The roof is finished. The tile guy is here and starting in the kitchen. The floor guy called and confirmed for Monday. This weekend, Tom will empty the house with help from Jess and Troy. I may grab my laptop and a passel of dogs and run away!
I’m no cake decorator, but my cakes usually taste decent because I was taught certain baking tricks by Lynne over the years. Yesterday, it was an adventure to prepare our weekly Survivor dinner in two kitchens, but I wanted to do it so we could all celebrate Lynne’s birthday together. I cooked a pork roast in the crock pot and made a salad in my kitchen, then steamed green beans and baked a cake in Tim’s kitchen (since my stove is out of commission, though it makes an interesting addition to my dining room, not to mention a bonus challenge in the obstacle course that is my house at this moment).
Lindsey came by in the late afternoon to drop off more boxes (And can I just tell you that her boxes are fantastic?), and we started talking. Or rather, I started talking in some manic way because I’m overtired and overextended and over.this.fucking.house.shit. (But as ever, quite ladylike.) Time raced away, as time does when I’m enjoying the company of a friend, until I realized that I needed to finish Lynne’s cake (although Rex tried very hard to “finish it” in his own way when I was bringing it from Tim’s place to mine).
It wasn’t beautiful, but it was a tribute to Lynne’s little Minute, because Minute has been making Lynne laugh for over a year now, and what makes my friends happy makes me happy. Also, the dog blogs. Who doesn’t love a blogging dog?
I like this photo, because it answers Charlie the Unicorn’s question, “Is the meadow on fire?” No, Charlie, but apparently, Minute’s ass is.
Lynne got here and ALSO brought boxes and then proceeded to pack a few of them, because isn’t that what a friend expects to do when you invite her for a birthday dinner? Thanks, Lynne. Between you, Tim, and Tom, the whole boxing thing hasn’t been the nightmare I feared.
I have told y’all I’m not good at multitasking. I need to take on a task and complete it before I move to something else. Otherwise, I never finish anything. That’s what my life is right now. Just a big unfinished mess. Not finishing things is a feature of the character I’m writing, so maybe on a subconscious level I’ve merged with her so I can write her more authentically. At least that’s going to be my defense about the half-packed boxes, the partially cleaned anything, the e-mails left unread for days, the snail mail unsent, and the other thirty or so things in various stages of not finished that are cluttering my life.
Just to show you how easily I can be distracted, that “y’all” I used in the above paragraph is forcing me to segue into a rant. It’s another “Becky’s pet peeves about words” rant!
First, note the placement of the apostrophe: Y’all. An apostrophe stands for missing letters in a contraction. Since “y’all” is a contraction for “you all,” “ya’ll” makes no sense. There are no letters missing from the “all.” The letters are missing from the “you.” Sadly, over the years, I’ve given up on this; it’s no longer my “y’all” issue, and I barely notice it when people capriciously fling that poor apostrophe everywhere but where it should be. (After all, if it’s not misused there, it’ll probably end up screwing up the possessive pronoun “its.”)
THIS is my y’all issue: IT ALWAYS MEANS MORE THAN ONE PERSON. Other than the fact that I was born in another country and lived for a brief time in the West as a toddler, I spent the first two-thirds of my life living in the Region of Y’all. I never, ever, one time, heard any Southerner use “y’all” to mean only one person. Yet for some reason, whenever Southerners are mocked on television or in movies, we are always portrayed using “y’all” for the singular “you.” WE DON’T. There may be some things that a lot of us don’t get, like why someone would put sugar in cornbread or why anyone ever thought Andrew Dice Clay was funny, but we do generally know how to count.
I can speculate about how this happened, though. Here’s my theory in an example.
Cindi walks into the beauty shop. Rene looks up from teasing Joelle’s hair and says, “Hey, Cindi. How y’all doin’?”
If a person not from the Region of Y’all is sitting there, he or she thinks, There’s no one with Cindi. Dumb Southerners. Don’t they know “y’all” means “you all?” Cindi can’t be an all. She’s just one person. This is what happens when people marry their cousins.
No, Outsider, YOU are not understanding that Rene is using Southern shorthand. Rene is not inquiring merely about Cindi’s well-being. Rene is actually saying, “How are you doing, Cindi? Is your husband over his cold? How’s your mother feeling after her hysterectomy? Is your brother Cletis out of jail yet? Is your sister’s ex-husband still gay?” Or as my high school friend Larry used to put it in his succinct way, “How’s your mama and them?” For those of you with more methodical minds, just remember the formula: Y’all = your mama and them.
What Rene would NEVER say when Cindi walks through the door of the beauty shop is, “Well hey, Cindi, ain’t y’all a sight for sore eyes?” Only a Hollywood Southerner would say that.
I’m glad I got that off my chest. It’s time for me to finish packing the bedroom, get cleaned up, and take That Old Woman on some errands. And when I say, “I hope y’all are feeling better,” I mean everybody who’s been feeling sickish lately like Gary, Shannon, Greg, Rhonda, and Lynne.
And I really hope my Cousin Ron–to whom I am not married–gets to leave the hospital today and continues to heal.
The apostrophe in y’all drives me insane. I’m not even from the South and I know where it goes!
It’s always nice to know people whose crazy is my crazy. =)
Uh, oh. I’m wondering if I need to go back and see if I’ve been f’ing up my y’all spelling….Nah, I’ll just TRY to remember for future reference. Hey, what can I say? This is the farthest south I’ve ever lived; I eat cornbread that has some sugar in the mix.
I am like you, though, in that I have a hard time getting things accomplished when things are cluttered or there’s too much going on.
I SWEAR I do not grade my friends’ writing.
However, that sugar in the cornbread thing… (sad shake of head)
hump… I’ve had a few things graded over the years….
And now, for your Friday entertainment, let’s watch Becky’s brain implode.
Hey, Becky, how do you feel about “y’all” being used as a possessive and, therefore, having two apostrophes? Example:
Rene looks at Cindi and inquires about her family’s new camo ATV:
“Cindi, how’s y’all’s ATV workin’ out?”
Explosion in 3-2-1…
Oh… you are never getting invited over to The Compound ever again…
“Y’all’s ATV” doesn’t bother me at all. Neither does “all y’all.” But for that singular verb you chose in “how’s?” You have to deal with Lindsey, because that’s on par with her “there’s + plural” that she hates (and of which I am guilty).
Nope. I stand by my use of “how’s.” It’s referring to the singular ATV, despite the plural “y’all.” thinking in Northernspeak:
“How is your (plural) ATV working out?”
Or, to rephrase it similarly in Southernspeak:
“How’s the ATV working out for y’all?”
Otherwise, I’d have smacked myself…or waited for Lindsey to do it. While wearing the little French maid outfit that…oops, TMI.
You are 100 percent right. I am wrong.
Can I blame fumes from whatever’s happening in the kitchen right now?
It’s good vindication that I am right, but only because of the grammatical grilling I had yesterday.
There are mind-altering fumes in your house right now? And you didn’t call? Some friend YOU are!
I suck. Also, for depriving you of the chance to see the Margot-like look on my face when I happened by the kitchen door and saw:
A HOLE. A HOLE IN MY WALL.
Well crap. There go those yummy fumes!
Exactly. I may as well stop putting off running those errands now.
“Or rather, I started talking in some manic way because I’m overtired and overextended and over.this.fucking.house.shit.”
Whatever. I loved our chat. And you know, if you need an escape, you and the puppers are always welcome at The RubinSmo Manor (with the free wifi).
In Pittsburgh instead if y’all they said “yin’s” And up north I hear a lot of “youse guys” it made my ears bleed…
““
I’ll have to remember that for the next time I see you….. 😉
looks like minute had a run in with some bad thai food…
hahaha!
There is no bad Thai food. Only food that we are too weak to handle. 🙂
looks like minute had a run in with some bad thai food
Ha!
That merging with your character sounds fascinating, to me. : )
omg I am WAY honored to be included in same posting as Charlie the Unicorn. Thanks! (y’all)
Hmmm, it seems “inviting someone to dinner” is the new way to get that someone to help you pack up books, photos and tchotskies and move furniture. That’s what happened last week when my brother invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. We ate and then literally cleaned out the room so he could tear it up the next day.
Would anyone like to come to my house for a genuine Hungarian Goulash dinner? I have to clear out the living and dining room next week so they can tear out the rug and replace it. Also I’m giving a lot of old books away. As long as you pack them up. 😎
You’re not supposed to warn us in advance, Rob. Now I can say, “Er, I’m washing my hair that night!”
Yes, but now if you say it, I’ll know you’re fibbing.
BTW, here’s a response to a gaywriters post that I thought you’d love.
your cute
Obviously the writer really wasn’t a writer, but a texter. .
Y’all gave me a lot to think about.
Oops.
Clowns exist because you’re bad.
Sorry for the tardiness of this comment. However, the cake and dinner were wonderful as always, but spending time with friends was the best. Sorry I wasn’t up to par.
And I hope you and Tom will come for dinner on New Year’s Day. We will have the traditional dinner with plenty of black-eyed peas and cornbread. Lindsay & Ronda are welcome also.
BTW could you bring your empty boxes and dress casually????