Tag: idioms

Crazy Shit

Published on by Grace14 Comments

 Let’s start with this – 

I cannot even fathom this level of stupidity. But then – look at who said it. 

If that doesn’t give you a rueful chuckle then listen to this: Domino’s Pizza, after 7 years of trying to establish themselves in Italy, has closed its 29 stores there. The reason for the closure? Well, Duh! Do you have to ask? What moron thought that was a good idea? That’s a bit like bringing coals to Newcastle. Are there P.F. Changs in Beijing? Do they sell Budweiser in Berlin? Domino’s pizza in Italy – the mind boggles.

Also crazy shit – the weather. We are in our third day of high temperatures in the 70’s and overnight lows in the 50’s and 60’s with – wait for it – low humidity. Heaven! It was so crisp this morning that I adjusted the windows from wide open to almost closed. Needless to say I’ve slept well the last two nights. 

Any craziness in your neck of the woods?

Well it's funny to me –

Published on by Grace2 Comments

 FedEx has the most convoluted shipping routes I’ve ever seen. Something I ordered was shipped from Trenton, NJ to Breinigsville, PA to Martinsburg, WV to Lorton, VA to Arlington, VA. It left Trenton on 8/10 and arrived at my door on 8/13 – so not bad I guess. The distance from Trenton to Arlington is 176 miles.

One time I had an order go from South Carolina to Texas to Louisiana to Florida and then to Virginia – I’m sure there is some sense in all that for FedEx, all I know is that it makes me laugh. Hey, I’m easy.

I just finished The Verifiers by Jane Pek. An interesting book, a mystery, a relationship/family story. modern romance, techie stuff, 20 and 30 something-aged characters. It also has dollops of humor courtesy of the main character, Claudia Lin. Gotta love Claudia. 

This particularly made me chuckle – 

“ ‘Good.” He said absently. ‘did you see the latest New York Time op-ed fumigating against preference algorithms?… I say under my breath, ‘Fulminating.’ I can already tell that when I get older I’ll turn into that insufferable type of New Yorker who interrupts the conversations of strangers to tell them what they are getting wrong.”

I laughed because I am that person (remember this recent post?) Or rather I was that person. 

I try so hard, and mostly succeed, in keeping my mouth shut. You want to make a fool of yourself in public? Hey, no problem. Go for it, you do it so well. 

The other day I read a post titled “Oy Ve” – um, no. That’s “Oy Vey”. Did I say anything? No I did not. 

I was going to relate another incident just so I could use the phrase “she called me everything but a child of god!” I don’t know why that phrase popped into my head while I was mentally composing this post but it did and it delighted me. So there is a random idiom for you courtesy of my pinball brain. 

I just thought to myself “Wouldn’t it be fun to have a book of idioms?” an idiom dictionary, if you will and of course there are tons, online and hardcopy. I’m going to make a new bookmark folder and stuff all those online sites in it. 

What fun that will be to browse through, eh? Or is that just my idea of fun? 

Yes it's true

Published on by Grace8 Comments

My comment to Ashley in my previous post (regarding her post on irritability) struck a chord with Melissa. She intends to use the phrase “I was born irritated” from now on. (Edit: It seems I was mistaken, it was Rory who made the remark I was referring to. Comments from people who don’t use Blogger only come through as ‘anonymous’. Blogger and WP do not play well together. Apologies to both Melissa and Rory.)

What I said was “Hell, I was born irritated plus I’m a New Yawker – we are always irritated and make no bones about it.”


Now then the dictionary definition of irritated is “aroused to impatience or anger”. And the definition of irritability is “the quality or state of being irritable” And the definition of irritable is “capable of being irritated”.

Does that help you at all? So let’s stick with ‘aroused to impatience or anger’. 

I haven’t lived in New York City since 2000, that’s a long time to be away but I’m pretty damn sure that the NYC sensibility hasn’t changed much – have you ever been to NYC? Impatience is a permanent state of being. 

NYC is a place of too much. Too many people, too many cars, too many things to do, too many places to go.  All that too-muchness means that rather than fast, everything moves slower than molasses going up a hill on a rainy day. At least it feels that way to those of us who have somewhere to go in a particular amount of time (as opposed to those who have nowhere to go and all day to get there). 

New Yawkers are vocal in their irritability, for example – I would walk Lexington Avenue (going North) every night to get to the subway to go home. Just about every night, walking along the curb, going South, would be this disheveled old man waving his hands about and shouting “Walk on the right, walk on the right”.  

Oh please yes, if you ever are a tourist in NYC – Walk On The Right! Funnily enough in the Washington DC metro system there are huge signs above the escalators and stairs that say “Stand on the right, Walk on the left” – tourists MUST be reminded to stay out of the way of the natives. 

(Hey, I just thought of something – all this “stay to the right” business – is this what is affecting our political/social climate? If that’s the case I think I’ll start walking and standing on the left. Just sayin’)

Another Only in New York description that I do believe I coined is “All New Yorkers have a license to kvetch. It’s right there in the fine print on on your birth certificate.” 

So there you have it, my kvetchiness is a birthright and my permanent state of irritation is due to me being a little Italian girl from Da Bronx.

And the rains came…

Published on by Grace6 Comments

or perhaps never left. Today and for the rest of the week –

But there is always fun to be had –

This mornings comics – 

Let’s face it – we’ve all stood in front of a bit of ‘art’ and thought to ourselves – “This is a joke, right? Guy is putting us on.” 

More than once I’ve meandered through an art museum and heard some pretentious twat prattle on about the meaning of some meaningless piece of ‘art’ work. 
On several occasions, I’ve done this – mockingly – usually as entertainment for the person I was with. On one occasion it was a guy and he was all “Shush, people will hear you, we’ll get thrown out. You’re insulting the artist and the museum..” Seriously? 
Needless to say that was the first and last date with that guy. 
Also – while I was scrolling through instagram this morning I came across this – 

I exchanged comments with the poster and thought to myself “Damn Skippy”.

And then I laughed because the term “Damn Skippy” always makes me laugh. Then of course I had to research it – Interesting reading.
The Urban Dictionary says its possible origin is from South Australia’s ‘damn straight”. But further down the rabbit hole I came across this wonderful blog post about Emphatic Affirmatives (you really want to go read this!) that attributes its origins to Black American English and  also a derivative of “Damn straight”.
What I like most about that particular blog post is that it covers ALL my favorite emphatic affirmatives! Absolutely all of them! 
Reading that just made my day! 

I'm not too sure I could be deeply hurt anymore –

Published on by Grace18 Comments

 and/or, by definition, offended: dictionary meaning:  “adjective – resentful or annoyed, typically as a result of a perceived insult.” There is also offensive as in, dictionary meaning: “causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset, or angry.” Which is not to say I am incapable of being annoyed, upset or angry – I easily, and often, feel those but not on a personal basis. 

You can call me by a derogatory term/word which will say more about you than me. So – you’ve just showed yourself up for what/who you are. It’s no skin off my nose. 

You can comment on my appearance – and again, if true, then five will get you ten I already know it. If not true – ask me if I care what you think. 

Attribute to me some quality that is less than admirable – and again, we are in the ‘if true I know it, it not, your opinion doesn’t matter to me” territory.

Now this was not true when I was young(er) – just ask Jimmy Quirk. 

So – being called fat? Yup, you got that right – and? Do you think I don’t have a mirror or that I don’t know my pants are size XL? 

Being called a cold-hearted bitch? I can be when it’s warranted, I have been, but in general, no. If you think so, you don’t know me very well and I doubt you will ever get the chance. Your loss; ho-hum; fluff off. 

You see where I’m going with this, right? I don’t need to give you anymore examples.

Also – the notion about being non-judgemental. Hmm – I don’t think anyone is – not if they are being truthful. Making assumptions based on superficial information is gonna happen – to all of us, a lot of the time. Don’t lie! Whether your assumption and/or judginess falls into the negative category – that’s a whole nuther ball of wax. I’m trying to think of a somewhat innocuous example and I’m hard pressed. 

Ok, I’ll give you that we are not always judgemental, in a negative way, based on superficial information – some things just don’t register with some people.  But, yes, we do react to most things we see or hear. It might be a positive reaction, or a negative reaction and we might make further assumptions based on that. Or not, if it’s not that interesting to us. 

As in – I notice hair, hair-dos, hair styles, howsomever you want to call it. When I see a hairstyle that I find particularly fetching I spontaneously blurt out “I love your hair!”  I can honestly say I don’t take much notice of the person beneath the hair. I don’t know what that says about me – good or bad. On the other hand, if what has caught my attention is that the hairstyle is not particularly well done, I certainly don’t say anything and I’m still not noticing the person underneath.  But I’m probably thinking “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

Funny example of that – we were watching a show the other night, the action was mostly in Antwerp, Belgium and having seen several episodes I finally shouted at the tv – “Does no one in that city own a comb?”  I shout a lot of things at the tv that I wouldn’t say in any other circumstance. Also as in – “Oh, please someone throw that girl a sandwich”.  Or – “You are too stupid to live” – I say that a lot while watching the news.

As always, I have no idea where this is going but I think I’m done for the moment. What’s even more interesting, to me, is what precipitated this little meander through my thoughts. BTW- the linked phrases? They’re idioms, and don’t we all just love idioms!