license plate that honored the great Italian classical music ensemble "I MUSICI" [eee-MOOZ-ih-chee]?  I've heard their wonderful recorded performances, notably Italian works such as Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."

       The car ahead was worn, but the musical taste--excellent.  I fumbled for my cell to take a photo, but the light was changing; one last look instead to assure myself of what I saw.

        I realized then those first and last letters were really the number 1, "No. 1 music No. 1."  I was deflated, and I wasn't sure what the meaning was for the driver.

       But oh, well, good to see the great things honored even if only a passing figment!
       

A.O.Sea?

        Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the newly elected Members of the House in Congress and is having an impact with her probing questions in committee and her "Green New Deal" proposal.   She's even already known by her initials only, A.O.C., maybe partly because her full name has a lot of letters and syllables to cover. 

      A side-light moment on my car radio--I heard it dialing by, I think, a comedy oriented talk show--referred to her as "A. O. C. of Cortez," which I thought was a funny play on those initials:  the "Sea of Cortez."  But where is that again on the map??  Oh, just about directly south of me down Mexico way;  I'd actually slept in soft sand and collected sand dollars there; it's also called the Gulf of California.

  

Excess Orange Juice Admonishment

       After grudgingly pouring Connie a refill for her already consumed 16 ounce glass of morning orange juice, I was moved to remark:

         "You've had enough orange juice for a ship-load of sailors
                               circumnavigating the globe!"

Shout out; Call out

       "Shout out" and "Call out" sound alike, but they're just about the opposite of each other..  If you "shout out" to somebody, you want to recognize or acknowledge, call attention to, praise in some fashion, somebody whom you want to name; you "shout out" to them and usually in front of an audience.

       To "call out" in front of an audience or in print or electronically is to point out somebody who needs reproval and needs attention called to them because of something disturbing or not good about them.  That's "calling out" somebody.  It's really the opposite of "shouting out."
 

The NAGgy adVOCATE

       We have a friend who recommends things that she loves and believes that we will love too:  TV programs, documentaries, movies, etc.  She's a real booster for what she admires.  We appreciate that because she has good and elegant taste.

       More than that, she's insistent, so if you haven't watched her recommendations by the next time she sees you, she'll keep after you!

       I mention this because I love the name she came up with for what she does and who she is when she does this:  our friend Gena Bleier is a NAGVOCATE!

       That is a great portmanteau word.  It has something of the Yiddish word "yenta" in it too for my money; that word, like this, carries both highborn, genteel echoes AND the slightly coarser resonance of a busybody.

       She's coined it!  

                               

"100 % Recycled . . ."

I don't like seeing the phrase
"100 percent Recycled"
on toilet paper!

Somehow it gives me the creeps.
My imagery gets working.

And I don't want to give this paper
any access
to my . . . (posterior).

Does Trump Have his Wits about him--Oh, Maybe it's his Jester's.

       On the "Reliable Sources" program Sunday, March 24th, over CNN,  I heard the redoubtable journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate coverage fame use some words that had my head snapping to attention.

       Bernstein  speaks with a good degree of objectivity when he comments on "the week in Trump news and coverage."  He's learned the hard way and earned the capacity to observe with fairly cool and detached eyes the behavior of wayward presidents.

       I've tested my memory and come up with close to the exact words Carl used, especially the three crucial ones that had my head snapping.  Bernstein said that when we're listening to President Trump talk, we have to decide "whether he's being sharp-witted, dim-witted, or half-witted."  He kept a pretty even tone while saying this.