Monthly Archives: May 2011

May 4, 2011 · 8:17 am

To be discontinued

It’s getting more and more difficult to find the simple things I need in life; so many have been discontinued. I’m not sure the difference between a plot and a ploy, but it feels like one of the two has been waged against me.

It seems ridiculous, but I just went on eBay to buy barrettes. Simple barrettes, at one time the simplest ones they made. I used to buy them at the grocery store in batches because I lose them. I was down to one, and I lost it last weekend. And now I’m lost without it.

I know it sounds stupid. It’s a hair notion, not a lifeline. Still, I use one every day and only one kind meets my hair control needs, the Goody Stay Tight 3-inch Tortoise Barrette. It’s made of only two simple pieces:  one bent strip of metal and a three-inch-long faux tortoise-shell cover. That’s it. No springs, no hinges, no teeth. And no clip, claw or Scrunchie will do.

I bought my last pack in 1997. When I was down to three, I began shopping for more. Stores had stopped carrying them. As with my treasured SweeTarts, I took to making special trips, even looking in stores out of town. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you.

The same thing has happened with our china pattern, our bed linens, my lipstick shade, my wallet, the travel size of my fragrance and the whisk I use to make salad dressing. Hamburger Hamlet even had the nerve to discontinue the Special Mayonnaise they put on my favorite sandwich.

I will now wait patiently for eight barrettes to come in the mail; that’s all the seller had in her possession. We’ll see how long they last before I go must back on the hunt.

Maybe I should try the Smithsonian.

So what is the difference between a plot and a ploy? Is there one against you too?

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May 3, 2011 · 8:00 am

The point being

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the dreaded double-is, as in “the problem is is,” which so many people say, most likely because they misheard it somewhere, picked it up and absorbed it into their speech, thinking it sounded sophisticated. In my post that day, I explained why it is redundant and incorrect to use “is” twice in a row when not preceded by a clause.

I should have thought to bring up a related error while I was on the subject. It wasn’t until I was on the phone with a help desk employee that I remembered it.

Upon making a hotel reservation recently, I discovered that my Hilton Honors membership had lapsed. The nice lady on the line explained it this way: “The reason being is that you haven’t stayed in a Hilton since 2008.”

Well, I stayed at a Hilton just six weeks ago, but that’s beside the point. The issue is “being is…” One verb, used twice, once as a gerund, the other in the present tense. Right next to each other.

I don’t intend to be snooty or judgmental (maybe a little), but I think people believe they sound intelligent when they say “the reason being is…,” just as they do when they say “the reason is is…”

The help desk lady could have explained the membership lapse at least two ways and been grammatically correct. She could have said, “The reason is that guests who do not stay with us for one year lose their membership statuses.” Alternatively, she could have said, “Your membership has lapsed, the reason being that you have not stayed with us since 2008” (subordinate adverbial clause). One may use either “being” or “is,” one or the other, not both.  Or the lady could have left the verb “to be” out of it altogether and thrown in a simple “because.”

But never “the reason is because.” That’s a subject for a whole other day (not “a whole nother day”).

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May 2, 2011 · 9:31 am

Mission possible

Last night, as my husband and I were about to turn off the TV and the lights, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer broke in to the end of a program we were watching about Alzheimer’s Disease. At 10:30 p.m., President Obama would address the nation and the world. As I suspect everyone did, we tried to guess what the matter might be.

Without a lot of thought, I said to my husband, “I wonder if they got Osama bin Laden.” My husband looked shocked, even got a little choked up. Then it hit me what a significant thing I had said. What a significant world event that would be.

About 10 minutes after my wild guess, the news was leaked. My heart stopped. Perhaps for the first time in years, my emotions from 2001 returned, as if by the flip of a switch. There are no words, only images—of watching the news, sobbing. Of rushing to the bus to meet my son and wanting us all to hide from danger.

I sit here this morning, reading the news accounts and watching images of those gathered around Ground Zero, and remembering our recent visit to the memorials, which reveal bin Laden’s act in a painfully personal way. I sit here in awesome admiration of the historic display of courage and excellence–in military operations, in national intelligence and in Presidential leadership–that changed our world yesterday and that we’ll continue to need in the future.

The last words I heard as I switched off the television last night reflected something I was feeling but dared not say out loud. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell read an e-mail from the daughter of a 9/11 victim: “It’s not natural to celebrate the death of someone. But somehow it feels natural tonight.”

We can’t help but re-live September 11, 2001, today. Perhaps it’s overly altruistic, but maybe—just maybe—the celebrated destruction of this evil doer will compel us to come together as a nation and a world—the way we did when he committed his most evil deed almost 10 years ago.

Let the healing begin.

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