Odds and Ends

What's on my mind...

If God were using e-mail, would your inbox show a message waiting from “G. Almighty”? If s/he had a telephone, would the caller ID read “Almighty, God”?

Is it okay to mock the guy who posts on Facebook calling someone a “bafoon”? How about the Ultimate Irony Award for that one?

Is it all right to mock the guest on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” who, in playing the Listener Limerick Challenge, needed to come up with the name of a bird to rhyme with ‘craven’ and ‘graven’, and stumbled, finally coming up with ‘pigeon’? I mean, you don’t have to have memorized umpteen stanzas of the Poe poem, but seriously? -- pigeon???

Is it acceptable to mock myself for having so much difficulty controlling my desire to mock others for their petty (but sometimes unbelievable) mistakes?

Memo to self: When ironing your favorite white cotton blouse, and listening to the above-mentioned “Wait, Wait”, do not, repeat DO NOT drink coffee. When the contestant offered “Pigeon?” I sprayed coffee out of my mouth like something out of a ‘50s comedy sketch. White blouse—rushed to the sink to flood in cold water. Do not do this again.

This week’s “Bull Durham Award” for the most clichés in a single sentence goes to Jim Docheff, the Colorado farmer interviewed this morning on NPR’s Weekend Edition. He’s a fourth-generation dairy man, who was hit hard by the recession and had to declare bankruptcy last spring. Now don’t get me wrong—I have nothing but admiration for the work that all farmers do. It’s unbelievably hard work, and not terribly rewarding financially. This guy in particular sounded like a terrific human being, with solid values and a good head on his shoulders. Still, if I ever pull this kind of linguistic bunk, I expect to be called out on it, so here goes.

The host of the program, Liane Hansen was wrapping up the interview and said something like, It sounds like you’re out of the woods now. Jim’s response was (verbatim) “Well, you’re never out of the woods, but we’re almost to the top of the hill, and just a few more months we’ll be over the hump.” Ta-da! A trifecta! (I’m calling it the Bull Durham Award, because the baseball players in that movie said ‘you just gotta get your clichés down.’ They did several riffs on that theme throughout the movie, and it has stuck with me.)