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‘What Does It Mean’ Monday #4 “Dead on Time”

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I’m squeezing this one in tonight. Before the witching hour begins.

Have you heard that one before? About that freaky time between midnight and 3am where spooky things and odd disturbances are more likely to occur? Well I’ve got another one for you. Because I want to break down the above post title, but also, I am going to throw in my own interpretation if you will allow me to.

Dead on Time. Literally we are talking about ‘time.’ But why do people get all morbid and say “dead on”?

Well the “dead on” part means literally – “absolutely”

“precisely”

“exactly.”

Combine them and you get the meaning “precisely on time.”

The word “dead” on its own finds its way into other phrases. Things like:

Dead still

Dead quiet

Dead serious

Dead drunk

What can we take from these?

Well, the dead are still

The dead, are quiet

Death, is serious.

And if you get too drunk, you can be mistaken for dead

But, what about that phrase I mentioned, “dead on time.”

Sure, it means exactly on time.

But I am about to go further and I’ll apologise right now for getting so morbid on you.

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Photo by Ahmad Ossayli on Unsplash

Many years ago I wrote a blog post called “Dead on Time.” It followed 3 funerals I attended in a matter of weeks. It made me think a lot, and I came to reflect on some similarities.

…

I believe dead on time is dual in its meanings. It has another one.

The living are late. And the dead can’t wait.

The funerals I’ve been to always run to time. There is no one living to hold the proceedings up. A wedding will have a bride whose hair didn’t go to plan, a nervous groom pacing the floor at his parents home, but meanwhile, at a funeral…

Sadly, all is said and done.

And though those who have passed may be on their way to another realm, another world, there is nothing to stop them on their journey…

And therefore they are dead on time.

Right? Wrong? Or so, so wrong?

Is there a phrase or quote you want me to investigate?

Let me know, and I’ll give it a go!

‘What Does It Mean?’ Monday #3 “Easy peasy pumpkin easy”

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I have only ever known it as ‘pumpkin easy.’ But my daughter insists, every time I say it this way, that it is in fact – “lemon squeezy!”

I honestly thought it was her stubborn nature as she often proves herself to be 6, going on 17 and all… until I did this google search…

“EASY PEASY…”

And the “lemon squeezy” result came up far more times than my “pumpkin easy” preference did!

It must be a generational thing. Hubbie too finished my testing ‘easy peasy’ opener with –

PUMPKIN EASY.

Ok, so besides who says it what way, what does it actually mean?

Simple. Like literally. It means super easy or extremely simple.

“See, we fold this here and there you go! Easy peasy pumpkin easy.”

“We turn right into this street and it’s there – easy peasy lemon squeezy!”

The original term is easy peasy. Common add ons can be:

Pumpkin easy, or

Lemon squeezy, or even

Japanese-y!

WHAT?!

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Photo by Orlova Maria on Unsplash

The latter part of the sentence contains playful words added on perhaps for the fact that it is often used in the company of children (hence my almost everyday use of it). It is an example of a rhyming duplication… think other examples like teenie-weenie, and super-duper.

The term ‘easy peasy’ was originally used in the 1940 American film called The Long Voyage Home. We can only guess at the lemon squeezy addition, with some believing it goes back to a British commerical for soap in the 50s-60s, where the slogan used was “easy peasy lemon squeezy” to promote its lemon-scented dish soap called “Sqezy” (pronounced squeezy).

America’s version was ‘easy as pie,’ used as far back as from 1976, but we can still see that the British term was in use much further back than when the US one arrived on the scene.

I for one, have no idea where the pumpkin came in… only to assume that it may have digressed from the ‘easy as pie’ expression, and someone thought that pumpkins (and their pies!) were easy… hence ‘easy peasy pumpkin easy’?

As for the ‘Japanese-y’ addition… a few sources cite that it comes from a silly childhood rhyme:

“Easy peasy Japanese-y

Wash your hair in lemon squeezy!”

Why I never. I can imagine there was more rhyming and schoolyard nonsense attributed to this version rather than a downright racial slur… but fair to say I will still be using the orange vegetable version thank you very much!

Do you say “easy peasy”? Which version do you use?

Is there a phrase or quote you want me to investigate?

Let me know, and I’ll give it a go!

 

Baby girl says the darndest things #6

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I have the most interesting conversations with baby girl, who is 6 going on 17.

She knows everything, and expects me to read her mind.

This from a while ago.

It is morning.

 

“Honey, why was your door open this morning? Did you open it?”

“Yes.”

“You opened it and then went back to sleep?”

“I had to go toilet.”

“Did you go?”

“No I was waiting for you.”

PAUSE. “Did you call me?”

Hands in air. “I was standing here waiting for you!” Indicates the door.

“Honey how can I help you when you don’t call me? I was sleeping.”

“Mama! You should have known!”

(Face palm).

“Ok, so did you go toilet then?”

“No.”

“Do you have to go now?”

“No.”

 

I give up. 🤯

 

‘What Does It Mean?’ Monday #2 “Don’t get your knickers in a knot”

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The above phrase is also commonly referred to as –

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

“Don’t get your panties in a knot”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Collectively they all mean the same thing…

Don’t get too excited or upset, or

Calm/settle down.

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Photo by Fahad Waseem on Unsplash

There doesn’t appear to be a real definitive origin of the phrase, other than to say that the term “don’t get your knickers in a twist” appears to have come from Britain in the 70s, only to have moved along to the U.S and Australia and become their version of “don’t get your knickers in a knot.”

The term ‘knickers’ itself is a British one, and the phrase is primarily reserved for women and their lower apparel…

Although the first recorded literary mention seems to come from Wilbur Smith’s The Train from Katanga (1965) I have to quote the 1968 novel by Frank Norman, titled Barney Snip – Artist:

“Oh do stop it,” she gasped as their lips broke away from each other with a resounding plonk. “You’re getting my knickers in a knot!”

And that my friends, is an appropriate usage of the term ‘knickers in a knot’ don’t you think? 😉😂

(How’s about that ‘lips broke away … with a resounding plonk’! What is a plonk sound? How do lips parting, go plonk? Hmm). 🤔

Is there a phrase or quote you want me to investigate?

Let me know, and I’ll give it a go!

‘What Does It Mean?’ Monday #1 “Hold Your Horses”

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Have you ever wondered at the term “hold your horses?” I say it a lot, primarily to baby girl being the impatient 6 year-old that she is, and to our cat Mister F, well because… he can’t wait for anything and meows incessantly when he wants something.

It makes simple sense if you stop to think about it. In a historical sense, it refers to keeping your horses or carriage from moving and holding them still, and this is interpreted in our every day speech to mean:

to not get ahead of ourselves

to not rush

to be careful, and

to not celebrate too early.

“Hold your horses, we’re not there yet.”

“Hold your horses, you don’t know what is around the bend.”

“Hold your horses, you haven’t won the game.”

“Hold your horses, have another think about what you just said…”

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Photo by Daniil Vnoutchkov on Unsplash

First said as “hold your hosses,” it became our modern day interpretation in references like from the magazine Chatelaine in 1939, with –

“Hold your horses, dear.”

Is there a phrase or quote you want me to investigate?

Let me know, and I’ll give it a go!

 

I don’t have time for this

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Time. People think money is the biggie… but seriously, it’s ‘time’ that is the valuable commodity.

It is precious. When someone gives you their sacred time, it is considered special, generous, kind-hearted even.

The downside with this is that there are many that think the absence of your time, is something bad.

In this case, the opposite of something good, such as giving your time, does not equal bad – the absence of time.

It means just that… the absence of time.

No emotion should be attached.

No expectation.

No letdown.

Nothing more, nothing less.

There can be a whole bevy of reasons why you cannot give someone your time. The options in being time-poor are limitless.

There is family – your immediate family, or your extended family.

Parents – you could be caring or assisting for your elderly parents, sick parents, widowed parents. They could need a little or a lot of help. They can live in your home due to their vulnerable state, or they may live on the other side of town and require you to drive once a week for… groceries? Doctors appointments? Company and companionship? And that’s on a good week.

Siblings – you could be helping them with their families, or just lending an ear to some concerns. You could be looking after their kids, driving them around town, or cooking for them if they have been unwell.

Then there’s the whopper, KIDS. Just your own kids, and you can be met with responsibilities of childcare, school, after-school activities, and then the social occasions that come with all of the above. None of this includes the every day routines of keeping your kids fed, slept, washed, entertained and in a state of happy health and learning.

This list doesn’t include your time spent with a developmentally challenged child. It doesn’t include the challenges of a child starting school and dealing with separation anxiety, nor does it include a teenage child, exposed to drugs and alcohol and sex, and the concerns and minefields involved in navigating this tricky field of adolescent development.

This list doesn’t include meetings and illnesses and dentist appointments, nor does it include the hours dedicated to getting your kids asleep, getting them awake, and then getting them to listen to you all other times.

As you can see, that is just one area where you can be extremely time-poor.

Another area is work. Commute to and from, hours spent at workplace, and unfortunately for some the work of bringing it all home… homework.

This does not include school, or study. Again, travel time. Study time, which needs to be fit in around all the other life responsibilities and obligations you have (see above list).

You might have activities of your own: yoga, local basketball team, or that art class you’ve started experimenting in. We all need something to work towards, and the pursuit of happiness and life fulfillment is a worthy one, and one that will make our time on earth a far more enriching experience.

Then there is health, and I don’t mean that of the body… that of the mind. Mental health. The things that plague us in the middle of the night, the worries and anxiety that creep in during daylight hours, and the insecurities that prevent us from moving forward and  make us immobile in our day, that keep our hearts heavy and cheeks tear-stained… those are the ones that make a tremendous and negative impact on our time. Because we stay stuck in it. Unable to go forward. Desperate to take the first step yet not knowing how.

I haven’t mentioned partners. I haven’t mentioned friends. I haven’t mentioned our own ills. I haven’t mentioned our furry friends.

I haven’t mentioned, the routine of eating and sleeping and hygiene and clean clothes.

I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted just reading the above lists.

Oh, that’s right. SLEEP.

You can see the picture I am painting here though. Time is precious. Time is hard to come by.

If someone gives you their time, GOOD.

If someone doesn’t give you their time… GROW UP.

This is what I’ve come to realise lately. There are those who expect nothing from you and are there to lend a hand or an ear when available… and then there are those who look to the past, compare your life with theirs constantly, and expect you to fight and eat and breathe their existence, chasing after them as if they are the Sun, and you the Earth, necessary to orbit around them… 365 days a year.

My response? I’m sorry.

I don’t have time for this.

I’ve come to some hard realisations lately. People who I thought were always there for me are too demanding. They need my reassurance constantly.

I am not your parent. You are a grown person. I have my own shit to deal with and let me tell you, I am doing you a favour by not letting you into that.

I have realised that people I haven’t been able to be there for constantly (i.e. time issue) have recently been there for me in ways I never expected. Happily. Wholeheartedly. There was no “she wasn’t there for this so I won’t be there for her.” No comparing. No judgement. No ill-wishes. No guilt.

I had people who were simply there for me, without question.

It opened my eyes. It showed me my relationships in a new light.

People are always changing aren’t they? And so even those that make us happy/sad now, might make us sad/happy in the future, just as abruptly…

But my main point? Time. Time is of the essence, we don’t have enough of it, and if someone is going to make me feel guilty for failing to make them the focal point in my life…

Sorry not sorry. I should be the only focal point in my life. It is MY LIFE after all.

I just don’t have time for this anymore.

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Photo by Jesse Parkinson on Unsplash

 

 

 

Rainbow after the rain

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I have been seeing a lot of rainbows lately.

It’s made me think of them, their meaning and emergence in our atmosphere, and specifically, the metaphor we can use for them.

I saw a rainbow out our lounge room window just the other morning before dropping off baby girl at school. We were eating breakfast, and amidst the grey skies and falling drops outside, I spied one half of a rainbow, across the water:

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But that wasn’t the first one I saw that week, and it would not be the last. It was only when driving home from school later that day, amidst wispy rain, that we saw one again.

As I explained to baby girl what had to happen in order for there to be a rainbow… something struck me, in my casual explanation.

“There has to be rain, and sunshine,” I told her. “And then a rainbow will appear.”

I was immediately flung deep into my whirlpool of deep thoughts, as I often am, tuned in to my surroundings as I am constantly used to taking mental notes… life as a writer, empath, or both.

There has to be rain, and sunshine, for a rainbow to appear.

Huh. Even life was teaching us lessons.

The proper definition of the rainbow occurrence is something like this:

  • It is a natural spectrum that occurs in the sky after rain falls.
  • As sun shines onto falling rain drops, it causes reflection and refraction.
  • The rain drops act like tiny prisms, bending in the sunlight to be reflected back to us as the band of colours that we see as a rainbow.
  • This is why the rainbow is always directly opposite the sun.

Hmm, I pondered. There has to be the presence of both rain, and sunshine.

And if you were looking at it from a non-geological perspective, not focusing on the fact that the planet needs both rain, and water to replenish and renew, to grow and keep things living…

Well, most people tend to regard rain, in their every day life, as a nuisance. Bad.

And they tend to think of sunshine, as a welcoming smile on their face… Good.

And just like the rainbow to the left of my vision as I drove along in the rain, it dawned on me.

Even Mother Nature says there has to be the presence, of both good, and bad, in order for something beautiful and miraculous to occur.

Because that’s what they were, right? Miracles? Considered a sign of good luck in many cultures, with the pot of gold at the end of it the answer to all of life’s problems…

And so on this last weekend, in amidst grey skies and endlessly rainy days, and coincidentally or not, the Winter solstice, the shortest day of the year where we receive the least amount of sunlight…

We also received rainbows. A sign from Mother Nature, that despite this cold Winter, a respite is coming?

That despite the long and hard days, the hours of sunlight per day will be increasing soon?

That sometimes, bad things have to happen, before we get good things coming to us?

Maybe, the raindrops falling from the sky are the horrible hardships we endure, where we question life and the world and ourselves..

And the sun is our effort and determination to not give up, to keep pressing on, and to see it out no matter what. Our Hope.

And our rainbow, is our reward at the end of it all. Glorious, multi-faceted, a glow that takes over our whole life sky. But we had to go through rain, then sun, to see it through.

So remember… the presence of both good, and bad. In order to see a hue of miracles. 🌈

Think of that next time you’re going through a hard patch… you may just find your pot of gold… but it’s important to keep that sunny disposition, even through the rain.

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Writing critique

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You will not believe the weakness that just arose in me.

The fear. The unbridled dread.

Creeping, creeping. Slowly up through my body. Heat swarming over my face. Sickness dropping in my stomach.

I felt damp.

I felt hot.

I couldn’t. But I wanted to. But I then I couldn’t.

And my finger was held poised, over the button of my laptop, waiting, waiting, hesitating on every sharp intake of breath, to open up…

THE FILE.

The file, of writing criticism.

The file, from the tutor of my online writing course, that contained her very specific and educated, observations and critique of the first 3000 words of my novel.

I held my breath as I quickly ran over her comments. Click here. Click there.

Let out a short rush of air. No don’t relax yet.

Hold on some more. Yep I expected that.

Oh crap. Why didn’t I pick that up?

Okay… okay…

Last comments…

WHOOSH!

Out the air came tumbling. Like an earth embankment crumbling to the ground, and the water in the dam before it rushing forward in furious pressure.

That wasn’t so bad.

Oh wait. There is still audio feedback to be listened to.

Breathe in…

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Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

 

 

You should know her name

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There’s something that I want to share at this late hour.

I want to tell the short story, or rather, the little set-up as it were, of how my Mum and Dad came to know each other.

How their families got to know each other. The Ks, and the Gs.

My Mum would visit one of her older sisters who lived with her then-husband in a village that wasn’t quite next door to hers. It took considerable effort to go there, and yet she did visit, and often stay there too.

Do you know who lived across the road from my Mum’s sister?

My Dad. My Dad and his family.

Due to this lovely set up, the Ks and Gs knew of each other and were well-acquainted for a long time. As it is in small villages. Sure the families were spread out and there was a lot more siblings behind my Mum and her sister for the Gs to even start to comprehend… and yet as things are in those places, from those times, of that age… everyone knows everyone.

When my Mum and Dad finally did start to date, they did so for only 2 weeks. They had known of each other for many more years before. But 2 weeks later and there was a wedding celebration happening across the road from where my Mum used to visit her older sister.

♥♥♥

And this is all well and sweet, but sadly this post isn’t only about that beautiful time of my parents’ union. I write this because my Aunty has died. My Mum’s older sister passed away, and we only found this out today, but to be honest she may have been gone for days and no one was to know, she was living on her own and only found after someone had to break into her home when she didn’t answer.

What makes me happy is my Mum telling me tonight that she had spoken to her sister only last week. I am sure my Mum had some sign, as she always does with these things… she had a feeling and followed that feeling, and fortunately spoke to her older sister one last time.

But also, this all makes me terribly sad. Because apart from the whole death factor, I can’t help feeling like if she had passed away here in Australia, things would be a whole lot different. Firstly, people would care more. They would actually give a fuck that an older generation of their family that frankly they would not be here without, had passed. They would pay proper tribute. They would think, and pay respects, and give thanks for her presence in their life.

I honestly…. I met her once. In my whole life I met this Aunty once. But I have a tremendous amount of respect for her, from hearing about her through my Mum, and also, knowing what her presence did for my future, and how my parents came to be together…

It just sucks. She was old, and people will say she was old, and that her time had come…

But it still sucks. She still deserves some fanfare. She had a hard life, she had to witness many people die around her including her own son, and then to be reduced, to this?

To be found, on her own? Is that it?

And so while I see people celebrating Orthodox Easter and posting about eggs and chocolate, I just had to do my bit…

There will always be eggs. There will always be chocolate.

But there won’t always be the woman who introduced your parents to each other.

R.I.P.

M.G., 2019.

 

 

 

Sightings of People as Passionate About (Addicted to) Coffee as I am (SOPAPACAIA) #13

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About 9:15am on Thursday the 4th of April.

Where? A 7-Eleven in Mornington.

Sighted: An elderly man shuffling back to a car parked at a petrol pump…

He is old. About 80 I’d say. His white hair matches that of his female driver waiting for him as he makes his way over, ever so slowly…

But his snail pace is more for his state of age than the two coffees held in each hand – however it doesn’t do the journey any harm. No fear of spillage here. He heads into the white Hyundai, his white shoes lifting up carefully so as not to stir the air, as he settles into the car.

I watch them from behind as I fill my tank, as he passes a coffee cup to his companion.

Coffee lovers at all ages… now that is a couple after my heart. ♥♥

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Photo by Tessa Simpson on Unsplash