15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent
I can’t remember how I came across this post, or I’d credit the blog. Sorry. But — the list you’ll find at the title link is Teh Awesome.
One word struck me as particularly meaningful, as one of the agents (who is no longer active) at the Misery Pit is clearly a Luftmensch. If only I’d had the word before now.
4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
There are several Yiddish words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.
Go read the whole thing.
My Last Day at Work
At the Misery Pit. Which is what I should have been calling it all this time, except I just now thought of it.
I got to the office a bit early yesterday, encountered the boss on her way somewhere. Said I needed a minute. That this was my last day. She said, “Oh.” I told her I’d found another job. She said, “Good.” And went on to rehash that she’d cut my hours because she couldn’t afford to pay me and she didn’t know if Russell & Jeffcoat would be taking us on, etc. etc. etc. I just nodded, said I understood. Which I do, better than she thinks I do.
I announced my imminent departure to my co-workers and they congratulated me and said they’d have been out of there in a cold minute if they had any options also.
Later that afternoon we were blessed with the presence of the daughter of one of our tenants. She read us the riot act over a repair issue that hasn’t yet been seen to. It’s a ceiling fan in a bedroom, by the way, not an electrical problem, or a plumbing problem, or a heating problem. And therefore not an emergency. She shouted at us for several minutes, and then left. My co-worker who does the rental maintenance function looked at me and said, “You’re really going to miss this, aren’t you?”
Yes, I am. Like a migraine.
Later that afternoon, my rental department co-worker and the boss got into a shouting match. I’m really going to miss that, too.
It’s just going to be a very nice thing not to have to flinch whenever the door opens, waiting for yet another angry person to shout at me.
And Another Piece of My Childhood Disappears
Hostess is gone. The unions killed it. What short-sighted idiots they are. They’re calling it a victory and over 18,000 of their members are now out of work. Good luck finding another job in this economy.
Many years ago, when we were living in Sacramento and I was probably about 11 years old, a friend whose name (and face) escape me and I had gotten a Hostess cupcake each and were eating them as we walked down the street. When we were finished, as we were nowhere near a trash can, we decided to scrawl (I guess one of us had a pencil) “Hostess is the Mostest!” on that little cardboard square that was underneath each cupcake inside its plastic wrapper, and left those and our wrappers in someone’s mailbox. At the time, it seemed the height of comedy to us. Probably not so amusing to the homeowner when they came out to get their mail. Not the nicest thing I’ve ever done, maybe that’s why I’ve never forgotten it.
So long, Twinkies and Ho Hos and Ding Dongs and all the rest. And to quote Glenn Reynolds, “Pyrrhus of Epirus was unavailable for comment.” [link added]
New Job
I started a new job today. Part time, 16 hours a week. I’m still quitting my other job, where my boss screams obscenities at us and treats us like we’re stupid. Yes, it means less money. It also means less stress, less heartburn, and nobody will be screaming obscenities at me. Which is important.
I’m the music assistant at the church I go to. Which means I’m now working for the fellow in the percussion section with me who asked me to sing in the Singing Christmas Tree this year (he’s the interim music minister, has been interim for some years now, might be interim for some years hence). He’s one of the nicest people on the planet, even if at the moment he’s losing his mind over all the things that have to happen before the Tree goes public, so to speak, on the 30th. I’m getting trained by his outgoing assistant, his wife, who’s decided she wants to do something else.
I gotta tell ya, if it was me working for my husband, I’m afraid somebody would be dead by now. I’m highly impressed they were able to work together for so long without somebody ending up being beaten to death with a chair.
So, the next phase begins. I spent the day working in the office, helping out with the bulletin and organizing ticket orders for Tree performances and other things. Everybody’s very nice, and nobody yelled at anybody. It was lovely.
During the interview the administration committee (that was my first experience with a group interview, since late in my fish year at Texas A&M — in 1975) told me that my job may or may not be funded next year. And you know what, that’s okay. It’s worth the risk just to get away from that miserable pit I’m in now.
Tomorrow I’m telling my other (soon to be former) boss that I’m leaving. I expect the conversation to be remarkably unpleasant. But at least it will be over.
Cheers, y’all.
Stupid, Anybody?
I’ve asked this question before, or I’m pretty sure I have, but it’s freshly germane.
If you’re having an extramarital affair, why on Earth would you e-mail that person? E-mails leave an electronic trail, I don’t care how smart you are or what tactics you use to hide your identity.
If you’re going to engage in behavior that is not okay, and you e-mail your counterpart / lover / cohort in crime, you deserve whatever happens to you. Well, you deserve to get caught, anyway.
Jeez. No e-mail. Don’t even write letters, they’re evidence too. If you’ve got to do something that stupid and wrong, make phone calls. And not all from / to the same number. Or, wait, I know, you could put an “X” in your window with masking tape like Mulder did in “The X-Files”.
Or you could just not engage in behavior that’s going to get you into trouble. That’s easier, ya know.
That’s all. Nothing of any importance here, go back to what you were doing.
A Frenchman’s View of Our Future
Found by way of Instapundit. Emphasis in original.
Old Glory doesn’t mean anything, simply because you woke up last Wednesday to a measly 4 millions popular votes difference? A battle of nearly 121 million voters finds you outnumbered by four and hear, hear: the Republic is dead and the war is lost?
Try and tell that to those Americans who found themselves outnumbered and outgunned by far more disadvantageous enemy ratios, whether in a forest in the Ardennes, a hill in Korea, a valley in Vietnam or a mountain in Afghanistan. Try and tell them you’re considering giving up and burning the flag in despair.
Even though I am just a French, I am quite certain I can predict their reaction.
Once again, you don’t need a lecture from this Frenchman, but it seems to me that some of you, in the emotion of that unexpected electoral defeat, forgot this simple fact: America is always outnumbered.
This unique nation, founded not on feudal or religious fault lines but on a radical philosophy of individual freedom isn’t the norm in this world: it is an anomaly. If you needed a quick and simple reminder on the basis for American exceptionalism, there you go.
America is always outnumbered and, until the rest of the world sees the guiding light and builds shining cities on America’s model—if that day ever comes—America will always be outnumbered.
Yet it doesn’t matter: America’s strength isn’t in numbers, it’s in her soul.
Hear this final prophecy America: only one man can kill the Republic, and it isn’t Barack Obama. The one man who will kill your Republic is the one man who will last give up and renounce it.
Don’t you dare be that man.
Go read the whole thing.
God Bless Joe Adinolfi
A link to this article was posted on Facebook (click on the title link for the article, if you’re interested), and I thought I’d share it here also. A couple things that struck me, from the article (in addition to the sheer heroics):
Adinolfi made trips back and forth for about an hour through the ocean water, which he recalled thinking felt warmer than he thought it would.
….
Adinolfi modestly recounted the tale on Thursday as he walked through his devastated community, saying, ‘that was it, that’s my story.’ He also chided himself for staying back after his family left, noting it was ‘foolish.’ He had done so to try and prevent flooding in his home, though his basement ultimately filled up with water.
Whatever your beliefs may be, here’s my take: God was all over the place here. God bless you Joe Adinolfi, and others like you.
No more politics. Well, not today anyway. Bah.
Every year when the holidays get closer, anybody in this community with any musical ability at all gets tapped to help out with stuff. This year I may have outdone myself. I over-obligate myself every year, but this year I may have set a new benchmark. I’d be proud of myself except for the awesome stupidity of it all, because when am I going to find time to bake cookies? Or sleep? I just don’t think before agreeing to things. People call and say, “Can you come and do this?” And I say, “Sure!” and then I look at my calendar. I’m an idiot. It’s all fun, but I’m still an idiot.
So far — I’m in the Singing Christmas Tree, which isn’t so much work for me until we get to the performance dates, and there are three of them (five performances total). I’m doing my best to memorize the music, and lyrics, and I guess before getting up on the framework I’ll have to remember to take an Aleve because my hip and back will be less than thrilled with me having to stand for an hour and a half without being able to move. This is my first time on the SCT, so I’ll have to let you know how it goes. I’m going to miss one performance because I got asked to play flute in the Festival of Choirs for the Woman’s Afternoon Music Club, and as I’m a member I kinda have to go. When the Woman’s Afternoon Music Club summons you, you must go. I got the music for that Wednesday. I really need to look at it, preferably before the performance on December 2nd….
I got the music for another church’s Christmas Cantata the other day too, I’ll be in the orchestra for that one on December 16th. The music doesn’t look too hard, but I’m in the habit of underestimating how much work is involved for something so I expect to be unpleasantly surprised. And I’m usually at those rehearsals starting the week after Thanksgiving but we’ll still be rehearsing for the SCT, so I’ll be late jumping in. I do hope it doesn’t mean I’ll be committing an act of monumental buffoonery like I did last year, during the performance, and no I don’t want to talk about it. It’s one of those moments when you think that if God was ever going to have the ground open up and swallow you, that would have been a good time. I didn’t think they’d invite me back but they’re very nice people, and… well, maybe they forgot. I’ve been playing for them for several years, so perhaps they’re just used to me.
Also, one of our band members has put together a flute quartet. It includes me, her, and two other flutists from other nearby towns. We had our first ever public appearance last Saturday, at the Camden Farmers Market. I think it went okay — nobody threw anything at us. We did get paid, sort of, the vendors chipped in. I went home with some greens, two turnips, a couple cookies, a homemade pastry, a Honey Crisp apple (it was awesome), and a bowl of chili. I like getting paid in food, the IRS can’t tax you on it. Our next gig is next Friday at the Camden library, and then we’ve been volunteered to play somewhere for the Tour of Homes on December 8th, and then at a tea house or coffee shop or something on December 15th. Got to learn that music also, in my copious free time.
Then there’s the community concert band concert, on December 6th. Of the pieces we’re playing our director has selected something called “King of Kings”, based on Handel’s “Messiah”, arranged by Robert W. Smith. It has some challenging timpani stuff in it and I’m about to rupture what few brain cells I have left learning it. He grilled me last week (not too much, because I told him I couldn’t do it and I’d practice — which I did). He plunked me right into the fire Thursday night, though, kept saying “Okay, do it again….” And he prefaced these instructions with, “Real quick…” Obviously he hasn’t been paying attention. I don’t do anything real quick. I know he was pressed for time, but jeez. I hate being singled out like that. I know he wants to make sure it’s right, or sort of right, or at least in tempo, but I hate being made to play my part in front of an entire room of people over and over and over and over….. *sigh*
Let’s see, what else? Yesterday I got to play two duets for our monthly Music Club meeting, one with a clarinetist (also a trombonist) from our band, we’ve been practicing duets for years. We had a woodwind quintet for awhile but then people just sort of disappeared. The duet didn’t go all that well, it’s difficult and I sort of freaked out and had trouble breathing. But we got to the last measure at the same time and it’s over. The other duet was with the flutist who got the quartet together, and that went a bit better. I freaked out a bit there (it’s a tradition, don’t judge me) but we got to the last measure at the same time and it’s over, too.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. Too much to do, and yet here I sit blogging. I really am an idiot.
Also, on another topic, my boss has cut my hours still further. So my paycheck has dwindled to about $90 a week. And I have lots of time to do things around the house and practice. It would be great, except my paycheck has dwindled to about $90 a week.
Oy vey.
Next post I’ll bring you up to date on critters. Everybody’s fine, it’s just been busy.
Cheers, y’all.
I read somewhere years ago that the longest governments have lasted in human history is 200 years. If that’s true, we beat the odds by 36 years.
But it’s over now. God help us.
As Seen on Facebook
Registered, yes.
Literate, not so much. Jeez. Punctuation is not difficult.
Oldcontroller's Blog 