The millionth word

A small notice in the StarTribune today stated, "U.S. company Global Language Monitor estimates that the millionth word will be added to the English language in mid-June".
Add to that the fact a lot of words have multiple meanings and we're talking millions of words!

It is mind-boggling that we have that many words at our disposal and still can't communicate very well with each other.

I depend on my thesaurus to find a word with the right shade of meaning. I often have to settle for another word that doesn't quite express what I mean. It seems we will never have enough words to convey the exact thing we want to say.

It is time we start to work on becoming telepathic! Not so much to exchange facts, but to have empathy for each other. Wouldn't this make for a more compassionate, peaceful world?

Now, who do we go to with this great idea?

Anybody... ?

Yoohoo.....

Old-age angst

Yesterday I got a phone call from my middle daughter, Brenda. She had just been diagnosed with asthma and will need to start using an inhaler. Her older sister has been using one for some time.


I've read that the incidence of asthma has been increasing in the population. And yet...back in the sixties when my kids were little, both of their parents were smokers. Their healthy little lungs were polluted with second-hand smoke on a daily basis. What kind of people would do that?! How could we have been so ignorant and selfish?

We humans seem to blunder our way around the planet doing insanely destructive things without any regard for the consequences. Then we have to struggle to repair the damage in a costly last ditch effort. We rarely succeed.

We really don't deserve this beautiful, incredible Earth. The single largest man-made structure on the planet? The answer is Fresh Kills, the rubbish dump on Staten Island, NY. It is close to 5 square miles in area and exceeds both the Great Wall of China and the pyramids in volume. It was closed for good after debris from the World Trade Center was deposited there in 2001.

Thankfully, they are now flattening and landscaping the area and plan to make it into a park.

I still wonder, though, will there ever be intelligent life on Earth?

I'm finally a Matriarch

I'm back after a busy week. There's a lot to be said for being busy--mainly that it's such a relief when things slow down again.

When my mom died ten years ago, I said, "Well, I guess I'm the matriarch now." Still I never really sensed it until this past weekend. I'm not talking about being the family CEO or Diva, I'm talking about the tremendous pride in being surrounded by all the dear people who make me so happy and fulfilled. I could simply sit back and revel in how fortunate I am.

I spent the weekend in Fergus Falls MN, my former hometown where my oldest daughter and her family live. Her son (my youngest grandchild, Allen) was confirmed on Sunday morning in the church we attended. I got great enjoyment in seeing old friends at church.


It was a joyous weekend on many levels (we also celebrated Cindy's 50th birthday). My three daughters and spouses, my ex-husband, several granddaughters and great-granddaughters were at the after-church dinner in the community room at my ex's apartment building. With my son-in-law's relatives, Cindy hosted 30 people for a lovely dinner and did a wonderful job.

I know I sound like the society page in the Smalltown Gazette, but I just had to brag a little.

Earth Day 2009

Mother Earth has been good to us, so far...

Rationalizing on Earth Day

Tomorrow is Earth Day and Friday is Arbor Day.

I drive a car I've had for 10 years and it gets about 20 miles to the gallon. This is not good. However, even if I could afford a newer, eco-friendly car, my old Impala would still exist. Someone else would be driving it and getting 20 miles to the gallon. So, I may as well keep driving it.

After going to bed each night, at least a dozen small lights still remain on all over the house. There are power strips behind or under furniture, there are LED's on various electronics, the stove and microwave plus a few night lights. I'm told that we could reduce our energy consumption by as much as 10% if we turned them all off. But, who is going to crawl around every night turning off all the energy "vampires"? Really!!

We could also reduce our energy costs by replacing all of our windows with expensive new onesand replacing our appliances with more energy efficient ones. Oh, if only...

So, I do what little I can and urge others to do the same. That's called rationalizing.

Confessions of a Feemster fan

I found this picture on ebay showing two Feemster peelers for sale
for $9.99. They were advertised as "Great-grandma's potato peelers".

I have never had one like that shown on the left, (sorry, I don't know how to crop or enlarge photos) but the one on the right is my potato peeler. This is the kind that I learned to peel potatoes with as a child. I was often pressed into helping make supper and since we had meat and potatoes at every meal, I peeled a whopping lot of potatoes during my youth.

When I became a "housewife" (ugly term) I got my first Feemster to peel potatoes. Over the years I tried other types of peelers but found them so awkward that I always returned to my old faithful. To this day, I find it almost impossible to peel potatoes without my Feemster.

When my mom died ten years ago, I inherited her potato peeler (actually, nobody else wanted it). I had the luxury of two of them in my utensil drawer. I felt so secure having a backup one.

One day recently, I discovered one of them was missing. I was worried sick. I was down to a single ancient Feemster--what if it broke? What if that one disappeared? Thinking I might have accidentally thrown it away, I pulled the plastic garbage bag out of the waste basket and carefully sorted through potato peelings, coffee grounds and various un-recyclables. It was a messy job but darn it, my Feemster was at stake! I searched through all the kitchen drawers several times and racked my brain over where it could have gone. I was discombobulated--I was living on the edge of disaster.

Several days later I was digging something out of a lower cupboard and noticed some baggies had fallen out of the drawer above. This rang a bell in my cluttered brain. I went over to the lower cupboard under the utensil drawer, and there, behind the bread pans was my beloved potato peeler! I had found it!

OK, so this was not an earth-shaking moment, but coming to the end of your supply of something nearly irreplaceable is scary. There's something sorta apocolyptic about it. Therefore, I write this post in the calm assurance that there are two Feemster potato peelers safely tucked away in my utensil drawer.

Yahoo! I feel goood!

One of my favorite newspaper cartoons is Ballard Street by Van Amerongen.

I just had to share this day brightener!