STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AT THE RAYPOLE RESIDENCE:
Discussing which movies to get at Red Box:
SUE: "How about the new Coen Brothers movie?"
GERALD: "What's the name?"
SUE: "Something Llewyn Davis; you know we saw it on the promo on American Hustle."
LES: "PREVIEW, not promo! It's Inside Llewyn Davis."
SUE: "The music actually sounds like it could have come from the folk era."
LES: "T-Bone Burnett; he did the music for Brother, Where Art Thou? also."
SUE: "Yeah, he does the music from Nashville-- he did the music from that other movie--starring--wasn't Kurt Russell, who was it?"
GERALD: "Jeff Bridges."
SUE: "Yeah, he won the Oscar; uh, what movie was that?"
LES: "It was so great we can't remember it!"
SUE, GERALD and LES: "To IMDB!"
My cousin would give bunnies and chicks as Easter gifts for his kids. After the animals were abused awhile by the brats--and the parents learned that the animals actually required care--the animals would be given to us as we lived in the country.
I would name all of them. I named one chick Jonathan because we wanted him to become big and I named him after the biggest boy in my class. Jonathan grew into a magnificent, white Leghorn rooster. Jonathan literally "ruled the roost" and he kept the hens in obedience and he also made our family obeisant.
As we had an outdoor toilet, Jonathan would try to flog anyone who dared go to the toilet. There would be Jonathan--with one wing down on the ground--racing after people to flog them! Nobody was safe--except for Les, my younger brother--who was three and four years old at the time. Les was the only one that Jonathan did not try to attack! There would be Les, wearing his little engineer boots, which brother Neil had brought to him, accompanying people to the toilet to protect them from Jonathan! Les would also accompany Mother to gather eggs. I remember Jonathan chasing my brother who was "fleet of foot" across the field and when my brother leapt onto a big wooden fence post, Jonathan kept flogging the post!
It was always a mystery why Jonathan would not attack Les; even though Les was only three and four years old at the time, he still vividly remembers Jonathan. I said, "Maybe it's because you and Jonathan were the same size!"
My brother Bode, his wife and baby daughter were visiting and my niece was about a year old and she was sitting outside in her stroller near the well frame, and suddenly, Jonathan flogged the stroller! My brother Bode ran out the back door with a shotgun and the door was still flung open; somehow Jonathan flew inside the house and everyone in the house was trying to escape Jonathan and get him back outside. Les had to lead him outside and Bode shot him.
Mother cooked Jonathan and he was, as she said, "tougher than whitleather".
As much as we all disliked--and feared--Jonathan, it was sad to see that majestic creature brought down. Oh, how I wish I had a picture of Jonathan; this generic picture of a Leghorn does not do him justice!
After she read my BLOG article MURMURATION, my friend Mona Lisa sent this article from The New York Times CLICK HERE to see the article which states that the phrase "cellar door" is the most euphonious phrase in the English language.
Henry James wrote: "Summer afternoon--summer afternoon--to me those have been the two most beautiful words in the English language."
I think that most people would say that "I love you" is the most euphonious phrase in our language.
Mona Lisa included this: "I know you dislike Woody Allen, but you MUST use his quote." The quote: "The best words in the English language are not 'I love you', but 'It's benign'!"
One of my favorite songs from childhood was Playmate (listen here) which includes the line "slide down my cellar door". See the cellar door which is reminiscent of my childhood. It NEVER looked or sounded "beautiful" to me.
MASTERLY: "performed or performing in a very skillful and accomplished way."
MASTERFUL: "powerful and able to control others."
Later, in talking with my brother about the conversation, he asked, "WHEN will you learn that people don't care? You're the only one who CARES!" I answered, "She's the one who quizzed me about my use; I wasn't correcting her; you don't hesitate to correct me!"
He laughed and said, "Well, we SO enjoy correcting YOU!" He told me I was an "old fogey" when it came to language and that it should not surprise him as I'm also "such a Francophile".
A woman used "enthused" recently in a public forum, and it was jarring to my ears. It ranks with "contacted", "impacted", "invite", and other back-formation words which are in common usage, but nevertheless, are very irritating. Do people know that "finalize" was not an acceptable word until President Eisenhower used it so often that it was added to the dictionary?
A person who works at a newspaper seemed irritated when I mentioned that a verb he'd used needed a "helper" and he actually asked why, and although I explained, I wondered why a "professional" writer did not know the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. In a passive-aggressive way, by attempting what he obviously thought was a humorous rejoinder--but it only came off as snotty--he told me that I was "welcome to volunteer" at the newspaper to make corrections. I told him my salary demand for the service and said that if that were too much, I would just continue sending his gaffes to SPELL (The Society For The Preservation Of The English Language And Literature).
I'm debating: do I like him enough to give him a gift subscription to the organization's newsletter?
My friend Patty sent the accompanying video because she knows that I would be one to break out in song.
I've written before about the predilictions of my family, one of which is to answer questions with song lyrics.
Around our third date, Gerald came to pick me up and he politely asked my mother, "How are you, Mrs. Shirkey?" and my mother replied, a la Doris Day: "Fine and dandy...". As we were leaving, Gerald turned to me and said, in what I gauged to be a critical tone, "About your family." I didn't give him a chance to elaborate but said, defensively, "What about my family?" He said, "It's like being in a Hollywood musical--you guys sing for no apparent reason!"
Although I burst out singing "for no apparent reason", I am very different from the couple in the video because I lack their talent and I would never willingly appear on camera!
One time I was responsible for calling people to remind them about a meeting. I told them that the meeting would be at Our Place at 5:00 PM. Although I meant Our Place Restaurant; I failed to say "restaurant" and 6 people showed up at OUR HOUSE.
Another time, I was supposed to meet someone at "the Chinese Restaurant" in Xenia; of course, I went to the wrong one as there were two Chinese restaurants!
A friend was supposed to meet a person at a local bank for a financial transaction regarding a Club to which we belonged. She went to the bank on time for her appointment and waited for the other person to arrive. After a testy cell phone telephone exchange, she learned that the person was at the OTHER bank in town. The other person had no reason to be testy as she had not told WHICH bank location where she would be and my friend only knew about the one bank.
