You’ve heard of fake news, but have you heard of a fake personal email? Well, I got one this week. It has become more and more difficult for local businesses to attract our attention because they cannot afford ads on television, few people listen to radio, and flyers are often dropped directly into the recycling […]
I have been nominated for four blogging awards in the past, and I am pleased and honoured to have been considered. The process, however, requires a kind of chain-letter nomination of other bloggers, and this makes me a little uncomfortable. In the spirit of recognizing great blogs, though, I do want to thank the people who […]
Try explaining why using “had had” or “that that” can be grammatically correct. For examples: “The woman had had a bad day,” and “I can see that that bothers you.” Go ahead. I’ll wait. This week I tried to explain this to my English as a Foreign Language student, and instead simply gave more examples […]
PowerPoint must be the most popularly misused software on the planet. Ever since it first appeared, we have used it badly and for all the wrong reasons. It has so much potential, but we have really made a muck of it, most of the time. Printouts of Slides Yesterday I went to a training workshop […]
Someone on the Nextdoor message feed yesterday was complaining about a homeless encampment near his house. He wrote, sarcastically, “Wow, what a wonderful site!” What he probably intended was to write “sight” not “site.” The message could have been read to mean that he liked the encampment, or that he liked the view, when in […]
How it works This how seasonal affective disorder works. It keeps you in the house, makes you regret every bad decision you ever made, bashes you over the head with your personal shortcomings, and then teases you with all the things you could have done but didn’t. Here I sit in my little apartment, […]
When we say we want to be our own boss, we usually mean that we don’t want someone else telling us what to do. We don’t really want all the risk and responsibility of running a business single-handedly. We just want the freedom to work and create without limitations or criticisms. People of all […]
I just got yelled at, and I’m not used to being yelled at. A very angry man berated me over the phone for giving his company a mixed review online and a 5/10 star rating. He said it was all lies, he was going to take me to court, he would not honor the warranty, […]
I am thinking about turning some of the Snowbird of Paradise blog posts into a book and would very much like to have your feedback. One recommendation I have read about is to select a concept and choose only those blog posts that are associated with that concept. For examples; being the mother of an […]
During the night, at around midnight, a helicopter flew round and round above my neighborhood. I am assuming it was a police helicopter, but it wasn’t chasing anyone because it kept coming back. So, what was it doing? Were they looking for someone? [Interval] For the second day in a row I have listened to the […]
Someone recently asked me what my blog was about. I said it was “kind of like a journal” and instantly regretted it. She didn’t exactly roll her eyes, but her expression clearly said “Oh good lord. How boring.” Obviously, I need to come up with a new way to define what this blog is about. […]
I used to teach writing, and I pushed that grammar boulder uphill every day. Many students would ask why the rules were what they were, and I didn’t always have an answer. Sometimes the answer was ‘just because,’ which is not satisfying in the least. Occasionally I came up with creative and amusing examples to […]
Sometimes I have just a smidgen of an idea of something I want to write about, then it goes away. Poof. Disappeared. I don’t know where it goes. Usually I have other stuff going on. Often it happens while I’m watching TV, or falling asleep, or reading. By the time I have realized I have a […]
A couple of weeks ago, two American women were arrested for carving their initials into a wall at the Colosseum in Rome. They were caught while taking pictures of themselves in front of the graffiti. The urge to leave one’s mark is not new, and some of those marks are highly prized. As a society […]
My brain is buzzing. I haven’t had enough sleep. My brother-in-law is in the hospital and I’m waiting to hear how he is doing. I am also trying to reclaim my car that was damaged in a fender-bender I spent an inordinate amount of time on hold with my insurance company this morning, and then […]
In August 2007 I was in a serious car accident that caused me to have fractured vertebrae in my neck and a long convalescence. After a few months, my friend Jean asked me what was the lesson that I had to learn from the experience. The following was my response. It will help you in […]
Signatures used to be very important. When I was a secretary, letters would sit on my boss’s desk waiting for his signature. They could not go out of the office without it. The signature meant the document was official, approved, vouched for. Companies with a wide range of products would identify their highest quality goods […]
My children are social media butterflies. They hover around a networking site for a while and then they fly off to check out some other blooming online communication opportunity. Because of this, I have been introduced to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WordPress, Tumblr, and probably some others that I have forgotten. It’s quite possible that […]
I always took the time to craft an interesting written online dating profile. However, that whole process made me spend far too much time thinking about myself and my appearance. I also had a hunch that time was wasted, and today I was confirmed in that suspicion. It turns out that people only really look […]
I have been travelling with a laptop that is smaller and lighter than my usual laptop, and it has been driving me slightly crazy. At one point I was tempted to throw it out of the window of a high-rise in Chicago. Aside from the fact that I am still familiarizing myself with its capabilities, […]
Snowbird of Paradise 