WOW #5

The Word Of this Week is;
Shivoo

Look out! There’s been a mudslide.  The mundane mumble-tongues couldn’t understand, remember or pronounce the EYEtalian word Charivari, so it slid down the linguistic hill, and entered the English language as

shivaree

noun (US & Canadian)
a discordant mock serenade to newlyweds, made with pans, kettles, etc.
a confused noise; din

Also (esp. dialect) charivari  

Then it made its way by tramp steamer to Australia, land of kangaroos, platypuses, and Diggers who can’t handle three-syllable words, where it ended its ignominious tumble, as the Abo word

shivoo

noun, plural shivoos. Australian.
a boisterous party or celebration.

Origin of shivoo – origin uncertain

This is like the story from several years ago, where a Florida woman had been brain-dead from an accident for five years. Her husband wanted to pull the plug on the life-support machine and achieve closure, but her Catholic parents fought him in the courts.

His/their family name was Chiavo, and even the more intelligent of the TV talking heads insisted on pronouncing it Shy-voe, when any good Italian made three syllables of it, and pronounced it Shee-ah-voe.

Out among the street trash, one could get kicked in the nuts, or the balls. Some tried to describe being mugged with a more upscale word.  Whether it was too intellectual, or simply too long to say, gonads quickly shrank to ‘nads.  The mud has slud even further.  Now, ‘nad’ is (mis)pronounced nard, a word which used to mean ‘an ointment used by the ancients.’

Jimmy Cliff sang I Can See Clearly Now. If we could get more of the great unwashed to hear and pronounce clearly, communication and comprehension would benefit greatly.   😯

Swimming With Arrogant Entitlement

A couple in Toronto purchased a house with a swimming pool. Since the wife was a qualified swim instructor, she immediately took in young students, three per half-hour session, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, plus her own two young children.

Her neighbor was a young female psychotherapist who took a few clients at her house, as well as studying for her PhD, and soon requested that she only teach in the evenings, and on the weekends. She ignored this request.

The neighbor needed quiet to work and study, and wanted her legally-mandated Peaceful Enjoyment of Property. She was informed that she was violating the 24-hour noise bylaw.  She ignored this also.

Her local city councillor personally came out, to use his tact and diplomacy to negotiate a compromise settlement. She agreed to limit her hours to Noon till 5:00 PM.  The councillor was barely back in his office, when she ignored the compromise, and reverted to all-day, noisy swim times.

The neighbor called Bylaw Enforcement, who came out and told her that she was violating a commercial bylaw which forbid an all-day, outdoor business. She was ordered to immediately Cease and Desist.  She went to City Hall, paid $1000 for a variance, (I pronounce it ‘bribe’) and continued her noisy, all-day sessions.

When she learned that the neighbors had filed a grievance with the OMB – the Ontario Municipal Board – claiming that the variance should be declared invalid, she somehow managed to get the Toronto Sun to publish a half-page story c/w a photo of her and her skating rink swimming pool.

She vehemently asserted that it was the neighbor who continued to insist on getting ‘everything her way or the highway.’ There are none so blind as those who will not see – that they are the problem.  😳

A To Z Challenge – Y

M – I – C – K – E – Y….

are we all shouting Yay?? Because we’re almost finished with this Mickey Mouse challenge!

It seems like just yesterday that I began this series, but it’s more like ‘days of yore.’  I’ve written about yummy food, and my long-past though perhaps not sufficiently-misspent, youth.  I can’t find any reference to all the wife’s knitting yarn, although I did include some in other posts.

I imagine that you are yearning for me to get back to publishing posts that are at least a little more serious.  I can’t think of what to do with ‘yardstick.’ You are free to imagine on your own, as long as you don’t make any inappropriate suggestions.

There’s only one more letter, and I’m done with this task. Then I’m giving it up for Lent.  😆

WOW #4

For those of you who had planned not to learn anything today;
“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”

The Word Of the Week is;

JUXTAPOSITION

noun
an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.
the state of being close together or side by side.

Word Origin and History for juxtaposition

1660s, from French juxtaposition (1660s), from Latin iuxta “beside, near” + French position (see position (n.)). Latin iuxta is a contraction of *iugista (adv.), superlative of adjective *iugos “closely connected,” from stem of iugum “yoke,” from iungere “to join” (see jugular ).

For medical or technical use, definition 2, and/or the first half of number 1 are assumed.  Things are placed side by side, usually only for comparison.

Not that the word is commonly used in public, but when it is, the common usage has drifted to almost always emphasize contrast.  It indicates surprise or amazement at seeing two things, side by side, that just aren’t ever expected to be together, like a tiara on a pig, or a Picasso on a Port-A-Potty wall.

Starting in the early 90s, I began hearing about ‘The Palace of Auburn Hills’, a new Detroit-area arena/venue. The Detroit Pistons moved there, and some big-name concerts, including 2 consecutive sold-out Michael Jackson shows, have been held there.  I just thought, ‘Detroit’, and left it at that.

About ten years ago, following a trip to Detroit, instead of crossing back to Canada into Windsor, we drove north to cross at Port Huron. We got off the Interstate, onto a highway, and got off the State Highway onto a narrow, two-lane county road.  Finally, about 35 miles north of Detroit, where urban becomes country, we entered Auburn Hills.

I remembered about ‘The Palace’, and wondered where it might be. There on the north end of town, just past the John Deere dealer on one side, and the roadhouse bar on the other, both with muddy, unpaved parking lots, it sits in the middle of acres of blacktop paving, a sea of lights, looking like a Las Vegas casino in a Mexico City slum.

It’s like driving a load of trash out to the landfill site, and finding the Taj Mahal perched on top of the mound of garbage, or London’s Tower Bridge stretched over a sedimentation pond in Canada’s oil-sands project. Now, that’s juxtaposition!

Depending on the show, this thing can seat up to 23,000 people, in a little city of 22,000. The Interstate is not too far away, but, like filling a tank-car with a straw, it must take days to empty that parking lot onto a road not as wide as some driveways.   😯

COOL

Shortly after the last ice age ended, and the glaciers withdrew, the Neanderthals started to notice that the carcasses of woolly mammoths began to go bad quickly. Soon, many people were looking for an artificial way of producing cold/ice.  Finally, about 1850, using ammonia, some Americans perfected a machine to remove heat.  It only worked on a large scale, but the race to develop a smaller version was soon on.

In 1930, Frigidaire (frigid air – get it?) developed Freon™, and made lighter, safer, cheaper, home-size refrigerators possible.  The chiller-tubes (actually freezer-tubes) were wrapped around a small box at the top of the fridge, to increase the cooling area.  The cold air drifted down to chill items on lower shelves, but anything placed inside the box froze solid.

The makers soon learned to put doors on these boxes. You could put a tray of ice cubes in, but there wasn’t much more room than would take a modern cell phone.  Housewives still relied on regular trips to the butcher or grocery store.

This technology didn’t drift north into Canada very quickly. Possibly Americans felt we still had enough ice to keep us going.  My parents relied on an icebox until after 1950.  Too young to notice, I don’t know how or where we stored meat for daily meals.

One of the businesses on the main street was a lumber store, with saws and planers and sanders. The little office at the front did not require the full store width.  In an attempt to increase his income, the owner had one of the big refrigeration units installed, forming a large, walk-in freezer. He installed various-sized lockers, and rented them out.

Of course, only the more well-to-do in town could afford this service – to pay for the locker, and afford to buy and have butchered, a side of beef, half a pig, or a dozen chickens. As a young child, wandering the main street, through the big front window I often saw the ‘Rich Lady’, from the other side of the tracks, entering this strange room, wearing a full fur coat – in the middle of summer.  When I asked my Father, he explained about the rented frozen food storage.

By the time I got old enough to travel to other towns and cities, and look around, refrigerators were equipped with larger freezer compartments.   Both the lumber store and the need for its freezer room had disappeared.  I am not aware of this service anywhere else, but find it difficult to believe that it was unique to my little hometown.  Have any of my (particularly older) readers seen or heard of this service elsewhere?

The Evolution Of Archon

A tourist flags down a New York taxi. He climbs in, and asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The cabby responds, “Practice man, practice!”

How did Archon get from the happy, smiling, enchanting little baby above, to be the Grumpy Old Dude he is today?  It all starts with a good genetic background, goes through more than a half a century of formative social interaction, and is molded into place with constant, “Practice, man!  Practice!”

It may have started here. This is my maternal grandfather and grandmother.  I’ve always thought that his dour look came from being a dark Scottish Pict among the skirt-wearing, fair-skinned Highlanders.  Recent DNA testing revealed that ¼ of my genetic makeup is from Ireland.  I would imagine that thinking yourself a ‘good Scot’, or even a poor Scot, and finding that you’re descended from poteen-swilling, colleen-chasing, superstitious, banshee-herding idlers, would put a scowl on your face.  I know it put one on mine….or was that already there?

This photo was taken in the mid-1930s, in the parkland adjacent to their home. If you can see in the upper, right-hand corner, two tall Poplar trees about a block away; this will be where my Mother returns from Detroit in a couple of years, and purchases her home and property.  She met and married my father.  He got a job and moved in with her, and about ten years after this shot, they produced me, in my Home Sweet Home.

When Mom returned from Detroit, she brought along with her, not only a divorce settlement, but a daughter from her first marriage. Shown here, she’s about 10, along with my Mom and Dad, about Christmas, 1944, clustered around the real center of attention, the recent arrival, that little Ray of Sunshine and Bundle of Joy, the Archon-in-Training ….pants.

Already sulky about losing a father in a divorce, her mood soon soured further when she found that she’d gained two new half-brothers in a remarriage. Her never-ending whining harshed my tiny mellow, and her shrill, constant complaints about, “Those boys! Those damned boys!” quickly got on my little nerves.  I was well on my way to a world-class Old Grumpitude.  Either that, or the fact that my Mother didn’t tie the laces on my little walking shoes and I tripped over them and fell on my handsome wee face.  There’s always some reason to be grumpy– if you search hard enough.

This photo is of my Mom and Dad some 60 years after the one above. The reasons they’re happy and smiling, is that they’re both retired, I’m the one in the room taking the picture and my sisty ugler isn’t there.

I don’t really know why I continue to be such an old grump. I have you, my regular readers, and faithful followers.  A young lady recently set a new personal record.  She followed my blog – for the 20^th time.  She used to have her own blog-site, but shut it down.  She follows me – and a day or two later, WordPress disconnects and un-follows her.  She re-follows me – and a day later my stats fall again.  We’ve done this dance now, twenty times.  Now that’s dedication!

It’s probably been because I’ve been out for treks in the blogosphere, leaving grumpy footprints comments hither and yon, but there was a period following my Five Long Years post, where I gained 90 followers in 90 days.  (Not including Rita Repetitive)

You’re probably wondering, ‘What can I do, to make Archon less grumpy?’  You’ve already done it.  Visiting my site, reading, liking, commenting, all constitute Step 1 of my 12-step Grump-Addiction loss program.  Now it’s up to me to take the other 11 small steps.  I’ll get right on those – after I’ve had a snack and a nap.  😉

St. Patrick’s Humor

So, these two Irishmen walk out of a bar….
No, seriously, it could happen. 

Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an
important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said,
‘Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass
every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!’

Miraculously, a parking place appeared.

Paddy looked up again and said, ‘Never mind, I found one.’

****

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and asks the first man he meets,
‘Do you want to go to heaven?’
The man said, ‘I do, Father…’
The priest said, ‘Then stand over there against the wall.’
Then the priest asked the second man, ‘Do you want to go to heaven?’
‘Certainly, Father,’ the man replied.
‘Then stand over there against the wall,’ said the priest.
Then Father Murphy walked up to O’Toole and asked, ‘Do you want to go to heaven?’
O’Toole said, ‘No, I don’t Father.’
The priest said, ‘I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to heaven?’

O’Toole said, ‘Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now.’

****

Paddy was in New York.  He was patiently waiting and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing. The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted, ‘Okay, pedestrians.’ Then he’d allow the traffic to pass.

He’d done this several times, and Paddy still stood on the sidewalk.

After the cop had shouted, ‘Pedestrians!’ for the tenth time, Paddy went over to him and said, ‘Is it not about time ye let the Catholics across?’

****

Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend, Finney. ‘Did you see the paper?’ asked Gallagher. ‘They say I died!!’

‘Yes, I saw it!’ replied Finney. ‘Where are ye callin’ from?’

****

An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut. The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest’s breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.
He says, ‘Sir, have you been drinking?’
‘Just water,’ says the priest.
The trooper says, ‘Then why do I smell wine?’
The priest looks at the bottle and says, ‘Dear Lord! He’s done it again!’

*****

Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender, ‘Pour me a stiff one – just had another fight with the little woman.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Charlie, ‘And how did this one end?’
‘When it was over,’ Mike replied, ‘She came to me on her hands and knees.’
‘Really,’ said Charles, ‘Now that’s a switch! What did she say?’
She said, ‘Come out from under the bed, you little coward.’

****

David staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy, Paddy. He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Kathleen.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step. As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump. A whiskey bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.

Managing not to yell, David sprang up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood..

He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way to bed.

In the morning, David woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and Kathleen staring at him from across the room.

She said, ‘You were drunk again last night weren’t you?’

David said, ‘Why would you say such a mean thing?’

‘Well,’ Kathleen said, ‘it could be the open front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly …… it’s all those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror.

Flash Fiction #128

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

MINE’S BIGGER THAN YOURS

Texans bragged for years about being, and having, the biggest everything in the country – if you like dust storms and cactus.

Then they let Alaska join the union, and Texas was like Avis, “We’re number 2, but we try harder.” The biggest things about Alaska are the oil spills and Sarah Palin’s imagination that she’s a real politician.

Welcome to beautiful, green, open Minnesota, where we have room to be big.  This here’s a wheel off Paul Bunyan’s baby carriage, that Babe the ox pulled….

Wait…. Don’cha want to hear about the giant eagle dropping big fish to make thunder??!

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

 

I Know Spit From Spamola

I haven’t done a post about ‘interesting’ spam for a while, because I haven’t received any interesting spam for a while.  Same-old, same-old!  I decided to dig this old one out.  This interesting lady popped up in the middle of a comment thread about something else entirely.

***

Hi. Would you please write a post about how easy (or hard) it would be for my ex-husband to hack into my phone or computer? Also what I would need to do to ensure my phone and computer are secure?

Thanks, your advice and help would be much appreciated.

Penny@gmail.com

• Archon’s Den says:

July 3, 2015 at 11:09 pm  (Edit)

I’ll get right on that. While I’m busy protecting your phone, would you use it to contact the Canada Revenue Agency, and get them to double my pension?   😳

• Penny says:

July 4, 2015 at 12:21 pm  (Edit)

the most logical and likely explanation is that you are my ex-husband and all that time I thought I was talking to someone else it was actually him fucking with my head. What a tangled web.

***

I don’t think I gained a new follower, as much as a new stalker!  😯  I wish her and her phone and computer the best of luck against her evil Ex.  I can’t imagine why anyone would want to harass such a logical, undemanding person.

Have you had an interesting, entertaining spam recently? Feel free to share it in the comments.

A To Z Challenge – X

I’m going to dip into the healing waters of medical treatment, and for the letter

I’m going to talk about X–rays.

Once upon a time, Doctor Kildare, or Marcus Welby MD would hold your TV hand and solve your medical problems with a reassuring smile. More recently, Dr. House proved that a good doctor could achieve the most baffling diagnosis in a single episode.

THEN THERE’S REALITY

About a year ago, the wife developed a cough. Not a cold – a chronic, hacking cough.  After a week, she also got a sharp pain in the muscles of the bottom ribs, below her right armpit.  After another week or more, the cough was still with her, and the pain in the side got worse.  Neither of us was sleeping.

She called her doctor, and got an emergency appointment. He listened to her, (maybe) and told her to go for an X-ray.  The next day, Wednesday, I took her to the lab.  The doctor was to be faxed the results.  No call from the office on Friday, or Monday.  On Tuesday, she called the office, and the clerk told her that he had not found anything on the X-ray….and had gone on 2 weeks holidays.

The next day, the son dropped her off at the emergency ward at 8:00 AM. I didn’t get a call to pick her up, but went down after lunch to find her, and dug her out about 4:00 PM.

An eight hour stay, and, despite her telling them that the pain was in the muscles of the lower, right chest, they insisted on taking another X-ray, to check for a heart attack.  When that showed nothing, they wanted to do a CAT-scan, to check the lungs, but she’s allergic to the dyes that they’d use.

They decided, instead, to do a Gamma-ray scan.  This showed that, because of the pain, she wasn’t breathing deeply or strongly enough, and the bottom lobes of both lungs were developing fluid.  Not finding any cause for the sharp pain, they released her.

The next day, I took her to the ‘Medical Group’, for a clinic-style, first-doctor-available visit. We got a kindly, retired English doctor, recently moved to Canada, and willing to make a few bucks by filling in part-time for the likes of the one on vacation.

He actually listened to her, and quickly found the source of the pain by reaching over and palpating (touching) her, something that no doctor, nurse or technician had done. He wrote a ten-day prescription for a broad medication – something with a powerful painkiller, a muscle relaxant, and an anti-inflammatory.

He told her to take the pills, and wait another week and have yet another X-ray taken, and book an appointment to see him a couple of days later.  The pain quickly disappeared, and she (almost) stopped glowing in the dark.  When we went back to see him, he still couldn’t find anything in the results.  Of course not! It’s a soft tissue injury.

After three X-rays and a Gamma-ray scan within two weeks, it still took a British Marcus Welby-like fill-in doctor (doubly-named Dr. John Brodie-Brown), relying on his touch and intuition to solve the problem by treating the symptoms, rather than with shiny tech-toys.

A week later, I was reading the blog-post of a lady bicyclist. She wrote that she had developed the same symptoms as the wife.  A doctor diagnosed it as ‘costochondritis’, an inflammation of the nerves that control the breathing muscles.  It’s known, but not common, among people like bikers and runners, who gasp and pant for extended periods.

Even with the best of treatment, (Which very few of us ever get) it is still often up to us to diagnose our own problems, and insist that we get full and proper care.  😯