Random Thoughts

As we knew it would be, it was an extremely busy weekend.  As a result, my mental processes are all discombobulated and my thoughts are scattered.  I feel like if I could just catch hold of one, I'd be able to pin it down and work it into something coherent.

Since that doesn't seem likely, how about a fun list to help me make some sense of what's going on in my head?  And you lucky dogs can come along for the ride.

• We (and by "we," I mean Derek and his dad) ripped the cabinets out of our kitchen.  We discovered a couple layers of awesome wallpaper, awesome linoleum, plaster, scary holes, and wood paneling.  I'd love to see what this kitchen looked like in the 60's; if the wallpaper and flooring are any indication, I'd say pretty darn amazing.  And by amazing I mean incredibly ugly.

• When Derek's parents generously offered to give us the cabinets out of their rental property that had burned down (well, except for the kitchen, of course), I said, "Yes, please!"  Do you know how much kitchen cabinets cost?  Well, neither do I, but I do hear they're really freaking expensive.  

• Although the cabinets made it through the fire, they are coated in a thin layer of soot, which is not so surprisingly difficult to get off.  After watching my old standby of vinegar and water fail miserably, I was contemplating using an actual manufactured cleaner (gasp!), when I decided to try give my magic eraser a try.  Let me tell you what, the person that named that product was no marketing genius; those things seriously have some kind of magical properties- I wouldn't be surprised to find that J.K. Rowling herself had written them into existence.  

• After Derek's parents stayed way later than they intended, re-hooking up our dishwasher, sink, etc, they finally headed back to Kansas.  Ten minutes after they left, Caedmon found a container of screws and created two large piles of them- one on the floor in front of the back door, the other by the front door.  I can't help but feel that this was no accident, and that the poor child may have inherited some of his mother's paranoia.  His sharp screw-booby trap reminded me rather forcefully of my sister's- only hers involved upside-down shoes, sharp high heels pointing upward to ward off any intruders.  While I won't say precisely which parent we inherited this tendency from, I will say it's not my mom that sleeps with a gun under her pillow.

• I was again reminded of just how useless I am when it comes to home improvement.  I'm terrible with power tools and have a tendency to break things.  My major contributions to the weekend involved sweeping the floor every ten minutes in an effort to appear useful and whimpering every time Derek asked me to go down to the basement for something.

• What does the expression, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" mean?  What's a gift horse?  Is it like the Easter bunny, breaking into your house to leave you unhealthy gifts, or more like the tooth fairy, giving you money in exchange for body parts?  Can anyone enlighten me?

• Shortly after midnight last night, Adelaide woke Derek and me up by knocking on our bedroom door, crying softly.  She said her ear hurt and she couldn't sleep due to the pain.  I gave her some Tylenol, water, and sympathy, and tucked her back into bed.  After eventually falling back asleep, I had a nightmare, in which I took Adelaide to the doctor the next morning, and when he inspected her ear, instead of an infection, he found a cancerous tumor.  After a drawn-out illness, Adelaide died.  I woke to a sopping wet pillowcase; I had been crying in my sleep.  When we actually went to the doc this morning, there was no tumor in her ear.  Nor was there any infection.

• Derek's folks also took our children home after the first church service Sunday morning, which allowed me to sit with Derek in the video room during second service while he directed the video broadcast of our church's Easter service.  It was the closest thing we've had to a date since last November.  

• Garage sale season has once again begun.  I've already found some really cool- and really cheap, which only adds to its cool factor- stuff.  I won't bore you with the details.  Not today, anyway.  I'll save that for another post that you can already plan on skipping now.

You Sure Talk Funny

One of my favorite classes in college was a certain literature class taught by a certain eccentric professor.  One of the random things I remember him saying was that the most proper and correct American English is thought to be spoken in the central to northern region of Iowa; not so much in terms of grammar, but properly spoken words, the language unhampered by accent or regional dialect.

I remember taking him for his word at the time, but also believing that the English spoken around my home probably wasn't so different from this "proper and correct" version that is supposedly spoken in Iowa.  I had spent almost all my life in Southern Kansas, and couldn't hear a trace of an accent in most of my fellow residents.

Then I moved to Connecticut.  For the most part, I worked with people who were native to that state, with the exception of a girl from Arkansas.  Some of our co-workers determined that she sounded like a Southern belle and I sounded like a cowgirl- never mind that most of these people had probably never seen an actual cowgirl in their lives.  Besides, they were the ones with the accents- New England/ Yankee accents, with a few easily recognizable dialects like those from Boston or Maine.  I, of course, spoke proper English.

Since moving to Iowa, I haven't gotten nearly as many "Where are you from?  I can't place your accent," comments, cementing my belief that I am speaking properly and correctly.  After all, isn't this the place where perfect American English is spoken?

We traveled to southern Kansas a couple weeks ago, visiting family.  Not for the first time since moving away, I was able to detect a kind of rural twang in the speech of the people around me, whereas a few years ago, I was all but deaf to this accent.

So fine.  Maybe I was wrong in college.  But I'm not wrong now.

One of the people I saw was my dad.  I have been aware of his accented way of speaking since he had me practically in tears, going over my first grade spelling list, insisting that I was misspelling the word "hoe."

"Spell 'hoe.'"

"H-O-E."

"No, 'hoe.''

"H-O-E."

"Kristy, that's not right!  Now, try again."

"H-O-E!"

Finally, my mother came along and said in her mercifully un-accented voice, "Kristy, spell 'hole.'"

"Oh.  H-O-L-E.  But Dad was saying 'hoe'!"

Given a lifetime of hearing these kinds of things from him, it wasn't surprising in the least to hear words like "coon huntin'" come out of his mouth.  I've learned to let conversations about things like how high in cholesterol squirrel is just wash over me, nodding along like I agree:  Tell me about it.  I hardly ever get squirrel or ranch dressing on my salads anymore; I mean, what's the point of eating salad if it's going to be bad for you?


It further wasn't too shocking to hear land descriptions like, "Well, I believe that house used to be pert'near to that ol' crick..."  from my grandparents.  So, yes.  Certain members of my family have an accent.

I, however, talk like my mother.  She does not have an accent.


I truly believed this, right up until we were at my sister's baby shower, and I overheard my mom in conversation and she exclaimed, "Well, bless her little pea-pickin' heart!"

I have heard her say this many times, but it wasn't until that day that I realized this is not the kind of thing I ever heard in Connecticut.  Nor have I ever heard it in Iowa.

A memory then floated to the surface of my mind of several of my friends in Connecticut laughing at me for saying, "She was as happy as a pig in mud!"  Another of my mom's little expressions.

Apparently my mother is in possession of several of these little colloquialisms.  Which means I may just be, too.

It wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong.