enjoy life

• Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.

• Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

• And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.

• It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

• Avoid cliches like the plague.

• Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

• Be more or less specific.

• Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.

• Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

• No sentence fragments.

• Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.

• Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

• Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.

• One should never generalize.

• Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

• Don’t use no double negatives.

• ACRONYM (Acronyms Cloud—Rarely Or Never Yield—Meaning).

• Eschew ampersands & abbrev. words.

• One-word sentences? Eliminate.

• Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

• Use of the passive voice is to be avoided.

• Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary.
  Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

• Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

• Kill all exclamation marks!!!

• Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

• Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.

• Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.

• Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

• If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: resist hyperbole. Not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

• Puns are for children, not groan readers.

• Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

• Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

• Who needs rhetorical questions?

• Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

And finally…

• Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Lately, my own life has not been very enjoyable, thus my avoidance on this goal. However, what I strive to do is find the goodness wherever and whenever I can.

In this case, my sweetheart man brought home some spindles of mint that were languishing at the farmer’s market, alone and in the heat. These only cost $1.00, but my hope is that with some TLC, I can root it and have mint throughout the summer and fall.

Time will tell, but for now, my minty dearies are hanging on for dear life, which inspires me to do the same!

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover.

In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside.

She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.

He asked her about the contents. “When we were to be married,” she said, ” my grandmother told me, the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.”

The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

“Honey,” he said, “that explains the doll, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s the money I made from selling the dolls.”

Believe it or not, I have never had a Pizza Hut pan pizza with both extra cheese and extra sauce, at the same time… until last night.

_{It is delicious, thank you very much!}

The more delectable part of the equation, however, is the forethought and delivery that went with this pizza marvel from last night.

Last year, I figured out a way to use the website to send pizzas long-distance, my treat, to a soul in need of comforting. I did this so often that I saved well-liked selections into a playlist for easy access.

Can I send you a pizza? Would you eat it? were soft words uttered my way in the middle of an important argument. The angry discussion was spanning over an hour, with breaks in between, and no sign of resolution being reached.

Your choice, what are you in the mood for?

What I wanted was reassurance, comforting, arms around me and wide eyes full of sincere regret and crucial understanding.

What I got was a pizza set to my specifications, for me to enjoy alone, his treat. I got to pick the toppings, I was not warned about fat grams or cholesterol atoms or microns of carcinogens in the pepperoni. I just got what I wanted, when I apparently needed it most.

The issue of the original argument was about respect, in the tangile form of an obligation gone unmet. This made me feel as if my man can’t take care of this promise, what about more important ones?

_{Secret: I’m used to doing for myself for so long, it’s so hard to let anyone else in to do for me. I get VERY sensitive to when the ball gets dropped, especially if I feel my hands are tied against picking it up and doing for myself. Dependency does not become me.}

The pizza will last for days, what with just me eating it. The patina of anger and fear started to fade with the first slice. A good night’s sleep washed away much of the debris from this mine field. You know what else helped?

A cold slice of pepperoni pizza from the refrigerator!

_{Thanks, honey!}

IRRITABLE LAP SYNDROME

Symptoms: The cat appears unable to settle comfortably on laps, instead treading, kneading, rearranging itself, fidgeting, vocalizing, getting up and turning around, falling off lap and getting back on again, attacking magazines, needlework, computer keyboard, telephone etc.

Treatment: Immediate treatment is essential. Drop whatever you are doing (literally if need be) and give 100% attention to the sufferer otherwise symptoms may escalate and become quite distressing to the lap-owner. Only prolonged attention will cure an attack of Irritable Lap Syndrome. Like Collapsible Legs, this syndrome is incurable, although attacks may be effectively treated as and when they occur.

LAP FUNGUS DISORDER

Symptoms: Having taken over a human lap, the cat proceeds to spread in all planes. This may be accompanied by secondary symptoms such as high volume purring, dribbling, kneading and snoring. The condition is highly contagious and several fungoid cats may infest a lap simultaneously.

Treatment: Topical treatment with proprietary anti-fungals is ineffective. Prompt treatment (as per Irritable Lap Syndrome) is required to alleviate the worst symptoms although in a number of cats, such treatment actually exasperates the condition. This disorder manifests itself periodically through the affected cat’s life and there is no long-term cure.

SMURGLING

Symptoms: Varied: sucking at clothing, owners earlobes / nose / fingers / skin, drooling, glazed expression. Often accompanied by kneading and high volume purring.

Treatment: Ultimately incurable. It is possible to remove smurglable items from around the cat. The ailment may be transmitted to humans in the form of large laundry bills, misshapen clothing and chapped skin.

GREEBLINGZ

Symptoms: Random dashes through to helter-skelter running through house in pursuit of unseen prey. Greeblingz are believed to be non-visible entities and some authorities have linked them to UFO sightings or feel that they may be diminutive other-dimensional beings. Cats suffering from greeblingz typically have wild-eyed expressions. There is a minor danger of greeblingz attaching themselves to humans; if a cat tackles such greeblingz, injury to humans may result. A very few cats are naturally immune.

Treatment: None known. Anti-epileptics are ineffective as the condition appears unrelated to other forms of seizure. Avoid getting in the way of a cat engaged in greebling hunting. Attacks usually subside spontaneously, perhaps as greeblingz return to their own dimension. These irritating creatures are not visible to human eyes, but no doubt the superior sight and hearing of cats enables them to see them.

Having conquered cat flu, triumphed over tapeworm and braved behavioral quirks, it is time to focus attention on some oft-observed, but little-documented, afflictions of cats.

COLLAPSIBLE LEGS

Symptoms: The affected cat places one side of its head on the ground as though cheek-marking the concrete, carpet etc. After several such maneuvers, the legs on that side of the cat suddenly collapse, leaving the cat waggling its feet in the air.

Treatment: This involves placing the palm of one hand on the exposed belly and rubbing gently. There are side-effects though – some feline sufferers attack the rubbing hand while others recover spontaneously, often after prolonged treatment. This condition is probably incurable and any cat which requires prolonged treatment after an attack will most likely suffer repeated attacks of collapsible legs throughout its lifetime.

SNUDGING

Symptoms: The affected cat repeatedly headbutts any available part of a readily available human and turns its head slightly so that the lips and cheek are rubbed against legs, arms, clothing etc. This condition gets its name from a contraction of the phrase “soggy nudging.” Snudging may well be a form of excessive scent-marking. A bad attack can result in soggy clothing.

Treatment: Give the sufferer lavish affection. Most attacks
subside between 10 minutes to 1 hour after onset of symptoms. You may need to dry off snudged clothing or skin. Attacks recur frequently, usually when the most readily available human is engrossed in a TV program, book or telephone call.

BED-HOGGING

Symptoms: The cat spreads to take up all available free bed space at night. It then expands a bit more until any human occupants occupy the smallest possible area of bed. It may do this on top or underneath the covers or on the pillow. It is highly contagious – any other cats on the bed will also develop symptoms of bed-hogging.

Treatment: The most obvious solution is to evict the cat from the bed. If this is morally unfeasible, train yourself not to give way as the cat expands. Buying a bigger bed is probably pointless as most affected cats can easily expand to fill standard, queen-sized and king-sized beds. Otherwise, simply train yourself to sleep while hanging precariously off the side of the bed. Attacks of bed-hogging have been known to last up to 23 hours (in one case a 3-day attack was noted by a cat-owner who was confined to bed with flu; the cat thoughtfully kept her company during this time).

NONSPECIFIC INSECT INFESTATION(also NONSPECIFIC SPIDER INFESTATION)

Symptoms: A disorder more prevalent among outdoor-going cats and cats with access to conservatories and garden rooms. Symptoms range from minor (the odd greenfly in tail, money-spider on fur) to severe (entire ecosystems of insects living on cat, spider webs spun between ears/whiskers, cat so weighed down with spider webs that it has difficulty walking).

Treatment: Minor symptoms can be treated by simply removing the infesting agent (aphid, ladybug, spider, etc.) and combing webs out of fur. If the cat suffers recurrent or severe symptoms an exercise regime is highly recommended since highly mobile cats appear to attract fewer greenfly (research into this factor continues).

A timeless lesson on how consultants can make a difference for an organization…

Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange.

When the waiter brought our water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets.

When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, “Why the spoon?”

“Well,” he explained, “the restaurant’s owners hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil.

It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.”

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it with his spare. “I’ll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now.”

I was impressed. I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter’s fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So before he walked off, I asked the waiter, “Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?”

“Oh, certainly!” Then he lowered his voice. “Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save time in the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of, you know what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent.”

“After you get it out, how do you put it back?”

“Well,” he whispered, “I don’t know about the others, but I use the spoon.”

A man observed a woman in the grocery store with a three year old girl in her basket. As they passed the cookie section, the child asked for cookies and her mother told her “no.” The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss, and the mother said quietly, “Now Ellen, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don’t be upset. It won’t be long.”

He passed the Mother again in the candy aisle. Of course, the little girl began to shout for candy. When she was told she couldn’t have any, she began to cry. The mother said, “There, there, Ellen, don’t cry. Only two more aisles to go, and then we’ll be checking out.”

The man again happened to be behind the pair at the check-out, where the little girl immediately began to clamor for gum and burst into a terrible tantrum upon discovering there would be no gum purchased today.

The mother patiently said, “Ellen, we’ll be through this check out stand in five minutes, and then you can go home and have a nice nap.”

The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her. “I couldn’t help noticing how patient you were with little Ellen…”

The mother broke in, “My little girl’s name is Tammy… I’m Ellen!”

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don’t disguise your voice.

3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it “In”.

5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

6. In the memo field of all your checks, write “For Smuggling Diamonds”.

7. Finish all your sentences with ”... in accordance with the Prophecy”.

8. Don t use any punctuation.

9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

10. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat … and have a serious expression on your face.

11. Specify that your drive-through order is “To Go”.

12. Sing along at the opera.

13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don’t rhyme.

14. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.

15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can’t attend their party because you’re not in the mood.

16. Have your coworkers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Bottom.

17. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream “I won!, I won!”

18. Tell your children over dinner. “Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go.”

19. And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity…

... Hope this list made you smile!

:-)

It’s Called Therapy

... when I entered my kitchen to clear the dinner plates up, and I saw this ….

Still don’t know what to think of it, I can’t make stuff like this up!