Monthly Archives: February 2012

February 22, 2012 · 6:50 pm

Ashes, ashes

I started today a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to attend Ash Wednesday services at our church. I had a plane to catch, so it just wasn’t possible.

As for many Christians, Ash Wednesday serves as a definitive and dramatic crossover into the contemplative season of Lent. The hour-long service at our church bathes me in an almost magical blend of prayer, music and liturgy that sends me back out into the world calm and unhurried and inspired for the next 40 days.

Before heading to the airport this morning,  I went online and tried to find an Ash Wednesday service—of any denomination—in my destination city. As best I could see, none of the churches in the area had services posted. I had no time to call any of them, so I acknowledged sadly that I’d have to sit it out this year.

Just after clearing security at National Airport’s Delta terminal at 10:55 a.m., an announcement sounded over the intercom that there would be an Ash Wednesday service in the airport chapel beginning at 11:00.

I didn’t have to board my flight until 11:25, so I exited the secure area and hightailed it to the chapel, tucked behind Dunkin’ Donuts.

I was the second worshiper to arrive and the only passenger; the rest of the 14-member congregation were airport employees and crew members.

Granted, it wasn’t the hour at St. Alban’s I had hoped for. Still, we recited Psalm 51, read two verses from Hebrews, heard a bit of Mark’s Gospel and sang along to a boom box blasting out “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” A swift imposition of ashes, and we were out in under 15 minutes. I went back through security, where the TSA agent spotted my ashes, scanned my ID and remarked how fitting that my name is Monica Bernadette. I was at the gate five minutes before boarding.

No, it wasn’t the hour of contemplative prayer and soothing Taizé music I might have enjoyed at my home church. But considering I had already written it off, the Ash-n-Dash was an unexpected blessing.

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February 18, 2012 · 1:29 pm

Venus and Mars

This one goes out to the guys, but gals, pay attention; this may help you too.

My husband has decided to clean out his side of the medicine cabinet. In an act of kindness and generosity, today he offered to yield some real estate to me. He knows women need more space, but I know he wonders why.

Olay Micro Sculpting Serum

I’ve heard many a man bemoan the fact that his missus takes up disproportionate space in the bathroom and bedroom with her mysterious self maintenance gear. I know couples who have engaged in warfare, usually waged by an encroached-upon mister trying to reclaim his rightful flossing zone.

I maintain that the root of the decades-old gender conflict is a simple lack of understanding. And–unlike the self tanner we chickadees apply at the first sign of spring–it’s natural.

Is there any wonder? A random pluck from my own shelf surfaced “Night Recovery Cream.”

Perhaps men wouldn’t shake their heads and their fists at our products if they understood—in their terms—what each one was for.

For the educational benefit of the males, I’ve contemplated the contents of the Venus side of the cabinet—or tool shed—and tried to put them into a context a Martian might better appreciate:

pore minimizer spackle
foundation paint and primer in one
exfoliator sander
self tanner stain
hydrating body gloss shellac
lip liner painting tape
anti-gravity lift cream ceiling paint
Nair® weed killer
tweezers weed whacker
PedEgg™ lathe
foot smoothing cream foot smoothing cream. Would it kill you to use it?

Would anyone care to put on an addition?

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Filed under All Things Wordish, Beauty and Fashion

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February 6, 2012 · 8:08 am

The whole truth

As the Super Bowl approached, someone suggested I write about the expression “the whole nine yards.” Why nine, she asked, when the football field is marked in 10-yard increments?

As with many word matters I research, there isn’t clear consensus on any one theory. Various opinion-holders each claim resolutely that the origin of “the whole nine yards” pertains to rounds of ammunition, the volume of a cement mixer, the cubic footage of a grave, the length of a bridal train or nine shipyards used during World War II. The one I’m going with referred to the Long Jump field event. So there we are; it’s not about football at all.

This got me thinking, though, about the whole ball of wax. No clear consensus on that one either. As best I can tell, “the whole ball of wax” has something to do with the way in which inherited property was once identified. Or it derives from “bailiwick.” You choose.

How about the whole enchilada? The whole shooting match? The whole shebang? What is a shebang, anyway?

I recently heard someone say, “That’s a whole different ball of wax.” Nothing like a good mixed metaphor to take us back to the ball game.

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February 4, 2012 · 9:38 am

A mighty near mis-fire

It’s good thing I stopped myself before I acted irrationally and fired off another letter to the editor of The Washington Post. Instead I thought twice and had a good laugh at my own expense.

You might remember that some time back I wrote the Post, highlighting a grammatical error in one of the paper’s editorial page headlines. They didn’t find my letter fit to print and I didn’t hear a thing from anyone except my faithful blog readers. (I still owe Craig Dees a prize for best suggested follow-up).

Let me set the stage.

The summer before I started college, I worked in Georgetown with a woman from Charlotte. I’m not sure I’d ever met anyone from North Carolina before, and I found charm in her manner of speech.

Once, in conversation, a phrase she used caught my ear:  “Debbie said I might could borrow her car.” Might could.

I understood that what she meant was might be able to, although I actually thought she was joking when she said it.

As you know, I’ve since met dozens, if not hundreds, of North Carolinians, and have come to enjoy their colloquialisms. Might could is one I still hear a lot but, as many Southerners as I know, I don’t recall ever hearing it from anyone from South Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia or Arkansas or Alabama. No matter.

You’ll find no shortage of online dialogue about might could if you’re inclined to look it up. I learned there’s a Southern rock band called Might Could. Cute.

I also learned that might could is a “double modal,” and is as frowned upon as a double negative. Even so, the phrase, while structurally incorrect, has gained acceptance as a mere regional lapse. Frankly, I’ve heard it so many times over the past three decades that, when I do, only one hair stands up on the back of my neck.

But to read it in the paper, that’s a whole different grind of grits.

Yesterday the Post ran an opinion piece by leading foreign policy expert Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His piece was entitled: “Powering down: A decline in U.S. military might could upend the world order.”

I was outraged. Shame on Dr. Kagan for this sloppy title, if he indeed wrote it, and shame on the Post if they did. I drafted an angry letter in my head as I re-read the header over and over.

Then I realized – that the subject in the sentence was “a decline in military might.” Might. As in strength. Force. Power. The decline [in military might] could upend the world order. Duh.

I was reading it as though a decline in U.S. military might could upend the world order.

Maybe now I can calm down and read Dr. Kagan’s piece.

And maybe my readers from the lovely Tar Heel state, bless their hearts, might could forgive me for the snap.

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