More Miscellany, Sigh

I apologize for all the days of lame-o blogging, or no blogging lately. There's a lot going on around here, and I hope to be back to my usual schedule when things settle down. In the meantime:

1. I wish my car had one of these too!

2. You know I love shopping at RueLaLa, and if you join before October 25, you'll get a $20 credit that you can use on any purchase before December 31! Joining is free; if you don't see anything you like (ha!), no biggie. I've gotten Keen sneakers, Naot sandals, a Spanx ... um ... item, a Calvin Klein coat, a Juicy Couture hoodie for Steph, and much more. Here's my invitation link. Happy shopping!

3. Lately on Twitter I've been remarking on interesting word-related things:

• I think CRAMPON and TAMPON should switch meanings.
• I like the parallelism of DON and DOFF, as though the D means "article of clothing goes..."
• It's weird that CAREGIVER and CARETAKER mean pretty much the same thing.
• I recently played FUCK in Scrabble, next to which my opponent played TWAT. What a country!

4. Speaking of words, as you are no doubt aware, I am a bit of a usage and syntax pedant (hey, it's my job!), so I got a huge bang out of this piece by Stephen Fry. Please go watch it, whether you're a wordie or not—it's delightful. (Update: Link is fixed!)

5. Here's how frazzled I've been recently: I didn't notice that the cashier at the supermarket last week accidentally rang up my 3 cases of seltzer as 33 cases! At $3/case, that was an extra $90, plus an extra $18 for deposits on the cans. How could I not notice? Well, I'm ashamed to admit that I generally don't even look at the amount when I sign the VISA receipt (and yes, I've learned my lesson). Today when I was matching up receipts to my VISA bill, I thought to myself, "Gee, I don't recall ever spending $240 at the supermarket!" It's a lucky thing it wasn't a bill for about $100 or even $120, because that's well within the range for a "big shop," and I likely wouldn't have even stopped to look at it.

Comments

[scott]

You and your daughter appeared in my dream last night. It was her birthday. I was trying to take photos of the event. There was a hailstorm. Good times. Also, your Stephen Fry link is broke.

[Karen]

Fixed it, thanks!

[Elena]

Did you get your money back for the seltzer?

[Karen]

Oh yes, I raced as fast as I could to the market and went to the customer service desk. It was pretty easy to explain that I certainly didn't buy 33 cases of seltzer, but my heart was still pounding until I got that credit on my VISA!