Have the searing heat and the national debt debate got you down? A scan of newspapers, Internet and television news and Facebook posts, not to mention those oft-forgotten personal conversations, shows a pretty grumpy America. We’re hot and we’re mad and we wonder how things could get any worse. Hrumph.
As I thought this morning about what to wear that would absorb the perspiration, and dreaded doing all the things I have to do today and over the weekend that involve going out in the 100-degree weather, my calendar spoke to me.
It happens that I’m scheduled to visit two hospice patients today and tomorrow. One visit involves taking an elderly patient out to an appointment. This woman asked me yesterday if I wanted to cancel because she was afraid the heat was going to be too much for me. This is the same woman who, when I expressed my condolences for the recent passing of her husband, said, “Thank you, but there are so many people worse off than I am.”
This is not intended to be about how people experience grief or face their mortality, or even to talk about who’s worse off than whom. We’re all entitled to our own feelings and, when it comes to misery, there’s no hierarchy.
But I’m choosing to see it that way this weekend. Yes, it’s 115 degrees in our cars. Yes, our country is swirling down with the Ty-D Bowl man in his little boat, taking our personal savings and investments right along with it.
But for the next two days, I’ll be with people who are facing some pretty unpleasant issues as well. My plan is to live in their realities for a while, and hopefully exchange the humidity and the national brawl for some perspective.
My friends and contacts are embracing Google+, which I assume is Facebook’s latest competitor. I’m aware of the dynamic between the two companies and find it no surprise that Google has stepped onto the mat to give Facebook a run for its members.
Everyone was encouraged to sing a song. There was no “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” The kids sang Broadway tunes or popular songs of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.
Sure, I believe it’s always good to use simple language to get one’s point across. Often the fewer syllables the better. At the same time, I delight in learning new words—and using them. I was once told by an employer to quit using phrases the average Joe wouldn’t know right off the bat. I’m still a little grumpy about that.
The question is: How does one punctuate the possessive form of a name that is already possessive? Put another way, when the name of a store or a church is possessive—ending in apostrophe-s—and is 
Jury rigged? Hmm. I didn’t know that, but later learned that jury rigging (no Casey Anthony jokes) is a sailing term.
It goes on to explain that “the adjectival use of ‘jury’ in the sense of makeshift or temporary dates from at least 1616, when it appeared in John Smith’s A Description of New England” and lays out 
Urban Dictionary explains that “jerry” has come to refer to something that is bad or defective: “a pejorative use of the male nickname Jerry.” Jerry as a pejorative? I didn’t know this either; did you?
All the while I was poring over these contemporary sources, what was really lingering in the back of my mind was Michael Jackson’s 1980s jeri curl.
This 9th century bishop of Winchester and patron saint of the Winchester Cathedral became a saint for working a miracle, as saints do. His had something to do with eggs. I can’t find many details about that either. But that’s not what his feast day is known for.
