Moon, June, Croon...Goon? Is that right?

Good writing consists, sadly, of more than good grammar and sheer volume of words.

The good writer should be able to dash off lovely, moving, accurate, pithy descriptions of persons, places, things, ideas and actions to give the reader that all important feeling of

VERISIMILITUDE.

Verisimilitude enables the reader to feel as though he sees what the author is describing, feels the action, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

Take, for example, the following description of a moon coursing its way across the night:
The moon strolls at her leisure across the evening sky. She sheds the robe she wore on arising, because bright orange makes her look fat. She opts to slip into a cool, silver little number that emphasizes her remote and elegant figure.

The Prude struggles with descriptions. She chooses instead to drown every word picture in a plethora of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and leave the poor reader to struggle through it all on her own.

For instance, a beautiful rising moon emerging from a bank of clouds inspired The Prude to set the lovely scene to words.

Hey! Look at the moon! It looks like a wedge of pie. Maybe lemon meringue. No, more like orange meringue. But not a bright Valencia orange. More like a muted Mandarin orange. That’s it! The moon looks like a wedge of Mandarin Meringue pie with all the meringue scraped off because it got sort of moldy greenish gray, and it’s piled up all around the edge of the pie.

Oh yeah. Now that is beauty.

There you have it. Can you almost see that moon? No? You say you are feeling a bit nauseous? It’s OK. The Prude can help. She is working on her illustrating skills.

New Plagues? Story on A3.

Hitherto Undiscovered Frog Species

Remember the 10 plagues against Egypt?

The frog one in particular?

Things were pretty unpleasant along the Nile for awhile because Pharaoh was behaving badly.

Somebody on planet Earth is misbehaving these days because we have alarming new developments in the Amphibian-Reptilian arena.

Page A 3 of the paper reports that in India, 12 new species of frogs have been discovered.

Discovering 1 or 2 new species would be cause for rejoicing. 3 or 4 new species would be noteworthy and 7 or 8 may make you chuckle uneasily and start watching where you walk.

But twelve? Twelve new species would give one pause to reflect that

a) there are other hitherto undiscovered species all over the world and–

b) these undiscovered species are lurking just below the surface of the water of the world, watching our every move with their bulging eyes, and waiting for the signal to–

to what? and with whom?

And that is where our second alarming development comes into play...

A tiny headline, also on page A3 in the paper reads thus:

Two alligators seized in drug raid

That is correct.

Alligators are now turning to the seamy underworld of drugs.

These aren’t the old, 30-foot long alligators who thuggishly swagger the byways of Florida terrorizing snow birds and toy poodles.

These are young, underdeveloped alligators, turning to a life of crime at ever younger ages.

You don’t really believe these events are unrelated, do you?

You can’t look at the world’s desperate need to be taught a lesson without subsequently looking around your feet to see if an alligator wearing low-slung baggy jeans is offering you a ‘good time’. 

Don’t be surprised if, upon taking a refreshing slug of mineral water, you find a previously undiscovered frog blinking slyly at you from the bottom of the glass.

The Prude has no absolute proof of this conspiracy to commit an amphibian/reptilian plague. She does encourage us all, however, to write to the powers that be and encourage them to be on their best behavior. We don’t want next week’s page A3 headlines report a mysterious convening of locusts around the globe, do we?

the big 24

A son is born and a mother thinks she couldn't be any happier.
And then he grows up and gets married and she realizes she was wrong.
Happy 2 years/24 months/730 days anniversary Kirk and Mikaela.
Singly you bring us joy, but together you make that joy complete.
(photos courtesy fabulous Skala photography, convertible courtesy the fabulous Mr. Morrison)

Too Cool for School?

Ex-elementary school teachers don't retire. They just, in lieu of switching out the bulletin boards for every new season, decorate their homes.

September in the House of Prude means decorating for the school year.
Since her boys are all graduated she doesn't go to quite the extent of grapevine wreaths with pencils and markers, but she does want to share some old faithful back-to-school tales.

This is an old school desk all painted and pretty–a gift from my folks and sister when I began homeschooling 17? 18? years ago. the adorable little boy in the frame is my husband. Yup. I robbed the cradle.

 This handsome guy is my dad, 5th grade teacher extraordinaire. I was blessed to have him for 5th and 6th grade at Kenosha Christian.

Molly, looking fine.

Samantha and Kit eyeing the apples

My middle boy calls this 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'

Actually it is my dad heading to teach school in South Holland, IL in the 1950's.

Demure Felicity eyeing the cute curly headed guy.

Poor Kit doesn't have a school outfit. She had to borrow Molly's. Good thing they are the same size.

Here is something nifty. My  'Down the River Road' reader from 1938 has a page closely replicated in an old 'Ideals' magazine fall issue from the late 50's. 

My girls will be enjoying their school finery for only a few more weeks before Teacher Prude switches everything out for the autumn pretties. Now if she can convince her husband to wear only rusts, browns and golds until Dec. 1...

How to hardfry a drive

Load the desktop computer with photos and email and bookmarks and movies and music and 5 people on it almost every minute of every day and sometimes night for over 5 years.
Burn hundreds of photo and movie and music CD's on it.
Use it for business, bookkeeping and banking.

And then one morning try to turn the bloated, exhausted computer on.
It whines.
You have hope.
Whining is a sign of life, correct?
Not in a computer.

The experts inform that the start-up disk is fried.
Burnt to a crisp.
Nothing to do but replace the disk and hope and pray that all the photos, movies, music, business etc.
are still safe.

The Prude needs to replace her hard-fried disk with a nice, soft, malleable one.
Words cannot express her level of disapproval right now.
But somehow, just because she is muleheaded, she is going to figure out how
to have PhotoJournalism Friday from her tiny laptop.
It may just consist of pictures of her napping dog, (because all her OTHER photos are stuck behind that crispy start-up disk on the desktop) but there will be something at Friday at the Prude.
Right now I am going to find some sackcloth and ashes to sprinkle on my poor, charred desktop computer.

Could I have some Woostershur Sauce on this tea sandwich please?

What if the Queen some day, on a whimsy, decides to ask a stateside commoner to High Tea?

What if that common American is you?

You will be packing your bags, reviewing your ‘What Not to Do’ list:

-Don’t give the Queen a hearty hug

-Don’t ask if Welsh Corgis are a large breed of rodent

-Don’t request to switch out your dainty teacup for a nice, hearty mug of coffee

These are all very good, but The Prude, wishing you to put your best Yankee foot forward for the honor of your nation, has a few other pointers.

That group of islands in the North Sea is not England any more than Dubuque is Iowa.

You can refer to the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) or you can refer to Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)

or you can make pithy remarks about each country (so Wales doesn’t mind that the Prince of Wales isn’t Welsh?) (don’t worry if the Scots start playing bagpipes- I brought my own earplugs) (I hear ‘Danny Boy’ was written by an Englishman. Are the English as sappy as the Irish?) (What do feminists think about this whole ‘Isle of Man’ thingy?)

When someone mentions ‘Shetland’ ‘Jersey’ or ‘Guernsey’ check to see if they are talking about the pony, the cow or the other cow,

or,

the island, the island or the other island.

You’ll also want to brush up on your vocabulary.

How do you pronounce  ‘Pepys’? If you said ‘Peeps’ you are correct. If you made it sound like multiple Pepe la Pews you would be in serious breach of etiquette.

‘Cholmondely’?  ‘Chumli’! Right!

Mary ‘Magdalen’ would be surprised to hear part B of her name called  ‘Maudlin’,

your neighborhood mailman named Ralph would have to answer to ‘Rafe' in the UK (which ups his appeal to the opposite gender immensely)

and whether you see ‘St. John’ as a first or last name please address the bearer as ‘Sin Jin’.

If you want to exit your train at ‘Featherstonehaugh’ and strain your ears to hear a multi-syllabic name shouted, listen more carefully. You’ll want to get off at ‘Fanshaw’.

Think ‘Marjoribanks Mainwaring’ would be a prodigious name for your daughter?

Only if you don’t mind her hearing 'Marchbanks Mannering' everywhere in Great Britain.

Just remember that “Woolfardisworthy’ is ‘Woolseri’, Leveson-Gower is ‘Loosen-Gaw’ and ‘Wriothesley’ is ‘Roxli’ and the Queen will welcome you with, if not open arms, at least a tidily gloved hand.

As long as you don’t elbow her husband in the ribs and ask him how he feels about playing second fiddle to the little woman.

Show you care. Join WHOMBATS.

Someone has to speak up for the young men of America.

WHOMBATS (Women Helping Our Men and Boys Avoid Trauma and gain SAC (Suitable Advertising Compensation))

is all over it.

The Prude hopes you are willing to organize a local chapter.

WHOMBATS goals are simple.

Goal 1: Suitable Advertising Compensation

We circulate petitions demanding that undergarment manufacturers start paying our young men who advertise their product. Nike pays athletes to wear their sweatbands. Coke pays TV stars to drink their beverage onscreen and Minute Maid gives oodles of cash so stadiums are named for orange juice.

But do Hanes or Jockey or Fruit of the Loom pay these willing males to wear  pants due south of the waistband of their undergarments and functioning as walking billboards for the tidy whities etc?

No.

Our petition will demand a living wage for our boys.

Goal 2: Avoiding Trauma

We hold bake sales.

With the proceeds we purchase bits of colorful, ‘mod’ fabric.

We hold a WHOMBAT version of a quilting bee.

A loop bee.

How will loops help our young men avoid trauma?

The same way they kept young Victorian women from tripping over their dress trains on the dance floor.

Young men, victims of undergarment makers and a mistaken notion that the waist is located 8”below the hipbone, have seen their range of motion increasingly hampered by pants worn about the knees.

Although The Prude doesn’t worry about gangs of ruffians attacking our young men, (because ruffians have similarly low-slung pants thereby evening the odds)

what will our boys do if chased by, say, a mad dog? An out-of-control Buick? A fuming ex-girlfriend?

Our boys don’t stand a chance.

UNLESS!

WHOMBATS members sew a stylish little loop on the waistband of their dungarees.

Our fleeing boy need only put his wrist through the loop, hitch up the britches, and sprint to safety.

And all because WHOMBATS dared to care.

Prototype of Loop of Rescue. Note the 'mod' pattern that will appeal to stylish young men.