Feeds:
Posts
Comments

WHO’S THE BOSS?

May 1, 2012 by Ruth

WHO’S THE BOSS?

by Ruth Minshull

 

I see a flock of bank swallows lined up on an electric wire.  There’s a symmetry to their positions, although the spacing is not perfectly uniform.

Why are they strung out in such an orderly way? I wonder.  Are they on a morning break?  Holding a meeting?  And who is their leader?  Did one bird choose that particular wire and command the others to line up in such a tidy fashion?  If so, was this boss bird elected, or born to the job, like royalty?

Five swans glide by on the lake–a tidy parade with Dad in the lead, three signets in a row, Mom bringing up the rear.  Looks like the old man’s in charge here.

A skein of ducks passes over in V-formation.  While they are not as synchronized as the Blue Angels, there is a pleasing symmetry that can hardly be accidental.  They turn in unison, their flight punctuated by the sound of random squawks.  Or are they random?  Perhaps their leader is a drill sergeant barking orders:  “Eyes RIGHT!  Forward…FLY!  Mergatroid! Get back in line.  Flapper watch where you’re going.  All right, SOUND OFF!”

“Squawk.”

“Squawk.”

“Squawk.”

A cloud of little gray birds lights in a field.  There must be a hundred of them.  A minute later they take off again, flying north.  Then, in one big flutter, they all turn west.  They don’t turn one after another in follow-the-leader fashion; they turn in unison—as  a single entity with many parts but only one mind.

Maybe that’s the answer to my questions.  Instead of a boss bird cheeping out orders, there may be just one mind running the whole flock.  Sort of a master soul.

Would this be God?  It seems to me that God might be too busy overseeing the universe, not to mention listening to all the admissions, entreaties and promises on incoming prayer lines.  Possibly He delegates the job of Bird Manager to souls of lesser authority.  He might have a trial period to see if a young spirit can successfully manage a flock of birds telepathically.

This would explain why the synchronization is not perfect, the spacing not flawless.  The bird wranglers are still in training.

Yuppie souls, perhaps, on an internship for angelhood.

* * *

© 2012 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in Who's the Boss? | Leave a Comment »

Secrets in The Marble

February 4, 2012 by Ruth

THE SECRETS IN THE MARBLE

by

Ruth Minshull

 

It was the year our company decided to redecorate the three floors we occupied in the magnificent old Detroit office building.

On the level where I worked, the lobby had been modernized by adding a new reception desk, improved lighting, fresh carpeting.

The final touch was the installation of huge custom-made mirrors between the six elevators.  The mirrors added a welcome expansiveness to the area.  However, their wide brushed aluminum frames created a jarring discord against the elegant black marble walls.  Obviously something had to be done.

After some deliberation, the management hired two painters to make the mirror frames match the marble walls.  First, the offending frames were painted black.  Then gray, rust and white veins, of varying widths, were carefully laced throughout.  Where a line in the original marble came up to the frame, it was met by a matching line that continued the vein through the black field.  After the job was finished, the walls and the frames looked as if they had been carved from one solid piece of marble.  The casual eye would find it impossible to tell where the painted work left off and the real material began.

As it turned out, the obvious improvement was only part of the story.  Soon after the job ended and the painters had gone, one of our engineers let me in on a closely-held secret:  the company had acquired more artwork than most of us realized.

One of the painters, in a madcap salute to immortality, had artfully concealed two drawings in the seemingly random design on the frames.  One was a Rubenesque nude, reclining in voluptuous splendor amid the wavering squiggles.  The other was a curly-headed young boy, also nude, urinating—in the manner of the famous Brussels landmark, the bronze statue (Mannekin Pis ) designed by Jerome Duquesnoy.

Obviously one of our painters was more, much more, than just a maker of curling marble patterns.  He was a true artist!

The drawings were each about four or five inches in size, and so skillfully integrated that they were virtually invisible unless one knew where to look.  If you had discovered one by chance, you might presume it was an optical illusion or part of your own imagination–like seeing objects in a cloud formation (or the Madonna’s face in a pancake).

News of their existence spread discreetly through the lower echelons of our firm.  By tacit agreement, none of us told anyone at the executive level.  The paintings were not pornographic; they were classic art, cunningly concealed in the lines of the abstract motif.  Still, we knew they would be considered far too risqué to be openly displayed in our conservative place of business.  The bosses, had they known, would naturally have felt compelled to order the artwork painted over immediately.

These cleverly concealed pieces were more than simple drawings.  They represented a break-away, an act of playful defiance against conformity.  Here was a paintbrush virtuoso artfully thumbing his nose at ubiquitous corporate stuffiness.

How we loved it!  As fellow guardians of The Secret we acquired a certain release ourselves–a vicarious independence—as  if we were all helping the artist make his rebellious mark.

So, belatedly, thank you Mr. Artist, whoever you were, wherever you are.  You added an aesthetic richness to my life and that of many others.  I loved your outrageous little works of art and—in my personal gallery of memories—you have a place among the masters.

I cherish the visual experience you gave us, as well as the delightful opportunity to help put one over on the management.

I’ve kept your secret for more than sixty years.  But it’s time to tell your story.  All the people are gone from the place now—those who were privy to your impudence and those who were not.  The lobby has probably undergone countless decorative reincarnations since then, so your work may be gone.

But the spirit of your artful rebellion lives on.

Now and then I experience a ripple of pleasure as I relive cherished moments of standing in that imposing lobby waiting for an elevator—I, a mere secretary, elbow to elbow with a pair of serious “suits”.  While the men made high-level small talk, I relished the vision of the hidden-in-plain-sight art on display directly in front of us.  In such a situation, I would occasionally meet the eyes of another waiting “insider.”  We would exchange very small—very brief—smiles, then look away.

Hah!

  • * * *

©  2012 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in Secrets in The Marble | Leave a Comment »

FORGIVE OR NOT TO FORGIVE?

October 30, 2011 by Ruth

FORGIVE OR NOT TO FORGIVE?

By Ruth Minshull

 

For a long time the concept of forgiveness has bothered me.

I see a couple whose teenage daughter was mortally attacked by a serial killer/rapist.  The mother tearfully tells the TV interviewer:  “We have forgiven him.”  Another couple, who have suffered a similar tragedy, eagerly observes the bad guy’s execution, and then declare that they finally have “closure.”  A woman describes a friend’s betrayal, and concludes:  “I will never forgive her.”

To me there was something disturbing about all of these responses, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

To help me sort the whole thing out, I went to the dictionary where I learned that to forgive is:

1.  To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon

2.  To renounce anger or resentment against

So the word has two quite different meanings.  Alexander Pope famously said, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”  The first people mentioned above (who forgave the killer) were possibly making a bid for divinity, but is this really possible?  Is it in our power, as mere mortals, to excuse or pardon someone who has committed a crime?  For one thing, the law does not forgive such a crime, so we couldn’t actually take him off the hook—even if we wanted to do so.  Would a supreme being forgive—especially if there is no atonement?  None of us are qualified to answer that.  In any case, such an action may not be within the purview of mere mortals.  If the couple’s “forgiveness” meant that they had stopped feeling anger or resentment toward the offender, this is a good thing.  It’s not only possible, it’s the sane way to go.  Of course, if those people were merely mouthing the words because their religious beliefs demanded that they be “forgiving,” the gesture would have no real benefit for themselves or anyone else.

The folks who were hung up in their victimhood until the killer’s execution had obviously spent a lot of time weighted down with dark, vindictive thoughts.  They were more likely embracing the assertion of that ethically-challenged lawyer, Alan Shore (played by James Spader in “The Practice”) who said:  “To err is human, but to get even?  THAT is divine.”

I would like to say that I’m above such base feelings, but I am reminded of an incident some years ago when a scurrilous character tried to swindle me in a real estate matter.  After he tied me up in court for four years with hearings, appeals and delays, I won the case; the judge awarded me repayment in the form of garnisheed wages.  After the ruling, as the swindler ran through the courthouse halls pursuing my attorney and mewling, “Mercy.  Have mercy!” I’ll have to confess to a bit of schadenfreude.

Of course, the woman who vowed: “I’ll never forgive her” is condemning herself to a lifetime of bitterness, thus sabotaging her own chances for future pleasure.  No one will ever experience a lightness of spirit while weighted down by such acrimony.

The second meaning of “forgive” is the one we can and should employ:  “To renounce anger or resentment against.”

That is sane, healthy and liberating.

We must patch ourselves up and carry on.  We all know that it’s detrimental to harbor feelings of outrage and indignation.  It won’t change the past and it won’t fix the object of our embitterment (nor does it make the bad actor crumble up and die).  We harm only ourselves.  Our sour thoughts will turn inward and erode our sense of well being; they can make us sick, give us indigestion or a heart attack; they will carve wrinkles on our foreheads and scars on our souls.

So what is the answer?  How do we respond when we’re the target of another person’s misdeeds?

First, I think we should examine the nature of a particular infraction.  Some are more harmful than others.  After all, the legal system differentiates between a misdemeanor and a felony, a murder and manslaughter.  We should do something similar.

The question would be:  how serious is the offense?

“I know you’re the one who ate all the cookies in the cookie jar, but I’ll overlook it this time.”  (Of course, we may want to tighten the Cookie Rules or find a better hiding place.)

The other person may have simply made a mistake—a bit of mischief, a step on the toes, an inadvertent omission, a forgotten promise, an unfortunate word choice.  We’ve all done such things and had them done to us.  These unintentional slights should be forgotten immediately.  They don’t even need the act of “forgiving”; they should be dismissed as unimportant.

At another level, people sometimes create hurtful feelings because thoughtless behavior is in their nature.  They don’t return calls or respond to emails, they’re chronically late, they neglect to thank people for favors, or their loutish behavior is a public embarrassment to their companions.  It’s best to simply understand such people and (if we don’t remove their numbers from our speed dial) expect nothing better from them.

And then there are those clods with atrocious manners.  They never mean to offend; they simply don’t know any better.  You ask a couple to dinner and they arrive bringing three extra friends.  You send a wedding invitation and they don’t RSVP.  You invite them for a weekend visit and they won’t commit, “I’ll try to make it…” they say, and leave you on hold.  You send a gift and get no “thank you”.  You make an appointment to meet, and they show up 30 minutes late.  In most such cases, these people don’t mean to slight us, they’re merely thoughtless.  They haven’t grown up yet.  (Some of them never will, of course.)

If such rudeness or neglect is habitual (with no bad intentions) we need to understand and accept them as they are  Or, if we don’t want to be bothered, we can simply relegate them to the Christmas-card-only list.

None of these little flubs warrants tying ourselves in knots.  We need to give them a shrug and move on.

On the other hand, certain conduct involves more than slip-ups or ill-mannered oversights.  These are damaging acts by deliberate intention.  A person betrays a confidence, sabotages our project, steals from us, undermines our work, delivers veiled insults, tells lies about us, stabs us in the back, harms us physically or emotionally.

Such behavior is not an accidental lapse, but an act of malice.  His or her conduct exposes the person as an enemy or, at best, a “toxic friend”.

We need to acknowledge, without embellishment, that such people are evil. We should make no excuses for them, or try to explain away their behavior.  They are simply wired differently than we are, and they are detrimental to our survival.

If someone cheats us, cheats on us, lies to us, lies about us, steals from us, or harms us in any way, we should move out of their orbit and then make every effort to benefit in some way from the experience.  Instead of grumbling incessantly, we need to say, “OK.  What can I learn from this?”

To make lemonade out of the lemon, it helps to sweeten it by recognizing a portion of our own responsibility in the situation.  We may be able to examine and understand our own vulnerability, our naiveté, our gullibility or (dare I say it?) our stupidity—and thus avoid similar pitfalls in the future.

We may recall a moment (“You know, I had a feeling I shouldn’t trust him…” or perhaps “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so greedy.” or possibly “I was too needy and felt flattered by his attention.”).  It’s remarkable how often we can find some level of responsibility when we search for it.

As to punishment, we’re better off when we don’t dwell on the desire for revenge or a wish to see the miscreant suffer.  We might want to boil him in oil, to pull her fingernails out one-by-one, but, whatever flogging the person deserves, it is best meted out by the courts, his God or his conscience (if he has one).

But should we trust the betrayer in the future—with our life?  Our children?  Our money?  Our heart?  No, no, no and no.

Still we do need to get over it—whether we call it “forgiving” or something else.  We do this, not to take the other guy off the hook, but to disconnect ourselves from the anger and bitterness—in order to restore our peace of mind.

Forgiving does not necessarily mean it’s OK for him to do what he did.  It does not mean that we absolve him of all responsibility. (That isn’t up to us, and we couldn’t do it anyway.)  It simply means:  “I’m not going to let this thing stick to me.  I’m done with it.”

So, whatever kind of “forgiving” we do—whether we’re trying to make the other person feel better, or we’re trying to be righteous (in a bid for divinity) or whether we’re excusing (“It’s OK.  It doesn’t matter”)—the most important function of forgiving is disconnecting ourselves from all negative feelings toward the culprit.

In the end, the first thing to remember is that forgiving is not really about the other guy.

It’s about us.

# # #

© 2011 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in FORGIVE OR NOT | Leave a Comment »

BORES CAN’T HELP IT

September 22, 2011 by Ruth

BORES CAN’T HELP IT

By Ruth Minshull

“A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience.”  ~John Updike

 

One of our most intolerable cruelties is boring one another.  And no label socially condemns a person more thoroughly than: “He’s a bore.”

None of us means to be a bore, but due to occasional misguided reckoning, we may all become one from time to time.

Perhaps we’re enthralled by the feeding habits of the Pink Fairy Armadillo, but if we start rambling on about the subject, we may fail to notice that our companion’s eyes have glazed over.

I think of a man who used to work at the local library.  He was a pleasant person who loved books and enjoyed his job; I doubt if he ever committed an unkind act in his life.  But he was a mind-numbing, colossal, unmitigated bore—not just occasionally, but always.  Five minutes with him seemed like an hour in the dentist’s chair.

As he pushed the books across the counter to me he would begin his drone.  Before long my legs would start to turn numb, my back would ache; I could hear my brain cells whimpering as they withered up and died.  I longed to sprint outside and watch the grass grow.  At the first deep breath he took, I would escape, smiling as I weakly mumbled an apology.  (“Excuse me. I think my car is on fire.”)  He never seemed to mind.  He probably assumed that it was natural for all library patrons to be attacked with sudden emergencies as soon as they had checked out their books.

What makes a bore?  Many people are simply trying to converse, to entertain us, to be amusing or engaging.  The hard-core, chronic bore is different.  He (or she, of course) is totally self-centered and convinced that his discourse is far more interesting than anything you (or anyone else) could ever offer.  Thus he never wants to hear about you; he never asks for your opinions, never notices that you have fallen asleep.

Furthermore, even the most fascinating raconteur becomes tiresome to those who have heard his stories a hundred times.  The very fact that a person feels compelled to tell a story at every opportunity can become tiresome in itself.

It’s easy to be entertaining to a new acquaintance, but how do we keep the interest of a friend or spouse over a prolonged period?  Many couples don’t make it.  You see them in restaurants sharing meals across a cavern of silence.

Some marriages fail because the partners bore each other to death (well, if not to death, to divorce).  They never utter a novel witticism, an original observation, a provocative thought.  In many cases, they recycle a limited grab bag of clichés—proffered with numbing predictability.

A friend told me, “I left my husband because he bored me.  I don’t tell this to most people.  It sounds so flighty and snobbish.  If I complained that he beat me, everyone would empathize.  But if I say he anaesthetized my brain, they wouldn’t get it.”

I know one man who found the perfect mate.  Once when he and his wife were visiting, he saw a newspaper headline that said, “CAT OWNERS LIVE LONGER.”  He pointed it out to me and said, “That’s not true.  It just seems longer.”  Since his remark was meant to taunt me, I ignored him.  His wife, however, laughed heartily, punched him in the arm and said, “George!” in sort of a mocking scold.  His remark was not original.  Actually I had often heard him use the same punch line.  “Vegetarians don’t live longer; it just seems longer.”  Dutifully, his wife always laughed.  So, he doesn’t bore her because she seems content to be his foil.  She’s the ideal second banana.  Maybe that’s what we all need:  a partner who will promise to “love, honor, and laugh at all our jokes.”

Having been somewhat of a nerd most of my life, I’ve always had difficulty making small talk (and most social encounters don’t allow room for large talk).  So I understand the problem of a bore:  What should I talk about?  How can I be interesting?

None of us wants to be the person that others avoid.  If people cross the street when they see us coming, if they stop asking “How are you?” because they’re afraid we’ll tell them, it may be time to examine our conversational habits.

Well, I’ve heard that the best way for any of us to avoid being a bore is to ask questions, then listen to the other person.  People love to talk about themselves, and when you encourage them, they’ll think you’re a most engaging conversationalist.

In other words, quit trying to be interesting.  Be interested.

So, what happens if you are interested, but the other person turns out to be a humongous  bore?

Well, I say:  always have an escape plan ready.

* * *

©2011 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in BORES | Leave a Comment »

Nobody Wants Our Advice

August 2, 2011 by Ruth

NOBODY WANTS OUR ADVICE

By Ruth Minshull

Advice is least heeded when most needed.

                                  –English proverb

“Listen,” I said.  “I know you want that condo, and it really is nice.  But, please, please, don’t buy it until you sell your house.”

“But, I’m afraid I’ll lose it if I wait.  The real estate agent said she has another buyer who’s interested in it.”

“I know, George, but there are about a hundred other condos in that complex—and at least a dozen of them are for sale at any given time.  Everything I’ve been seeing tells me that the bottom is about to fall out of the real estate market, and you don’t want to get stuck paying for two places until you can get a buyer for your house.”

My friend murmured something vague and I was left with the feeling that he would ignore my warning.

And he did.  The following week he called me, proudly announcing that he had bought the condo.  After he had packed up and moved, he listed his house for sale

For the next eighteen months his home languished on the stagnant market, and I listened to his complaints about having to pay insurance, taxes and maintenance expenses on both places.

Somehow I managed to refrain from saying “I told you so,” but I’ll admit it took monumental willpower.  (Surely I’ll get some kind of brownie points in heaven for such righteous behavior.)

I gave a similar admonition to my cousin when she was planning to move into an assisted-living apartment.  She, too, failed to accept the benefits of my wisdom.  She bought the apartment and carried the double expenses for over a year before the house sold—at a greatly reduced price.

Jack Nicholson obviously learned the same lesson I did:  “I’ll tell you one thing.  Don’t ever give anybody your best advice, because they’re not going to follow it.”

I guess I’m a slow learner because I tried yet again with another friend.  She had acquired a sum of much-needed money which she turned over to a stockbroker to invest.  When I saw signs of the coming debacle in the market, I warned her:  “You’d better get out of the market.  You don’t need to be in stock all the time.  Cash is a position.  Buy treasury bills if you want your money in something.”

She called me a short time later and said she had gone over her portfolio with the broker.  “And I do have ten percent of my money in treasury bills,” she crowed triumphantly.  “See?  Great minds think alike.”

Well, these “great minds” were not exactly thinking alike.  Within weeks her net worth took a nose dive and she was suffering greatly (and still is).  Again, I kept my mouth shut.

It began to dawn on me that most people do not welcome unsolicited advice.  Reluctantly, I reached the same conclusion as that of Desiderius Erasmus:  “Don’t give your advice before you are called upon.”

That’s probably the smartest thing to do.  Nothing.  But, for most of us, it’s like sitting on your hands while you watch a little tot trying to tie his shoes—agonizing but necessary.

On the receiving end, most of us don’t always welcome someone else putting in his two-cents worth.  It’s too cheap.  I know a man who once paid $50,000 to have lunch with Warren Buffet.  (Why?  Because he could, I guess.)  Anyway, I’ve since wondered if he got any valuable advice from the billionaire.  If so, did he follow it or did he ignore it?.  He never said.  In any case, whatever he learned from Mr. Buffett was not cheap.

We may feel that we can manage our lives better than anyone else can, and so we seldom welcome some nosey butinsky trying to interfere.  I know I don’t always heed knee-jerk recommendations—especially from someone who doesn’t even understand the problem.

My father was big on giving me unwanted recommendations.  When I graduated from high school, he thought I should go on to college.  Since I couldn’t afford it, I ignored his suggestion and found a job.  A couple years later, when I had saved some money, I decided to continue my education.  He thought I should hang on to my job.  I went to college.  When I left and found work in a big city, he warned, “You should never leave this job.  You won’t make that kind of money anywhere else.”

At each step along the way, I refused his suggestions—and it turned out that he was wrong each time.  Of course, being a typical know-it-all kid, I would have sloughed off his words even if they had been profoundly wise.

A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.  –E. W. Howe

Probably Howe was right.  We must each bungle along, making mistakes, falling on our faces as we grope our way blindly through life’s labyrinth.  We seem to learn more that way—and it helps us build up confidence in our own judgment.

Occasionally people really do want advice—or they seem to. We hear some whiney woman call in to an “expert” on the radio or write to a Dear-Abby columnist:  “I dearly love my husband of eight years, but he is so strict with my twelve-year-old daughter he sometimes has her in tears.  He’s rather critical of me too if I don’t cook his favorite foods or if he doesn’t think the house is clean enough.  That may be my fault because when I get home from work (on my feet all day at a checkout counter) I’m too tired to do much cleaning.  Don’t tell me to leave him.  I love him, and he has only hit me a few times and my daughter only once.  How can I make him understand that my daughter and I want better treatment from him?  Perplexed in Paducah”

Perplexed appears to be asking for guidance, but does she mean it?  Anyone stupid enough to stay in such a marriage obviously has some kind of sick need for abuse and will probably ignore any well-meant suggestions.  She may need some near-death experience at the hands of her brutal mate before she takes any action.

There are a number of reasons a person won’t take our advice:

1)  He knows better than we do,

2)  He thinks he knows better than we do,

3)  He knows better than anybody

4)  He didn’t want to solve the problem in the first place.

Of course, there are times we seek an opinion when we merely want our own judgment confirmed.  I once asked my son for advice when I was thinking of buying a new car.  Getting right to the heart of the matter, he asked:  “Well, do you think there is a practical need for a new car or do you just want it for the fun of it?”

“Well,” I sheepishly confessed, “I just want it.”

“OK,” he said.  “In that case, I say go ahead and buy it.  If you were going to try to justify it, I wouldn’t go along with that, but as long as you know it’s frivolous, then why not?”

Of course, I bought the car.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.  –Henri Nouwen

Most of us have listened to a friend mewling over some deplorable situation they are facing.  The resolution may seem obvious to us.  “Well,” we offer, “why don’t you….”

Quickly, we are told, “Oh, I can’t do that because….”

“Then maybe you should….”

“No, no, that wouldn’t work….”

At some point we may realize that the person may need this problem.  He does not want any of our (wise, sensible, workable, profound) solutions.  He merely wants us to commiserate:  “Oh, my, that’s terrible.  I don’t know how you can stand it.”

In such a case, I say:  forget about trying to help the person solve his problem.

Just admire it.

# # #

© 2011 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in Nobody Wants Our Advice | Leave a Comment »

Bad Taste

June 16, 2011 by Ruth

BAD TASTE, THY NAME IS EXCESS

by Ruth Minshull

 

Some folks are convinced that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.

Take perfume.  I think it’s best used as a subtle suggestion of femininity, a hint of mysterious depths.  But there are women who slosh it on with a garden hose.  It becomes a weapon of war.  They cut through a room like juggernauts, leaving a trail of bodies writhing in olfactory agony.

And then there are young men who put those huge tires on the back of their cars, so the front is tipping downward while the hind end is up in the air–like a bitch in heat, presenting herself to prowling males.  Darned if I can figure out why, but they seem to be trying to outdo each other.  I saw one the other day that should be the winner.  The back of the car sat so high that the slightest downhill slope could have sent that baby into a forward somersault.  It seems to me that such vehicles have been modified to the point of uselessness—like those women who grow foot-long fingernails.  (You have to wonder how they can do anything.)

And then there are the hombres who put bigger and bigger tires on a pickup truck—all four wheels in this case.  I suppose the original purpose was to enable them to drive over ruts, small bushes, rough terrain, obnoxious neighbors.  But with some, this overmuchness has become yet another “mine-is-bigger-than-yours” contest.  Are they planning to cruise over a water tower?  A high-rise?  They indulge their lust for excess to the point where they risk altitude sickness.  They must have to use a hook and ladder truck to mount those suckers.  But then, of course, they could drive over a burning building without even getting singed.

We also have another strange breed among us who observe Christmas by going totally overboard with exterior decorations.  They assemble outlandish collections of lighted holiday symbols.  Their places are aswarm with Santas in sleighs (complete with reindeer), Santa climbing down chimney, Santa in front of fireplace.  Then there are wreathes, evergreen ropes, carolers, wise men, jolly snow men, somber nativity scenes—and light-adorned trees, large ones, small ones, evergreens and deciduous.  This teeming glitter is assembled with no particular design.

In recent times, I’ve noticed, these over-doers have upped the ante.  In addition to their humongous assortments of holiday symbols, they have added more lights.  And more and more lights.  Some have gotten so carried away that their places can be seen from Mars.  Their electric bills must look like down payments on the national debt.

The predominant characteristic of these loonies is that they never know when to quit.  Each year they gleefully display new additions to their surplusage.  What can you say about such a public flood of vulgarity?

The same excessiveness can be seen in clothing.  If you’re on a few catalog mailing lists you can easily determine the least expensive goods by the fact that practically every outfit will have too much stuff on it–too much embroidery, too many ruffles, too much fringe, too much fake lace, too much floral print, too much gaudy color.  So, the less you pay, the more you get.  Conversely, in order to get unadorned simplicity and subdued colors, you have to pay more.

I was leafing through a catalog the other day when I saw a black dress with nice graceful lines.  But the designers couldn’t leave it alone.  They had to add a garish flower design cascading down the center, then a red lace overlay at the neckline.  Now, just getting warmed up, they threw in a row of red crochet trim around the edge of the sleeves.  For good measure, they added a hem ruffle with two rows of more red crochet trim.  It looked like a costume for the Mardi Gras parade.

Why, I wondered, does “inexpensive” so often equate to cheap, chintzy, showy, flashy?

There are exceptions.  Once in a while we see an costly designer outfit that is gaudily over the top.  The people who can afford it call it a “fun piece” and wear it once or twice before discarding it.

I don’t know if any authority has ever defined taste.  We tend to say someone has good taste when it agrees with our own  And I doubt if there’s any way one can argue about the subject.  People like something or they don’t.

When we hear the word “tasteful” however, it brings to mind conservative, understated, with subdued, harmonious colors.

If someone remarks that a room was tastefully decorated, I doubt if any of us would envision yellow and red striped carpeting, fake leopard-skin couches and a black velvet painting of Elvis.

Lastly, nowhere is excess more prevalent than in cooking.

I once knew a woman who was basically a good cook, but she went crazy with herbs and spices.  I don’t know exactly how her thinking went.  Either she didn’t believe a half-teaspoon of anything could be tasted at all—or else she figured that if a little is good, a lot is better.  As a result many of her meals were unpalatable.

I’ve spent a lifetime modifying dishes that I thought were so over-seasoned that the original taste was lost.  I created my own recipe for enchiladas after watching a friend make them.  She used dozens of those little canned peppers that would burn a crater into your countertop if you dropped one.  Her husband loved them and gobbled them down whole, by themselves.  But then, he was an alcoholic, so I figure his insides were already embalmed and he couldn’t taste anything of lesser impact.  My own version has only one cut-up pepper in the sauce.  It’s just a bit nippy, but the original flavor of the ingredients is still intact—and so are my own internal organs.

I also modified my moussaka recipe.  Cinnamon gives it an exotic, different flavor, but I don’t believe you should be able to identify the spice.  By reducing the amount to about one-quarter of that specified in the original recipe, mine has a more subtle, illusive flavor.

Oregano is one of these herbs that I personally feel should have remained undiscovered—or simply served as punishment for wayward cooks.  Too often it dominates the dish so thoroughly that it becomes the only discernible flavor.  If I liked the stuff that much I’d just eat it right out of the jar with a teaspoon.  But I automatically reduce it or eliminate it.

Following the same practice, I changed my chili recipe so that you can actually taste  the celery, green peppers and tomatoes.  Chili powder is used to supply only a slight peppery flavoring.

This is one dish that seems to demand overdoing.  Chili cookoffs have become great pissin’ contests.  In these events the typical entry is no longer an identifiable food product.  It is a mushy red fireball that cauterizes the esophagus and dissolves the stomach lining.  It may actually be a cure for something.  However, I have another theory  You’ve heard of those mysterious illnesses in which the immune system has broken down?   Medical researchers are baffled as to the cause of these cases.  Now, I ask, have they ever checked to see whether such patients have been exposed to Texas Chili—an incendiary that would blaze through the body killing everything in its way.  Why not the immune system?

I’ve often wondered if all of these various excess-orizers have mottos on their walls.  If so, they won’t be those gentle pastel needlepoint reminders about “Home Sweet Home” or “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”.

No.  Theirs will be blinking, neon-lighted, prompters egging them on:  “REMEMBER—OVER DOES IT!”

 

* * *

© 2011 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in Bad Taste | Leave a Comment »

AOS Blues

April 25, 2011 by Ruth

THE AOS BLUES

By Ruth Minshull

Help!  I’m suffering from the AOS (Acronym Overload Syndrome) Blues.

I thought I was doing OK.  I’ve been able to absorb AOL, CEO, COO, NAACP, PIN, VIN, REM, ROM and countless others.

Strictly speaking, some of the popular abbreviations are not true acronyms.  An acronym is actually a word formed from the initial letters of each word in a series.  So, unless you pronounce the abbreviation as a word (such as NASA) it isn’t a true acronym.  Still, whether they are true or just lazy shortcuts, we’re stuck with them—and they’re increasing faster than an ordinary human can learn them.

How many people remember that radar stands for radio detecting and ranging?  And how about its cousin, sonar (sound navigation and ranging)?

Probably nobody but a hardcore computer geek knows that a modem stands for modulator + demodulator and is defined as “A device for transmitting usually digital data over telephone wires by modulating the data into an audio signal to send it and demodulating an audio signal into data to receive it.”  Whew!  My definition serves me better:  “That thingy by my computer that gets me online.”

Long ago we all adjusted to abbreviated company names such as IBM, RCA, AT&T, and various agencies and groups:  FBI, CIO, AFL, AMA, FCC.  Then there’s NATO, Unesco and Unicef.

Radio and television have required us to absorb ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, BBC to name just a few.  If necessary, most of us could probably recall the words that the letters represent (although there’s a good chance that our children and grandchildren won’t be able to do so).

I won’t get into A.D. and B.C. or a.m. and p.m. (which we usually don’t even dignify by putting in uppercase).  Or the old army term AWOL.  These have been around so long we don’t have to think about them.

But the problem is that more and more abbreviations and acronyms are popping up every day.  And we may find ourselves having to translate the odd letters back into meaningful words in order to understand the context.

The letters std used to be an abbreviation for the word standard.  But now, when written in caps, STD means sexually transmitted disease.  Salt used to be just something to sprinkle on your potatoes.  Now, in caps, SALT, means Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

Just in the A’s, we absorbed AA, and AAA along with A & P and AARP.  More confusing, ABA can stand for American Banking Association, American Bar Association or American Booksellers Association.

The now familiar word AIDS comes from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and the virus that causes it is called HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).

By now everyone is familiar with the popular ATMs.  But we’re also expected to know that ABMs are antiballistic missiles.

Entertainment-wise I thought I was doing all right with today’s shortcut language.  When VCR’s (videocassette recorders) came along. I took them in stride.  And I managed to make the transition from vinyl records—that is, from 78s (which means 78 revolutions per minute, because in those ancient times records actually went round and round) through 45s through 33 1/3s—to tapes and on to CDs without too much trauma.  But my brain started to ossify when my new VCR had a disc slot for a movie.  We picked up a movie to play on it.  But I was confused.  It looked like a CD.  It quacked like a CD, but it was not a CD.  It was a DVD (digital video disk).

I no sooner managed to cope with that when my son bought me a new HD (high definition) TV and insisted that I get a TiVo.  I didn’t know if those letters stood for anything, but I did learn that TiVo is the name of the manufacturing company that makes them.  Anyway, the devise is a digital video recorder.  And, quite mysteriously, it records movies and television shows without going round and round and with no visible disk at all.  It will “suspend time” if I want to take a break in the middle of a live program.  Although I still don’t know exactly how it works, it is amazing—and now I couldn’t live without it.

Along with our abbreviated language, I’ve noticed that the younger people are talking faster these days.  It’s like putting a recording on double speed.  Are people living at a quicker pace?  Do they think more rapidly?  Now and then I have to tell my grandson, “Slow down!  I can’t hear that fast.”

The kids not only speak at lightning velocity, but they write in a new condensed language when they communicate with each other in Twitter, Facebook, instant messages, e-mails, chat rooms and discussion forums.

I found a site that listed 1,300 of these abbreviations.  Here are a few:  @TEOTD (at the end of the day), 2M2H (too much to handle), AAK (asleep at keyboard), AAS (alive and smiling), AFZ (acronym free zone), BION (believe it or not), BM&Y (between me and you), CLAB (crying like a baby), CMIIW (correct me if I’m wrong), CSG (chuckle, snicker, grin), G2G (got to go), GB (good bye), GBTW (get back to work), GFN (gone for now), GGOH (gotta get outa here), GNE1 (good night everyone), HFAC (holy flipping animal crackers), HRU (how are you?), IDBI (I don’t believe it), IDC (I don’t care), IOMH (in over my head) KPC (keeping parents clueless), LHO (laughing head off), MEGO (my eyes glaze over), MOO (my own opinion), and, finally, RL (real life).

Well, HFAC, this is 2M2H.  I’m IOMH and CLAB.  As of now, I’m going back to RL and establishing an AFZ.

GNE1.

* * *

© 2011 by Ruth Minshull

Posted in AOS Blues | Leave a Comment »

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.