Biscuit City

Last I was meeting with a couple of writers from our local writing group, Write by the Rails (website: http://writebytherails.blogspot.com/), as we were working on edits for our projected anthology. Suddenly (which is how this sort of thing usually happens) we started talking about the Oxford comma and how each of us favored it as a means of punctuating items in a series.

In case you haven’t heard of the Oxford comma, you probably have been using it. In a series of items, if a comma is placed before the “and,” it is called “an Oxford comma” (or domestically, “a Harvard comma” or if you prefer, “a serial comma”).

Recent usage has eliminated the final comma, which can result in ambiguities such as:

I’d like to thank my parents, John Donne and God.

Probably John Donne and God are not your parents. The Oxford comma clarifies this bit of confusion:

I’d like to thank my parents, John Donne, and God.

There’s a good article on the subject at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma, with many more examples and enough ambiguity to confuse anyone.

We editors and writers like the Oxford comma, although using it is a matter of assuring clarity and economy. That’s why I say you’re on your own. Look at the meaning of the series and do whatever it takes to make it clear.

I tend to favor it because I worked every grammar exercise in the Warriner’s series for six long years and they of course liked the serial comma long before it had the name of Oxford. Still, we want to keep up with the times. But we also want to be clear. Good luck to you and be careful out there!

My dad, who is 87, had his pacemaker replaced last week in an outpatient procedure that took about 40 minutes, with about an hour’s recovery time. The other pacemaker had stopped working–its battery ran out and consequently his energy level and circulation were not what they would have been had the pacer been working.

He had had the old device for about nine years, which struck me as a fairly long time for a battery to last. Of course, what it’s doing is providing an electrical impulse at regular intervals which on the face of it, while important, would not seem to cause that much drain on a battery. (As usual, I don’t know much about my subject, but I do know those ain’t Energizer AA cells in the device.) I found out that pacemakers use lithium iodine batteries and they are expected to lose 10% of their power after about five years. Not too shabby. I’m glad for pacemakers and glad that they have such long lasting batteries.

I was thinking about batteries and their power and longevity when my iPhone upgraded itself to a new operating system. With the upgrade,  suddenly the battery wouldn’t last all day even though I used it about the same amount. I have had to take to carrying the charging cord around with me and plugging it in wherever I am in the late afternoon, sponging off someone else’s 120 volt outlet if I’m away from home. Taking more battery power is not my idea of an upgrade, and I’ve talked to several other iPhone owners who have experienced the same thing. What’s with that, I want to know.

Then I thought about electric cars. My friend and prolific writer and community activist Cindy Brookshire knows a fellow in town who is all about electric cars. I want to interview him when I have time because I don’t know much about them other than hybrids seem to be practical at this point in their development while an all-electric doesn’t really cut it in terms of our expectations for our cars. Sure, I drive less than thirty miles most days, but suppose I take a wild hair and decide to drive to Atlanta for some reason. With my mighty Impala, it’s not problem as long as I have a credit card for gas. I fill it up and keep on going. With some pure electrics, you’d have to stop every thirty miles and charge the pack for a couple hours. That would extend a trip, all right.

I understand there are batteries for pure electric cars under development with a range of 500 miles and a charging time of a few minutes. Now that’s what I’m talking about, even if it does leave the problem of a charger infrastructure. Early automobile users bought gas from drug stores, and it would take us quite a while to come up with enough charging stations for everyone. And do you think the oil companies would like that? Not very much, I think.

I know very little about everything I’ve written about in this post, so I hope some folks who are more informed will comment and correct an errors or misapprehensions I’ve had. I’d appreciate it. In fact, I’d get a big charge out of it!

That seems about like what we’ve fallen into with all manner of pumpkin-flavored products being popular this fall. There is the usual pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread. But there are also pumpkin-flavored potato chips, beer, coffees, bagels, cream cheese, biscotti, dog treats, nonfat Greek yogurt, pancakes, English muffins, Pop-Tarts, waffles, tea, salsa, pasta, sausage, chocolate, marshmallows, and air fresheners. I am not making any of this up, and I know the list is accurate because I got it off the internet.

Now, I think all this is a bit of pumpkin-flavored overkill. Chocolate versions of these products, maybe. But it’s too much pumpkin. I’ll stick with a slice of pumpkin bread and a piece of pumpkin pie, thanks. And a nice Jack-o-lantern to put on the front porch.

But the Great Pumpkin has come into his own. Linus must be pleased.

I am folding some clothes, some things that did not need to be removed immediately from the dryer to avoid wrinkles.

After sitting in the basket for half an hour, they are still warm, and I can’t help it:

My mind flashes to Juliet’s line in the tomb when she discovers Romeo dead and kisses him,

Trying to get a taste of the poison that killed him, but darn the luck, there’s not enough to be fatal.

She wails, “Thy lips are still warm.” She just misses the death train but wait, there’s the “friendly dagger.”

So, dagger, do thy work, and so they roll off into history. I hope they were happy but I think they were just dead.

Me, I’m older and I’m folding warm laundry, but as of this moment, with neither poison nor dagger nor dead lover at hand,  I’m still alive and warm.

At least for now.


–Dan Verner

Q: Is it possible to leave a USB drive in the pocket of some pants, wash them, dry them and  have the data on the drive still be intact?

A: Yes.

Happy Little Trees and a Happy Little Bridge

I was hanging out with some other writers this past weekend (caution: do not attempt this unless you are a writer as well) when someone brought up Bob Ross. If you haven’t heard of Mr. Ross, he had a how-to-paint show, The Joy of Painting, on PBS for years. He was quite the personality, with an Afro hairdo and a gentle whisper of a voice as he painted landscapes with his signature “happy little trees” and “happy little clouds.” He made it look easy, but as anyone who has tried painting knows, it’s not.

Here’s a link with some more information about Ross: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40610

Ross came up last Saturday when one of the writers was talking about her children watching his show after school as she was fixing dinner. She said his soothing voice seemed to calm them. His gentle whisper was in the PBS and NPR tradition of speaking slowly and gently (pace, Fred Rogers), satirized by a Saturday Night Live skit in which two hosts talk about “National…Public…Radio” and proceed to get drunk on non-alcoholic egg nog. “That’s some good ‘nog!” they say repeatedly as the scene slides into chaos.

But Bob Ross never slid into chaos. He talked about nature and told stories about his pet squirrel, Peapod (I always thought he was saying “Pee Pong”).  Our younger daughter Alyssa was especially taken with Ross’s show and talked about his painting and monologues. We actually have a Bob Ross how to paint book somewhere in the treasure trove of books in our house. I’ll have to go prospecting for it one day.

So, here’s to you, Bob Ross. Wherever you are (he passed away in 1995), I hope there are lots of happy little trees.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLO7tCdBVrA&feature=g-u-u

I was putting some screws into something the other day, I forget what,  using my favorite tool, my Dewalt cordless drill (18 volt),  and I struck several screws in my mouth to hold them–well, not really in my mouth but between my lips (don’t try this at home without adult supervision, boys and girls)–and I suddenly had a mental image of a woman working on a dress holding pins in her mouth as she pinned material.

I haven’t actually seen anyone do this for decades, but it got me to thinking about a time when people (women primarily) sewed for their friends and family or even to make a little money. Sitting in the waiting room of my dad’s doctor last week, I overheard two women talk about making all their own clothes and using patterns, and they seemed to be saying they made their own patterns. I wanted to ask them if they held pins in their mouths but the nurse called them back about that time, and that would have been an odd question to spring on someone an anyhow.

If you think about it, holding (non-toxic) things in one’s mouth is like having an extra hand–one without fingers, to be sure, but a mouth can hold a lot of different things. Mother cats carry their kittens in their mouths because, well, they don’t have hands. Sometimes if I have several bags to carry and don’t have a hand to get my door key out, I’ll hold the handles of the plastic bag in my mouth (dear dentist, please don’t read that last sentence).

I had an aunt who could look at a girl and make a dress that would fit her perfectly without measuring or trying on or using a pattern. I’m not sure what skills would be involved in doing this, but it almost seems miraculous to me.

The two ladies in the doctor’s office allowed as how no one had the time or money to make their own clothes. I know that knitting has had a kind of renaissance. Older daughter Amy is a knitter and she made me a really cool scarf. I can hardly wait for cold weather to wear it again.

I wonder if there will be a similar renaissance in sewing as a reaction to all the digital and technological devices that fill our lives. I remember my mom making clothes, mending and even darning socks. I’d like to think that somewhere, even now, a grandmother is showing her granddaughter how to sew a dress. A
and I’d like to think that the grandmother is holding pins in her mouth.