Experimenting

[susandennis]

A few weeks ago when work got really busy, my contacts were driving me nuts and I couldn't see enough to work most of the time. I was wearing reading glasses with the contacts nearly all the time which seemed kind of whacked. So I quit wearing the contacts. But now that work is back to normal, I'm giving them another shot.

Part of the issue is light. The eye lady did tell me that in order to see well with these contacts, I need lots of light. Here in the Summertime, I keep this living room/office pretty dark. Shades drawn and lights off - for maximum cool. So I know that's part of the problem but also, I think, part of the problem is my grabbing the reading glasses all the time. I think my eyes need to get used to working without them so that's the experiment du jour. And... so far, ok. I'm typing this with no reading glasses - in the cool, darkened room - and it's working out ok.

It's another day of baseball and work. I have one ongoing monthly project which is nearly terminally boring. I'm hoping to get this month's part of it polished off today. The Mariners played mucho extra innings yesterday and I was able to make a dent. So with some luck today...



Stranger in a strange land... We moved to North Carolina (from Missouri) at Christmas when I was in the 1st grade. I could not understand a word anyone said. Today, in North Carolina, you don't have to go far to hear a southern accent but back then there was nothing but. And I had what I overheard one of my Mother's friends call a 'Yankee ear'. It was like being in a foreign country. The word paper sounded to me like piper. And every yes and no had to be twinned up with 'ma'm or sir'. I was severely reprimanded every time I forgot. All of the kids I knew had scores of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents who lived right in their neighborhoods. I had grandparents in the mid west and one cousin in Oklahoma. I might as well have been from Mars.

Comments

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

When we moved to Maryland from Pennsylvania I was 11. As a whole, Maryland isn't the Deep South by any stretch, but the area where we moved was pretty deep regardless and the areas just south and southeast of it were even deeper. I was old enough to have this weird romantic notion of Southern strangeness to indulge. It didn't last long in the close-minded heat of our neighborhood.

re: Memory Lane

[(Anonymous)]

I've only commented once - just after your Mom passed on, but I read you everyday. I just had to comment on this one.

I was born in Burlington, NC, and lived in Haw River, next door to my grandparents until my parents built a house five miles away in the metropolis of Graham. My first five years were truly something out of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

When Dad got a job with NASA, we moved to Cocoa Beach, FL, and that's where I attended the first grade. Talk about culture shock! My situation was the opposite of yours. Most of the kids said they couldn't understand me. I remember them teasing me when I called my brother in for dinner. Instead of yelling, "Boyd, dinner's ready!" - it sounded more like "Baaw-weed! Dee-Ner!" Anyway, I ditched that small-town southern accent as fast as I could. It’s so much easier when you’re young.

I can remember my "Nana" telling my Mom, "Bev-ly, Bay-uhv Aay-uhn is stot-n' ta' sow-uh-nd lak a Yuh-anh-kee," which can be translated to "Beverly, Bev Anne is starting to sound like a Yankee." Nana was really worried, and I remembered being so proud of myself for "sow-uhn-din' lak a Yuh-anh-kee.

My elderly Mom now lives with me and my husband, and we get such a kick out the messages that her old (no pun intended) friends leave on our machine.

Oh, how I do love me some good old southern stories.

Bev Wolfe
Orlando

Re: Memory Lane

[susandennis]

Thank you, Bev... what a great story!

[shanynrose.livejournal.com]

So do you say "Miz-oo-ree" or "Miz-oo-ruh?" My grandmother was born in Henrietta, Missourah.

[susandennis]

I say Mizooree but I didn't live there long enough to claim it.