WANT IT

I want this…

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Paradise by the Dashboard Light(s) — NOT!

Again with the song titles?

Sooooooo, what’s your record for Number of Dashboard Warning Lights On while driving your vehicle?  As of today, I’m up to three.

Service call!

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Friday Five

Bad me.  I have been posting too many memes and not enough real entries lately.  So, from now on, all memes, surveys, Friday Fives, etc. will be relegated to Fridays only.  This does not mean that every Friday I will post a meme, nor does it mean that only memes will be posted on Fridays.  It just means that memes will only appear on Fridays.  Okay?

To kick it off, a Friday Five – Learning.

1.  How and when did you learn to swim? 

Kudos to Mom on this one.  She signed me up for swim lessons (Tim too) the summer before I was required to begin swim as part of gym.

Smalltown was very proud of its pool at the high school.  So much so that commencing with fourth grade, students were bused to the high school each year for a couple of weeks of swimming lessons for gym class.  Swim continued through high school.  Yup, all those awkward adolescent years, in a bathing suit and with wet hair, in front of your gym classmates, boys and girls alike.  Eek.

To that end, I’ve said that anyone who graduated from SHS knows how to swim.  Technically, in order to graduate, you had to pass the senior swim test.  You see, you had to pass gym to graduate (no slackers!), and to pass senior gym, you had to pass the swim test.  Not a big deal, really, for anyone who’d been in Smalltown schools for more than a few years.

The test wasn’t much of a challenge, nor was it intended to be:  (1) dive off the springboard, (2) from that dive, continue swimming underwater past the halfway mark of the length of the pool (which wasn’t far at all, considering how far the springboard extended over the pool), (3) swim four lengths of the pool, using a different stroke for each length, one of which must be freestyle, (4) tread water for five minutes, and (5) demonstrate one lifesaving technique (with a partner).  All stuff we had been taught over the years.

Anyway, back to Mom.  Free lessons for resident children were offered every summer.  Mom took advantage, wanting us to have a leg up, or at least know a little bit, not be afraid, and not be behind the rest of the class.  She feared that maybe all the other kids already knew how to swim, which, as it turned out, was not the case.  Besides, it’s just plain a good idea to know how to swim, for safety’s sake, an opinion I wholeheartedly share with Mom.

I continued through the summer program for four summers, completing all the classes – beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate, and lifesaving techniques –remaining one course ahead of my upcoming gym swimming for that school year.  (Tim, on the other hand, didn’t care for swimming so much, so Mom let him off the hook after he learned the basics of the first two courses.)

How’s that for a detailed response?  I’ll keep the rest much shorter, I promise.

2.  How and when did you learn to drive? 

Let’s see.  I got my driver’s permit when I was 16.  I drove with both Mom and Dad.  Then I took formal driving lessons, just so I could get the discount on car insurance.  When I was 19, I bought my Renault LeCar (remember the Picture Meme?), which had a manual transmission, so I had another series of driving lessons with Dad.  (Mom doesn’t do manual.)  By the way, I’ve been driving a manual ever since and loving it.

3.  How and when did you learn to tie your shoelaces? 

I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember Mom teaching me.  Make a loop, then over, under, and through.  I remember her later teaching Tim, too.  I’d say it was before I started school.  I mean, a child should know how to ties his or her shoes before starting first grade, right?  (I didn’t go to kindergarten.*)  :-(  

4.  How and when did you learn to cook? 

Mom taught me how to bake.  I won Best Cookies two years in a row (ages 9 and 10) in the children’s division of the baking contest at the town fair!  I made cherry macaroons the first year, but I don’t recall what I made the following year.  Whatever happened to those trophies?

Cooking, I just do.  Never technically learned.  Just watched Mom and picked up some helpful tips from her, middle school Home Ec. classes, and cookbooks.

Following in Gram’s and Mom’s footsteps, I greatly prefer baking.

5.  How and when did you learn to type? 

Ninth grade, Mrs. C., on a manual typewriter.  (Am I that old?)  The electric typewriters were reserved for the business classes. 

Happy Weekend!

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*  Yeah, Smalltown had a natatorium at the high school, but no kindergarten.  Go figure.

Bigmouth Strikes Again

(That’s the title of a song by The Smiths, by the way, one of my favorite bands.) 

BFB Tiffany does love to hear herself talk.  She usually divides her time between this office and Boston, but all this week we have been graced with her presence.

If only she would ever think to CLOSE HER DOOR and spare us from her loud, shrill, rapid-fire val-speak.  It does have the makings of a drinking game, though.  Everyone does a shot every time she says “like.”  All would be hammered in less than ten minutes.  If anyone could tolerate listening to her, that is.

Yeah, she’s an attorney.  I know.  Can you stand it?

Following a lengthy series of email exchanges yesterday with fellow sufferers Annie, Tina, and Sandy, it has become official.  Tiffany’s codename is no longer “Val” but the less cryptic “Bigmouth Valley Girl on Speed.”  Coming soon to a B-movie theater near you.

Nasty, mean, I know, but sometimes laughter is the best medicine.  And after being subjected to listening to her all week, our heads and our ears are in pain.

I mean, damn, she’s loud!  Does she think speaking loudly aids others in comprehension?  You know, the way people tend to speak up when conversing with a foreigner?  (To which I want to hear someone respond, “Hey, I’m French, not deaf!”)  No, wait, that can’t be it, because people also tend to speak slower when speaking with a foreigner, and Tiff can spew out at least six or seven sentences in just under 2.9 seconds.

The best one was that time last summer when she was babbling away nonstop on the phone and then… “Hello?  Hello?”  God only knows how long she was talking to dead air.

Oooh, I just thought of another one:  Tiffannoy.

Heh.  This is fun.

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