Marriage advice for Women: Communication

Before marriage, most couples spend a lot of time together, which as you know, leads to talking. Lots of talking. Enough to send aloft a fleet of hot air balloons for the mass ascension at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, “The World’s Premier Balloon Event.”

Falling in love means finding someone who lives to listen to your every thought, no matter how inane or frankly lame those thoughts are. Having someone hang on your every word as if it were ResQLadder’s 15-foot two-story portable emergency escape ladder with sleeves on chain (now just $128.45) makes you feel important and needed.

After marriage you may find that you send up fewer hot air balloons. In a simile vein, it may seem as if your lover would prefer to stay in the burning building rather than hang on your every word. You have now entered what is known as the “wedding vow” phase of your relationship.

“Give and take” characterizes this type of communication: Would you give me some of your cash? Are you going to take out the garbage? Would you give me some of the cover, all right already? Did you take my towel again? Would you just give me the keys, so I can drive? This question-based form of discourse usually ends with simple wedding-vow type answers: I do, I did, I didn’t, I will, or I won’t.

The hours once spent talking face-to-face or on the phone are repurposed for taking out the garbage, buying groceries, struggling for more of the blanket, and walking through the house naked and dripping wet in search of a clean towel, which by the way, was on the designated towel rack: mine, not yours.

Where once the new couple thought nothing of disturbing the air by vocalizing their thoughts about life, now they may become overly accustomed to certain vibrations in the air and begin to tune them out. Men often lose the ability to hear the higher frequency or pitch associated with women’s air disturbances. This makes starting a conversation more difficult, especially if you have something important that you want to talk about, but you don’t want to bring it up because if your husband truly loved you, he would already know and would admit that he was wrong.

What can be done? First, try changing your pitch. For example, pitch your dishes or other breakable items on an uncarpeted floor. Most men are sensitive to this pitch level and will desire to enter into dialog with you. Commonly, it will cause a husband to ask, “Is anything wrong?” or “Are you upset?”

Rather than expressing your true feelings too soon, which may result in a short conversation and quick resolution, answer, “No. What made you think that?” Then you can infuse the conversation with a sense of playfulness by making your husband guess why you changed your pitch.

If you have break-resistant Corelle dishes, which are not only dishwasher safe, chip resistant, lightweight, stackable and microwave safe, you may eschew* this method. Instead, try slamming drawers or doors. Like sign language, this type of sound language can communicate an infinite variety of messages that jumpstart dialog with your loved one as if you were using Duralast Gold twenty-foot 2 AWG battery booster cables.

Finally, if none of these nonverbal communication methods work, try to find a time when both you and your husband are alone and free from distractions. (Duct tape may be needed.) Sit close to him and cuddle a bit. Look him straight in the eye and lower your voice. Then whisper, “Darling, I’m thinking of becoming a widow.”

Many women notice an almost immediate attentiveness in their husbands after uttering this phrase.

I hope this has helped. And remember: Keep flapping your lips, shaking your hips, and dipping your chips.

I have it on good authority that you receive a 15% discount on all Corelle products if you know how to pronounce “eschew.” Use the promo code: yearstricken.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Photo: By John Boyd [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Thanks, John. A Boyd in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Doggone Good: Now available!

Since I am irredeemably humble and self-effacing, I have hesitated to let you know that I recently published a cookbook for old people called Doggone Good: Cheap Meals That Will Have You Licking Your Dish!

After surveying at least two websites, including a trek through the Amazon.com, I found that the marketplace is glutted with niche cookbooks, but none target Boomers entering retirement with little or no savings. Few of these people realize that Social Security will eventually go “Boom!” just as their generation did in 1946 when they began popping out. Since I can read, I found out that some time around 2033, the security in Social Security (We are 100% behind you) will literally be completely behind us, and the program will be renamed Social Insecurity. At that time, it will be able to provide just 75% of scheduled benefits. That gave me pause. Like other Boomers, one of my dreams of retirement has included eating on a daily basis.

Then it hit me like a well-thrown Frisbee, I could write a cookbook based on dog food recipes for old people. I felt confident that people would lap it up, and I realized I could achieve three things by publishing such a cookbook: serve my fellow-Boomers, become well-heeled, and slip in gratuitous puns.

Here’s what reviewers are saying:

“Just reading the recipes made me so hungry, I could eat a horse. Imagine how happy I was to realize many of the dishes contain horse meat!”

“After years of swallowing the lies politicians have given me, I didn’t gag once on these dog food recipes. Thank you, Congress!”

Endorsed by Andy Griffith!

Bonus to my readers!

As a service to my readers, I am including two of the most popular dishes. (Please don’t expect any more free recipes, though. I’m trying to save for my own retirement.)

Whole-y Hamburgers (serves 12)

1 can Whole Earth Farms canned dog food

1 very large stick or baseball bat (optional)

Form patties. Cook on a stove if you have electricity or gas. Otherwise, chop down one of your dining room chairs and create a small fire in your backyard. Use the stick or baseball bat to keep away neighborhood dogs.

Alpo Alfredo (serves 24)

1 box of pasta (optional) 1 cup of reconstituted powdered milk (optional)

2 Tbsp. of oil (optional) Cheese-flavored Cheetos (to taste) (also optional)

4 tsp. of flour (optional) 1 can of Alpo Chop House dog food (NOT optional)

Using optional ingredients:

Cook pasta on stove, or if you don’t have electricity or gas, soak in water overnight. Heat oil in pan or over the small fire in your backyard. Stir in flour until you have a nice roux. Slowly add powdered milk concoction and crushed Cheetos. Place some pasta on each plate along with a generous dollop of Alpo, and pour cheese sauce over top. Buon appetito!

Without optional ingredients:

Place Alpo serving in each dish. Sit! Eat! Enjoy!

Hurry! Fetch your copy now!

Send as much money as you can to me at Yearstricken, % Heartbreak Hotel, WordPress.com. My faithful companions are standing by to take orders.

Unclichéd

According to me, clichés, once très nouveaux, began life as bon mots, lighting up conversations like small flambeaux, small feathers in speakers’ verbal chapeaux, as tasty as escargots. But, alas, alack the day, they grew stale, worn, dim, left as empty shells on the conversationalists’ dinner plate, having had their meat carefully extracted years ago.

The matrix.

According to reliable sources (not me), printers are responsible for the first clichés, French for the stereotype blocks used to make books, pamphlets, and advertisements. Cliché, past participle of clicher, is derived from cliquer, the sound you know in English as “click.” After setting type, printers used pressure or heat to create a copy on heavy paper, plaster of Paris, or felt. They placed this copy, known as a matrix or mat, in a casting box, poured molten metal in, and voila, created a stereotype that could print endless copies of the original.

The stereotype.

If you’re like me (and if so, please send my condolences to your family), you read that last paragraph and something in you clicked. Cliché, stereotype, casting – are we heading into a post about Hollywood movies? No, not today.

I have a soft spot in my heart for clichés. They remind me of photos of people in Wal-Mart. With a haircut, more clothes, and intensive therapy they would look just fine.

So, without further hellos, or as Shakespeare would surely say, without further ado about nothing, or as so many Americans mistakenly say, without further adieu, here are my suggestions.

At the crack of dawn could be the dawn-crack (much like daybreak) or dawn’s crack. Example: The minute I saw dawn’s crack, I knew it was time to leave. (Note: If your name is Dawn and you visit Wal-Mart, I am not talking about you.)

Few people cry over spilled milk, but many parents cry over spilled red Kool-Aid.

Since people are busier these days than they used to be, help in your hour of need needs to be reduced to your half-hour of need. The internet-addicted could stand by people in their five minutes of need.

We could give last but not least a rest and start using first but not most.

Climbing the ladder of success could be restated for the rich and powerful as stepping on the escalator of success.

The two clichés using “sad” need antonyms. Sad but true provides happy but false, and sadder but wiser gives us happier but stupider. Example: Yearstricken lost hours of her life clicking on links to funny tweets and lolcats, leaving her happier but stupider.

And finally, when people are clearly not worth their weight in gold, we could at least allow that they are worth their weight in aluminum.

Photos:

Stereotype: http://digital.nls.uk/50years/pops/1971b.html

Matrix: http://the-print-guide.blogspot.com/2010/05/wayback-view-stereotype-plate-making.html

Your syllabus for Life Studies 2013

Course #2013 Life Studies Instructor: TBA

Required Materials

No materials are provided by the instructor(s), but all materials are required.

Course Description

This course introduces the student to the beauty of sunrises, children’s laughter, and human touch. All students will do an in-depth study of private success and public failure through hands-on experience. Topics covered may include, but are not limited to, falling in love, watching dreams shatter, burping loudly in public, enduring bores, throwing hissy fits, and taking out the garbage. Students will develop and hone the skills of procrastination, denial, acceptance, gratitude, and losing keys. As well, students will test the limits of their patience by working closely with and driving on the same roads with large numbers of blithering idiots. While taking part in various public humiliations, students will pass gas and pass the blame, often simultaneously; laugh inappropriately; cry for no reason; and engage in long conversations with themselves in front of mirrors. Finally, students will create a twelve-month portfolio of words and actions that will become part of their permanent record. NB: This course is a requirement if you plan to take Life Studies Course #2014.

Course Competencies

Upon completion of Life 2013, students will be able to

Overlook dirty pots when doing the dishes;
Embellish stories of remembered events at social gatherings;
Floss religiously for the four weeks prior to and after dental exams;
Refrain from slamming on the brakes when followed by tailgaters;
Demonstrate growth (probably in the hips);
Kill time;
Accomplish something;
Deepen wrinkles; and
Do the Hokey Pokey (because that’s what it’s all about).

Course Expectations

(1) Attendance

Plan to attend every day. Attendance, along with breathing, is mandatory if you expect to be successful in this course. Students who stop breathing at any point within the term will be terminated. Once a student permanently withdraws, he or she cannot be reinstated.

(2) Quizzes and Tests

Pop quizzes and major tests will occur throughout the course, willy-nilly, when you least expect it and at the most inconvenient times. Instructor(s) cannot inform you of the timing, duration, or content of tests. Once a test is begun, you must finish it. It can’t be stopped, so don’t ask. No one likes a whiner.

(3) Student Etiquette

Appropriate and respectful behavior is expected at all times, but instructors will not be holding their collective breath. Students who routinely disturb others with incessant text messaging, annoying and repetitive stories, unrelenting bragging, or otherwise distracting behaviors will face potential permanent removal from the course. Throttling may be involved.

(4) Assignments

Students choose their own assignments. Please put your best effort into all that you do, or at least appear to be trying.

Grading

No grades are given in this course. You either pass or pass away.

Students’ Rights

Students who use dark chocolate for medicinal purposes are not required to disclose dosage or share with the others.

Elastic Clause

The instructor(s) have the right to make arbitrary, capricious, and kooky exceptions to policies, guidelines, and/or expectations throughout the term as he/she/they feel necessary. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Course Schedule

Students are responsible for creating their own schedules and will be held responsible for any errors or failures.

Remember, successful completion of Life Studies 2013 requires hard work, dark chocolate, sufficient sleep, lots of play, good food, dark chocolate, and daily hugs. Enjoy your year!

Students practice listening to interminable lectures prior to returning home for the holidays. Courtesy: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2621134

Life Studies students practice listening to interminable lectures prior to returning home for the holidays where they will be required to listen to parents and relatives. Courtesy: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2621134

The Christmas Imp, AKA, the Creche Crasher

Once upon a Christmas Eve, baby Jesus went missing.

“Mary is pining away,” the angels gossiped.

“I’m secretly incensed,” said one of the wise men.

“It was my golden opportunity,” another wise man said.

Joseph looked everywhere.

Mary prayed.

“I think this is the wrong tale,” said Eeyore.

“Moo,” said the cow.

“Baa,” said the sheep.

“Sugar cubes,” said the horse.

“I have that sinking feeling that he’s gone,” said Santa to the Nutcracker.

“I’d give my right arm to find him,” said the Nutcracker.

“I know where he is,” the Imp said.

Safe beneath the wings of the blue angels.

So they brought the child to Mary and Joseph, and lo, an orchid bloomed and hung above his head. And all the people, angels, and animals rejoiced, even the Imp.

Is there a Heimlich Maneuver for love?

Photo http://flickr.com/photos/58367355@N00/3866423477

I am loved. My husband works out of our home, yet finds time to make meals for me, do most of the grocery shopping, and take care of cars and bills. In a few days, we will celebrate 32 years of sharing the same last name. We have walked through joy and heartbreak together, and in every step he has remained kind and patient. Not once, and trust me, I would remember, has he ever raised his voice toward me or said an unkind word.

For the past 32 years, I have worked as a Quality Control Inspector putting my husband to the test. I’ve subjected him to impatience, sharp words, anger, silence, and rigorous door slamming. No matter how I act or what I do, he remains the same, his goodness still in tact.

Does he have flaws? Yes. The most egregious: he cannot read my mind. I have powerful thoughts that I beam toward him on a regular basis. Since he claims to love me, I don’t feel it is necessary to actually say what I want or need. Obviously, his goodness has limits.

One of the greatest manifestations of his love is buying me dark chocolate. He regularly buys a box of truffles or other delights and puts them in the cupboard so that I can medicate as needed. Last month, he came home with two bags of bite-sized treats and a container of dark chocolate mint balls. I usually eat one piece a day, though two pieces a day is not unheard of. Sometimes I take some to my coworkers, and I also share with my daughter and grandchild because my husband eats only sweet, milky chocolate.

I worked on emptying the two bags of candy, which seemed to disappear more rapidly than usual, saving the dark chocolate mints for last. Then one evening last week, my husband walked in the living room with the clear container of dark chocolate mints.

“How do you like them?” he asked.

I looked at the half-empty container. Although I found it hard to breathe, I managed to get a few words out. “I don’t know. I haven’t eaten any. Have you been eating my dark chocolate mints?”

“I don’t really like them,” he said, “but I’ve been choking them down.”

Choking them down! Horrors! Were they deadly? Defective? Radioactive? Unsafe for older women? Did they have some ingredient that would harm me if swallowed? What depths of love drove him to risk his life for me?

Over the next few days, he managed to choke down the rest of the mints, saving me from that fearful ordeal. During the day while I was at school, I tried to stay occupied and not think about what he was going through; otherwise, I would envision him sitting in a corner, carefully removing the lid from those innocuous-looking but life-threatening mints, forcing himself to eat them, possibly choking, and doing it all for me.

I will never know what that good man spared me from and endured on my behalf, because I never tasted even one of those mints. For days after, I lauded him, recalled his deed, and thanked him for his heroism. To prevent me from making too much of his courage, he placed a big box of dark chocolate truffles under my pillow. He thinks this will still my incessant praise. He is wrong.

He’s a humble man and doesn’t want to talk about the mints and his act of bravery, but I do. It’s one more reason I love the man.

Eleven holiday gift ideas for the wildered

Does holiday gift shopping leave you feeling like the character Wolfstein in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s book Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne? For the very few that may have forgotten that famous passage, I’m referring to the line, “wildered by the suscitated energies of his soul almost to madness.”

If you feel, mad, suscitated, and wildered, you are in luck. I am here to help you. Be wildered no more. Relax and let go of your suscitation. But stay mad if you like. The list of clothing items I have provided (free of charge!) are guaranteed to fit everyone on your gift list for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, National Brownie Day, National Ding-A-Ling Day, National Bouillabaisse Day, and International Talk with a Fake British Accent Day.

Consider:

1. The Civil Suit – Lawyers love this outfit. Comes mostly in shades of gray. Nothing in black and white is available. Cost ranges from very cheap to outrageous. Must be taken to the cleaners; otherwise, very appealing.

2. Smarty Pants – Do you have a friend or relative who knows everything? Consider these pants. Available in extremely large sizes to cover all sizes of rear ends.

3. Pencil Pants – THE gift for writers and people who draw for a living. Very sharp looking. Proven to help them get the lead out and move on with their careers.

4. The Freudian Slip – For the well-dressed woman. Never worry again in those unexpected moments when your unmentionables show. Tasteful but provocative; leaves everything to the imagination.

5. Flip-flops – A perennial favorite of politicians, they make a perfect gift for your boss as well.

6. Platform Shoes – Another favorite of politicians. Perfect for posing in various positions for the camera. Not for long-term use.

7. The Ad Dress – Do you have any recent college graduates on your gift list? This dress is the one they are all looking for.

8. The Nursing Bra – Do you have a favorite CNA, LVN, LPN, BSN, CRNA, PHN or other medical acronym? Good for you. Do you have a favorite nurse who could use support? Nurse always find this gift uplifting. (Note: not appropriate for male nurses.)

9. The Wool Pullover – Tired of receiving these from other people? Why not buy one for yourself. That way, you can pull the wool over your own eyes.

10. The Straight Jacket – Flummoxed over what to buy your wacky friend or Aunt Edith who lives in the attic? As a fashion statement, they are bold, yet restrained.

11. The Shrink Wrap: This stylish wrap for psycho-practitioners can cover or uncover as much as you like. Also comes in inkblot patterns. Long enough to cover Freudian slips.

Happy Shopping!

Photos:

Nurses with babies: DN-0083981, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum.

Glamorous: DN-0087832, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum.

Frequently Not Asked Questions: Five

Are you a nosy person? Do you ever check your husband’s cell?

Only when I let him out for good behavior….

Oh, you meant his cell phone. No, I never check that.

I hardly ever check my own phone, much less anyone else’s. If phones were like dogs, the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cellphone Abstention) would rescue mine and put it in the hands of someone who would give the phone the attention it deserves.

Since I am fairly good with faces, I don’t need to check an online book to remember who my friends and family are or to discover they wear shoes (see the photos!), spend a good part of the day finding YouTube videos (follow the links!) or can’t spell (see the werds!) I don’t like online games and on my morning drive, I see plenty of road hogs and angry birds flipped in every direction; I am not interested in playing games based on them. I tried wearing earphones and listening to music while I walked, but I missed the natural sounds around me. My favorite tweets come from the birds in my neighborhood, and I’ve been streaming reality so long, I prefer it to all other kinds.

When I was a young girl, dogs were everywhere, free to roam, and phones were on leashes. Now phones are everywhere, free to roam, and dogs are on leashes. I’m glad to have a cellphone untethered from the wall that can stay by my side throughout the day, an ever-faithful companion, but I never could abide a yappy dog. Some days I see my cellphone as a Saint Bernard, ready to rescue me in any emergency; but most of the time, I see it as a Golden Retriever, sent to fetch the voices of the ones I love and miss.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear some funny noises coming from the cell. I better see what my husband needs.

It’s for you; Nature’s calling.

Cell can be found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:LadyofHats

Word Flummoxery: lie lay lie

The flummoxerization of the average native speaker of English who has unexpectedly wandered into grammar’s slough of despond is never greater than when he/she/they (you choose) have/has to deal with lie, lay, and lie. The three words sound deceivingly like musical non-lexical vocables, sounds singers make up when they can’t think of any more words.

The first lie in this triad is an intransitive verb, which means the action of the verb doesn’t go anywhere because the subject is resting, so please keep your voice down. The prefix “in” in intransitive means “not.” We can think of the subject as no longer in transit, unless they fly first-class and have grown indifferent to the plaintive cries of those in the second-class section, whose seats are marked with a button called “Recline,” which, if you look carefully you will see contains the wash-your-mouth-out-with-soap word of our trilogy. But more of that later, and hopefully less of these long, complicated sentences that are really just rants decked out in commas.

At this point, the reader may be thinking, “This is easy.” Think again. You’ve stepped into one of the muddiest parts of the slough.

Did you lie down in bed last night? Tell me about it. I lied in bed. Well, that may be true, but it’s not the past tense of the “lie” known as rest. Okay, I laid in bed. Laid what, my friend? You see how easy it is to get stuck in the mud. The correct answer is “I lay in bed last night.” Many people are disturbed to wake up and discover they slept all night with what can also be a transitive verb.

To avoid disturbation, use a synonym like “recumb.”

Harold: (at the dinner table) Excuse me, Lydia. I’m not feeling well. I think I need to recumb.

Lydia: (running for the bucket) Here, use this.

Harold: No, dear, I need to find a place to support most of my body in a somewhat horizontal position.

Lydia: That sounds supine.

Lay, the second leaf on our word shamrock lie-lay-lie, means to place or put something somewhere, often in a place you have completely forgotten about. Since it’s perfectly acceptable to lay your head on your pillow, people often say, “I’m going to lay down.” Unless they are planning to lay down their burdens, this is incorrect. If they are planning to lay down their burdens, perhaps you could show a little sympathy and not try to correct their grammar.

The ubiquitous “people” that we have all heard so much about often point to Bob Dylan’s song “Lay, Lady, Lay” as the first of many songs leading to decline of the English language. What these “people” don’t know, and I didn’t know myself until a few minutes ago, was that Dylan’s favorite hen, Lady, was one of the most productive hens ever not recorded. When she hit a rough spot in her career, Dylan wrote this song to encourage her. He thought a change of venue, his big brass bed, would do the trick. Apparently, many chicks were laid there.

That little known “fact” brings us to our third word “lie.” As far as information goes, this is dis- or mis-. A lie is to the truth as a politician is to his or her campaign promises: there is no connection. Many people lie; I lied once myself, but I didn’t inhale.

Quibblers may squabble or prattle or babble over exceptions, other meanings, and other uses of lie-lay-lie. Brabble on. The English language is full of exceptions, ergo ipso facto hokey pokey, it is an exceptional language.

Image courtesy: Flickr by graymalkn at http://flickr.com/photos/22244945@N00/3565234041.

Spanxgiving

If you are an American, I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving spread. If you’re like me (and if you are, I hope you are seeing a therapist) you will carry memories of it in your hips and thighs for months to come.

My holiday spread begins at Thanksgiving and usually ends around Labor Day when I overindulge for the very last time this year (honest!) because I believe in moderation in all things. I also believe that my body’s remembrance of meals past enlarges me and makes me a bigger person, so I’m conflicted.

Of course, not everyone celebrates when you begin spreading, especially if you are sitting next to them on an airplane. These whiners tend to be the same people who object to using “them” with the antecedent “everyone” in that last sentence. I should know because I object as well. But only if I discover the usage in a student’s paper. In my own writing, in order to avoid using the awkward “him or her” or wasting time rewriting the sentence with a plural subject, I pull out my Shakespeare card and say, “I follow my Will.” He did, as you know, write the lines, “There’s not a man I meet but doth salute/As if I were their well-acquainted friend.” If the objector continues to complain, I pull out my failed poet card, put it next to Shakespeare’s, and say, “Bards of a feather flock together.” That rarely convinces anyone, but I take my pleasures where I can.

If you skipped that last paragraph, I congratulate you on your astuteness. It has little relevance to the purported point of this post. If you didn’t skip that last paragraph, well, better luck next time.

Now, where were we? (I hate it when I lose my spread of thought.)

Holiday spread happens, as does secondhand holiday spread (the encroachment of your spread into other people’s space.) This year show your love by giving Spanx.

Happy Spanxgiving!

I borrowed this picture from the official Spanx website (http://www.spanx.com/). If you Spanx me, I promise not to do it again.

year-struck

old age and other jokes I know

humor