Category Archives: Humor

My House Pops! Is that Feng Shui?

Posted in Advice, Humor, Life by

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Today’s post is about home decorating. According to my son, granddaughter, son-in-law, and numerous “allow me to straighten your pictures” friends, another suitable title will be “What Not to Do When Decorating Your House.

First let’s discuss emotional needs….mine.  I know what I need, and I’m still searching for it. I am an introvert. I need peace, quiet, contemplation, meditation, candles, and Native American flute music. For the past twenty or so years, I have been trying to “feng shui” my house. Some people do not feel I have succeeded.

I am not a monochromatic home decorator. My granddaughter says, “Grandma, your house pops!” My son snickers when she says this, and I want to smack him. Perhaps a house that pops is not in keeping with feng shui.

My son in law smirks, as he goes from room to room in my house, moving my paintings into totally unbalanced tilts and shifts…just to see if I even notice.  Ha! Ha! I think I’ll smack my son-in-law too.

Perhaps a “house with tilting paintings” is not in keeping with feng shui.

For the past twenty years I have been searching for feng shui, and trying to figure out how I can have it and, at the same time convert the junque I pick up at garage sales into a shabby chic home, worthy of any decorating magazine. I like to pride myself on my creativity. You know; using things a different way and “making them work.”

I’d like to show you  photos of my  bedroom which I decorated with African tribal cloths, gourds, wall hangings over triple dressers, and one large bust of some lady naked from the waist up.  My friend, Gerry, and I went shopping at these discounted African Arts and Crafts warehouses in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.  I don’t know what Gerry did with her stuff. I, however, revitalized my circa 1968 Macy’s bedroom furniture  into a tribal village. My children called my bedroom, Botswana. I’d show you my photos, but I’m expecting  either National Geographic or Architectural Digest to request one first.

Two steps from the hallway outside Botswana, my family and other adventurers could enter My Garden Room. This room was formerly my daughter’s junior high and high school bedroom. Here, instead of using tribal cloths, I covered her circa 1970’s campaign style furniture with tan plastic roll-up blinds (to simulate bamboo.) Then I piled on a bunch of hardy (yeah sure) potted plants. My green walls, white molding, stained white carpet, scented candles,  portable fountain,  and vintage boom box playing Native American Flute music set the meditative tone I was seeking.

I tried to sit and meditate, but I worried too much.

The problem was I overwatered the plants. The dirty water overflowed the plant saucers, cascaded over the plastic blinds, and landed on the few clean places left on the old white carpet.  Then the dead plants dropped their dried up leaves all over the room.

It was hard to be serene with all of that death around me.  I tried. I gave up when I realized that if I fell asleep to the Native American Flute Music, the candles would catch on to something  and I would probably burn the house down.

It’s been quiet lately in AdventureLand. If you need a free-lance home decorator, I am available. If you don’t want me, then how about sharing some of your own stories?

 

 

 

Do You Live With The Invisible Man?

Posted in Annoyances, Humor, Life, Nature and the Outdoors by

href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13775090@N07/2181356718/">Roberto F. via Compfight cc

I think, my dear husband, Jerome the Great and Good, missed a couple of physics lessons in school. He must have cut the classes on Light and Sound.

Jerome, usually a very smart man, misunderstands the physics of light.

For example, when he comes into the kitchen for his early morning coffee, even though it is dark outside, he opens the vertical blinds and puts on the overhead light.  This makes me crazy because I am a private person.  He justifies his behavior by saying, “It’s dark outside, and no one can see in.”  See what I mean about the physics?

Wearing my flimsy negligee (Yeah, sure.) I enter the brightly lighted kitchen, and run to close the blinds.

“No one can see you,” he says, and then he adds, “and who would be looking anyway?”

You know the movie, Gaslight, where the husband tries to make the wife think she’s going nuts?  I just thought I would mention it.

Jerome is not too swift with the physics of sound transmission either.

“You are too loud,” I often say to him when we are sitting outside.  As I said, I am a private person.

He tells me I am obsessed with what the neighbors think.

Here’s an example.

We enjoy outdoor meals on our deck, with wine. Once a decade, when our neighbors’ lawn mowers, tractors, zappers, hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, and chain saws are not on, our little backyard is gloriously quiet. Ah, stillness. I can hear the fluttering of the birds’ wings. Jerome and I converse. We sip our wine. He shares a story about his day. He uses a bad word. Trust me, the word is not “doodyhead.”

“Shh,” I say gesturing to our backyard. “The neighbors will hear you. There are kids out there, you know.”

Although Jerome was absent for the physics session on sound, he has perfected the physics of motion. He gets an A+ for Eye-Rolling. This silent movement is directed at me. “No one can hear,” he says, and then to prove his point, he shouts, “Doodyhead! Doodyhead! Doodyhead!”

I cringe. My neighbors used to think Jerome and I were upstanding citizens.

I want to throw a plate of something at him. But I don’t, because my neighbors will see, and then, they will all hear me say “doodyhead” back to him, and I will be arrested, and sent away, and my children will have no one to overprotect them, ever again.

He says I worry too much.  I’m worried about that.

 

 

Photo: href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/13775090@N07/2181356718/”>Roberto F. via Compfight cc

 

 

 

 

 

Football Betting is For the Birds!

Posted in Advice, Humor, Life by
Photo Credit: furanda via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: furanda via Compfight cc

My daughter and I are in a football survivor pool. For those of you not in the know – survivor pool is the greatest invention for gambler wannabees during football season. A survivor pool doesn’t require much skill.

I don’t need to spend the time and energy that a fantasy football team requires. It’s low commitment, loads of fun, and, simple.  Here’s all I have to do each week:

  • I look at all the multiple football games being played that week.
  • I pick out one game
  • Then I pick the winner of that game.
  • If I win, I advance to the next week where I start all over again. Pick any team and then pick a winner.
  • Here’s the catch though. I can never pick my winning team again.

So, my daughter and her husband tell me, there are a variety of schools of thought on picking winners

  • Go strong at the beginning and go for a guarantee of a great team.
  • Some players, however, opt to leave their strongest teams until the end.

I play differently.  As an Audubon nature lover, my picks are all focused on teams that are named after birds.  As I have told you earlier in this blog, I’m not good with statistics and only passed in college because I was dating the instructor’s buddy.

Here are my current results. So far my bird teams haven’t let me down.

  • Week One, I chose the Seahawks and they won.
  • Week Two, I abandoned Jerome the Great and Good’s NY Giants, and chose the Cardinals. (I love the way cardinals feed their young and my granddaughter lives in Arizona. Makes perfect sense, don’t you think?)Yes. The Cardinals won.
  • Week Three, I picked the Eagles. Once when I picked up a piece of litter from a mucky pond, a bald eagle swooped over my head in salute, and I didn’t even think anyone was watching.

This Week Four,  I’m torn between the Ravens and the Falcons? What to do? What to do?  Got it!  I love crabs, both the succulent soft shell ones and the hammer ‘em open hard shells. Baltimore’s got them both,

As the sun sets and our midnight dreary approaches,  I’m wondering if Jerome the Great and Good is going to roll his eyes again at my weird team picks. The answer to that philosophical question is” Nevermore, nevermore”… because I keep winning.

Ravens it will be!

 

 

Adirondack Chairs in God’s Country

Posted in Humor, Life, Nature and the Outdoors by

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I see kids today doing their homework while reclining on their beds.

People of my age did not do that. We used desks.  If you are a contemporary of mine, I bet you remember taking great pride in your desk and feeling like a real hot shot when you organized your drawers with your new school supplies and, then, topped it off with your new green blotter.  I even had a special desk lamp!  Yowza!  Sitting at that desk, I felt like I was in the Oval Office.

That feeling lasted for the first week and a half of school. Then, I started hating homework, messing up the drawers, and listening to songs on the radio like Runaway by Del Shannon.

But, anytime my parents came in the room, there I was, at my desk, looking studious.

I think desks were a part of my parents’ American Dream.  Desks were ergonomically designed for work, and hard work meant success.

Speaking of success, as those of you who follow my blog know, I married Jerome, the Great and Good. We bought a home in what our parents called, God’s Country, because it was forty-four minutes from the Bronx. Also, our home was a real house, not an apartment with a screen door on the third floor or the elevated train running outside the living room.

Jerome and I bought two Adirondack chairs for our backyard. OK, so the chairs are plastic, and they are not exquisitely carved by Native American craftsman.  When you pull into our suburban driveway and see those two forest green plastic chairs under the trees on our dried up brown grass, you can almost hear the call of the loon and the howling of the wolf.

Unless you’re an astronaut manning a control panel during takeoff, Adirondack chairs are not designed for work. True, you can set your glass of iced tea down on the wide arms of an Adirondack chair, but if you drink your iced tea in your reclining position, you may choke to death on an ice cube.

The green plastic Adirondack chairs in our backyard are not suitable for reading a book, or writing a personal manifesto, or even a shopping list.

Adirondack chairs are only good for looking up.

Looking up is great, perhaps even greater than doing homework.  There is never a test on “looking up,” and you don’t have to study for it. Often I sit in my Adirondack chair, look up and think about the same stuff I thought about as a child. I count the leaves on a branch of a tree.  Then I try to figure out how many leaves there are on the tree. Then I think about all the other trees on my block, my town, my state, my country and the world.  Then I feel alive, even more alive than I felt when I listened to Runaway by Del Shannon.

 

 

The Meaning of “Existential”: An Empirical Study of the Pragmatic Use of Big Words in English Language Arts, aka ELA.

Posted in Advice, Education and Teaching, Humor, Writing Process by

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Students, try to use big words to sound smart.  One of my favorite big words is existential.  I can write or say stuff like, “The existential purpose of blah blah is blah blah,” and people will nod their heads in serious agreement, or squint their eyes in serious disagreement. Using words like existential in conversations makes people feel flattered that you have shared deep thoughts with them.

I do not know what “existential” means. This is a minor point.

My real concern is that there might be a list out there of “Teachers Whose Students Do Not Know the Word, Existential.” These days, you just never know!

Therefore,  all students who will be taking the College Board SAT’s ,  ACT’s,  KAT’s (Kindergarten Assessment Tests)and PNVEE Tests,  (Pre-Natal Vocabulary Enrichment Exams), please thank me in advance for giving you one of the  definitions of existential.

Courtesy of dictionary.com, one of the definitions of existential is:

  • Logic: denoting or relating to a formula or proposition asserting the existence of at least one object fulfilling a given condition: containing an existential quantifier.

Why are you cranky?

Here’s another dictionary.com definition of existential:

  • Of or related to existence, esp. human existence

I made up this sentence for you to clarify the definition of existential:

  • I eat because I am existential, and I need Rum Raisin ice cream to continue existing.

Now, my loyal readers, as an added bonus, I am going to share two new words that have always been problematic for me.  Common Core Standards expect you to use high level academic language. These two words qualify. According to dictionary.com, both of these words are synonyms for existential! Who knew?

The two new words are empirical and pragmatic.

Students, try substituting the word, empirical for the word, factual.

  • Example: If I write the word empirical in my essays instead of the word factual, my test scores may jump from a score of one to a score of five!

Now students, let’s take the word, pragmatic. Use pragmatic, students, every time you are tempted to use the word, practical. This is easy to remember because both words start with the letters, pr.

  • It was pragmatic for me to use the word, existential, because I had read many empirical essays about humans who existed.

Comments? Questions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindful Eating With Good Friends

Posted in Food: Getting It and Eating It, Friendship, Humor by

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Six close friends, we were together for a night of dinner out and then coffee back at Gail’s house. We discussed: restaurants, ISIS, Obama, Joan Rivers, Republicans, Democrats, The Middle East, Ukraine, some  theater and some TV.

We also discussed chicken sex.

I introduced the topic as I told them about the mindful eating seminar I had attended online and the articles I had read about mindful eating on the Internet. Scientists have provided some interesting data that eating mindfully can be a help to emotional eaters who want to lose weight.

It was clear from the weird looks on my friends’ faces that they had no idea what mindful eating was.

“The theory is if you eat mindfully and are aware of everything you put in your mouth, you will eat only when truly hungry,” I explained and shared what I recalled from an article about people who went to a monastery to learn mindful eating from the monks.

“At the monastery, the participants sit at a large table in silence,” I explained. “Slowly and deliberately, the monks teach them to touch their raisin, lift it, smell it, think about the grape it used to be, put it in their mouths, roll it around without biting it, bite it, chew it, and eventually swallow it.”

I told my friends that I was OK mindfully eating a raisin, but when it came to mindfully eating other food, I had a problem.

I always ended up thinking about sex.

For example when I was trying to eat some egg salad mindfully, my mind moved from eggs to chickens. Then I started wondering if chickens have sex?

Thus, to my table of friends, I posed the question, “Do you think chickens have sex?”

“Well, that’s why you have roosters,” said one.

“Chickens lay eggs,” said another. “Frogs lay eggs and they don’t have sex.”

I contributed, “In frogs, doesn’t the female lay eggs and then the male passes over them and fertilizes them? “

“Chickens are birds,” someone said. “Birds have sex.”

We never resolved the issue of chickens going “all the way” because Gail served her coffee cake and Jane’s banana cake. The six of us chowed down, and our conversation moved to liberals, conservatives, boots on the ground, and winters in Florida.

Tomorrow is another day to try mindful eating.

 

 

Retired from Teaching? Yes and No

Posted in Advice, Education and Teaching, Humor by

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I stole this chalk from my elementary school  on the day I retired from teaching. That was in August of 2000.  At this time of year I like to hold my chalk, and remember.

I retired from 30 years of  teaching elementary school in August 2000.  By  October,  I was working again, part time, in elementary, middle and high schools as a literacy consultant.  I’m still doing that.

Consulting is like teaching, but without the lunch duty, hall duty, attendance taking and money collection.

Consulting teachers can get away with stuff that regular teachers can’t. Sometimes, for my own self-preservation, I put on my “old grandma hat. ” I can say to a potty mouth student, “If I were your grandma, I would wash out your mouth with soap.”

The kids laugh, and then they behave. They say, “Yes, Miss. Sorry, Miss.”

All teachers have golden academic moments with their students.  The real art of good teaching is to take those  serendipitous  moments and make them happen routinely. That’s happening. It will take time, but it’s happening.

Kids are kids.  Kindergarteners and high schoolers have the same needs.  All kids can think. I have learned that often the kids with the worst grades can think at a higher level than the rest of the gang. They just haven’t learned how to apply their high levels of thinking to school. Maybe it’s the fault of the school.  That’s why change is in the air. That’s good.

All teachers have moments of great poignancy  with their students.  Probably those are the moments that students and teachers will remember most. Many of my fourth (or was it fifth?) grade students remember how I cried when I read Bridge to Terabithia to them.

All teachers have moments of great comedy with students. The art of good teaching is to take those comedic moments and enjoy the humor. Even in semi-retirement now, as I  work with a new generation of teachers, the moments continue. The story below happened in one of my high schools last year.

A first year biology teacher was doing an experiment on enzymes.  I met with him before the lesson and suggested he probe the students’ background knowledge to set the stage for the lesson. Recalling  my days as an elementary school teacher, I suggested he  “Ask the kids what they know about yeast.” I knew many teachers in elementary school had baked bread with kids at one time or another.

The lesson began and my eager protégé, asked his high school students, “So tell me what you already know about yeast.”

Instantly, the one student who always calls out, described, in graphic detail, yeast infections and where they are found. Using the feline word for female genitalia, he was indeed proud of his contribution.

I clearly remember the “deer in the head light” look of my young teacher as the class gasped and laughed.  Up until this moment, Mr. C. had trusted me.

Stepping in, I said to the eager student, “Thank you for your contribution. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I may have an extra sip of wine as I share this story with my husband. Let’s try to use more academic language in the future, and now let’s move on.” The teacher continued with his wonderful lesson, and  the class moved on.

So newly retired teachers, as you move on, take time to savor your remembrances . Also, you might want to also steal a piece of chalk…if you can find one.  It may be a valuable artifact someday.

 

 

Can I Laugh My Way Through Panic Attacks?

Posted in Advice, High Anxiety, Humor, Tributes by

Yesterday I watched a wonderful Huff Post Live broadcast called Mental Health: Living With Anxiety. Thanks to the moderator and panelists who shared their experiences with phobias and panic attacks. The link to the program is below this post.

Here in my blog, I have begun to write about my own panic attacks on bridges, planes, mountains, and let’s just say, “anything that goes up, high.”

Here in this blog, I can be real smart. I can invent solutions, laugh and make cracks about heads floating up in the sky when we, panic attackers, are having our out of body experiences.

When I am not here in this blog, I am not so smart.

Let’s take Saturday night when my husband, Jerome the Great and Good, and I were heading to a restaurant in Queens.  He was driving and I was giving directions. Missing the access to the main part of the Queensboro Bridge, he drove on to the lower level. In seconds, we entered a rickety, single, OUTSIDE lane, which was once used as a trolley track. We were there with nothing between us, the East River and the rooftops of Manhattan and Queens, but a teeny-weeny, rusty, ripped up fence.

So, during that time, when I was not here in my blog, I did not say funny things.

I did sweat, hyperventilate, clench, pound, moan and pray.

And, in case you were wondering, I cursed; but I did not use the word “doodyhead” like I do here in my blog. Sometimes, “doodyhead” just doesn’t cut it.

I am fortunate that I will still travel on bridges, planes, even an occasional tram up a mountain. But nine times out of ten, it will be a hellish experience for me.

The thing is I keep living to tell about it.

For that, I say thanks to all those others who have shared their own stories and research. Thanks again to Scott Stossel, author of My Age of Anxiety, one of my favorite books, for tweeting and reminding me of the Huffington Post Live broadcast.

Also, thanks to the wonderful moderator and panelists at Huffington Post Live for their insight. The link to the program is below.

And I will continue to make attempts to look at the light side of all my stuff. Believe me, it would be a heck of a lot easier to write about only the dark side, but what fun would that be?

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/anxiety-in-america/53eaaa3778c90ab003000010

 

 

Gephyrophobics! Let’s Unite!

Posted in High Anxiety, Humor by
Photo Credit: danmachold via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: danmachold via Compfight cc

My name is Rose, and I am a gephyrophobic,  a person who is afraid to drive over bridges.

(Welcome Rose.)

I am worried that the New NYBridge being built in New York to replace my beloved (barf) Tappan Zee Bridge will make me go nuts. I want to connect with others out there who also freak out when driving on a high road, up in the air, over water, without nets. We need representation.

If nothing is done to assuage our fears, when the New NYBridge is finished in 2018, those of us oppressed with panic attacks, may be forced to stay on one side of the Hudson for the rest of our lives!

From my side on the west, Rockland County, I might never be able to drive east to Westchester County and its pricey malls and restaurants. My bridge-fearing friends from Westchester may never come to visit us poor folks in Rockland County, which many Westchester people feel is a vast wilderness, close to the Adirondacks.

I’m suggesting we, gephyrophobics, form a task force designed to address our concerns. First thing I’d suggest is that we change our name to Brobics (bridge+phobics). Catchy, don’t you think?  I have tried to network with Important Bridge People (IBP) so that when they hear the chilling words, “Rosie and The Brobics are coming,” they will quake with fear. Knowing that we have the power to deliver hoards of Brobics for protests, boycotts, and basic acts of civil disobedience, they will immediately address our concerns.

For starters, Important Bridge People, as you convene your task force to listen to our concerns, it would be nice if you could set up that “drive-over” service. That way Brobics from both sides of the Hudson can meet as one group, on terra firma.

Thank you. Fellow Brobics out there, we need to get together and form a slogan and mission statement. All ideas are welcome.

I Want to Join a Task Force

Posted in Humor, Life, Uncategorized by
href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/53187029@N02/5120883445/">The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Cos. via Compfight cc

href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/53187029@N02/5120883445/”>The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Cos. via Compfight cc

I have always wanted to be on a task force.

I don’t really know what a task force does, but I think it would be great fun.  First of all, when you are on a task force, you usually get fed, sometimes they even give you pineapple and cheese pastries and bagels. Warning, if you are on a task force west of the Hudson, skip the bagels and go right to the croissants.

Then, on the task force, for the first hour you just play.  The activities are called icebreakers. Some people, particularly introverts, call them b… breakers. If you like building trust by falling into others arms or taking off your shoes, then these are the kind of task forces you should consider joining.  I’m probably much more cerebral because I like the icebreaker where you are supposed to listen to somebody’s boring story and then retell it to the group.  I like this because I say to my always willing partner….”You tell your story and I’ll tell mine and no one will know the difference.”

Usually during the icebreaker, someone in the group notices that the evaluation sheet is in the packet. When she starts filling hers out, others follow her lead. By nine o’clock, everyone has evaluated the entire day.

When you finish all of these team building activities, your facilitator is really charged up and the rest of you are thinking, “Isn’t it time for lunch?”

Sorry no. Now, your task force must establish its norms.  Nobody really knows what norms are, but everybody pretends to know.  I think norms are the things you are supposed to do in a task force to keep you from jumping up from your folding chair and strangling another member of the task force. The facilitator believes that the only way the group will arrive at “healthy norms that we can all live with” is if the group members engage in hair pulling, sucker punching and dirty words to establish the “healthy norms we can all live with.” Usually at this point in the norming, when the issue of “Cell phones? On or Off?” comes up, two people use bad words and one person leaves in tears.

When you’re finished with norming (A cool word, don’t you think?) it is time to take a snack and bathroom break. The coffee is cold and the only pastries left are the prune danish. Not good at a meeting.

Then , when you return, the facilitator finally gets his power point presentation to work and he skips to the slide that says. “Why are we here?”

Get into your groups and blah blah blah.” he says. “You will have fifteen minutes to work until your presentation.”

I am really hoping that my heroine, Susan Cain, and her Quiet Revolution is working on these group think sessions because every time we have one, I want to throw up my cheese Danish and coffee.

So there you are in your groups, and there’s always that one person who has to grab the markers and the chart paper. There are three reasons that woman grabs the markers.

  1. She has the neatest handwriting, and she gets high from the smell of new school supplies.
  2. She knows if she writes the damn chart, she won’t have to present it.
  3. She is the only one talking in the group because the others are all texting on their phones, while nodding sagaciously at her blither-blather.

 

Fifteen minutes later, the next slide goes up and it says “Break for lunch.” Everyone loves that slide. They love it so much that they add on an extra half hour for networking which is the real reason they joined the task force.

After lunch the “sharing” begins. In each group, the extrovert who did the least in the group, presents. He’s not worried, however, because he knows no one is listening because they are all rehearsing their own presentations.

Then, it is time to end the day and the facilitator says, “We are going to collect all of your ideas, and then send you the minutes.”

Yeah sure.

The facilitator wraps up all of the charts and puts them in back of his car. Two weeks later he takes them out, but they make no sense at all.  He’s embarrassed to send them out as minutes, so he puts the charts up in his attic.

That’s probably why on Antiques Roadshow, somebody brings in a document, discovered in the attic of an old house. On The Roadshow, the appraiser verifies the authenticity of James Madison’s signature, but, he’s most intrigued by the thumbprint on the parchment…probably from Madison’s cheese pastry.