What Everybody Thinks

          You may have noticed a few divergent views in the world today. But I am here to remind you that there are four things EVERYBODY thinks.

Thing #1: Everyone thinks they know what’s funny.  It’s been said that if you want to compliment people, you can’t go wrong telling them they have a great sense of humor.  Because, even if someone is not personally funny, they truly believe that they know what is. 

We all know this isn’t actually true; we see people guffaw at truly unfunny things, predictable lines in movies, low-brow humor, even immature outbursts.  And we pity them.  But it’s because we really do know what’s funny.

Thing #2: Everyone thinks they have plenty of common sense.  Even the most badly behaving person you know will confess that they were blessed with good common sense.  It’s everyone else who’s a dope.

Voltaire reminded us that common sense is not so common, and while this is true, no one seems to believe it.  Everyone thinks they, in particular, have an abundance of this virtue.

Thing #3: Everyone thinks they know how to drive well.  They see other people making horrendous mistakes on the road, cutting folks off, running stop signs, and changing lanes without signaling.  But they, personally, are skilled drivers. 

No one ever goes into the Department of Motor Vehicles, turns in their license, and says, “I just can’t seem to get the hang of this.”

Thing #4: Everyone thinks they know best how to run the country. Mark Twain once said it’s too bad that the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.  

I presume these same people think they have sharp senses of humor, loads of common sense, and can out-drive anyone else on the road.

And so you see that our nation is not so fractured, after all.  We will always agree on at least four things.

And I might add a fifth thing: That my books are a wonderful bargain!  Find them all right here.

Shots on Me

          First, I am not complaining.  Okay, I’m complaining a little bit.  I just had the second set of injections from harpoon-like needles that look like this:

          One of the techs at the medical office said these are the largest needles they have.  This came as no surprise whatsoever.

          In case you are new to this blog, I am part of a clinical trial to try out a shot that is supposed to reduce my breast cancer tumor.  And trust me, I am excited and grateful that I don’t have to do chemo.  BUT… or I should say, BUTT… these are shots I have to have every two weeks (and then every four weeks) for six months, one in each hip.

          Why not just one, gigantic shot?  I’ll tell you why.  Because there is no needle in existence-- outside the profession of whaling-- that humongous.  So they have to give me half in one shot, and half in the other side.

          But wait, there’s more!  The liquid in them is so thick that they can’t just give me the shot in the usual few seconds it takes.  No, no. Each shot takes a full minute and a half to inject it all. 

          Think about standing there in excruciating pain for 90 seconds as the nurse slo-o-o-owly injects the liquid.  NINETY SECONDS.  You can’t even find a bad commercial on television that runs that long.  And then doing it again.

          Of course, I’m grateful this stuff exists and I’ll be even more grateful if it shrinks the tumor.  But my back side is not particularly grateful right now.  Just saying.

          Have you watched my YouTube Mom videos lately?  Check ‘em out here—hundreds of life hacks in short videos that thankfully do not show my injection sites. 

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel

          You just don’t hear much about vowels these days.  There they are, helping us string together words and communicate with the world, but they are completely unheralded.

Sure, they are bought and sold on television (Wheel of Fortune), coveted in Scrabble games, and probably get a bit of attention in national spelling bees, but that’s it.

So today I’m heralding vowels. I decided to see if there are any English words that use all of them in order and was thrilled (yes, I am easy to please) to find not one, but TWO examples.  Unfortunately, these are words most folks don’t know.  Okay, one of them most folks don’t know.

Let’s start with the most familiar one: Facetious.  It is not the same as sarcastic, though many people use those words interchangeably.  It actually means joking or being flippant about something serious.  I was being facetious when I was told I’d be having major surgery in November and I said, “You mean I could get out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner?”

          The next word is abstemious.  I am not sure I’ve ever heard anyone utter this word, but maybe I just don’t hang with the right people.  At any rate, abstemious refers to restraint and moderation, especially in eating and drinking (and this could be why, as a foodie, I have never heard associates use this term).  So you could say, “June was very abstemious when it came to dining.” Or maybe she had an eating disorder, who can say?

          (This should even please those who include Y as a vowel because both those adjectives can be turned into adverbs by adding ly, thus keeping the order.)

          You remember that our daughter, Nicole, went to Norway on her LDS mission.  So I decided to ask her if Norwegian had any vowels we don’t use. Turns out they have three more! (Wasn't it enough that they just won the most Winter Olympic medals? Now they have to have the most vowels?) Get this:

          Å is pronounced “oh” but the way someone from Long Island would say dog.  It’s more like “dough-ugh,” so the oh would be kind of “Oh-uh.”

          Ø is pronounced like the u in fur.

          And æ is pronounced like the short a in the word back.  In Norway their a is pronounced “ah.” 

          I wonder if they have words that include all eight of their vowels in order.  I’m betting we win on that one.

Just think of all the wonderful vowels you can enjoy if you buy my books right here!

What Year is This, Again?

          I think I’m stuck in a time warp.  Because my parents were the ages of my friends’ grandparents, I have the upbringing—and even use the expressions—of someone who was raised during the Great Depression.

 I still think some items “ought to cost a nickel,” and bet you “dollars to donuts” that I’ll “see you in the funny papers.”  Growing up I knew that a fuddy-duddy would probably not be in cahoots with an eager beaver.  Unless he’d fallen off the beam. In fact, I gave this same quirk to my main character in my last book, Golden.

I am baffled by clerks who don’t look up and greet you the minute you walk into a store.  I’m shocked when men on the airport shuttle don’t get up to give a woman their seat.  And I resist the urge to tell young ladies that their bra strap is showing, reminding myself that this is the very look they’re going for.

On the other hand, given names like FDR, Ho Chi Minh, Gandhi, and Harry S Truman, I can tell you which ones were “all wet” and which ones were “cookin’ with gas.” I didn’t live through that era, but I somehow absorbed it anyway.

And I love the music.  Big Band can bring me out of a slumpy mood faster than you can flip your wig. Last week I had it cranked up on The Robot Who Shall Not Be Named Lest You Get Into a Long, Involved Conversation with Her.

And I was dancing through the house to Glenn Miller when I passed our daughter, Nicole.  “Don’t you wish you’d grown up in the Forties?” I said.

“I basically did.”

          Well, hot dog!  I think that’s pretty swell.

Jitterbug on over to my website and check out my YouTube Mom videos!