“Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.”
The day is getting lighter as the sun struggles to appear. It is in the high 30’s but the rest of the week will be in the 40’s and one day may hit 50˚. I think the forecast is worthy of song, “We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.”
Some things just drive me crazy. Men wearing baseball caps inside is one of them. It is old school, I know, to expect men to take their hats off in a restaurant, but I do. Some people, mostly of the male variety, shovel their food into their mouths. They hold their forks like a piece of equipment, like that shovel I mentioned. Little kids doing it I understand as they’re still in process, but I don’t understand adult shovelers. Pocketbooks on the table at restaurants drive me crazy. Texting has its place but not while we’re eating. How about some table talk, some conversation? Catch up with one another. Mumbling doesn’t count. One of my former relatives ate with her mouth open. I could never sit across from her. She obviously didn’t have the constant reminder, “Chew with your mouth closed,”the way we did. My mother was big into manners.
I admit we did some things just to drive one or both of our parents crazy. Shuffling our feet as we walked was one of them. My father inevitably yelled, “Pick up your feet.” We did literally and that made it even worse. Tapping a fork on the table was more than my mother could handle. She’d come right over and take the fork out of the offender’s hand. I admit I am a tapper, but I have never intended malice. It just happens when I’m engrossed in something like figuring out a crossword puzzle word. “Stop tapping!” from my mother would pull me from my reverie.
I live alone and even drive myself crazy at times. That’s the worst.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings, UncategorizedTags: 36˚, baseball caps, chewing with open mputh, forks, manners, shoveling, sun appearing, tapper, texting, warmer week
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
March 6, 2016 at 1:29 pm
March 6, 2016 at 2:46 pm
Gnu,
I always think Leon has a quirky voice, and that’s what I like about him.
March 6, 2016 at 1:31 pm
March 6, 2016 at 2:51 pm
Gnu,
Unless I caught them later, I didn’t hear songs from 1969-1971 when I was in Ghana. This is one I missed. I really like it!
March 6, 2016 at 2:52 pm
Gnu,
I missed most songs which were released between 1969-1971 when I was in Ghana. This is one of them. I haven’t heard it before and I like it a lot.
March 6, 2016 at 1:54 pm
Bright. Sunny. Cold-ish, but not cold. I hate when that happens.
I never liked baseball hats. Inside or outside. They look stupid. They have no style. They’re a Shemp haircut with a bill on it. I still wonder what it is about them that makes people wear them willingly.
That thing about the ‘shovel-fork’ style of eating displays lack of manners and training. Why not just put the food on a conveyor belt, lie under the table, and let it fall in? Classless, unmannered, and uneducated is the best descriptor for that.
The only things that should be on a table are the items to be consumed and the tools with which to accomplish that (which includes china and glassware).
Chewing with an open mouth makes me want to ‘reach out and touch someone’ … as in ‘dope slap.’ Again, ‘unmannered’ and ‘uneducated’ come to mind. It’s ‘low-class’ behavior.
Never heard of ‘fork-tapping’ … never knew anyone who engaged in it. The ‘foot-shuffling’ reminds me of ‘Stepin Fetchit’ … or ‘Lightnin’ from the now-defunct ‘Amos & Andy Show.’
From the ‘And Now For Something Completely Different’ department:
Think you have a pretty good ‘color sense’? Try these two tests … the first is (relatively) easy; the second deals with Hue Shift, and a lot tougher … not nearly so quick, either:
http://brightside.me/wonder-quizzes/only-4-of-people-in-the-whole-world-can-pass-this-color-test-108755/
http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge
Lastly, we have Mr Peder af Ugglas, a Swedish musician who’s classically trained but sho’ nuf knows how to ‘git his fonk on’ … check it out here:
March 6, 2016 at 3:06 pm
Richard,
My hands and feet are cold, and I’m inside. I’m going to get slippers and a sweatshirt with a pouch. I hate feeling cold even more than I hate feeling too hot.
Baseball caps belong at the ballpark. They are for supporting the team, especially if you are at a different ballpark than Fenway (for me Fenway).
I totally agree with your description of plowing food into your mouth. When using a shovel, the person has to be close to the plate, and that’s as bad.
I would have let you slap my former sister-in-law. At holidays we all tried to grab chairs on the same side of the table as she was so we wouldn’t have to see her.
It could be a spoon or a knife or a fork. It was just my impatience which caused it. I’d never do it during the meal.
I am among those who cannot differentiate the tints.
Wow, I was so intent on this matching the music to the changes on the screen. The colors and swirls were mesmerizing.
March 6, 2016 at 2:19 pm
Just as the morning drive to work is now in daylight we go back to Daylight Savings time next weekend. Then, I get to drive to work for a while in darkness. Some people don’t like DST, but I do. I would rather have the extra hour of sunlight in the evening rather than in the morning. It was instituted to save energy which offends the right wing climate deniers. Most of my colleagues fit into that group. I know who’s payroll the politicians are on, but I can’t figure out what the average working stiff gets from supporting big oil and big energy? Of course many of my coworkers are retired from the military, which is a right wing indoctrination organization.
Of course you don’t understand a man wearing a gimme cap inside because you come from the Northeast. The modern cowboy doesn’t remove his ten gallon hat in a restaurant but removes it only in his house to go to bed. Table manners went out with the family dinner. Leaving a purse on the table is to protect it from theft. Today everyone in our house eats alone at different times or in different rooms. Life has become too complicated and mobil for a sit down family meal. My mother would never put up with that but she’s been dead over fifty years.
My kids do almost everything to drive me nuts. I think it’s just a part of life. My daughter hates tapping, and my son hates my daughter complaining. Both of them talk to loudly. My father used to have a bumper sticker that said, “I’m spending my children’s inheritance”. Unfortunately, he died too soon to spend all the money.
March 6, 2016 at 3:19 pm
Bob,
I was amazed that DST wasn’t new but rather came from the 19th century. I too like the longer afternoons of light. We were among the last countries to adopt it. What I found interesting is it was halted for a while then reinstated when during the war or coal conservation. After the war it stopped again. “It was brought back for periods of time in many different places during the following decades, and commonly during the Second World War. It became widely adopted, particularly in North America and Europe starting in the 1970s as a result of the 1970s energy crisis.”
I have a purse and a hook so it hangs from the table beside me or I just hang it on my knee. Nothing is worst than a purse, probably dirty though looking clean taking up room at the table. Does the cowboy remove it in a theater or is the person behind him stuck not seeing the movie” My grand-nephews (oldest 9, youngest one and a half) have wonderful manners commiserate with their ages. Both their mothers work on teaching them manners all the time.
We always sit together for holidays and we did on Sundays when I visited my parents. Now we are spread around so we don’t see each other for dinner.
We used to drive my father crazy on purpose. It was fun!
March 6, 2016 at 3:01 pm
Snow, snow and more snow here and it started ten hours earlier than predicted. Tonight and tomorrow will be around 31-32 but after that it’ll start to melt away again. This is April weather a month too early 🙂
The only thing that really annoyes me is the eating with open mouth and slurping onbly makes it worse. I really can’t stand it or eat myself when someone does that, otherwise I can take it all even when people fart while eating which I’ve learned is more common than one might think 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
March 6, 2016 at 3:20 pm
Christer,
You have had a fairly snowless winter so I guess you were due for some.
Oops, I forget slurping and also sucking through a straw when the glass is empty. That’s gross!
Enjoy the rest of your day!!
March 6, 2016 at 7:26 pm
Hi Kat,
Not being able to hold a piece of cutlery correctly ticks me off, too. It seems to be more common in the millennial and younger crowd. Did we let them eat so much finger food from Mickey D’s that they never learned how to hold a fork? Maybe.
Another thing that irritates me is people who scrape their utensils on the plate while they’re eating. The sound of stainless steel tine points and knife edges on china is as bad as a finger nail on chalkboard. Cringe making.
My brother had a habit of drumming on the edge of the table with his knife and spoon. He had a habit of drumming on everything with anything, actually, but the knife tip and spoon bit was particularly annoying to us all.
I also live alone and I also sometimes drive myself crazy with fidgety habits. I stand in solidarity with you. 😉
Enjoy the evening.
March 6, 2016 at 8:18 pm
Hi Caryn,
I wonder if their parents never noticed they are raising steam shovels instead of children. I don’t think I’ve noticed the cutlery scraping the plates. Now I suspect I will! I used to do that to the chalk board to drive my students crazy.
I drum only when I’m really trying to concentrate to remember something I know but can’t grab.
Glad to have your company!
Have a great day!
March 6, 2016 at 10:04 pm
When I’d leave a light on when I was done in a room, my father would shout: “What, do you have stock in the power company??” At age 17 I got a modest settlement from a medical malpractice suit. I bought shares of Niagara Mohawk… the power company. My Dad just shook his head.
My mother would have ten strokes with the way kids behave out at dinner these days.
Gawd, I think we’re getting old!!
March 6, 2016 at 10:26 pm
Jay,
I would have loved to have been able to do that!
My former sister-in-law drove my mother crazy at dinner so the lack of manners becoming rampant would have had my mother agreeing with yours.
I don’t think age has anything to do with it. I was looking for music to use about manners (found nothing), but I did see all kinds of articles about manners. One I enjoyed had been written in the late 1700’s so manners have been around for a long time.
We are causing the demise of the Earth with global warming and are also responsible for the end of good manners.
We’re not old-we’re polite.