Dyslexia Or Excuse

 Dyslexia is used far too often by people who have not been tested for it, but who use the word as an excuse for their poor language skills. Perhaps they have learned that they misuse terms or misspell  words or make too many grammatical errors. The first thing that pops out of their mouths is "oh, it's okay, I am dyslexic". What wants to pop out of mine, is "have you been tested or are you using that description as an excuse for your mistakes?" We can do almost whatever we want to do or say or be, but there are limits. Limits are either legal, moral, political, social,  intellectual, on and on, but I prefer the word "why" when it comes to the interpretation of "mistakes". Why do we need to spell or say a certain word in a certain way. The whole mess of what's right and what isn't, was, in our language, more or less, invented by a man, Samuel Johnson, whose passion was the English language. He, in fact, compiled enough words in his time to create A Dictionary Of The English Language. If you want to read more about this astoundingly energetic chap, you can read Boswell's The Life Of Samuel Johnson. Johnson was an academic who lived during the 1700s. Apparently, Mr. Johnson took a peek at the French Language Dictionary that took forty years to make, and did his in only eight.  Samuel was a fellow who had the energy of a hive of bees and surrounded himself with mountains of books that he read and referred to. He was also an interesting person to view, for he had a series of nervous tics and jumping behaviours that did not stand in the way of his amazing brain that produced astounding amounts of literary works. You can visit his burial site in Westminster Abby not far from Shakespeare whom he wrote extensively about, if you wish. Back to grammar and the spelling of words. These days with spell check and on line help to do it, few people make mistakes. There is also AI coming up.  Usage, is quite another matter, not that many give a flying gerund about it. I once sat on a plane counting the number times I had to hear the word, "like" spoken by two young women off to another country to work. I hoped it weren't in a school. (Look that one up.) Cell phone texting is likely one of the worst enemies of  English usage due to its need for brevity,  but it is, to me, very interesting to see that a new language is, and can be invented. Beside my computer, I have a listing of cell phone terms just for reference. But I'm still and advocate of syntax. All teenagers since the beginning of time, have invented their own language thinking that we adults in their lives, have no idea of what they are saying. We don't, but then again, we don't care. We are too busy filling out the tax forms and job applications. They have that aspect of the language yet to learn. I have been told that the reason there are spelling rules, is to effect understanding. Ahem to that. Having taught English in schools, even  spelling doesn't cut it, when good writing and correct usage is absent. If  you don't believe me, give a listen to radio broadcasters who at times make errors that are blushible. Is blushible in the dictionary? 

What's For Dinner?

Christmas dinner is, in my life, a turkey with dressing or stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, yellowish vegetables done up in a casserole and Brussels Sprouts. The rest is sidebar. It was a different and rather hectic situation this year due to a lot of things. It behaved much like the little glass orbs we shake and watch as little snowflakes whirl about the scene inside. We earthlings are whirled by chaos everywhere we turn, and fight not to allow it to enter our personal spheres and spoil our lives. Our natural resilience  has us trying to fix it through kind acts and positive thinking and ignoring the media hype that tries to convince us that it is a hundred percent their vision instead of the three.  After all that negative press effort, we have weather. About this, we can do nonother than listen to the warnings and do in our environments what needs doing. My Christmas dinner, as a minor example, has been long in the planning and this year, it's a dart board. I have a dart board on my front door inside the hallway where often I shoot badly while, once in awhile, I get a bull's eye purely accidentally. Fortunately, the darts and board  don't damage anything but one's ego. This year trying for the traditional Christmas dinner, to find a turkey was like my dart board: iffy.  Thinking that getting one via online shopping which is all I do, would avoid the hassle of a last minute rush. The order came, however,  turkeyless. And the prices for big birds was huge but desperation came first. No early turkey. Then I opted for turkey rolls in all  of its ugly forms. No luck there either. Okay, I thought, we'll go red meat. Two barons of beef came that were nothing I could curtsey for. Two small chunks of baron of beef that isn't a tender cut arrived. My final attempt for a bird, was a ham and two long salmon filets. The golden goose left home. Maybe in fear of being on a platter soon. The plan, now only two weeks from the dinner, appeared to be a platter of fin, fur and bristle, no feather. A week before the holiday plan, voila, the store "rained" turkeys and finally I got my dream turkey of the brand I love. My stuffed little freezer is almost falling over with joy.  But, and that little word is a biggie. But  now to challenge my dinner, was the weather that came along and said, ha ha, you thought you had it, right? Uh uh, lady. Gotcha! Mom Nature strutted out her ice storms and snow drifts and shut me down, or almost did. Planet earth's mother presented us with her new game. My turn, she said. Is it her revenge? Now what are we pompous holidayists going to do? Aha. We are resourceful two legged creatures; the eons prove it. We made the calendar to fit nature, but we know how to bend it to our needs. Now, that I have my turkey, nothing, but nothing is going to stand in the way of turkey dinner even if it's served in January. 

Jaded

 Jade, the English term coined a long time ago, is an old horse well beyond its useful purposes. I feel jaded these days and maybe it's because I am old, a place we all achieve like it or not. Jaded means someone who, in my terms, has had it up to here and doesn't have the power to change things. I feel jaded. Most of what the media feeds me, us, is all the worst news there is. Oddly, we eat it up as though it is something  tasty. Does it make us "jaded"? Yup, it does. The other day while watching TV, I went to what was advertised as the most popular show "everyone" is panting to see. Click, and I watched on the big screen a brilliantly coloured forest of trees, hearing a burst of  beats that some might call music and a voice began to speak, not sing, lines of words that flew in the face of everything decent. The figures in the scene were writhing in openly sexual moves, almost nude and without a semblance anything that could be called dancing. The words spoken not sung, were shocking and they actually lauded violence against women in terms that used language I am surprised got past the censors.  What I was seeing and hearing and feeling  portrayed a kind of "hell". I turned it off. Sure, I could be charged with being jaded. But hey, I am only an average viewer who heard that the world is changing to being more open and generous and working toward equality in all ways. Being old fashioned, being uncool, being old, but living and being in this time, not the future, sorry, this kind of slime on television is not acceptable and those who make it should know better. As humans. If it must be done, put it behind locked doors, please. Being human comes first.  In our human idealism, we made changes with new  laws and political strategies to better the planet. This show was negative to all that we hoped would happen. It is only one example, but when the planet is telling us, the end is inevitable ahead, is this how we want it to end? Do the hopeless hide behind their worst scenarios and show their worst sides and try to engage us in it? This particular show might be someone's choice, but it's a horrific one. All the pillars of morality have almost disappeared: fun holidays, cars, decor, chic attire  are the priority, along with spas and gyms and beauty clinics,  and entertainment. Where is what really matters such as health care, respect for those who deserve it, attention to being a real family, ousting the false junk on our faces and bodies, chucking the detritus of electronic gizmos we don't need, getting  rough living off the sidewalks, making post-secondary education free to build our country, care for those who can't care for themselves? What have we become that we can't see it, and are exposed to the kind of disgusting show I witnessed, touted as being something to watch at Christmas time? What happened to all that is good and beautiful, natural, and true? It's in us waiting, and we need to get it back.

Wacky Tacky Christmas

 I don't have magazine Christmas decor. It's not that I don't want it.  When I go to my dear friends' places, the ones they remodelled to be all white and airy and full of marble and interesting area rugs and pale leather furniture, I wonder. When the holiday season arrives, I wonder how they can add to their open spaces anything that might disturb the ambiance of their new shiny homes. But their places look even nicer with the holiday decor all matching and such.  Now, my place, being small and cramped with furniture that is so comfortable  I can't part with it, not to speak of the white grand piano in the corner just in case someone wants to play on it, if there are any people left who play. And while I love their houses, I am happy with my wacky tacky Christmas decor. And still they come over and they love it, too. I am a keeper, not a hoarder. I have a couple of carboard boxes that manage to hold everything that means Christmas to me. I know that being the Canadian I am, I respect all other cultures with their celebrations, too, that make our country the "mosaic" that it is. My holiday now is called Christmas and I love it just as they do their special days, because we have memories connected with our celebrations, ones that are close to our hearts and pasts. In my house, everywhere you will see wreaths and little figures and decorations that don't quite blend, but somehow do, and music out of the speakers that few people recognise any more. The singers peal away as I put out the tiny clay figures of the creche, the old tree decorations when we had real trees that didn't come from the corner market or inside a plastic wrap. The balls were made of glassy stuff that broke when the family cat batted them or little ones' fingers dropped them and they cried. And others that we made at school: a Santa that has funny eyes, angels whose halos have bent and broken ones that aren't ashamed of their missing bits. As I put them out lovingly on the mantel and edges of other places I find, they bring back the sounds of childhood voices and laughter, when presents were wrapped maybe with last year's paper left over, and  hand made cards with printed verses not quite poetry but with heart. Reading the words written in early printing by those now old or gone, have precious meaning that something slick from a designer store, cannot replace no matter how fashionable. I look around when it's all done and I can almost hear the door opening and voices coming in stomping snow off feet. They are the people once here and once needed and loved. It may be wacky and tacky in my place, but wow, it's where I belong, and I wish that feeling for everyone in this, my holiday season. 

Shooting For Turkey

 Trying to shoot for a turkey to roast for the holiday season is like out finding one in the bush. Once we saw in the woods some wild turkeys and they look nothing like the grand birds on a farm. What we saw in the forest, wouldn't feed three people adequately. And they were well feathered which was about all they had on their skins. I have been hunting for three or four weeks now, and haven't seen a turkey of the grocery mart kind at all. I began a couple of months ago. Remember Thanksgiving? That was hard enough and what came in my grocery delivery, the system I am addicted to, looked much like a chicken out of  a prisoner of war camp. It was the only choice I had, other than the huge birds that looked like something out of Jurassic Park. The latter cost about as much, as the movie birds, too.  I decided on the small turkey or hardy chicken-like animal, if you wish, and when it came, it appeared to be one of those turkeys that was so small it escaped the grading. It was about the size of the old capons that my grandmother bought cheaply in the markets and boiled mercilessly for a couple of days in a huge pot.  She felt it could be more edible that way but it always ended up as soup.  Happily, the small turkey I received, managed to feed the four of us adequately, and surprisingly gave enough for making a few sandwiches the next day. With the upcoming December holiday, I thought I would order early, and perhaps have a nice  turkey bird to put on our festive table if I got it ahead of the rush. It has been, in earnest, about three weeks now in trying, and all I have been able to bag (literally) is turkey bacon sliced into what looks very much like pale plastic bacon. Somehow, I don't think it would be palatable as turkey slices on my guests' plates. Turkey slices don't come in bacon shape.  It was a learning experience since I had never heard of "bacon sliced turkey". I opted in the next online order to bend my hopes to a have turkey roast instead. The roast is turkey breast all string wrapped much like ham. Out of stock (OOS) was the response on the day the roast was to arrive. At the same time as the turkey roast, I had also stooped to order the "back hind quarter" of a turkey as well, thinking that my guests might like a bit of dark meat with the light. OOS again. Another week went by. Okay, thought I, stepping down from my pride ladder, I will  submit to the frozen boxed turkey rolls. I went for the turkey roll with dark meat. That would be okay if disguised with enough gravy to make up for the format.  OOS. On the next order, I armored myself,  thinking they must be selling out too soon so if I order right away, I will get the turkey they show in their ad.  I made an order right after the first order but opted for the huge bird that is close to a hundred bucks, because who is going to pay that much for one dinner plus all else. I would be sure of my turkey.  OOS. I give up. This holiday season we might have to trade wing for hide or fin instead. And then there's always meat loaf. Maybe.