Monthly Archives: February 2011

February 16, 2011 · 8:58 am

Save the subplot

Among the season’s sitcoms debuting recently is one I will keep my eye on with high hope.

You already know how I feel about sitcoms—that good ones are a dying breed, and the best ones can provide enough laughter therapy to last through the week.

I can’t say just yet that Mad Love will fulfill my therapeutic requirement, but I do know there’s a gleam of potential. The premise isn’t anything special. However, in addition to a strong lead cast and some mildly decent writing, the creators have also written in a character who is prone to mutilating common words and expressions. What’s especially funny is that her gaffes are corrected boldly by the one character who seems least likely to know enough to do so.

Dim-witted characters aren’t uncommon sitcom material. However, I can’t readily recall any having this particular trait. There are so many ways the writers could go with Erin. They could shape her into a modern day Mrs. Malaprop, which would be hilarious. Haven’t we all worked with one person who just couldn’t seem to get straight a simple figure of speech? I’m tempted to send in a few real-life ideas.

The problem is, it looks as though Erin’s character could be short-lived, as she was dumped by her boyfriend, one of the main characters, in the first episode. I can only hope they at least remain colleagues at the law firm in which the story takes place.

It seems that Chicago Sun-Times TV critic Paige Wiser agrees with me. In fact, her review took the words right out of my mouth: “The other bright spot is Ben’s ex-girlfriend Erin, played by Alexandra Breckenridge. She’s given to mangled expressions like “taken for granite” and “an escape goat,” and I hope to God that Ben’s new relationship doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of her. Come back, Erin. Please.”

Erin’s calling a fabric swatch a “snatch” was just a tease.

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February 15, 2011 · 8:23 am

Correctile dysfunction

When it comes to matters of grammar and pronunciation, I observe two kinds of people:  those who appreciate being corrected so they can learn from their mistakes and those who are offended by being corrected.

One might argue that it depends on the tone and context of the correction. Certainly, most people would not care to be schooled in a harsh or a humiliating manner. My experience is that some people are open to learning and some are not. Somewhere in between are those who say they appreciate being reminded of the correct way to write and speak, but turn around and resort to old habits. I guess that’s why they’re called habits.

I put myself in the first category. While it is never fun to learn I’ve committed a grammatical error or mispronunciation, especially as someone who claims to know a fair amount about such things, I desire to learn and improve. I admit there are rules I don’t understand. There are several I have trouble remembering. This is one reason for the Red Pen Invitation I extend on this blog’s About page and also why I confess to being on a lifelong journey to get it right. I admit it stings a bit when a reader calls me on an error or challenges a statement, but I’m grateful for the lesson.

When I choose to correct others—usually family members or close friends—I try to be judicious and kind. As much as I’d like, I don’t correct anyone’s children but my own. Believe me, for every time I hear or read a loved one’s error, I let slide another nine. Where I step on shaky ground is in assuming everyone is as enthusiastic as I am about getting it right.

What about those in the second category? Those who say, essentially, “I’ve pronounced it that way since I was seven and there’s no way I’m going to start changing now.” Or “I know that’s the rule but it doesn’t make sense to me, so I am going to keep saying it incorrectly.” Or “Frankly, I don’t care what the difference is between ‘who’ and ‘whom,’ ‘its’ and ‘it’s,’ or when to use ‘I’ and when to use ‘me.’” “I don’t care.”

What I’d ask readers to consider is:  which kind of person are you when it comes to being corrected? Provided the corrector is polite and judicious, are you open or are you offended?

If you’re in the former group, do you have a process for remembering what you’ve learned? Do you write it down or come up with a clever mnemonic? Create an occasion to use it in a sentence?

If you’re in the latter group, what’s your reasoning for closed ears? Do you consider critique a nuisance or a blow to the ego? Are you apathetic about such matters? Or do you believe correct grammar and proper speech are unimportant?

My eyes and ears are open. Tell me and maybe I’ll stand corrected.

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February 14, 2011 · 7:55 am

Storyboard land

All right, I admit it, I am doing this Valentine’s Day thing to death. Just one more, I promise.

Trend Hunter, which had all those zany gift ideas I told you about on Saturday, is offering a dozen or so ideas—storyboards, actually—for proposing marriage to your sweetheart today.

I trust that, if you were going to pop the question on Valentine’s Day, you would have planned it by now. But perhaps you’re impulsive and need the right creative inspiration for how to do it. If that’s the case, you’ll find everything from a talking engagement ring to saying it with sneakers to creative deployment of social media.

One thing these ideas have in common is that it’s all about the storyboard, even if it’s illustrated in one’s mind rather than physically laid out on cardboard or in a graphic design program. How will you stage the ultimate ask (don’t you hate “ask” as a noun?), what effects will help you build up to the big moment and, most important, what steps will you take to ensure the desired response?

I was proposed to on Valentine’s Day. Allow me to share the storyboard.

First, you must know a couple of things about us. One, he was, is and always will be a big fan of the N.C. State Wolfpack (remember, it’s college basketball season). Two, he and I were big fans of the then-popular sitcom, Newhart, in which that week’s episode featured the exchange of Valentine’s gifts.

If I recall correctly (it’s been 26 years), loveable but slightly dimwitted handyman George Utley, played by the avuncular Tom Poston, was advising one of the characters on how to make sure his sweetheart liked her Valentine’s gift.

George suggested, “First give her a box of coconut candy,” to which the man responded, “But she hates coconut candy.” George said, “I know, but then, when you give her the real gift, she’ll be happy,” or something to that effect.

That’s how it played out. Guy gives gal coconut candy. Gal says, “Thanks, but I hate coconut candy.” Guy says, “I know, that’s why I got you this,” gives her the second gift and she loves it.

Back to the storyboard. On February 14, 1985, he invited me over for a Valentine dinner. Even though the Wolfpack was playing, when I got to his apartment, the television wasn’t even on. Instead a Linda Ronstadt album of love songs—might have been Lush Life—was spinning on the turntable.

We ate spiced shrimp and drank champagne. After dinner, we exchanged gifts. I gave him a coffee mug. He gave me a bag of Mounds bars.

I said, “Thanks, but you keep it. I don’t like coconut candy.”

He said, “I know, and that’s why I got you this.”

I unwrapped the box and found inside a diamond engagement ring.

Great storyboard, superb execution, happy ending. 

I wonder if the ’pack is playing tonight.

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February 12, 2011 · 10:46 am

My edgy Valentine

At the risk of OD-ing on the whole Valentine’s Day thing—after all, it’s just one more in a long list of  over-blown occasions—I’ll offer one more resource for procrastinators who can manage to get a hold of one of these by Monday. Otherwise, consider them gift ideas for next year.

I’ve happened upon an addictive retail site associated with Trend Hunter magazine. At my age, I could always use a little extra help in hunting trends.

My favorite in their line of Valentine’s Day greeting ideas are the sarcastic holiday sentiments, tagline: The Snarky Valentine’s Day Cards, Skip the Sap.

If you have a naughty Valentine, consider the vulgar stuffed animals and sweets. Otherwise, there is close to something for everyone:  anti-Valentine’s Day toys, anatomical cupcakes (shaped like the human heart), flirty, lip-shaped fashion accessories, even tasty treats for your favorite Muppet fan.

It boggles my mind to see the hundreds of products available for a holiday that, early in my lifetime, was honored simply with a candy heart etched with “be mine” and punny cards, illustrated with puppies and fruit for classmates. “You’re dog-gone right, you’re my Valentine.” “You’re a peach and I’m plum crazy about you.”

Ah, the good old days.

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February 11, 2011 · 8:18 am

My mundane Valentine

What do dirty dishes, Chris Rock and Valentine’s Day have in common?

It seems that the release this week of Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage & Dirty Dishes, is timed to answer the practical person’s—or couple’s—Valentine’s Day gift dilemma.

Does your mate have an allergy to chocolate or a drawer already bursting with red silk delicates? Have you spent so many Valentine’s Days together that there isn’t a creative gift idea left to be hatched? Do you wish Cupid would swoop down and deposit just one practical solution for life’s daily grit?

Then it could be that Spousonomics is the treament for your it’s-the-Friday-before-the-holiday-and-there’s-nothing-left-on-the-shelves-and-besides-I’m-not-in-the-mood-anyway blues. Co-written by journalists Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson and recommended by Freakonomics co-authors Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Spousonomics applies economic principles to addressing the mundane challenges of marriage. Division of labor, incentives, trade-offs, moral hazard and, ahem, supply and demand are a few examples of the analogies the authors apply to the common conflicts facing the common couple. Dirty dishes, shoveling snow, dealing with the kids, it’s all in there. Oh boy!

The authors have also set up a blog, which might suit you if you’d like your advice in bite-sized pieces. Be forewarned. It includes a disgusting clip of Chris Rock’s take on the differences between men and women, which the blog could have done without. As a woman of taste, I recommend not clicking.

I confess, I’ve only read a few excerpts. There might really be something substantive there. But trust me, if you decide to buy this for your Valentine, you might want to have a box of Godiva truffles handy as a back-up.

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll let you in on some more fanciful gift ideas.

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February 10, 2011 · 8:08 am

Part of a complete breakfast

There was terrific news yesterday that Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is regaining her ability to speak. This is a huge leap of progress given the severity of her injuries. The news warmed my heart.

It seems we aren’t getting updates of her condition as frequently as we were in the first weeks following the shooting tragedy she survived, so I listen to all reports with an interested ear.

This might sound silly, but what really warmed my heart was what she reportedly said in one of her first utterances. As breakfast was being served, she asked for toast. I don’t think we know whether “toast” was said as a single word or part of a complete sentence. No matter.

I am the last person to know what I’d have done in Rep. Giffords’ horrific situation – how does anyone muster the courage and will to fight for her life given such spotty odds and gigantic obstacles? But I do know that the first thing I’d ask for after regaining speech and an appetite would very likely be toast.

To me, toast is one of life’s greatest comfort foods. If I’m hungry and don’t know what I want, I have toast. Toast settles the stomach and softens the blows.

I like a woman who knows what she wants. Now give the woman some toast.

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February 9, 2011 · 9:16 am

Blind luck

Today’s topic is, as the young people might say, kinda random.

It might seem that it comes out of nowhere, but there have been a couple of occasions this week that stirred me to give thought—and thanks—to something I often take for granted.

First, it was while I was editing a brochure on eyeglasses that it struck me how utterly dependent I am on something so small, yet so brilliantly invented. Then a casual conversation with someone whose eyes are as bad as mine brought it home.

I started wearing glasses in sixth grade. There wasn’t a fashion accessory much cooler in 1971 than octagonal, wire-rimmed frames. Now I can’t find the alarm clock in the morning without my beloved specs.  

I always wondered what it would be like to lose them. How would I survive? One day I had the chance to find out and, although it was 10 years ago, the memory still conjures panic.

My husband, son and I were on vacation in Aruba. The first day, I slipped on some jagged rocks, tearing up my whole right side. I was so covered with bruises and open cuts and was so sore that I could barely walk.

The second day, we took an all-day boat excursion around the island. The Jolly Pirate turned out to be an overcrowded party boat offering all the rum punch you could drink and some guided snorkeling, neither of which appealed to me. I had tried snorkeling only once – on our honeymoon, an island vacation that, in addition to a bad snorkeling experience, brought me intestinal flu, bronchitis and severe sun poisoning.

In Aruba I decided to give snorkeling another try. The boat had made several stops during which I had stayed aboard. The last stop, at the deepest point in the cruise, was the site of the featured attraction—an old shipwreck. The guide gave me some special goggles that fit tightly over my glasses so I could see under water. I lasted about five minutes, decided I still hated snorkeling and swam back toward the boat. As I was climbing the ladder, I pulled off the goggles and away went my one and only pair of glasses, flung far into the deep blue sea.

Immediately, my husband and son and a few people who were around to witness my mistake swam around to search for the glasses, but found nothing.

I sat there, on the edge of the boat, blind, disoriented and by then a little seasick, facing eight more days in Aruba. I didn’t have a spare pair, or a written prescription. I didn’t even have prescription sunglasses; all I had were clip-on shades with nothing to clip them to.

Bruised, blind and crying, I could not imagine how I’d get by another minute, let alone a week. We’d have to go home.

Someone brought my plight to the attention of the guides, who had helped themselves amply to the all-you-can-drink cheap rum over the course of many hours in the hot sun. I dismissed the idea as futile. Just then, the jolliest and seemingly most rum-soaked pirate guide took a swan dive off the side of the boat. He stayed under water a good long time, without a snorkel, and came to the surface with my glasses.

I was without my sight for only about half an hour, but it was almost as if I could see my whole life pass before my eyes. Or, in this case, not.

The morals of this tale: Travel with a spare pair and a copy of your prescription, don’t prejudge a jolly pirate and give thanks for the things in your life that give you sight.

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February 8, 2011 · 9:01 am

Fill in the blank pages

Last fall, the electronic news organization Politico started a little parlor game in which people take turns predicting sentences from yet-to-be-released books. It started with Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars. At lunch one day, a table of Washington insiders took guesses at what snip-its about Administration officials might appear in the soon-to-be released book.

Vanity Fair joined the fun and put the question out to its online readers. Hilarity ensued. One reader submitted: “Biden had ducked behind the oversized leather chair where Bo had curled up to sleep. He rubbed the dog behind his ears as he put a manila folder in his mouth.”

Yesterday, crediting the game Politico had started, Vanity Fair kicked off another round, this time inviting readers to guess what sentences might appear in the forthcoming memoir by 20-year-old Bristol Palin, set to hit shelves in June.

Comments put forth so far include: “Going through something like that always makes me think of an old expression: ‘That was really hard—really hard—but I’m so much more of an adult now’” and my personal favorite,  “I was like, ‘Levi,’ and then he was like, ‘What?’”

That a 20-year-old would have lived enough life to fill 300 pages of memoir confounds me. Even having a mother making a controversial splash in the national spotlight, becoming a mother herself at 18, having an ex-boyfriend who posed for Playgirl and competing on Dancing with the Stars, that still leaves a couple of hundred pages to fill. For gosh sakes, I have sweaters older than Bristol Palin.

Amazon has just begun taking pre-orders for the book that is for now named “Untitled Bristol Palin Memoir.”

Use your imaginations and guess what might be in it. You can follow the comments Vanity Fair’s readers submit and contribute your own comments there. Otherwise, if you’d prefer to scratch your creative itch before a more limited audience, feel free to do it here. What sentences would you expect to read in the memoir?

I’ll start. “One morning I shot a caribou in my pajamas.” What he was doing in my pajamas I’ll never know.

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February 7, 2011 · 10:01 am

Chili Bowl XLV scorecard

Monday morning quarterbacks are analyzing who did what right and wrong yesterday and assessing how outcomes measured up to predictions. I’m reviewing a scorecard of my own sinful Super Bowl performance.

In my Saturday blog post, I anticipated there would be chili, but anticipated avoiding it—and beer—in the spirit of complying with my prescribed dietary restrictions. It’s lonely being a laryngopharyngeal reflux disease sufferer while attending a chili party at which 10 or more varieties of chili are featured. My will power lasted long enough for me to hang up my coat.

After enjoying samples—two to three spoonfuls each—of nine different chilis, I admitted failure. And went to another party.

In all, let the scorecard show that, after 25 bites of forbidden, delicious chili (which we’ll count as one super sin), I consumed enough chips and dip to collapse into a gluttonous stupor. I scooped up layered Mexican dip and chili con queso and discovered a yummy new dip – pepperoni cream cheese.

The only way to shock myself back into consciousness was with two large cookies and a cupcake, followed by two extra strength Tums and a Zantac. At least let the scorecard show that the only thing I drank was water.

To sum it up, the final score of Super Bowl XLV was Sins 7, Virtues 1. Thank goodness the season is over.

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February 5, 2011 · 9:58 am

Chili bowl XLV

Every year, when the Super Bowl comes around and people ask which team I’m rooting for, I almost never have an answer. Not since 1988 have I had a dog in that fight. Every few years I find myself at a Super Bowl party, where I have to feign enthusiasm about a particular team.

Inside I am thinking:  “I’m just in it for the dip.”

I like a good Super Bowl party as much as the next person, but for different reasons. I really go for the food. And the beer. At least I did before my doctor cut off all sources of fun.

I love dip—onion dip, artichoke dip, spinach dip, bean dip, seven-layer dip, guacamole, chili con queso, salsa and even that big bowl of bleu cheese dressing, with or without the spicy wings for which it’s intended. I love Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos. Ah, then there’s the chili, beloved bowl of Heaven. With or without beans (preferably with), white or red, hot or mild, preferably hiding under an obscenely thick blanket of shredded cheddar and sour cream.

If I could plant myself in the corner and have my own chili-and-dip-off, I’d be content. Unfortunately, because I know so little about football (the Super Bowl is football, isn’t it?), I dread that inevitable moment when the person next to me looks away for a sec, or returns from the bathroom, just as a big play is made and everyone is yelling. Then that person turns to me and asks, “What just happened?” That’s when I have no choice but to stuff 27 chips in my mouth and make the sorry-my-mouth-is-full hand gesture. Then I head to the bathroom.

Often I’m happy to stay home and work a crossword puzzle with the game on in the background, and usually I fall asleep about halftime. That historic second during Super Bowl XXXVIII when Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s bare tee-tees? Slept right through it.

This year I am braving a party once again. A really big Super Bowl party. The invitation seemed enticing, even though I will know only one of about 100 people who will be there. Maybe I’ll go as Gail from Green Bay and hide beneath a big cheese head. As long as I can still get to the dip.

Or maybe I’ll meet some fellow geeks with whom to debate the merits of switching from Roman to Arabic numerals.

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