Good one

Catachresis. Let's hope it's not catching.

=======================

A synonym for the above is malapropism. Does that help?

======================

It's interview time at the ol' job again. No, not for me, but for the people we're trying to hire. I'm of two minds about interviewing - one is that I like talking with people and finding out about them and who they are beyond what their CV says, and the other is that it can be difficult to do that in the context of the 'guided interview,' which is how we do it here. In the former instance, the free flow of Q&A can be revealing, in the latter the somewhat stilted formulaic questions lead to similarly formulaic answers, which doesn't tell the interviewer as much about the interviewee as one might like.

In either case, my goal is to find out about the PERSON, rather than their achievements. I like someone who can go with the flow, who asks questions about the company, who seems interested and who might even have a sense of humor. Personality counts, y'all. It's sometimes tough to keep the interview on a professional track, though of course that's the goal, but the discovery of what interests that interviewee, what they do in their off time, what their history is, how they got to the point of wanting this particular job, are as important to me as how they might 'be a leader' or'foster innovation.'

Alas, there is that prescribed list of questions that need to be asked and answered. Let's hope today's interviewee answers them quicklike so we can get to the real meat of the matter....their hobbies. :)

====================

The remaining indoor cat at the Tiny House has taken to pooping in the bathtub.

I don't know what this means, do you?

====================

There's a picture on my desk at work of the NC mountains in the fall (an aside, why do we not say 'in the autumn,' but instead say 'in autumn'? Puzzling, that one). Every time I look at it, I smell woodsmoke.

Weird.

There's a place on the Blue Ridge Parkway down by Linville where a guy sells sourwood honey from a roadside stand. It's a bit of a perilous spot, being as how this roadside stand is set up on a wide shoulder on a curve in the road, but somehow he gets his truck in there and has enough room left over for a car or two to park and for the people within those cars to get out and peruse his wares.

I've run out of sourwood honey. It might be time to take a trip west to get some more, to wind around the hill-hugging roads until I find the man and his home-packed honey, to purchase a gleaming mason jar full, to breathe in the musty air of the woods in full summer, to imagine a life there among the hollows and hilltops.

Because of COURSE it makes sense to drive 4 hours for a jar of honey. Shut up.

=========================

I hope y'all are having a wonderful July. It's more than half over. When exactly did THAT happen? The back to school supplies are out at the local Mall Wart, which shouldn't surprise anyone given that the plethora of year-round schools in my neck of the woods demand that the supplies be fully stocked 365 days a year, but still it's a shock.

This year BOTH the Things will be in middle school. That's even more of a shock.

=========================

With that, I leave you to your day. I'm off to do the things for which I get paid, and perhaps to amble around the interwebz from time to time looking for more amusing things to occupy my time.

See you there!

A theory, and a snippet of life in the Tiny House

From time to time (Read: every hour, on the hour) I like to engage in a little celebrity-gawking online. Me lovee the PITNB and Go Fug Yourself for their special brand of snark, and also because they’ve not gone the way of so many other celebrity-watch blogs that now seem to only feature half-naked stars and starlets, with the boob shot being the holy grail of gawkerdom.

Truly, how many pictures of topless stars can you look at before it all becomes a bit routine?

(Wait. I may have just answered my own question. If Hugh Jackman is in any way involved, then the answer is “infinity plus one”)

Ennywhoo, I was noticing something that I believe is the secret to why I never became a HUGE star, as was supposed to have been my birthright.

I do not have beautiful legs.

See, every single female celebrity, quasicelebrity, and pop star I see lately has absofreakinglutely GORGEOUS gams. Cute lil’ knees, graceful wee ankles, loooong legs, not a single drop of cellulite, and smooth as a glass of milk. Damn. I see why some guys are leg men, I really really do.

By comparison, my legs are to their legs what Rhea Perlman is to Giselle Bundchen. Sure, Rhea’s funny, probably whips up a mean dish of manicotti, and I would imagine she can throw down the Rusty Nails like anybody’s biz, but she lacks the glam and total WOW factor of our girl GiGi, who might not be anything more than a flesh-swaddled vacuum bag but looks damned hot doing it.

Come on, admit it – you’d rather sleep with Gi-Bun too. Don’t give me that “women who have a sense of humor are way more sexy than some vapid, long-legged, burnished goddess” crap; you just KNOW you’d bang the model before the comic. Spare me your protests...

So, I am jealous of the legs of the celebrities. Especially their knees. Oh, and the ankles. I would like to have ankles. Yes, I HAVE ankles, thanks so much for asking, but MY brand of ankles are of the “thick n’ sturdy” variety that were bred through generations of peasant farmers to stand up to a full day at the yoke of a plow that’s being dragged through a 40-acre field of heavy clay soil while carrying a baby and nursing another. Or something. Suffice it to say that my ankles are NOT wee, not in any sense of the term. Use "trunklike" and you're more in the corret zip code.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to having super-star ankleage was a couple of years ago when Oldfriend and I were shoe shopping (a must-do when we get together), and I tried on a pair of the most ridiculous high heeled sandals ever made for someone with size 11 feet, and BOOM! There they were! Ankles! Cute and curvy and almost girly! Oldfriend allowed as to how I really REALLY ought to buy those shoes, just for the work of magic they were able to do on the proximal portion of my pedal region, but me, being ever practical, demurred. “Where would I WEAR them?” “I’d be at least 6’3” with those suckers on, and my goodness that would be ever so tall, and I’d feel like even MORE of a giant than I do now” and also “how exactly does one walk in these things? I’d break my neck!” to which she replied “Sure, but your legs would look great.”

She's a woman of great insight, and had I listened to her, I might have become the overnight celebrity I've always felt was my proper calling...

It's all about the legs, I'm telling you.

===========================

Woke up this morning at oh-dark-thirty, waddled into the bafroom, and thought I smelled something amiss. However, because it was so very darklymuch early, I chose to ignore the amissness and instead went back to bed (mmmm, bed) after the much-needed whizzage. I am capable like that.

After the morning rush of breakfasting the kids and getting them to school, I went back home to clean up and get ready for work. Yeah – it was one of THOSE mornings when time just slipped away from me and I lost the opportunity to take a shower and get ready for work before it was time to go. It happens. So at 8:15 it was showertime, hooray! The sun was streaming in through the glass block window, gloriously illuminating all corners of the smallest room...

Which included the giant pile of cat poop in the tub.

Eeeyeah. Nice.

Damned cats.

============================

That’s about it for today folks. It’s almost time to get some work done, if you can believe it.

Make it a great one, if you DARE.