Bad Words and a bit of Bad Aunt

Looking for some place cheap, safe, and walkable to live. They don’t do a lot of “walkable” in this part of the country, I think. A lot of my neighborhood doesn’t even have sidewalks, or if they do, they’re broken and uneven. Then again, I’m in a food desert, so I can’t really walk anywhere except a dollar store, a “party store” (like a convenience store but mostly booze and lottery), and a pharmacy. But more on this another time, since I dislike where I live and am totally terrified about having to move.

I wanted to slap up a few things I’ve heard and read over the past week or so. Forgive me if I repeat myself. I’ve just now realized that I should cross these off my notepad once I’ve posted them, since I’m too lazy to read older posts. I’m shocked I’m unlazy enough to post at all. Winter makes me very sluggish and more than a little depressed.

“I want to shake the dust off this small town.”

“I didn’t want to shake the boat.”

“He offered her a drink, to which she accepted.”

“They took a sigh of relief.”

“All hell is being let loose.”

These are not by far the worst. A little bad grammar and some mangled idioms.

I watch a lot of documentaries, and you can find a lot of these Bad Words uttered by interviewees, who are always trying to sound smart. Especially police officers, who are trying to sound smart and official/in control.

Seeing the doctor tomorrow, getting some referrals; parts of me need an overhaul. My vision has gotten worse, and I suspect I may have cataracts. Need to have a psychiatrist assess my meds (anxiety & depression). And I don’t even want to talk about the GYN. There’s nothing I hate more than a new GYN. It really takes me a while to get accustomed to a particular person investigating those parts. So I’m hoping I don’t get referred to one of those clinics where I see a different doctor every time. I don’t know if this is something local or new or related to Medicare, but this is one of the things I hate worst about health care since I moved here. The only doctor who seems to be somewhat permanent is my primary – and when I called for an appointment with her, they actually tried to shift me to someone else since my primary had no appointments for three weeks.

I started getting very angry because none of this works if I don’t have the same primary every time. I was so pissed that I got off the phone and called back the next day – and since the day before, an appointment had opened for tomorrow. The three-week thing was a hassle because I’d been told I couldn’t get those three referrals unless I saw the primary first, so that would have been more delay than I wanted.

I find myself very prone to anger lately. Isn’t it the flip side of depression? As is usual in the winter (at least since I moved here), I have fallen into some bad depressive states. Sometimes I feel like I’m turning into my depressed and angry aunt, the mean one. (My only blood aunt, now gone.) She was quick to anger when she thought she was treated badly, which was probably mostly just frustration. She held grudges. She cut herself off from other people. I can only suppose that like me, she was alcoholic and depressed; unlike me, she never got help for either. So maybe I’m not turning into Aunt Mara.

Bad Words, and no vacay

Got a lot of Bad Words today. The more I read and watch, the more I gather.

“That’s out of my forte.”

One interviewee (YT documentary) used the words “satisfication” and “infestated.”

“the pilot ascends his helicopter” Another example of trying to use a fancier word and failing.

“It was shredded into pieces.” “Into pieces” not required.

“The wind would prove quintessential.” I think they were trying to say “unique” – it was about a tornado.

Winter storms are pushing in all of the country right now. We won’t get much snow, but we already have a lot of crazy wind. 4 degrees, wind chill minus 15. That’s a nope. I wish I could spend a week, five days even, somewhere warm. I’ve been to the Caribbean a handful of times. I liked St. Croix (spent a day there), Aruba (five-day honeymoon), and Puerto Rico. Ex and I went a few times when we were living together then married. He had good friends who had moved there – the husband was basically a local – and showed us a fine time off the beaten track. I have a real fondness for Puerto Rico.

When I was a little kid and going to public school, I had a lot of Puerto Rican classmates. Most of the Latinos in New York at that time were Puerto Rican. The first crush I can remember was on a little Puerto Rican boy named Fabian, with tan skin and slicked-down hair. So there’s a familiarity to the music and the way Spanish is spoken. I wish I could go there for a week every winter. A warm-weather vacation would set me right.

Even California would be fine, but I haven’t had an invite. BF is now talking about finding a pet-sit for us in this area, for spring or summer. Which I guess is OK, since I really can’t afford to fly there. But spring/summer will be a full year since we last saw each other. Really, I should be dating here.

Kitchen activity in this house is not pleasant during the cold weather. The back of the house – kitchen, laundry room, WC – is not heated. (Neither is the upstairs.) So I have to haul a space heater into the kitchen to wash dishes or cook. I’m putting a little more effort into cooking these days, but it’s a chilly business. But I need to get in there now, wash dishes and make something to eat. Cheese omelet, I think.

Reader

Nabe doesn’t let weather bother him. He’s out shopping today, and asked if there’s anything I need. (He already knew I would not go out in this weather.) All I truly needed was milk, but I also asked for cookies and for broccoli, which cancel each other out. Since I’ve been on Trulicity, an occasional cookie binge will not harm my health or even really spike my blood sugar. (In the summer, it’s generally ice cream.)

more Bad Language

I confess that I am often confused by the names for the parts and rules of grammar. But I guess I read enough as a kid, and spoke to enough well-spoken people, because I always know if something is wrong or inaccurate – and this does include misuse of words. (Pro tip: using big words doesn’t make you sound smart if you are misusing them.)

So I’m going to just call it all “Bad Language,” and here’s what I’ve gathered since I last wrote:

“His parents doted over him.” Should be “doted on,” not “over.” This is one where I don’t know what the rule is called – wait, it’s the adverb, right? Certain adverbs are linked to certain verbs? I have no idea. But I know that “over” is wrong and “on” is right, because I know it, and I’m 100% sure.

“[this recipe] is very versatile with seasoning.” I’m not sure if this is correct or not, but there’s got to be a better way to say, “this is a versatile recipe because you can season it any number of ways” – in a much shorter form than what I just wrote. It’s a shortcut that misfired.

“I’ve had plenty of learning curves in my life.” I think he was going for “I’ve been dealt a lot of curveballs in my life.” Or “I’ve had steep learning curves in a number of areas during my life.” This one gets a bit of a pass because he was 1) a professional athlete, and 2) a professional athlete who did not play baseball.

Lately, coming across these kinds of things gets on my nerves, instead of just cracking me up. And then I think I’ve become a fussy old lady, because it’s no longer important to nail grammar or spelling or writing or definition. Mix the metaphors! Scramble the idioms!

Oh shit, I am a fussy old lady.