Reading Between The Lines

(Today's word will be in ALL CAPS, BOLD, ITALIC, and STRIKETHROUGH.)

Right up front I'll say this, weather people do tend to get a bad rap over all. I don't think there's anyone who hasn't heard, or made, a joke about how weather people can still have jobs when they're wrong a lot of the time.

To be fair though, even with the best tools and equipment, those reporting the weather are still at the mercy of Mother Nature.

Over the years, I've learned to read between the lines when it comes to weather reports.

If it's a run of the mill, average weather report for whatever time of year it is, then it's probably going to be exactly that.

However, if the weather becomes the top story of the news, and a majority of the broadcast is dedicated to the subject, it's probably NOT going to happen. This is especially true if stations stay on the air with continuous reports, when the actual news broadcast is over.

Doesn't matter if it's extremely warm weather, cold, windy, or what, if there's a big hoopla about it in the media, it's more than likely going to fizzle out and be nothing.

On the other hand, when forecasters say there might be a chance of some type of extreme weather, (again, warm, cold, windy, etc.), but it's just a slight chance, and not a big deal, it's time to hunker down and take cover!

Such was the case with the snow here this past week. At first the stations were making a big deal about it; then it looked as though it wasn't going to happen after all. When it looked to be quieting down is when the snow hit.

Predictions were then made that there would be a slight chance of more snow before the weather switched over to rain. This was to happen probably between 1am and 7am yesterday, (Wednesday, January 18, 2012). It was a small window of time and each station said there wouldn't be too much, if any snow accumulation, during that time. Guess what? Yeah, it started snowing heavily around 9pm Tuesday night, and continued until at least 4 Wednesday morning.

It's switched over to rain now, however the snow isn't clearing out very fast at all where I live. Other places, yes, just not here at 1100' in Washington.

Hopefully the weather will just be normal for a bit, and the weather people can have a break, and so can the rest of the area.

My Birthday Boy-(Young Man)

At 8:23 am on August 13, 1986, the world added one more person to its population count.  That’s the day 7 lb. 15-½oz, Joshua Davis Falan was born.

As you can imagine, things were different than they are now.  Weather wise, Oregon and Washington were experiencing a heat wave; unlike the weather we’ve been having this summer. 

The Newberg Hospital in Newberg, Oregon, hadn’t been expanded.  It was still a small hospital with a nursery for the babies that had been born there.  It was small enough that the nurses had a rocking chair in the nursery, and would rock all the babies throughout the day.   That summer the hospital experienced a baby boom the second week of August.  They had nine babies that were born, which was more than they were used to.  Josh was one of those babies.

From the time he was born, we all knew Josh was going to take after his dad as far as his size.  As my mom put it, if Josh had been a puppy, he’d be a Great Dane based on the size of his hands and feet. 

When he was about 2 months old, we found the cutest little one-piece  "tuxedo" sleeper, (well, *I* thought it was cute); it was Josh’s first Halloween “costume”. 

 I’m thinking this may have set the tone for some of the things Josh decided to wear sometimes.  For instance, the following photo shows Josh wearing his new “hat”.  Thankfully his potty training seat was brand new when he did this!

  I’ll fully admit, Josh had his work cut out for him being born to the parents he has.  The kid got a double dose of stubbornness for sure. His sense of humor also came from both his dad and me; though I’ll admit, the more warped part would be my fault. 

We’re talking about a kid who asked lots of questions about everything.   Like when he was 4 years old; it was January, 30 degrees outside, and there was snow on the ground.  It was sun shining though, so Josh wanted to know why he couldn't go swimming in his kiddy pool.  We finally convinced him he could use our “indoor pool”.  He got his swim trunks on and was a happy little camper playing in the “pool”. 

Funny thing was, if he was in his “pool” he HAD to wear his swim trunks, big boys didn’t swim naked according to Josh.  However, when it was time for his bath, he could NOT wear his swim trunks, that would just be silly, that’s what he told us; you don’t wear clothes during your bath, that’s what the washing machine is for. 

We had him convinced for almost a year that we had an “indoor pool”.  Then he realized everyone had one, and his grandparents’  “pool” was much cooler, because it had water jets in it. 

Not Josh's grandparents' actual tub.

 There were a few times when we’d get busted on answering Josh’s questions; like how ice cream is made.  We told him that ice cream comes from white cows that live at the North Pole and eat frozen vanilla beans.  If someone wants a flavor other than vanilla, the cows are fed whatever other things needed to make the ice cream into a different flavor.  For instance, want strawberry ice cream?  Just feed the cows a few strawberries with their vanilla beans.  Mint chocolate chip…add mint leaves and chocolate with the vanilla beans.  We were pretty proud of that one, until we were busted. 

After hearing the explanation, Josh told us we were wrong, and proceeded to tell us how ice cream was made, according to what he saw on Sesame Street.

The learning has gone both ways over the years.  When he was 5, Josh came home from school and told us he'd been learning about "oviparous" creatures.  I had no idea what that was; Josh had to tell me "oviparous" means anything that lays eggs.  I'm not sure I could have even SAID that word when I was 5, let alone know what it meant!

And then there are sunrises; at least that's what the rest of the world calls it when the sun comes up.  For me, a sunrise will forever be "magicking".  That's what Josh told me a sunrise is, because it's easy to make things dark, but it takes magic to make things light.

There are so many other things I could go on about when it comes to Josh, and his childhood, but I won’t.  I’ll just let everyone know that over the years, Josh has turned out to be a fine young man, with good morals, a kind heart, and a wonderful sense of humor.  His random twitching is only occasional now.

As he got older, Josh developed his own personality, likes and tastes, as one should.  He definitely has his opinions on things, and can be very “deep” when it comes to things like politics.  At the same time, he can still be like a little kid.  Over all, it’s a great balance.

One of Josh’s real talents is his natural ability to take photos.  He can just point and shoot a camera, and get some of the most beautiful shots.  A couple of blogs ago I posted one he took of a dragonfly.  I’ve put a few more of my favorites here. I'd put more, however there are just so many they'd take up this whole blog! 

 

 

As I said, these are just a small sample of my favorite photos Josh has taken.  Since this blog is about him today, and it's his birthday, I'll also post one of *his* favorite photos he's taken.  A true combination of two of his passions, rally cars and photography.

  Over all, the past 25 years have been a great adventure watching my “baby” boy grow up into a young man.  There’s been rough spots, like there are in any family; though over all, I wouldn’t change a thing that’s happened, because I sure am proud of  the person who came into the world, and started my life as a mom 25 years ago today. 

Happy 25th birthday Josh!!!

THE VERBAL ABUSE OF WORDS

This morning’s “Simon in the Morning” program had a segment on words that are hard for people to pronounce; and asked people to call in with words that are hard for them to say.  For example, Scott has a problem with saying the word, “regularly”.   For Jolynn, it’s Terwilliger, as in the Terwilliger curves.

People were calling in with different words they have trouble saying:  literally, February, ambulance, orange, negligee, linoleum, and others.  Mine is dominoes.  Unless I *really* think about it, I always say “donimoes” instead.

The topic kind of branched out from words that are hard to say, to words that are mispronounced.  Like “Washington”; a lot of people say “Warshington”.   I’ll get to my theory on why this is a bit later in the post.

Someone called and mentioned Couch Street in Portland.  Even though it’s spelled “couch”, (like what you would sit on, pronounced “cow-ch”), the street name is actually pronounced “coo-ch”. 

Of course there’s always “Willamette”, (as in the Willamette River).  The correct pronunciation is “Will-lamb-it”.  Over the years that word has been mispronounced too many ways to list here.  The most common mispronunciation though is, “Will-ah-met-E”.

This whole thing got me to thinking of when my son was little.  He had no problem saying words like “cinnamon”, “aluminum”, “linoleum”, or “Massachusetts”.  However, “breakfast”, “accident”, and “Mexican” were a whole other story.  His pronunciation was always, “breskfast”, “askident”, and “Meskadin”.   At the time he also aspired to be an Izzy’s Pizza “superbiser”. 

One of the funniest things he ever said though was when he was 10 years old, and sound asleep.

It was late at night, and I was on the computer, looking for photos to make a calendar.  My son comes walking into the living room and says, “oh, it’s that guy”.  I ask what guy, he says, “that guy”, (pointing at the computer screen), “Lavid Me Durphy”.  I ask, who again; my son says, (very agitated), “that guy you like, Lavid Me Durphy”. 

At that point it clicked in my head, and I say to him, “oh, you mean David Lee Murphy”.  My son gets very cranky at this point and says, “that’s what I said, LAVID ME DURPHY.  Didn’t you hear me?  I’m going back to bed”, and he did. 

The next morning he didn’t remember ever getting out of bed, or saying “Lavid Me Durphy”, instead of “David Lee Murphy”.  To this day, he can’t say “Lavid Me Durphy” unless he really concentrates on saying it that way.  Yet, sound asleep; he had no problem saying it three times!  

My theory of how the letter “r” gets in to words where it doesn’t belong is simple.

If you listen to people from the east, like Virginia, Massachusetts, etc., a lot of their words that *should* end with an “r”, don’t.  Like “car”, they say “ca”.

I think, somewhere, a long time ago, a very strong wind came blowing in from the east.  It blew all the “r”’s into the Midwest, (like Nebraska, were my grandparents are from).  Those “r”’s got mixed in with their words, like “wash”, making it “warsh”, (that was a big one with my grandma, and my dad still does it).  In the meantime, those in Virginia, Massachusetts, etc., lost those “r”’s, which is why their words come out with no “r”’s on the end.

When people, like my grandparents, moved west, to this area, they brought the extra “r”’s with them; that’s why some people around here say “Warshington”, and stuff.  Just a theory, as I said. 

One word  mispronounced by people everywhere is:  sandwich.  I don’t know how many people I’ve heard over the years say, “sam-witch”, or even worse, “sam-itch”.  ARGH!!!  Drives me crazy!

Before I get too far into THAT subject though, I’ll stop for now, and save it for another time.

THE NEW BRIDGE

Anyone who lives in Oregon or Washington knows there’s been plenty of talk and planning for a new bridge.  Monday, April 25, 2011, those in charge of the project revealed what the new bridge will look like.

Sighting economic reasons, as well as others, it’s been decided the new bridge will be the same type as the Glenn Jackson Bridge; a low, flat, concrete structure.

On “Simon in the Morning” the next day, Jolynn Winter had the “blues” about the decision.  (For those who haven’t heard her, Jolynn takes current topics and sings bluesy parodies about them.)  Jolynn lamented about the bridge being boring to look at; that a bridge should be something beautiful to see.

 Jolynn’s song put an idea into my head about how to make the bridge beautiful, help the environment, turn negatives into positives and overall create a win-win situation.

Anyone in Oregon and Washington needing to get rid of old paint could take it to designated drop-off areas.  In return for the paint, people would get a tax write-off for their donation.  Since there’s talk of the bridge charging a toll, to help with expenses, each person would also receive a voucher good for a certain amount of toll free passes over the bridge.  The more paint donated, the larger the voucher.

The paint would be used to paint the new bridge.  Those doing the painting would be people sentenced to community service; especially anyone who’s been arrested for tagging and graffiti.  This would allow the person to fulfill their community service, while expressing themselves creatively and legally.  There would be some limits of course.  The artistry would have to be something that would be appealing to the masses. 

To be honest, all of this was off the top of my head, so if it was to happen, it would have to be worked out more.  Then again, that could take another few years.  So for now, that’s all there is…Just a random thought I had and decided to share.  J