Quotes Inspired by Mount Everest

Those Himalayas of the mind are not so easily possessed. There's more than precipice and storm between you and your Everest.
(from memory...author temporarily unknown...can't even find it on the web!)

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. (Sir Edmund Hillary)

Poem for Spring

Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd, --

A host of golden daffodils

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company;

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

How an 8-Year-Old Falls Asleep

Last night after I had tucked my daughter, Emily, into bed, I returned to my room across the hall to do some work at my desk. Several minutes had passed when I heard her call out, "Can you guys talk?"

"What do you mean?" I called back. Scott was already asleep.

"Well, that's how I fall asleep - when you have a really, really boring conversation."

I had no idea any of our conversations were so dull!

Some Quotes & Humorous Headlines

You don't have to be tall to see the moon. - African Proverb

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. - Victor Borge

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. - Frederico Garcia Lorca

In the richness of language - its grace, breadth, and dexterity - lies its power. To speak with clarity, brevity, and wit is like holding a lightning rod. - James Salter, American novelist b. 1925

Actual Newspaper Headlines:

Include Your Children When Baking Cookies

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say

Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should be Belted

Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case

Iraqi Head Seeks Arms

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

Eye Drops Off Shelf

Teacher Strikes Idle Kids

Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax

Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told

Miners Refuse to Work After Death

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

Stolen Painting Found by Tree

Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years at Checkout Counter

War Dims Hope for Peace

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Deer Kill 17,000

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

Hospitals Are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

In Praise of Phyllis ("The Office")

Though I miss all of the characters on "The Office," I seem to be looking forward to seeing Phyllis the most. I liked her character from the beginning, probably because she is the most realistic of all the characters on the show. (I always like real people better than celebrities, and, in her case, she was a real person involved with casting when they asked her to take a role on "The Office.")

I think every office in America has someone like Phyllis who does her job, quietly keeps her opinions to herself until asked (then willingly expresses them), and tries to contribute to the team.

These are the things I remember about Phyllis:

* She recently married Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration (and if you don't know who that is, then you've got a lot to learn about Scranton!)

* She wears awful perfume, including some scented with evergreen.

* She went to high school with Michael Scott, so they are the same age, even though Michael pretends she is much older than he is.

* She was a cheerleader in high school (and in real life, she was a cheerleader for the St. Louis Cardinals NFL football team.)

* She wears large glasses that emphasize her big eyes.

* She'll wear brassy make-up and big hair in order to make a sale.

* She has her finger on the romantic pulse of the office.

* She serves humbly under Angela's direction on the party committee, often gritting her teeth as her suggestions are disregarded, even ridiculed.

I'm glad the whole show isn't built around Phyllis, and I'm not saying she's ready for a spin-off show of her own, but I like that she's there doing her job kind of at the center of Dunder-Mifflin.

Word of the Day: Spoonerism

Did you know that English has three times more words than any other language (and it's still growing by about 450 words a year)? That's why we are so prone to spoonerisms. If you transpose the first letters of two words, you are likely to get two other words that still have meaning.

Spoonerisms are named for an English clergyman and dean at Oxford named William Archibald Spooner. He once raised a toast to Victoria by saying, "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" He also gave a speech applauding British farmers in which he referred to them as "those noble tons of soil." The examples below are also his.

I seem to be accidentally making spoonerisms more and more as I get older, so I thought I'd get the terminology down and provide a few examples:

Spoonerism: the transposition of the initial sounds in a pair of words.

Some examples of spoonerisms:

When the boys come back from France, we'll have the hags flung out.

Let me sew you to your sheet.

Movie Review: Juno

Before the movie I was debating which film to see: Juno, which I had heard good things about, or Bonneville, which I had also read good things about. I asked the ticket sales clerk which she would recommend. She said, "I've heard Juno's funny, if you're not easily offended." Hmmm, well, I'm not easily offended, so I chose Juno.

I expected it to be an edgier "Napoleon Dynamite," a charming, coming-of-age reflection. Wrong! Juno was entertaining and well acted, but watching it I felt like I was wearing a shock collar. Could the heroine be more insensitive and irreverent? I don't think so. Nonetheless, she was realistic, I suppose, and that's something. I never was 'that kind' of teenager myself (the mouthy kind) and never particularly liked that kind of teenager, but, hey, they're out there and I applaud Juno for being realistic.

It also deserves kudos for its no-doubt unintentional anti-abortion message. Why waste a perfectly good baby? Juno continues to attend high school while carrying the baby to term, then wisely gives the baby up for adoption. Her monotone lack of emotion throughout the film indicates that she is emotionally scarred herself by her own mother's abandonment, which is mentioned in the film's first scene.

The couple who wants to adopt Juno's baby are caught in a stifling marriage. Juno relates primarly to the man who wants to be a kid again, but ultimately recognizes and rewards the maturity of the woman, who needs Juno's baby in order to release a lifetime of pent-up emotions.

Bleeker, the father of Juno's unborn child, is a normal high school student, outside of his association with Juno. She has singled him out as someone special. Despite the pregnancy, their relationship continues on an adolescent trajectory toward an uncertain future.

The film is really about dealing with adult pressures from an immature position. It's an exposee on why not to be sexually active until you have your own nest and someone you love to feather it with you.

At the climax of the movie, Juno declares to her father, "I need to know that it is possible for two people to stay happy together." In Juno's world, there is little evidence that such a possibility exists.

Juno summarizes the film in one line when her step-mother asks where's she's been: "Out dealing with things way beyond my maturity level." I think that about sums it up.

If you can disregard the shock value punctuation thrown into the script, the movie may be worth seeing.

I Am Not the Queen of England!

I understand the Queen likes it, even insists upon it, but I am not the Queen of England, so please don't call me ma'am.

A ma'am is a gray haired woman in her 70s who wears an apron when she cooks and grafts geraniums for fun. She doesn't flinch when she's called ma'am, because anything more casual or familiar is actually an affront to her.

I remember the first time it happened, many years ago now, and how it cut like a knife to have a stranger make the casual assessment that I was clearly past my prime and therefore no longer eligible to be called 'miss.' I had inadvertently crossed an arbitrary boundary into middle age. It ruined my whole day.

It happened at Blocksbuster again the other evening. This was not some pimply adolescent for whom everyone over 30 is old - this was a man my age or older who called me ma'am repeatedly during the course of the transaction. I'm not questioning his motives - I'm sure he was only trying to be respectful - but, all the same, I wish he had called me by my actual name(visible on my membership card) or 'hey, you' or 'hey, Lady' (which is only a slight improvement) or anything, anything but ma'am.

I don't like being called Miss, either, at this point, because I am clearly not a miss, so when someone calls me Miss, I am instantly skeptical of their false flattery, as though I should be thrilled to think that they think I am young enough to be a miss. Am I making any sense?

Maybe I am being too harsh, too sensitive. I'm sure I've called women Ma'am myself on more than one occasion, but I'm going to stop it and start a movement to stop it, or maybe there's a movement already in progress that I can join...

Ma'ams no more!