All things embittered

… and other manglings of popular culture, television program names, and brand names.

Confessions of a word mangler:

1. I’ve subbed the nickname “All Things Embittered” for the Natl. Public Radio Program “All Things Considered“. It’s a weird linguistic fondness when I create weird nicknames for things. (I must love this show, since I listen to it while I drive my car all the time.)
2. There’s a bank that I have nicknamed “First Rust”. Yes, I grew up in the rustbelt of America. (In this case their logo inspired me, and no I can’t help this one. I’ve banked at other weird places, like one called “Chemical” and at least i think of iron when I see their logo too.)
3. “This Old Louse” and “This Old Spouse” are nicknames for “This Old House” on Public Television (Follow the link — it’s filled with interesting stuff for home reno)
4. Some politicians are guilty of moral twerpitude.

I can’t think up clever nicknames for things like “American Idol,” “Lost” etc. That is possibly because I don’t watch them. Or it’s because I find the original names unimaginative. Anything on a roadway with a logo is fair game, otherwise I’d expire with boredom on roadtrips without the opportunity of mangling the name of a company — Laceys, Foodline, SEPTIC, Aint to Trouble You. I sometimes wonder if everyone does this.

Why I don’t attend church more often

There are things about church that I like in general. I like the peacefulness, the music, and sometimes the sermons. I like being part of a group of people all centered on the same thought or emotions. The church around the corner does good works, offers a sense of community, etc. The pastor is really trying to make the church welcoming, and sees the church as part of the equal rights struggle. All well and good.

I just wish people on the GLBTQ (and friends) committee wouldn’t come up to me and say, “You know what I like about gay people? You’re all so happy and throw the best parties,” thinking that I’ll be delighted with their openness.

Ahem: I haven’t thrown any parties, rave music isn’t played in my house, I have yet to deploy my butterfly wings in chapel, and I don’t wear rainbow antenna to church. Instead, I’m a kind of average singer who brings food for the food pantry, and who is normally good-natured, except about her commute. Am I just being crabby here? Or would it be appropriate to just say, “What I love about straight people is they have children so I don’t have to.”? Or leave the committee after politely saying, “Screaming now?”. That might leave the committee with just “friends” though. And they mean well, bless their little hearts. (BTW: This conversation didn’t happen recently. It’s just simmering up again as I realize that more U.S. states than not have anti-citizen legislation that makes it illegal for a certain group of consenting adults to marry or have rights.)

Saturday is so short

Here’s a goofy list of things that might be more worthwhile than mowing the lawn (which is what everyone else is up to, according to my ears):

• Prepping a door for painting (apparently not enough of a break in the humidity)
• Walking to the library (planning on doing this in a few minutes)
• Going to a museum
• Baking cookies (there’s a break in the humidity)
• Go to a park — it’s SUNNY
• Photography (the first sunny day in a week)
• Sketching (ditto)
• Knitting (this can be done in the evening)
• Reading a shirt pattern (again — can be done in the evening)
• Go on a mad and crazy road trip
• Cleaning projects (UGH, but necessary)
• Hacking at the evil shrub (yep. did some of this)
  

Some of these are limited by the lack of water pressure today. I’m reluctant to come into contact with potential poison ivy in the evil shrub if I can’t wash off the itch.  I nearly broke the glass coffeepot this morning with the blast of air as I tried to fill it (no worries, I do have a little bottled water for essentials), so I’m reluctant to start washing things.

If I prep the door for painting this AM, maybe I can do a quick bit of lawn mowing to appease the neighbors. (mowed the lawn) Eh, if you had a beautiful, sunny day after a week of thunderstorms, which would you choose?

I Did Read the Instructions

… but I did not start the decreases in the back of my honeycomb vest at row 2 of the honeycomb pattern. I did read the instructions. But, even after the row of multiple frogging [it was in row 8] I did not sense a strange wrongness in The Force.

I think I’ll give myself a little time out while I ponder what I should do next — rip it, or start the decreases at row 10. Thoughts? Maybe the designer Sarah Castor should weigh in. I’m more disappointed in my reading ahead skills than anything else. Guess I shouldn’t knit unchecked on a manic weekend filled with singing in a concert and shopping for dresses, eh?

Linguistic Oddities

Do you know what the following words mean:

• clabberation
• sweat cakes

I heard both of these on the radio in Maryland (which many people in the state refer to as “Merlin”), and my mind boggled.

“Clabberation” does not have anything to do with clabber girls [and biscuits] or calibration, but instead was being used by someone from the VA Hospitals to describe the sort of teamwork needed to ensure our current returning veterans get the level of care needed from different departments. (Collaboration)

“Sweat cakes” are what you put out for wild birds like woodpeckers and chickadees in winter, on sale at a high end garden center in the suburbs… and yes, the garden center paid for the ad copy and didn’t notice or didn’t care about this pronunciation by the actress who was trying to sound like a very upperclass British person. (Suet cakes) Note, at this link people apparently _want_ sweat cakes, so maybe the garden center should market to them. (Just kidding….)

It isn’t a foreign language, but there are days when it’s harder to follow, because familiar words surface in a kind of odd linguistic stew. Today on a classical radio station (possibly from Virginia or Washington), I heard musical pieces by the composers Batch and Mossert.

Kind of Recursive

But a huge undertaking nonetheless…..

There’s a Christmas Goat that gets put up every year in Gävle, Sweden (sorry for the lack of umlauts over the “a” in Gavle, I haven’t found WordPress’s settings for foreign languages).* This has been going on since 1966, when:

On 2 December the 13-metre (42,6 feet) tall, 7-metre long, 3 tonne goat stood on the square. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the goat went up in smoke. The perpetrator was found and charged with vandalism.

The Gävle Goat has been burned down 22 times since then.

Here is a link to the film of the goat under construction: Goat film.

I’m not sure if putting a giant stack of hay in the middle of town and decorating it with lights doesn’t invite people to see what would happen to it when it went up ablaze. But hearing about this makes me curious about what the rest of the region is like, and whether the town has a plan for what to do if no one burns the thing down for them.  Burning Man is a young (controlled) tradition compared to this.

*Thanks, Naomi. You learn something new every day.

Gone Loopy

Well, feh. The Amazonian sock-in-progress did not like all the air travel back and forth to Kentucky. Loops have fallen off the needle(s!) like leaves from an autumn tree. Lets look at this a little closer.*

Look to the right. See those loopy things that look like part of a noose? (Hey, it was just Halloween… I’m still on ghoulish overload.) Each of those little loops were supposed to be traveling along, happily, on the needle while in transit in my little knitting sack within my backpack. (No knitting happened on either part of the airplane ride, because I was sandwiched like a sardine in the middle seat, and didn’t want to run the risk of poking anyone with an elbow.)

This was the dispiriting sight I saw in the early hours of Wednesday morning (I was hoping to work on the sock at lunchtime). That said, the cold weather is really motivating me to finish this sock. I did get the little loops back on the needles, and I only had a few moments of stress when I had to take two of the loops back off the needles and switch them (they’d gotten twisted out of order).

So, if anyone out there has any hobbies they’d like to share… what are the setbacks you’ve met while “enjoying” your hobby? I’ve done evil things with decopage (one headless cupid applied to a box), ripped an edge on a stencil when I was halfway through with stenciling a repeat around the top of a room, sewn my finger with a sewing machine in Home-ec (still have the gingham apron they made me make), and split a  woodblock in printing class. How about you?

*I figure there has to be something that isn’t focused on the USA election out on the Web (besides all the wonderful ex-US blogs that talk about everyday life and their regional politics). In the case of this blog, it’s dropped stitches.