Poinsettia Time

Poinsettias are a popular symbol of Christmas in North America. The name is pronounced poin-set-ee-uh and spelled with an ia at the end of the word, not just an a as thousands on the Internet would have you believe (poinsetta). Nor is there an extra t (pointsettia) as thousands more believe. The poinsettia is native to Mexico and Central America.  It was first brought to North America in the 1820s by the first United States Minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett. Poinsett was a physician and amateur botanist who went on to be a co-founder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts (a predecessor of the Smithsonian Institution)  among other things.

There are now over 100 varieties of poinsettias. They come in single or double form, with solid-coloured or marbled leaves, and in many shades of red, pink, salmon, cream and white. I love visiting the greenhouses at this time of year to see their poinsettia selections, although choosing just a couple of different varieties to take home is difficult.

Black Friday

Happy Black Friday to shoppers in the United States. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving yesterday.

We don’t have a shopping event equivalent to Black Friday in Canada. Boxing Day, on December 26^th, used to be a big day for finding bargains, but in recent years the majority of retailers have begun putting most of their stock on sale long before Christmas anyway, and the stores here don’t tend to offer the big loss leaders that I see advertised in the U.S.

I’ve come to appreciate Christmas shopping late at night, and early in the morning, although I’ve never been browsing the aisles at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.  There’s hardly any traffic on the roads, barely any shoppers in the stores, and no one in line ahead of you at the check-out. Several years ago I went to my local 24-hour grocery store around 11:00 p.m. on December 23rd to do my final grocery pick-up before Christmas and realized it was an excellent time to be there. I enjoyed strolling the aisles without having to manoeuvre around dozens of others, humming along to the Christmas music and chatting with the staff who, also relieved that the store was deserted, were cheery.

When Walmart began staying open all night in December of last year, I went shopping there one evening around 11:30 p.m. Again, perusing the stock in peace and picking out the latest toys was a relaxed and pleasant experience.

Yes, I enjoy shopping late at night at this time of year, but I enjoy it because there’s scarcely anyone else there …

Black Friday crowd.

Glee Works for Me

Have you tuned in to see the television show Glee yet?

The Fox Broadcasting Web site describes it as a series following an optimistic teacher “who – against all odds and a malicious cheerleading coach – attempts to save McKinley High’s Glee Club from obscurity, while helping a group of aspiring underdogs realize their true star potential.”

A well-written, witty musical comedy, Glee features a very talented cast performing several songs in every episode. The series’ music has really taken off, with a first CD already on the shelves. A few of the show’s covers of well-known songs have been declared “better than the original” in this household.

Glee has also provided us with some very touching moments between the toe-tapping and chuckles; it’s a nice change from the usual police procedurals and hospital dramas filling the evening airwaves.

Glee airs on Wednesday evenings at 9:00 p.m.

Read more about the show here.

No Future at This Shop for Me

I asked a friend how her weekend had been and she responded “I was so angry at one point! I went to Future Shop …”. Uh huh. I knew exactly what she was going to say because I’ve been there and experienced the same phenomenon that she did. When women of a certain age enter Future Shop electronics stores, they become invisible. Yes, I said invisible: hidden, unseen, imperceptible to the eye of a human sales clerk. If it had only happened to one woman at one store, I would have just believed it to be rude sales staff at that location ignoring the woman. But when it happens at different stores to different women, there’s only one logical conclusion: a nasty curse has been placed on the entire chain of stores that renders middle-aged women undetectable. The curse can be broken by getting a sales clerk to look you directly in the eye, but that’s easier said than done. If you are determined to shop at Future Shop anyway, here are some suggestions that may help you to receive some attention.

1. To indicate your genuine intent to buy, sing “money, money, money, money” while dancing down the aisle throwing real bills into the air. The other customers will no doubt turn to stare at you, causing the sales clerk to also look your way and accidentally make eye contact. Considering that young employees are generally unfamiliar with the concept of actual cash though, this ploy may be ineffective even if they can see you. Still, singing “debit, debit, debit, debit” while waving your card around just doesn’t have the same pizzazz.

2. Set up signs in front of the store entrance saying Mature Women’s Day and post a couple of your friends there to stop anyone not fitting that category from entering the store while you shop. With no other customers to distract them you may be able to get the staff’s attention, although you might still only be visible in a semitransparent, shimmering sort of way.

3. Wrestle a sales clerk to the floor and sit on his chest until he looks you in the eye. While definitely the most satisfying solution, remember that the young man won’t initially be able to see who is forcing him to the ground and, in his terror, he may put up quite a struggle. Plus, the police, who can always see you, normally frown on this type of action.

4. Have a coven of witches, fairies, gypsies and everyone else you feel might be helpful join you at the entrance to your local store on a busy Saturday afternoon and work together to try to lift the curse forever. Do it for the benefit of middle-aged women everywhere who have money to spend and would like to blow it on electronics.

If none of those options work out, do what my friend and I did and take your business elsewhere.

Elf Yourself

The stores are setting out their Christmas produce, light displays are being arranged, and, perhaps most important, Elf Yourself is up and running for another season.  A free holiday e-greeting produced by JibJab Media Inc., Elf Yourself premiered in November of 2006.  Since then, millions of people around the world have uploaded photos of themselves with their friends and family and produced videos of their loved ones frolicking as “Disco” or “Country” elves or in the “Elf Classic” that started it all. The new offerings this year are “Hip Hop Elves”, featuring modern break dancing, and “Singing Elves”, who perform a medley of holiday music.

I elfed myself and my family last year and got quite a kick out of watching us disco dancing together. With four styles of dance to choose from this year, it’s just like being on So You Think You Can Dance … while dressed in an elf costume … without the danger of being assigned the dreaded quickstep … or having to expend any actual energy.

‘Tis the season to spread some cheer. Click here to  elf yourself .

Here’s a video of JibJab’s recent “elf invasion” in New York City to promote the 2009 launch of Elf Yourself. Note what appears to be a werewolf in the crowd enjoying the show.

F is for Foliage

If you Google images for the word Foliage, you’ll find thousands of pictures of lovely leaves. If you Google images for Foilage … you’ll find thousands of pictures of lovely leaves.

The correct spelling of the word  used to describe a cluster of  leaves is foliage, from the Latin word for leaf, “folio”. However,  the l and i in foliage are reversed so regularly that the word is on many Top 100 lists of English words most often misspelled and mispronounced. The misspelled version  is used in a myriad of Internet pages.  You can even shop for Foilage T-Shirts, Posters, & Other Gift Ideas at zazzle.com.

There is a definition on urbandictionary.com for foilage that claims it is an “expression for bling. Man check out the ride – foilage.”

So according to that definition, this might be considered foilage:

I think this should definitely be designated as [tin] foilage:

The following photos are of autumn foliage in Southern Ontario. Many of the pictures were taken at, or near, the shore of Lake Ontario.

E is for Effect

If you ask around, I think you’ll find that most people have at least one word that they’re inclined to look up in the dictionary every time they need to use it. For whatever reason, some words just don’t seem to stick in the old noggin, even if their meaning and spelling is really not difficult. I have two of those words: effect and affect.

Whenever I have to decide which one of them to use, I send the request for clarification of their meanings to my brain for processing. Ker-chug, ker-chug, ker-chug – you can practically hear it, like that noise your computer makes when the hard drive is running low on space and it seems to take forever to pull up what you want. Finally my mind spits out the correct word and, just my luck, there are dead pixels in my brain’s monitor right where the first letter should be, so that the answer comes up looking like this

which is not at all helpful because I don’t have any trouble with the other letters in either word.

For anyone else who finds the difference between effect and affect hard to remember, here is the most basic difference between the two words.

Most of the time affect is a verb. It generally means “to influence” or “to change”.

I am adversely affected by snowy weather.

Most of the time effect is a noun. It generally means “a result or consequence”.

The snow had a dangerous effect on the roads.

The information I find most helpful is that effect is used whenever any of these words precede it: a, an, any, the, take, into, no.  These words may be separated from effect by an adjective.

For a more detailed description of the uses of effect and affect, and to try a practice quiz, go to this site:

http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/valuable-links/effect-or-affect/

Since my brain monitor cannot be repaired or replaced, I suspect that I’ll be looking up effect occasionally for the rest of my days. And that’s okay, because sometimes it’s best just to admit that you’re not sure and consult an expert; that’s what dictionaries are for.

A Very Scary Halloween tale

A travelling carnival came to town this year for Halloween and set up in the fair grounds. Along with the usual assortment of spinning rides, a haunted house was erected, quite separate from the other attractions, in a quiet corner. The advertisement in the newspaper for the spooky house said:

Hah! As if you’d actually die –they have laws against that kind of thing … right? Still … I vow not to scream, just in case.

My friends have joined me at the entrance now, so I pay the fee and bravely volunteer to be the first to enter the dilapidated looked structure. Jeez, it’s dark. Really dark. What is that glowing ahead of me? Are those words? I inch forward in the blackness and the words suddenly move toward me.

My late what? I snicker, turning to my friends. But no one is there, just a sign directly behind me, less than an arm’s length from my face, that says

How did that get there? And where all the apostrophes? The hair is standing up on the back of my neck. “Guys?” I call out to my friends, but nobody answers, so I back away from the creepy signs into another room. This room appears to be long and narrow – I wish my eyes would adjust to the dark so I could see where I’m going!

I’m edging forward when something brushes against my back and I spin around to face it.

Taut?? They mean taunt! Something drops from the darkness above and I stifle a squeal and duck.

I spin to my left.

I’m starting to perspire. I want to get out of this weird place; it’s scarier than I expected. Okay, there’s the exit from the room. It doesn’t look too far away.

Yes, I am bored with it! Where are these phrases coming from??

I’m scrambling now, and the eerie glowing words just keep coming! Where did the exit sign go? I can’t see it!

Ouch! I tripped over  

and almost tumbled into

I am excited about leaving and I’m almost there, just a few more steps!

No, not that! I clap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming and leap through the door to the next room. I still can’t see, but at least I’m not being attacked by bad grammar. The exit is straight ahead….

What’s that noise? Yikes, something fluttered right over my head! There’s another one! What ARE those things – are they bats? Yuk, that one was almost stuck in my hair.  Are they…? Could they be… ? They are! They’re apostrophes and they’re dive-bombing me! “Leave me alone! Why don’t you go back to the words you belong with??”  White, shimmering forms are starting to fill the room around me – ghosts – and the one closest to me answers my question:

And it starts laughing; a shrill howl that sends chills down my spine.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I can’t contain my scream any longer! And now I’m running as fast as I can to the exit, beating off apostrophes and screeching ghosts like Buffy in a room full of vampires, until I finally shove the door open and throw myself through it. Phew! Deep breathes. That was horrifying! Deep breathes. It’s okay. I’m all right.

And hey, at least I didn’t literally die screaming.

What’s in a Vampire Name?

Contrary to popular belief, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not named after Vlad the Impaler. It is believed that Bram Stoker would have known very little about Vlad, “certainly not enough to have been inspired to base Count Dracula on him.” In fact, Stoker discovered the name Dracula in an old book with a footnote suggesting it came from a Romanian word for “devil”, which was, obviously, appropriate for his main character. Until then, the name he had in mind for his spooky Count was Wampyr. Yes, the best known vampire in history was almost Wampyr the Vampire.

The 1922 German film Nosferatu stole the story of Dracula and hoped to get away with it by changing the characters’ names, including that of the main character to Count Orlok. The Stoker estate successfully sued the production company for copyright infringement, leaving the company bankrupt and proving that a Dracula by any other name was … well, illegal. (Dracula has always been in the public domain in the United States, but in the United Kingdom and other countries the novel was under copyright until April 1962, fifty years after Stoker’s death.)

Dracula lends itself wonderfully to parodies. The Bugs Bunny cartoon Transylvania 6-5000 features Count Blood Count; Count Duckula is “a little bit Dracula, a little bit Daffy Duck”; Count Chocula has his own cereal; Count Floyd hosted SCTV’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater; and toddler favourite Count von Count lives on Sesame Street and helps his audience learn to count. “They call me the Count because I love to count things!  One friend from Sesame Street, plus one friend from Sesame Street, equals two friends from Sesame Street! Ah, ha, ha!”

In early tales, the starring vampires often had titles, including Sir Francis Varney in the 1847 serial Varney the Vampire, and Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre, 1918.

Anne Rice says her inspiration for the character Lestat de Lioncourt, star of the hugely popular Vampire Chronicles, came largely from her husband, poet and artist Stan Rice. The name Lestat is, or is meant to sound like, an old French name.

Angel, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was once one of the nastiest of the nasty.  He terrorized Europe in the 1700s as Angelus before being cursed with a soul, a punishment designed to make him suffer eternally for his past crimes. The name Angelus is obviously ironic, referencing the handsome demeanour hiding the monster within. As Angel entering the 21st century, the vampire with a soul spent all of his time helping others.

In modern times, vampire names have become less formal, allowing them to fit in with today’s society. The vampires in the recent Twilight series were born in the early 1900s and have simple names from that period: Edward, James, Victoria, etc.

And that brings us to the current American television series True Blood, which features a vampire lead character. Through the last couple of hundred years of vampire fiction we’ve gone from Counts to … Bill.

If your horse or other pet has expressed an interest in getting into character for Halloween, search on-line for vampire names for your dog, horse, etc. and a site will come up – no kidding – with suggestions such as Igor (faithful assistant) and Blade (Tomb of Dracula).

To discover your own vampire name, search for vampire name generators and you’ll find several sites. My vampire name is Karula Drifher. I like it.

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month. Last year, close to 120,000 people registered on the NaNoWriMo Web site to take a shot at writing 50,000 words between November 1st and 30th. That’s a 175-page novel in 30 days.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to encourage everyone who has ever thought of writing a novel to stop procrastinating and write … something … anything! It doesn’t matter that it likely won’t be award-winning material. It doesn’t even matter – just this once – about grammar and spelling. The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output.

NaNoWriMo “is an event for all nations. We’d change the name to ‘International Novel Writing Month,’ but InNoWriMo doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way.”

So if you’ve ever fancied becoming a novelist, November is the month to give 50,000 words a try. 21,683 people successfully completed the challenge  in 2008.