Do you know Michelle of The Green Study? I discovered her during the holidays when we were both hanging out at C4C, Company For Christmas — the open blog for folks who were alone on the holidays. Neither of us were alone, actually. In fact, I don’t think that I “chatted” with anybody who was alone. But I made some friends, including Michelle. We followed each other, and I entered her Christmas Story contest.
And I won 2nd Prize!
Recently, I entered another one of Michelle’s contests, this time for “The Worst Job I Ever Had.” And I did it again. I won second prize. But next time, I’m going to take this bit of advice:
Check out the first prize winner, The Wisdom of Life. That job was way worse than mine.
And check out mine over at The Green Study: The Gray Zone.
Using the telephone when you live in a country where you don’t speak the language is daunting. You know each time that you’re going to look like an idiot. You can’t resort to the pointing and grunting to make yourself understood that you do in person. Instead, you’re left sounding like a moron; it’s inevitable.
Normally for me looking like a dork is not a problem. Since that’s how I look frequently, I make the best of it. I even enjoy it more often than not. And those experiences often become my funniest stories.
But when you make an idiot out of yourself because you can’t communicate, it’s different. If you can’t laugh with the person who witnessed it, well, it takes the fun out of it. All you’re left with is feeling like a lonely idiot.
Knowing that humiliation would follow, each and every time I picked up the phone in when we lived in French-speaking Switzerland, my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach while my pulse rate and blood pressure soared. I was on my way to the Idiot Zone.
And that’s just how I felt when I picked up the phone to call dog breeders. We’d opted for a pure bred puppy because we had a little kid (Jacob was 6) and because my husband is a lawyer and thinks that he can research things and know what he’s getting into. Yeah right.
Anyway, in early 1998 we needed a puppy. I needed a puppy. My son needed to grow up with a dog since he had no siblings and needed someone to talk to. John got to choose the breed: An English Springer Spaniel.
That morning as always, I looked at the phone with trepidation. Shit, I thought. I picked it up and dialed.
“Bonjour. Je m’appelle Elyse. Vendez-vous les chiots?” Hi. My name is Elyse. Do you sell puppies? [Yes, I’m quite the French conversationalist. In English you can’t shut me up.]
“Would you like to speak English?” said the woman on the other end of the line.
“Yes!!!!” I said with tears of relief/delight/I-don’t-have-to-sound-like-a-dope coming to my eyes. I couldn’t believe my luck. All I could think of was just how lucky I was to not have to try to negotiate in French. Or German. Or Italian. Or Romanch. Instead, on the other end of the phone was someone who spoke English! A woman who could understand me and respond. A woman with puppies!
“Very good. I can speak English. And I have puppies. Can you visit them tomorrow?”
“Yes!”
A plan was set. We got directions and headed out the next morning to pick out a puppy!
All the puppies were in a room with some cushions and blankets on the floor. The three of us made ourselves comfortable and started cuddling puppies.
Jacob picked up the puppy closest to him and put it in his lap the way Madame Carasco, the breeder, showed him, as the puppies were still quite young. But another puppy waddled over to Jacob, pushed the first puppy off of Jacob’s lap and settled himself down for the long haul with my 7 year old son. It was the only smart thing that dog has ever done.
“Look! He loves me Mom!”
“He Loves Me, Mom!”
And then I asked the price.
Cooper is descended from a line of top show dogs that have been winning Swiss and other European competitions for generations, going back to Roman times, I’m pretty sure. Cooper couldda been a contender. But I’m not that kind of a girl (and we’re not that kind of a family). His perfect physique, beautiful coloring and his full (not cut off) tail “showed” only to friends and family. And he’s never whined once about lost glory. What a guy!
But he loves me, Mom!
Today is Cooper’s 105th Birthday, his 15th in human years. He’s an old man now, a puppy no longer. His joints are stiff, he can’t walk upstairs by himself these days, and is so blind that he only realizes we have entered or left a room by sniffing the air.
You know, in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t ask the price on the phone. Because Cooper has been well worth every centime.
Yes, I’m a two timer. A cheater. A blog whore. Yesterday, I was at Peg O’Leg’s. Today, I am chatting up Darla at She’s A Maineiac. Who knows what tomorrow shall bring. Bwwwwwwhahahahahahah
Blog Post:Hello World. Interestingly, it was about how they were going to change Medicare eligibility for folks over 55 – I was 6 months away and it seemed horribly unfair. That was close to two years ago and I was 54-1/2. Today I read that they’re talking about…
One if the best things about blogs/bloggers/blogging is the camaraderie. Because the more we all write blogs, the more we all read blogs and the more we all comment on each other’s blogs, the more fun we have. And of course, the more likely we are to meet fellow bloggers face to face in the unemployment line.
No, no, no. That’s not what I mean.
What I mean is that, we bloggers like to spread the wealth. Share the fun. Tell each other about other fun places to visit and enjoy. Other folks’ blogs. The more the merrier. (Hell, who wants to work at work anyway.)
Today I am honored to be pulled along in the wake of one of the funniest of all of my bloggin’ buddies, Peg O’Leg at her blog Peg-O-Leg’s Ramblings. Yup, today I’m posted over at Peg’s in her pretty darn new Wednesday feature called
“THIS One Should Have Been Freshly Pressed”!
Most of you know Peg as a gifted humor writer who can stand her ground among other brilliant Irish writers like James Joyce, Bram Stoker and Medbh McGuckian. Unlike Joyce, Peg is NEVER boring. Unlike Stoker, Peg never terrifies us. And unlike Medbh McGuckian, we all know who Peg IS. Plus we can spell her name, which is nice.
Now Peg created her “Should Have Been FP’d” feature after realizing that all of us bloggers, from time to time, hit the PUBLISH button thinking-hoping-wishing that the brilliant piece we’ve just posted will hit the Big Time. Reach the masses. Be Freshly Pressed. And then it misses. It doesn’t. It isn’t FP’d. Our hearts are broken when only two people end up reading that brilliant post, our STATS tank, and we need to drown our whines, in wine, ice cream and chocolate. Or, in Peg’s case, in anything Reese’s.
This has happened to you. It has happened to me. But Peg, with her big heart and blog feature eased my pain. So head on over to Peg’s to sample one of my favorite humor pieces and take in a big bunch of Peg’s. Please? I bribed her into including me in the feature by promising her brilliant stats. Don’t let me down!
The Ultimate Honor
Here’s the link in case you missed the other three links: http://pegoleg.com/. Not that I’m anxious, mind you. I just don’t have enough chocolate on hand to cope if you don’t head on over to Peg’s.
At last. At last something is being done. It’s about time that the threat from the Danish Connection has been bitten back.
For too long, you folks have had to read my posts about the need for curbing gun violence. For civil, community and government action to protect ourselves from random violence. From the bad guy with a gun. I know that you folks count on me to keep you informed. Up to date. Filled with sweet facts that you can share over coffee.
I am pleased to give you this bit of delicious news. You see, today it finally happened: Somebody took action on guns. It happened not all that far away from where I live. It happened in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Just a hop, skip and a jump from here in gun lovin’ Virginia.
It’s true. Authorities may have finally nipped the whole Danish Connection in the, ummmm, butt. Or in the butt of a gun. Or nipped somebody somewhere.
No. That’s the French Connection. I’m talking Danish. Far more dangerous. Fewer good guys. No Oscars.
Let me explain.
Today a 7 year old was suspended from school for biting his Danish pastry into the shape of a gun, pointing it and saying “bang, bang.” Witnesses are divided over whether the weapon was pointed at another student or at the ceiling.
The boy’s father was unabashed:
Welch said an assistant principal at Park Elementary School told him that his son pointed the pastry at a classmate — though the child maintains he pointed it at the ceiling.
“In my eyes, it’s irrelevant; I don’t care who he pointed it at,” Welch said. “It was harmless. It was a danish.”
(Google Image)
Meanwhile, folks with real, lethal — not tasty — guns are discussing just how many rounds it takes to bring down the drones that will, naturally, be coming after them because they exercise their Second Amendment rights to maintain an arsenal. That’s according to Congressman and official contender for “Stupidest Human On Planet Earth” Louie Gohmert (R-Where-else-but-TX) chatting on talk radio:
“I had somebody last week in Washington from either Georgia or Alabama that was saying, ‘Look, this goes back to we have got to have at least 50 rounds in our magazines because on average that’s about how many it takes to bring down a drone.’ I hope he was kidding, I don’t know for sure.”
Do you think anybody from Congressman Gomer Pile’s office might have checked to see if the guy who said this was kidding? Do you think that they suspended the guy who said that? Do you think that maybe they took away his gun permit?
Do you think that a duly elected representative of the United States Congress might have suggested that this man be investigated?
Do you think the Congressman was even a wee bit concerned? Nope. He apparently thinks it’s no big deal, or so I’m guessing because Congressman Gohmert continued:
“It is serious when the government decides, let’s just watch every little thing Americans are doing,” he added. “It’s big brother taken to a whole new scale.”
Amen, Brother Gohmert. Amen.
[Oh, the emphasis is all mine in those quotes.]
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take my chances against a 7 year old member of the Danish Connection than against some paranoid right wing nutcase who thinks he must arm himself with multiple large magazines for his multiple assault weapons because he is pretty damn sure that he will have to take on the Federal Guv’ment that he is dang sure is about to send drones to break up his barbeque.
I’m really glad they’ve started taking action on guns. But perhaps some folks need to figure out which ones are real threats and which ones are merely tasty morsels.
* * *
The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently working on 4 bills to establish more sane gun laws in America:
S.150, Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 (Feinstein)
S.54, Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013 (Leahy)
S.374, Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013 (Schumer)
S.146, School Safety Enhancements Act of 2013 (Boxer)
FiftyFourandAHalf 