spring is a time for discovery
Posted on March 28, 2007
Filed Under suburban joys, snark |
Spring is a time for new beginnings, rebirth, unbridled enthusiasms and discovery.
I will share a few things I have discovered this second week of Spring.
1. Vacuuming the dog is a superior way to remove unwanted hair and accumulations of dirt and road salt. She enjoys this and My Better Half finally has the proof that I am, indeed, crazy.
2. The term Paddy Wagon is no longer used in reference to the police van. Thank you Sergeant Pathiakis for clearing that up last Friday while the girl scouts were visiting the town Safety Center. Sorry Patty Sullivan and Mary MacDonald and Meghan McDonough, all mothers standing by while I made my unintentional racial slur. I will be calling it the Prisoner Transport Vehicle from now on.
3. The seven pounds spilling up and over the waistline of my jeans after a long winter of peanut butter Cup and ice cream indulgence is called my “muffin top”. Thanks Dixie for filling me in on the lingo. Here I was thinking I had a spare tire. Muffin top is so apropos, so illustrative. I may never wear jeans again.
4. I am not quite the calm-assertive pack leader that The Dog Whisperer wants me to be. I’ve got assertive down to a science but the calm thing may require pharmaceuticals.
I would not be surprised if a Humane Society representative decided to pay me a visit after this morning’s jog. Apparently Tallulah thinks the ‘heel’ command requires a nose and at least two legs out in front. I believe we were racing for pole position much of the way. Kind of like the classic competition: War Admiral versus Seabiscuit. “And now Tallualh has the lead, but cce is approaching on the right flank. Will she take it by a nose, folks?” The answer is, Yes, after hauling back on the leash several thousand times and then slapping her nose with the my hand when it crept past my thigh. Doesn’t that sound like I’m commanding the situation like a good pack leader should?
5. Age means injury. The lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) that has developed since shoveling the walkway last weekend is a bad, bad sign. This could mean that my defeating Sissy Bankhead for the country club tennis trophy this summer is less than certain. You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted
d to wipe the court with her smug, All American arse since last summer’s routing. She with the perfect slice serve, that cute little drop shot volley; she was mine, until this.
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is it a racial slur against irish people?
i thought paddy wagon was a nickname for padlocked wagon.
thanks for setting my foot-in-my-foreign-mouth straight.
also, is sissy that same one that had a pimple on her chin a few weeks ago?
if it is, pimples mean stress (i know it sistah)
so if she is stressed, you can beat her despite your epicondylitis. Its all mental. (i lose to steve in ping pong ALL the time because of the mental games)
that trophy is yours.
listen skinny… i’m gonna call you out on the muffin top.
Tried to post this earlier but failed…
Chesca - yup “paddy” wagon is now un-pc. How’s a girl to know these things? I am sooo embarrassed. The provenance of the phrase never occurred to me.
esl - The size of the jeans that I don’t fit into anymore is really not the issue. Fact is, even my “fat jeans”, those I reserved for trips to McDonald’s and post-Thanksgiving dinner are too tight. Growth is growth and unwanted at that!
I once upended the entire pro-choice movement in LA when one [white] woman objected to my saying words to mean ‘let’s speak the truth’ by using the phrase, “let’s call a spade a spade.” Funny thing, the black women didn’t think it meant anything. PC is in the ear of the beholder, I guess.
Spade a spade? I can’t even imagine how that could be offensive. Spades are a suit in cards, no?
Came across your blog on a series of “oh that looks interesting” clicks. Wish I could remember which one lead me to here so I could send a thanks.
I feel your pain on the muffin top - though mine is more bunt cake in proportion lol.
My 5 month old golden retriever won’t even listen to Mr. Millan’s pack leader point of view when it comes to “heel.” Perhaps I, too, need medicated assistance. lol
I hope you know that I am out here. I have had such insightful comments to share and my computer at home doesn’t seem to let me post here, damnit. And I should say that by insightful I mean witty, or rather what passes for witty at midnight after a glass of wine and seven consecutive nights without achieving an REM state.
I love, love, love your writing. And Anne LaMott. And your writing. And another person who may have said, “C’mon, let’s sit indian style.”
We have been watching a lot of Peter Pan these days, it’s a pleasant break from the Princesses. One of the songs still talks about going to “fight the injuns” I have to believe Disney might want to rethink that, though they are the folks brainwashing my daughter into thinking that kindness to all at the cost of self and finding a true love and keeping it new are the most important things in life.
The expression “to call a spade a spade” is thousands of years old and etymologically has nothing whatsoever to do with any racial sentiment. The second is that in spite of this, some people think it is a racial statement, and therefore it should be treated with some caution.
To call a spade a spade, which means, ironically for this discussion, ‘to speak plainly and bluntly; to speak without euphemisms’, is first found in Ancient Greece. The exact origin is uncertain; the playwright Menander, in a fragment, said “I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade,” but Lucian attributes the phrase to Aristophanes. Later, Plutarch notes that “The Macedonians are a rude and clownish people who call a spade a spade.” (It is worth noting that the Greek word translated as “spade” seems actually to mean something like “bowl” or “trough”; the “spade” may be based on a Renaissance mistranslation. In this case the original expression was “to call a bowl a bowl,” and thus the “spade” expression is “only” 500, rather than 2,500, years old.)
After it first appeared in English in the sixteenth century, the saying became quite common, and was used in various forms and allusions. For example:
Cecily: When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen: I am glad to say I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
–Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Thank you anymouse for clearing the spade thing up. Where do you find this etymological stuff?
I feel compelled to share that I once said to my husband, “Let’s call a horse a horse, ok?” He has never failed to work that mistake into a discussion about whether I have something right or wrong.
Amanda:
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
CCE- I just wanted to let you know that I take full responsibility for last nights Spring Snow Fall. It is all my fault. This past weekend, I took down the stakes that so lovingly protected my front yard from the monster stoner city snow plow, and I planted petunias. You see, it is my fault. Yesterday afternoon, I carried in my huge urn full of dirt and flowers into the mud room, which is named correctly since I gave up washing the floor when my third boy was born. I then, needed something to cover the flowers planted in the grown, grabbed the pottery barn sheets off my bed, since this inside of my house is being painted and I had no access to anything else. Hopefully, my delicate petunias will survive under my 1000 count cotton sheets. Once I again, it was my excitement about spring that upset the gods. Call me if you want me to shovel your driveway.
PS. At least school wasn’t cancelled today! I guess I prayed to the right god for that one…
I didn’t plant petunias…they were pansies….
Pansies are probably pretty safe but petunias would be a disaster!