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The Resolutions I’m Still Not Making

January 2, 2026

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Resolutions I’m Still Not Making

It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself  is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard’s pear tree.   [1]

Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

New Year’s Reflections   [2]

I’ve come full circle, and perhaps another 45 degrees, on the whole New Year’s Resolutions Thing ®.  As an adolescent I was intrigued by the idea of making New Year’s Resolutions – or at least I was the first time I heard an adult talking about it. Then in young adulthood   [3]   I thought, oh puhleeeease, what a crock. Whenever I was asked about my NYR‘s I’d reply that I had already, several years ago, made the only resolution I’d ever kept: to never make another NYR ( moiself’s  past failed resolutions included, “Be taller,” and “Do not engage in audible eye-rolling when someone mentions their detox cleanse.” ).

 

 

Now, I think NYR are a fine idea. Yeah, resolve to “do better,” however and whenever you can and whatever that entails for you.  Of course, you don’t have to wait for the start of a new year to do so, but after all, the world is full of arbitrary limits, guidelines and restrictions,    [4]    so what the heck.

Some of my resolutions for this year are more profound than others; all shall remain private, save for this seemingly hackneyed one which, if kept, has a good chance of turning out to be the most nourishing to body and psyche:   Have more fun.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of It is Too Early To Tell, But I Still Don’t Think It’s Working.

That  it’s would be my father’s family tradition to ring in the new year.

☼  Hoppin’ John Spicy Collards and Black-eyed Peas Scramble   [5]
☼  Green Chilie Corn bread

Yesterday moiself’s  New Year’s Day menu (listed above) once again included a dish featuring black-eyed peas. I have done this for…decades, I guess. I do this in honor of my father and his heritage: specifically, his family’s tradition of eating black-eyed peas, collards and cornbread on New Year’s Day – an act of culinary optimism which was supposed to bring good luck for the coming year.

 

 

Despite consuming black-eyed peas every New Year’s day, my father’s family remained dirt-poor sharecroppers.    [6]   Every year, as I bring whatever black-eyed pea dish I’m making to my family table, I can’t help but wonder: just once, did a brave soul in my father’s family– possibly his adored, spunky younger sister, Lucile – when presented with yet another bowl of black-eyed peas and the directive to, Eat up, y’all, it’ll bring us good luck in the coming year!, look around at the ramshackle farmhouse and her barefooted siblings  [7]  and mutter, “It still ain’t workin.’ “

*   *   *

Department Of A Thing I Have Just Now Learned
Sub-Department Of WTF Is Wrong With Me,   [8]  Adjacent
To The Department Of Starting The Year With A Clean Slate

Dateline: last weekend; listening to one of Fresh Air’s year -end shows, when they replay some of their favorites of the year’s interviews/shows. This one was on the making of the now-iconic Bruce Springsteen song, “Born to Run.”

At the point in the show when FA host Terry Gross quoted some of the song’s evocative lyrics, I snickered to moiself, “That’s so funny – has Terry misheard that line, all these years, or is she being censored?”

I decided to look up the lyrics, for gloating purposes…and…

* apparently, someone was mishearing the line, all these years;
*  apparently, that someone wasn’t Terry Gross;
* apparently, the line is indeed, as TG quoted,
“…baby this town rips the bones from your back,”
and not, as moiself  has been hearing,
“…baby this town rips the balls from your back…”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of May The New Year Educate These Abominable Twits

On 12-28 Suzanne Mathis McQueen, my right-on-sister friend who is also an author, entrepreneur, and feminist inspirational leader,  [9]    posted a most concisely articulate takedown of the right’s miseducation and hysteria re immigration.  She was moved to do so in response to recent remarks made by Vice President J.D. “Jeering Doofus” Vance and top White House aide and racist policy formatter Stephen Miller – and oh please, ye deities who do not exist, ease the pain from having  Vice President accompany the name of such a festering turd of political, spiritual, and educational fraudulence….

Once again, I digress.

 


Veep J. D. “Judgmental Dickhead” Vance, speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona on 12/21, hyped up the slavering crowd of religious and racial bigots attending the event by claiming that, thanks to the current administration’s war on DEI, “You don’t have to apologize for being White anymore.”  A few days later, top White House aide Stephen Miller, after chugging too much bootleg eggnog,    [10]   posted a batshit crazy anti-immigrant rant after watching a 1967 TV ( The Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas ), featuring two of the USA’s favorite entertainers at the time and – heads up Miller – both sons of first generation immigrant parents.

 

 

Really.  I can’t make up this shit.

Here is SMM’s post ( my emphases ).   The fact that those whom SMM addresses evidently lack the introspection and cognitive flexibility to consider (much less understand, or agree with) her lucid presentation in no way negates the observable truths she so forthrightly states. 

Dear JD Vance:
No one’s asking you to apologize for being white.
I’m asking you to apologize for being so appallingly stupid about being white. 

Dear Stephen Miller:
My guess is that you have zero percent indigenous (to this landmass) in you
– ya know, the folks who were on this continent for 23-30 THOUSAND years –
which includes the Mexicans.

Whenever your white family came to this land, from wherever they came, they did so to find a better life, which was no more than 400-ish years ago, or less.

Which means, like me, you are a descendant of immigrants.

And…if you came from these first immigrants, your family, as part of a societal group of immigrants, did not assimilate into the local culture. They took resources, were a burden on the local society, nearly wiped them all out, and cruelly forced them out of their lush homelands onto desolate land.

And if your family doesn’t come from these first immigrants, your immigrant family benefitted from what had been set up for them by the first ones.

Stephen, again, you come from immigrants.

Perhaps this is why you’re afraid of not-white people or other immigrants. Perhaps you’re afraid they’ll take back the land of their people, or not assimilate and instead conquer – physically or intellectually. Your fear lives steeped within your cellular memory of history – of not wanting the same to happen to you.

While we can’t change that history, humans are designed to grow and learn if they want to. We can create win-win immigration standards that serve, protect, and respect all.

Repeating history that caused harm is dangerously ignorant.

Repeating history that caused harm and claiming to love Jesus
all in the same philosophy, is blasphemous.

Jesus wasn’t a bigot.  End of story.  Let’s move on.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Maybe Next Year We’ll Tweak This Holiday Tradition

Background: Over the years several of moiself’s  Jewish friends, acquaintances and/or coworkers/co-travelers, who told me that they were convinced that I was Jewish but “didn’t know it,” recommended that I go out for Chinese food on Christmas day.  I decided that this was the year…so…where to go?  When MH and I moved to Hillsboro  [11]   we were profoundly disappointed in the quality of the Chinese eateries available.   [12]  Eventually we stopped asking for recommendations from friends and neighbors, so as to not have to disappoint them later when they asked for our reviews.  We’d moved up from the San Francisco Bay Area, and had taken for granted the plethora of outstanding Chinese restaurants (not, ahem, Chinese American restaurants ) available…and in our experiences/opinions, none of what Hillsboro (or even Portland) had to offer measured up to Jing Jing.   [13]

 

 

Dateline: Christmas Day, 12:20 pm; getting ready for our 12:30p lunch reservations; donning my Yule season sock and shoe (singular this year – only my right foot can accommodate festive hosiery as the other is in a surgical boot).

 

 

My phone beeps; friend JWW texts me her season’s greetings, which I return.

Moiself:
“And Merry Christmas to you!
MH and K and I are about to celebrate our inner Jew and
go have Chinese food for lunch.”

JWW:
“Great idea.  Where are you going to eat?”

Moiself:
” ( restaurant name redacted ).  Haven’t been there in years.”

JWW:
“American Chinese.  Let me know how it is.  I miss American Chinese.”

One hour later, at the restaurant waiting for the check, I let her know.

Moiself (texting) to JWW:

“You *miss* American Chinese?  Seriously?
I could make food just as bland and never leave home….
Actually, it’s pretty funny.
I ate all of my dish ( aptly described on the menu as tofu and vegetables with brown sauce, and although there was no discernible flavor, the sauce was indeed brown) because I was very hungry…
but this is some of the most boring food I have ever had.
I guess it’s a good sign when you’re at the type of restaurant where the server never bothers to ask you how things are, because then you don’t have to lie about the food, or say something like, “Well, it’s in my stomach….”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [14] 

 

 

One of the many things moiself  dares to hope that, in the new year, scientists like the late greats Rosalind Franklin and Jane Goodall will experience less of the “damage of gender harassment”  and The Matilda Effect   [15]     (note that I am not wishing for a complete elimination of the gender bias – I’m not that naïve).

*   *   *

May you decide what kind of difference you want to make;
May that difference be the “luck” you make for the New Year;
May you have good luck no matter what you ate on January 1;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago

[2] As in, from the beginning of my blog of seven years ago.

[3] I think that should encompass ages 20 – 56.

[4] e.g. you are no more capable of making discerning political choices the day before your 18th birthday than you are the day of your 18th birthday; still, you can’t register to vote when you are age 17 years 364 days….

[5] What made John hoppin’ was the addition of black-eyed peas.

[6] Make that, “tenant farmers,” as sharecroppers was considered a pejorative label.

[7] My father’s parents couldn’t afford shoes for all six of their children, so as the elder kids got shoes they handed them down to the younger siblings. You got to wear shoes if there were a pair that happened to fit you. My father went to his proverbial grave not knowing that my mother had shared the story, with my sisters and I, of how our dad was embarrassed as a child when he showed up barefoot at school and was teased by the townie kids, who called him a dumb barefoot farm boy.  And the shack house he was raised in literally had dirt floors in some of the rooms.

[8] Don’t answer that.

[9] As per her Wikipedia page, so there!

[10] Can you think of any other reason he made the connection?

[11] Thirty five years ago as of next month.  Yikes.

[12] And not just in Hillsboro, even in Portland.

[13] Which closed after 38 years of business – they got priced out of downtown Palo Alto.  DAMN.

[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

[15] “Gender harassment…defined as disrespecting, demeaning, and deprecating women and their work, abilities, and accomplishments, simply because they are women…is by far the most prevalent form of sexual harassment in academic science…. (Rosalind) Franklin…is among history’s most prominent subjects of…the Matilda Effect: the practice of ascribing women’s accomplishments to men. An expert in x-ray crystallography, Franklin led the team that created what has been called ‘arguably the most important photo ever taken,’ the celebrated Photo 51, which revealed the helical structure of DNA.  When the structure was published in 1953, however, Franklin…was not among the authors. Her crucial contribution was mentioned cursorily at the end of the article as having ‘stimulated’ the authors, James Watson and Francis Crick…who, with their paper, gained priority as discoverers…. Comments from Watson and Crick reveal the gender harassment that Franklin endured in the lab. Throughout The Double Helix, Watson’s famous 1968 book recounting the race to the famous structure, Watson condescendingly refers to Franklin as ‘Rosy,’ a nickname never used to her face. ‘There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents,’ he writes, though neglecting to critique his male colleagues’ cosmetic or sartorial choices…. He adds that her ‘belligerent moods’ interfered with Wilkins’ ability to ‘maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA.’ For that reason, ‘[c]learly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person’s lab.’ In the 1993 book Nobel Prize Women in Science, Crick was quoted as saying, ‘I’m afraid we always used to adopt—let’s say, a patronizing attitude towards her.’ ”  ( Excerpts from ITAL Rosalind Franklin and the damage of gender harassment, by Beryl Lieff Benderly,  science.org 8-1-18 )

The Mother Of All Drag Queens I’m Not Dissing

March 29, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Mother Of All Drag Queens I’m Not Dissing

Department Of My Phone Dictation Transcriber Knows Me Too Well

Dateline: Sunday, circa 3:30p; out for a walk.  Moiself  discovers this delightful agricultural (in my mind) scene, takes a picture, and sends it to friend CC, with a caption.  In the caption I mean to say “crop;” only when CC reacts do I see what my phone decides the translation should read.

 

my caption “Looks like a good crap this year.  They are usually ready for picking by June, but with global warming, we may be harvesting in May.”

 

I explain the mix-up to CC.  Her response: “I guessed that could have gone either way.”

*   *   *

Department Of I Wish It Were Just A Coincidence…

…but, unfortunately, it’s a timely issue.  Again.  *Still.*

That coincidence would be my friend Suzanne Mathis McQueen’s sharing of an article on Tuesday, which she wrote in 2019 It’s our fertilized eggs they want, and which today she says might be retitled, Fair Warning; thus, she added a 2024-worthy addendum.  Check out the article, and while you’re at it, you might want to check out SMM’s other writings and ventures.  An “author ~ publisher ~ nature nerd ~ dragon tamer ~ womb wisdom educator ~ reproductive rights protector,” she is a person of many hats and talents.

Oh yeah, the coincidence:  on Monday, apropos of too many news nudges, moiself  had been thinking…*once again*  [1] …about how attempting to control/legislate the ways a woman uses her reproductive parts is the most fundamental violation of human rights.

I was thinking about how this right for human beings to be in charge of their own bodies is of paramount importance, and that for all of humanity, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy should take precedence – even over a man’s right to do the same.   [2]   Why, you may ask rhetorically?  Because yon uteri is where we all come from.

AI  hasn’t completely taken over everything;   [3]   a pregnancy is still launched and nurtured inside a woman’s body.  But, according to the forces of evil,    [4]   although a woman is somehow capable enough to conceive in the first place, how she handles that bundle o’ DNA…well, she’s just not competent or principled enough to do it without governmental guidance interference.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Timely Reminder For A Timeless Admonition

Timely as in what SCOTUS is considering this week (a case related to contraception), timeless in that the wisdom of Christopher Hitchens warns us even today, from his way-too-early grave, about the dangers of fanaticism encapsulated in one very misunderstood foe of a woman’s – of any person’s – physical (or spiritual) autonomy.

“MT [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty.   [5]  She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”
(Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice )

If you have ever uttered a kind word/held a generous thought for MT – and why wouldn’t you, based on the Catholic Church’s very successful propaganda about her ? – you owe it to your intellect to read The Missionary Position…or just read the Cliff Note’s version in my post from three years ago ( The Lot I’m Not Accepting; Department Of Name Dropping And Saint Shaming ).  Or watch this documentary:  Hell’s Angel.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Seriously, What Have I Done To Deserve This?

Here is the earwig which awakened moiself  early last Saturday am: Cher’s number one hit from *fifty* years ago, the now cringe-worthy, non-PC song, Half-Breed. 

Of all the things to reflect on at 3 am….

 

 

I remember assuming at the time the song was popular (~ 1973) that the song must have been written by a White man.   [6]   Even as the child I was, I didn’t think then, and don’t think today, that the song was “racist” and/or “bigoted ” –  kneejerk epithets that would certainly be flung at it now.  It wasn’t racist; it was just stupid.  Like most “Indian” stories told from a White perspective, the song’s lyrics (and music) used clichés for how cliché’s typically are used for: to present a viewpoint that is simply and profoundly wrong.

The lyrics portray the lament of a young woman, the daughter of a White father and a Cherokee mother, who is rejected by both sides of her lineage.  But the opening verse about that rejection is inaccurate.

“My father married a pure Cherokee/
My mother’s people were ashamed of me/
The Indians said that I was white by law/
The White Man always called me ‘Indian Squaw’….”

Many North American native peoples, particularly those of the Southeast and Southwest tribal nations, were/are matrilineal – that is, tracing their lineage on the mother’s side – as are the Cherokee.  Thus, the tragic mulatto of the song, while she may have been subjected to White Man pejoratives, would have been accepted as a Cherokee, by the Cherokee.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Calling Out People Who Are On Your Side

Comedian Patton Oswalt so profanely described, in one of his comedy specials (“Talking for Clapping”), getting in trouble for using “the wrong words.”  Even way back X# of years ago (six, to be precise), he appears to be a kindred spirit with moiself  in terms of being frustrated with progressives who not only kick themselves in the foot but also kick other so-called progressive’s feet, by focusing on the wrong things.  Translation: Calling out people who are on your side – are you nuts?  

“…And it’s really hard now because, look: I could not be a more committed, progressive, feminist, pro-gay, pro-transgender person, but I cannot keep up with the fucking glossary of correct terms, goddammit.  I’m trying…I want to help but holy fuck, it’s like the secret club password, they change it every week, and then you’re in trouble:   ‘That’s not that’s the word we use.’  ‘Fuck you – it was last week!’

Ru Paul – RU PAUL, got into shit for saying tranny. Ru fucking Paul!!!  Ru Paul, she laid down on the barbed wire of discrimination throughout the seventies and eighties so this new generation could run across her back and yell at her for saying tranny?  WTF?!?!”

 

“Don’t even think about siccing your word cops on Saint Ru.”

 

A bit later in his routine, Patton expands on a central point of his, which is that you should try to discern a person’s heart and intentions when they mess up on the vocabulary, because the thing is….

“…BTW, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, if you get hung up on words, then you’re going to let a lot of evil MFers slip through.
Because evil people learn the correct terms very quickly.  They’re the first ones to learn it so they can smuggle their evil shit through, by saying everything correctly even though they’re hiding really bad shit in it.

And a lot of times, the good guys, eh, they fuck up a couple of words, but listen to their hearts.

All right: I’m gonna give you two guys right now. One of em’s is a good guy and one of em’s is a bad guy – I’m not gonna tell you which one….

Here’s guy #1: ‘While I happen to be heteronormative and certainly respect people who have alternative lifestyles including gay, bi, lesbian, omni or transsexual, I still think that heteronormative behavior is a biological imperative for propagating the species and I believe that does deserve the highest priority….’

Here’s guy #2: ”Well a couple of fags wanna get married or some dykes they wanna be men, how the fuck does that affect you, asshole?

Hey, if there’s some tranny out there it’s like, ‘Hey I don’t want a dick no more, I want a vagina,’ then boom, guess what – it’s a she now, or whatever the fuck, she, it – I don’t know, whatever they wanna call themselves, that’s it, it don’t affect you.

If you see some guy, I don’t care if he’s got a chooch that looks like a Boris Karloff horror movie, I don’t care, you gotta share the planet with that guy, or that girl, I don’t fucking know – they’ll tell me, right?’

The second guy was the good guy….who probably looks like an asshole, probably is wearing kinda rednecky shit.  The first guy is probably at a nice coffee bar….”

 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 

 

*   *   *

Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when something reminds me of a really bad/good pun sequence moiself  hasn’t thought of in ages.

 

 

*   *   *

May you try not to confuse crop with crap;
May you differentiate discernment and distraction; specifically: try to discern what someone says rather than be distracted by how they’re saying it;
May your early mornings not be haunted by Cher songs from the 70s;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] I hate hate, hate, hate, hate the fact that these thoughts can and will occurs to me at all, but given the political climate….

[2] Despite the fact that these rights are not in competition, no matter what the withered, Pope-sucking, Holy Joe windbags on SCOTUS may want you to think.

[3] Yeah, I know, the century is young….

[4] Read: The religious right, and extreme social and political conservatives of any religion or worldview.

[5] There is a BIG, big difference, and if y’all don’t already know about it, you should learn.

[6] Actually, a White songwriting couple, Mary Dean and Al Capps.

[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.  No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Swedes I’m Not Chasing

December 10, 2021

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, friends, Holidays, making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, Me so happy, movies, music, nature, Oregon, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Shameless Self-Promotion- NOT

Not as in, moiself  be promoting the work of someone else.   [1]

 

 

Life coach and business consultant Suzanne Mathis McQueen, author of Four Seasons in Four Weeks, has a new series of children’s books out: The Seasons in Me; The Sun in Me, and The Moon in Me .  Delightfully illustrated by Pumudi Gardiyawasam, the books are a fun and heartwarming introduction for kids as to the concepts the rhythms (“seasons”) of nature, and those of their own bodies…while also sneaking in a bit of age-appropriate  [2] science about the seasons,   [3]  the solstices, and circadian rhythms.

Check ’em out, for the children (or parents of children) in your life and on your holiday shopping list.

 

 

*   *   *

 

 

 

One of my yoga teachers, Jill Baker, wore this shirt to class two years ago…back when I was attending class in the studio  (I am now streaming classes from the studio).  Moiself  had to have it.  Wearing it puts me in the yule mood.  So does hearing one of my favorite pieces of holiday music – while I was making sandbakkels for my annual lefse-making party dessert, I had to play it   (“…over and over and over…” as MH noted).

 

 

For the non-Norskis, sandbakkels (“sand tarts”) are a traditional Norwegian holiday cookie.  Its dough, a somewhat crumbly  texture due to the proportions of sugars and almond flour, resembles “sand,” (if, like a good Norwegian, you use your imagination, or plenty of Aquavit); thus, the name.  Moiself  does a plant-based version, as I do when making lefse.

 

You can – and I will – place a dollop of fruit jam in the center depression of the sandbakkels just before serving them. My younger sister claims Nutella is also yummy in that capacity; however, she’s well known as the family culinary lunatic, so there’s that.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Variation On A Theme

Dateline: Wednesday, this one (December 8). After the pandemic cancellation of last year, my annual Ladies Lefse Party returned this year…in a somewhat limited and altered format.  The “ladies” – always a questionable modifier, considering the attendees   [4] – were mostly not in attendance.  I kept the number of invitees limited to the two friends nearby who were part of our COVID safe circle, then one had to cancel, so I opened up the party to The Menfolk.  After the last-minute cancellation of our son K, it was just MH and moiself, friend L, and a newbie to the festivities, L’s friend, G.  Somehow, we managed to have enough fun that we sat down at 7p, then all of a sudden it was 10p.

A nuclear fallout of flour still is circulating in the kitchen.  That means we did it right.

 

No children were harmed in the making of this lefse.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Will Someone Please Explain This To Me Before I Die?     [5]

First time lefse party attendee G was an affable addition to the dinner.  As a fellow American with a Norwegian background, it was inevitable that, at some point during the dinner,    [6]   we shared some of the aspects about our family heritage which, as children, we found nonsensical.  In particular, it was hard for us young-uns to understand the fierce rivalry we’d heard about – particularly in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other hotspots    [7] of Norwegian-to-USA migration – between Americans of Norwegian and Swedish heritage.  For example, a marriage between a first generation Norwegian and a first gen Swede was considered a “mixed marriage.”

 

 

Also inevitable was our descent into recollections of the astronomically lame, “Ole and Sven and Lena” jokes, and then G said, “Remember this one?” He repeated a saying that I hadn’t heard in years, but which caused me to stamp size 9 feet with excitement:

“One hundred Swedes
ran through the weeds
chased by one Norwegian.”

 

Remind me again, why are we laughing?

 

Yes yes yes  – and WHY?   My mother told me that her (full blooded Norski) father would occasionally recite that lame “verse,” then chuckle softly to himself.  Okay; Mom, but why did he do that – where did it come from, and why did he think it was funny?  She said he never explained it, and she didn’t want to ask, because that would reveal to her father that she didn’t get it, and she wanted him to think that she did.  [8]  Sure, that’s understandable, Mom, but do you now, today, as an adult, get what you didn’t get at the time?  I never got an answer from her.

Is it just the rhyming of Swedes with weeds ? Why not then,

One hundred Swedes
dressed in their tweeds
tailored by one Norwegian.

To this day, I have never received an explanation (make that, a satisfactory explanation) as to why this Swedes-weeds thang was supposed to be funny. Any takers?

 

You wouldn’t think it was so funny if there were a hundred of us.

 

*   *   *

Department Of I’m Not Naïve But…

I mean, I get around the block, depending on your definition of block. So why was I caught offguard…when I was?

Dateline: last week.  Several days in a row.  After dinner we turn on our Roku feature to see what is on TV, and the clever device lists several ongoing shows it thinks moiself  might like.  I followed its suggestion to an episode of The Waltons, not realizing, until the commercial break, something that came as no surprise to MH – The Waltons reruns were being played on The Hallmark Channel, where it is apparently their “Countdown to Christmas.”

Believe it or not…

 

 

…I had never previously visited that channel.  But for three evenings in a row, I tuned in to see parts of one The Waltons episode, and was tortured by treated to previews of upcoming Hallmark Channel produced “movies.”

I’d been vaguely aware of THC’s schmaltzy reputation; even so, moiself  lacks the family-friendly vocabulary to describe how eye-gouging dreadful the previews were.  And although the commercials were promoting (supposedly) different features with different titles, it seemed to me that THC was going to be airing eight versions of the same movie, repackaged.

 

“You look familiar – weren’t we in this movie last year?”

 

Meet The Plucky Protagonist,®  an attractive white woman estranged from/bored with her family and/or disillusioned with/burnt out by her High Stress Job In The Big City ®, who returns to flyover country her home town where she meets the simple-minded mild-mannered incredibly handsome dude who shows her the holiday sausage fest she’s been missing all her life the real meaning of Christmas.

THC’s moldy cheese Christmas romcoms are likely the same basic plot, recycled with variations in ages of the participants and locales.  I don’t know why THC’s programming executives even bother to give them different names.  Why not just run night after night of,

Hallmark presents:
“A (Heterosexual) Hunk for Christmas.”

In the spirit of it-might-be-so-bad-it-could-be-a-teeny-bit-good, or at least morbidly entertaining, moiself  be considered parking it on the couch with an emergency bottle of insulin and/or a jug of Pepto-Bismol handy, and trying to watch one of those movies. I’m still considering it.

 

*   *   *

Department of Thanks For The Imagery…ooooommmmm….

Dateline: Thursday, circa 6:15 am. I hear the best ever – as in, most evocative – focal point (aka mantra) offered by one of the three meditation apps I regularly use.

I am a thunderbolt of good vibes.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Promise Not To Do This At Your House.
Sub Department Of Am I The Only One Who Ever Gets This Feeling?

Sometimes, when I pick up or am holding a large, heavy, porcelain or china or glass or ceramic plate or bowl, I have the urge to fling it across the room like a frisbee. For just a (so far) resistible instant, it seems to moiself  that to see and hear the plate shatter against the wall would be very satisfying.  It’s not a catharsis issue – I don’t get this feeling when I am angry at or irritated by something. Rather, just when I’m feeling… musical?

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Norski Heritage Edition

I want to visit Norway soon, but I can’t a fjord it.

How was the Mr. Ed Show theme song adapted for Norwegian television?
♫  A Norse is a Norse of course, of course….♫

I always appreciate a good pun, but never geographical ones.
There’s Norway I’d sink Oslo as that.

Did you hear about the bike race that goes all the way across Norway and Sweden?
It ends at the Finnish line.

 

 

*   *   *

May you never recite deeds of chasing Swedes through the weeds in their tweeds;
May you be a thunderbolt of good vibes;
May you one day just let loose and fling that #@!&%!% plate against the wall;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Disclosure: I do know this person, and like her. So I may be biased…y’all can handle that.

[2]  ages 3-8.  Accessible info for older bipeds as well.  No boring quantum mechanics or string theory.

[3] Remember: axial tilt is the reason for the season – for *all* seasons.

[4] Yeah, I’m talking *you*, JR and JWW.

[5] But I don’t want you to explain it to me, and then I die.

[6] After the first glass of champagne, which followed the gin and tonics.

[7] or should it be cold spots? What is the proper term here, re a country where half of its land lies north of the Arctic Circle?

[8] Which would be blamed on her mother’s contribution – 100% Irish – to her genes.

The Woodpecker I’m Not Strangling

March 22, 2013

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, community, extended family, family life, foodie, friends, Holidays, making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), YEE HAW! , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

It’s the season.  We’ve been reclaimed by a Northern Flicker.

I love woodpeckers, and the Northern Flicker is especially striking in its coloration and behavior.  About that behavior – that striking behavior.

During their March – June breeding season, a flicker calls (makes a loud, rolling rattle with a piercing tone that rises and falls in volume several times) and drums (repeatedly and rapidly pecks a tree or other solid object) to communicate with a mate, or proclaim its territory and attract a mate.  But why settle for drumming on a mere tree when you can make a MUCH LOUDER SOUND OMG YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LOUD by using our chimney flashing as a drum skin?

“Yo, Freddy. Flicker,” I said, while pounding the exterior of the chimney with a pole to convince him to seek friendlier territory.  “I understand that this is your equivalent of placing an ad on perfectmatch.com, but your strident call is going down our chimney and into our house, where the residing, non-flicker females neither understand nor appreciate its intended implications.  And that repeated bashing of your beak against the chimney flashing sounds incredibly loud and is incredibly annoying for us bipeds, not to mention what it must be doing to your tiny avian brain…and are you perchance a mentally challenged flicker?  Just asking.”

Oh, he’s not stupid, and he’s not pecking on metal because he can’t find a suitable tree, according to a Jackson Bottom Wetlands Friendly Biologist ®. A metal object allows Freddy Flicker to make the most noise in the flickerhood.  An accessible chimney flashing – jackpot!  That is one awesome find for a flicker, who uses its acoustic amplifications to announce to nearby flicker friends and foes, “Here I am!  Everything around here is mine, mine, mine!”

Friendly Biologist said flickers will return year after year to the same house if it works for them.  And indeed, we’ve seen a flicker pair, and their offspring, at our suet feeder for the past couple of years.  I’m firmly in the pro-woodpecker procreation camp.  I could just do without them using our chimney for their pre-coital garage band rehearsal, ya know?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Us

We had a dinner party on Sunday to honor son K, who was home from college on spring break and who had recently celebrated his 20th birthday.[1]  Seeing as how Sunday was the 17th, That Irish Day, we had an Irishy menu [2] and MH made seating cards with shamrocks or some other leprechaun-worthy fauna decorative picture next to each guest’s name.  Our youngest guest was the adorable, precocious, getting’-down-with-the-alphabet, 5 year old “Peach.”  P had a minor dramatic episode when she noticed her mother’s name card, and she fussed to her father about it.  “That can’t be where Mommy is sitting because it doesn’t start with an ‘M.'”

Her mother (whose name begins with S) relayed that story a couple of days ago, and I laughed to read her email.  I was older than Peach but way younger than K when I first reflected upon the discrepancy in how adults address children and children address adults.  Why was it, I ventured to ask certain tall people, that parents may and in fact do call their children by name, but kids are supposed to address their parents by their relationship?  Mom calls me Robyn, not “second daughter,” but I must call her some variation of Mom, [3] even though her name is Marion.  I didn’t see what respect had to do with it, but the tall people always included that word in their answer to my question.

A few years back a friend of mine shared this observation with me, about me:  When I’m talking about my husband to my kids, I call him by name if I’m speaking about something between he and I (“I’m going to get M a book on owl pellets for his birthday”), and I refer to him as “Dad” if I’m talking about something between him and our hatchlings [4] (“Are you planning on getting Dad an owl pellet for his birthday?”).  If MH calls on the phone and wants to speak with Belle or K, I vary the name-thing:  “Mark wants to talk with you,” or, “Dad’s on the phone for you.”

I hadn’t noticed that, nor even thought about it, until said friend brought it up.

When I talk about my parents, sometimes I use their names and sometimes their parental “titles,” and sometimes upset my elder sibling, NLM, by doing the former.  N was especially sensitive to this after our father’s death, four years ago.  To her, N explained to me, it sounded less-than-appreciative of what a wonderful dad Chester Bryan Parnell was, to call him anything other than what we called him when we were kids, which was “Dad.”  I reassured her that I have nothing but love and respect in my heart when I call our father by his given name…and warned her that I will likely continue to do so (although, in consideration of her feelings, I try to remember not to do it around her).

I love my father’s name – always have, for many reasons, including that it was unusual, and that he had acquired various nicknames he had over the years. [5] For whatever reasons, his smiling face and gentle, laughing green eyes become even more vivid to me when I think of him, my beloved Dad, as Chet.

*   *   *

Speaking of my father, I know he would have appreciated the following blurb, for both content and tone.

*   *   *

Hands free, my ass

To the guy who almost t-boned my vehicle when you turned left, at a stop sign from a side street onto a busy street, and my Madza 3 [6] was so right there, in broad daylight, lights on, no excuse not to see me unless you were distracted, and you looked right at  me, or rather right through me, and even though our eyes made contact your brain was somewhere else.  Your window was down and your mouth was moving – your car  passed so close I could see your ear bud headset and hear you talking to someone who wasn’t in your vehicle – as I slammed on my brakes and swerved.

You are, apparently, yet another fool who has fallen for the lie [7] that hands-free cell phone devices are a solution to the risks of driver distraction.  It doesn’t matter if it’s technically legal – once again, the law lags behind to the science.  The law will catch up, and using a phone with brains hands-free anything will, eventually, be outlawed.  Until then, dude, educate yourself as to the science behind distracted driving.  Or don’t educate yourself.  Stay ignorant if you must, but stay off your fucking cell phone, in any manner whatsoever, while your vehicle is moving.

*   *   *

Last weekend provided one of those last minute treats (besides escaping being taken out by a careless driver):  friend Suzanne Mathis McQueen drove up to the Portland area from her home in Ashland  for a quick weekend visit.  The reason for the quickie was both personal (her two all-growed-up sons live nearby) and professional.  The pro part involving Suz’s promotional activities in the Portland area for her book, 4 Seasons in 4 Weeks.  One of the few people who looks as fine in real life as she does in her author’s photo (I could slap her for that, but I’d rather hug her), Suz is a wise, witty and compassionate person, a pro-woman, pro-man advocate  who is also a kick in the pants to be around.  Her book uses the unique, even poetic metaphor of the four seasons to characterize the cycles and rhythms of human life (think circadian, and expand).  Along with her positive illuminations of life’s phases, the book’s pictures and illustrations are amazing.  Flipping through the pages, I felt like I was in an art gallery.

*   *   *

Department of
Even writing fiction you can’t make this stuff up

A deep, robust belly laugh strengthens the core/abdomen, makes your teeth look whiter and brighter and your children and spouse seem smarter.  And cancer – it helps cancer, somehow.  Etc. etc.  A true belly laugh is a rare thing, as is lucid feedback for a writer.  Feedback itself is hard to come by, and when you get it, ’tis sometimes constructive, sometimes neither here nor there, sometimes remarkably irrelevant, and sometimes downright face-palm worthy.  As for the latter, my abs are firmer, my teeth whiter, I am cancer free and live with geniuses as per the laughter provided by the following incident.

Last July I’d queried a literary press to see if they’d be interested in considering a short story collection of mine.  As per their guidelines I sent a sample story along with the query.  They held on to that story for several months, and replied in October that they liked the story but didn’t understand it.  I found this amusing; even so, at their request I sent them another story from my proposed collection.

(Note: that second story was published in the summer.  One of the editors of the publishing journal told me they particularly liked the story’s narrative structure.)

This week I received an email from “The Editors” of the press.  They wanted me to know that they’d given the story to their readers, many of whom liked it and some of whom didn’t.  Thus, the editors felt “stalemated” and decided not to pursue my collection, but had asked one of the readers “who liked your work the most” to provide a short note of feedback for me.

Indeed, the feedback was short, although reading anything with the following WTF? gems seemed to last a lifetime.  (my comments)

“Her (the story’s protagonist) flashback with ___ needs to come later. I feel like there is going to be a robbery, because she’s a convent store and there’s no conflict, but bring it in sooner. ”

(* These “sentences” are almost incomprehensible to me.
* The flashback is exactly where it should be.  It would make no sense to have it later in the story, as it sets up subsequent action…which the reader should know, assuming the “reader” actually read the story.
* Reader “feels like” there is going to be a robbery?  Gee, maybe that’s because there is a robbery, in that very scene to which the reader refers.
* The protagonist is not “a convent store,” whatever that is.
* And if there is no conflict, how am I to “bring it in sooner”

“My biggest concern is that I don’t have a feel for ___. At first I think she’s kind of sad and structed and wimpy, but then she so boldly goes after the crook….What is her motivation for attacking him? …It’s all conflicting to me.”

 (* My biggest concern is that I have a strong feeling that this press is seriously considering feedback from a remedial adult literary program dropout who thinks “structed” is a word.
* What is her “motivation” for attacking him {the would-be robber, aka, “crook” – a term which, BTW, is never used in the story}?  Uh, the fact that the robber threatened and then injured the clerk, and the protagonist had the means and opportunity to do something – maybe, that had something to do with it.  Ya think?
* Yeah, it’s all “conflicting” to me, too.  Probably because I’m kind of “structed.”

 The CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) convention, highlights of which included why-won’t-she-just-go-away Sarah Palin mocking Karl Rove and a straw poll in which Rand Paul narrowly defeated Marco Rubio for…for best Conservative Straw, is certainly worthy of commentary. [8]  And speaking of gasbags, [9] although I am still enamored of singing goat videos – relax, you’re safe, none embedded here [10] – nothing quite brings a spring to my step as periodically viewing the compilation of the best of The Farting Preacher, aka Robert Tilton. [11]  A fitting tribute for the infamous evangelical cheekflapper, and good wholesome fun for everyone.

Wishing you a weekend of love and laughter, and if you’re feeling “structed”, well, let ’em rip.  The hijinks will surely ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

[1] My proud FB announcement of the occasion: Today my son is old enough to be the son of a mother who has a twenty year old son.

[2] Wine and honey glazed salmon; colcannon, soda bread, orange and green and white veggies.

[3] Or, “Moth-errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”  when disgusted as only an indignant child can be with her parent’s cluelessness.

[4] It’s flicker breeding season, perhaps you’ve heard?  I’ve got birds on the brain.

[5] Chet was ahead of his time, going for daily runs when…well, when no one else did.  An out-of-shape neighbor saw him heading for a run one afternoon and snickered, “There goes Chet-the-Jet.” The nickname stuck.

[7] No doubt perpetrated by the makers of such devices.

[8] But not my me. I’m still too busy laughing about “structed.”

[9] Can I segue, or can’t I?

[10] There’s always next week.

[11] Televangelist Tilton’s Success-N-Life swindle theology taught those so dumb they couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel gullible, credulous people that their burdens, in particular poverty, were a result of sin, but if they made certain “vows” (i.e. donations to Tilton’s ministry), God would reward the vow-maker with material riches.