Okay, so which one is correct in the title today? I just heard a news reporter misuse "only" on the KXLY Morning Show while I was only hoping to watch Bootsie who's supposed to be on the show this morning talking only of his BEANS recipes.
The reporter was talking about alcohol and what kinds customers could buy at a certain area store. She said you could "only buy vodka" and some other alcohol product (which I didn't catch cuz I was so caught up on her misuse of 'only') at that particular store.
So that means that's all you can do once you go inside that business. You can't go to the bathroom. You cannot visit with the owner. You can't shoplift. All you can do when you go inside is buy that vodka or that unnamed drink----nothing else. Not even drink the stuff. Just buy the vodka or the other product and get the heck out of there.
Of course, if she had used "only" correctly, I wouldn't feel so bad about going into that store. If I knew you can buy only vodka and some other drink, I'd still feel comfortable about going in, buying my vodka, having a sip or two, visiting with other customers and then using the store's restroom.
"Only" is just a little word, but using it in the wrong place in a sentence can make a big difference in the meaning conveyed by what you have just said. Of course, most folks could care less how it's used. They get the gist, but there are a few of us quirky sharp-eared English teacher types who cue in on the mistake and who love to envision the true scenario of what the person has just said.
The general rule for "only" is to use it in the general vicinity of whatever word or phrase it modifies or describes. When you stick it somewhere else in the sentence, you modify or change the meaning of what you really mean to say.
For instance, if I went to the garden last night and only picked my tomatoes, that means I did nothing else in my garden. I did not smile with delight while looking at the cucumbers coming back from the dead. I did not bend down to pull a few more of the thousands of weeds that keep emerging from the dirt. I simply went straight to the tomato patch, picked one ripe tomato and left.
In contrast, if I went to the garden last night and picked only tomatoes, then I also had the right to pull weeds, admire the volunteer cosmos blossoms, shake my head at the slim pickin's in this year's corn crop or even change the sprinkler.
Say only you mean; mean only what you say.
How about, "I only have five dollars"?
That means I have nothing else in this world. Poor me. I'm going to have to make some rigid choices on what I'll do with that five dollars so I'll be able to possess something else in this world besides moola.
So, if I say, "I have only five dollars," that could mean I have a bunch of other stuff in my pocket, in my house, on our place or maybe even at someone else's house where I left my cowboy boots last week.
The money situation needs some help, though, so I've gotta take some of those possessions and try to sell them on the free Sandpoint Online Classifieds to up my bank account.
Say only what you mean; mean only what you say.
That said, I need only to complete this sentence and then get the heck out of the house before some disgusted reader calls me up and says, "Is that the only thing you had on your mind this morning when that poor reporter was trying so hard to tell the public about the vodka and where you could only buy it or some other alcoholic beverage? Shame on you. Get a life!"
To which I would reply, "If only I had found Bootsie and the bean recipes on the TV show, this discussion never would have come up."
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Stuff, stuff and stuff
Bill has headed to the mountains with Kiwi. That means two Border Collies get to be top dogs today. Kea will hang out with me while her buddy follows Bill up a trail up a mountain in the Smith Creek drainage near the Canadian border. He told me the name of the mountain, but I can't remember.
We went to the trail head three years ago with Kiwi, so it's her second trip. She was just a pup then, experiencing her first snow on that October day when we took the Union Road off from Smith Creek and walked to an area that leads to Long Canyon.
Anyway, the two of them expect to return in early evening. In the meantime, I've got a "going to town" day. Various sundries need completion, and that means having to drive to town. The idea of going that way gets less and less desirable as I live here longer.
I used to never view it as "having" to drive to town. I looked forward to it because I could see lots of friends and wave at just about every driver I met cuz they didn't have darkened windows and I knew 'em. I'm constantly learning that a lot of others feel the same as I do about going through Sandpoint.
It has also occurred to me that the folks south of town have it worse than we do. They can fight the traffic on the bridge or sit there (as some did Saturday night when a hay truck caught on fire; don't know the details to that one but I do know it kept a wedding from starting on time and I do know it illustrated one more time the line that gets spit out rather sarcastically and quite often around here: WE DON'T NEED A BYPASS).
Anyway those residents south of the bridge cannot get much of their business completed with the ease that we can here in the north country. We have banks, feed stores, grocery stores, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, two post offices, lots of restaurants, the Mall, etc. They've got Badger Building Supply, Northern Lights, Inc. a couple of convenience stores, a post office and the flea market (four months out of the year).
If they choose not to go to town, they also have a choice of fighting even more traffic by driving to an even crazier place: Coeur d'Alene, while we can drive to Bonners Ferry in a hop, skip and a jump.
We have a pretty good deal being located here. If we could have a flea market here north of town, life would be complete.
I said this posting was "stuff, stuff and stuff," so on to more stuff. I rode Lily again last night. We went down the road all by ourselves. Her only concern was the silver end of the culvert sticking out in the ditch along the Colburn farm driveway. A couple of words of encouragement, and she walked on past it.
Laurie will ride her in three classes this Sunday afternoon at the Bonner County Fair horse show, which is a month early this year. I don't know why they rescheduled it, but I know I'll kinda miss going to a horse show over Labor Day as I have for so many years. Anyway, when the show is over, Lily comes home, and I can saddle her up and take off through the woods. When that happens, this year's horse dream will be complete.
Meanwhile, Lefty is once again getting some attention because he'll be going down to Coeur d'Alene next week for the Coeur d'Alene Fair horse show. Barbara is taking a couple of her horses for the halter showing, so they asked if I wanted to take Lefty along.
He's just been a pasture horse for the last couple of months, and he's got plenty of dings on his hide. But, I'll work at him and will do my best to get him spit-shined for one more halter class this year.
Let's see, what other "stuff" is there? Oh yeah, I've personally picked 1.75 gallons of dewberries so far, and the triplets picked half a gallon. I really did hit the mother lode, and I could easily go pick another half gallon today, but I'm gonna let the stickers in my fingers have a chance to drop out before putting them through that torture again.
Guess that's all for now. Gotta get going and get that trip to town marked off the schedule. Plus, there's a lawn out there in need of mowing and a top dog anxious to harass the mower. I'll tell you about Kea's obsessive-compulsive behavior later.
We went to the trail head three years ago with Kiwi, so it's her second trip. She was just a pup then, experiencing her first snow on that October day when we took the Union Road off from Smith Creek and walked to an area that leads to Long Canyon.
Anyway, the two of them expect to return in early evening. In the meantime, I've got a "going to town" day. Various sundries need completion, and that means having to drive to town. The idea of going that way gets less and less desirable as I live here longer.
I used to never view it as "having" to drive to town. I looked forward to it because I could see lots of friends and wave at just about every driver I met cuz they didn't have darkened windows and I knew 'em. I'm constantly learning that a lot of others feel the same as I do about going through Sandpoint.
It has also occurred to me that the folks south of town have it worse than we do. They can fight the traffic on the bridge or sit there (as some did Saturday night when a hay truck caught on fire; don't know the details to that one but I do know it kept a wedding from starting on time and I do know it illustrated one more time the line that gets spit out rather sarcastically and quite often around here: WE DON'T NEED A BYPASS).
Anyway those residents south of the bridge cannot get much of their business completed with the ease that we can here in the north country. We have banks, feed stores, grocery stores, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, two post offices, lots of restaurants, the Mall, etc. They've got Badger Building Supply, Northern Lights, Inc. a couple of convenience stores, a post office and the flea market (four months out of the year).
If they choose not to go to town, they also have a choice of fighting even more traffic by driving to an even crazier place: Coeur d'Alene, while we can drive to Bonners Ferry in a hop, skip and a jump.
We have a pretty good deal being located here. If we could have a flea market here north of town, life would be complete.
I said this posting was "stuff, stuff and stuff," so on to more stuff. I rode Lily again last night. We went down the road all by ourselves. Her only concern was the silver end of the culvert sticking out in the ditch along the Colburn farm driveway. A couple of words of encouragement, and she walked on past it.
Laurie will ride her in three classes this Sunday afternoon at the Bonner County Fair horse show, which is a month early this year. I don't know why they rescheduled it, but I know I'll kinda miss going to a horse show over Labor Day as I have for so many years. Anyway, when the show is over, Lily comes home, and I can saddle her up and take off through the woods. When that happens, this year's horse dream will be complete.
Meanwhile, Lefty is once again getting some attention because he'll be going down to Coeur d'Alene next week for the Coeur d'Alene Fair horse show. Barbara is taking a couple of her horses for the halter showing, so they asked if I wanted to take Lefty along.
He's just been a pasture horse for the last couple of months, and he's got plenty of dings on his hide. But, I'll work at him and will do my best to get him spit-shined for one more halter class this year.
Let's see, what other "stuff" is there? Oh yeah, I've personally picked 1.75 gallons of dewberries so far, and the triplets picked half a gallon. I really did hit the mother lode, and I could easily go pick another half gallon today, but I'm gonna let the stickers in my fingers have a chance to drop out before putting them through that torture again.
Guess that's all for now. Gotta get going and get that trip to town marked off the schedule. Plus, there's a lawn out there in need of mowing and a top dog anxious to harass the mower. I'll tell you about Kea's obsessive-compulsive behavior later.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Blank Screen Syndrome
Special note before my mutterings: I did take some time this morning to view most of Annie's photos from her Mount Rainier climb. She sent me an album yesterday, and it's a phenomenal photo story of her experience last Friday. You can view it at: http://flickr.com/photos/nnlove/sets/72157606413010447/
Now for the mutter . . . .
Occasionally, I sit down at the computer with cup full of hot latte next to the keyboard and a seemingly empty brain mass occupying the noggin upstairs. Seems that's the scene this morning, and I'm typing away slowly one word at a time, knowing that the light bulb will eventually turn on.
It's not that life is so dull I have nothing to write about. Conversely, that may be the problem. My thoughts are really going dozens of directions, like Chad Moore's honey bees across the road, waiting to light down on one topic and do my work.
After reading the Spokesman this morning, I thought it would be fun to write about the Spokane diploma mills and how happy I was to see that on the full-page listing of all graduates, not one Idaho fake college graduate had a Sandpoint address.
That's good news for the community, suggesting that most of us residing here and claiming to be college graduates got our diplomas the old-fashioned way: we earned them, one work-study dollar and one scary test at a time. That's not to say, however, that there aren't other phony universities out there from whence Sandpoint residents bought a sheepskin.
Which brings to mind the fact that I haven't seen my University of Idaho diploma for years. I don't think it burned up in our 1984 fire. Seems like I've got a bunch of stuff like that stored in a green plastic garbage bag.
If my memory is correct, I don't remember any of my diplomas (one from Sandpoint High in 1965, one blank document from Sandpoint High when I graduated again in 2002 and one from the U of I) being made of sheepskin.
There's gotta be a story there about when sheepskin got replaced by paper, but I'm not gonna research it this morning. Got too much to do.
Back to brain mass deficit. What could I write about today?
I could tell about the fencing we did last night. I've written about Bill and my fencing projects before. We always get along, and I always re-learn the basics of fencing.
This time we're putting up a board fence on dry ground rather than having to slosh through deep snow with an Appaloosa filly named Lily helping? us every step of the way. It's a lot easier except for a few minor problems with dogs.
One, which we encountered last night involved one dog and one coffee can. It eventually escalated into two dogs and one old woman tangled up in that pink string Bill uses to make sure things are straight. Well, some of the string was lying on the ground near the fence when Kiwi wanted me to kick her coffee can.
I kicked the can. She ran and got her hind leg tangled up in Bill's string. I ran to help her get untangled. She kept running and pulling more string through the pasture away from the fenceline. As I bent over to grab the string and remove it from her hind leg, Kea came along and decided she needed to help.
Kea wiggles a lot when she decides to do anything, and Kiwi gets more and more hyperactive with human contact. Within seconds, the three of us were totally tangled in that pink string, and the more I hollered at Bill about the dilemma, the more unimpressed he remained while continuing to mark off board length, saw off the extra and drill holes for nails.
The two canines and one human remained entwined with the unruly pink stuff for about five minutes. It was definitely a Peter at the Dike scene or maybe a Lucy with the chocolates. One untangle led to several more doggy wiggles and more pink stuff clinging to those perpetually moving bodies. We eventually escaped our confinement, and then Bill asked me to wrap up the string and hang it on a fencepost away from dogs and old women.
Kiwi chased that coffee can string free for the rest of the night, and I continued walking the fence line free of obstacles for the next hour or so. We now have one stretch of fence along the west lawn two boards deep. Maybe tonight, if we can manage to keep the string out of the way, we'll have the other two stretches nearly ready to keep horses confined in the pasture.
Now, what was I going to write about? I guess it came to the brain, and now that I've babbled like a brook, I'm guessing it's time to shut up and get outside for the morning watering, picking and mowing. Lots to do, and the brain is now fully engaged to get at it and spend the day pondering sheepskins. Maybe Kiwi can help me.
Well, the latte is almost gone, and my computer screen is blank no more. So, have a nice Tuesday.
Now for the mutter . . . .
Occasionally, I sit down at the computer with cup full of hot latte next to the keyboard and a seemingly empty brain mass occupying the noggin upstairs. Seems that's the scene this morning, and I'm typing away slowly one word at a time, knowing that the light bulb will eventually turn on.
It's not that life is so dull I have nothing to write about. Conversely, that may be the problem. My thoughts are really going dozens of directions, like Chad Moore's honey bees across the road, waiting to light down on one topic and do my work.
After reading the Spokesman this morning, I thought it would be fun to write about the Spokane diploma mills and how happy I was to see that on the full-page listing of all graduates, not one Idaho fake college graduate had a Sandpoint address.
That's good news for the community, suggesting that most of us residing here and claiming to be college graduates got our diplomas the old-fashioned way: we earned them, one work-study dollar and one scary test at a time. That's not to say, however, that there aren't other phony universities out there from whence Sandpoint residents bought a sheepskin.
Which brings to mind the fact that I haven't seen my University of Idaho diploma for years. I don't think it burned up in our 1984 fire. Seems like I've got a bunch of stuff like that stored in a green plastic garbage bag.
If my memory is correct, I don't remember any of my diplomas (one from Sandpoint High in 1965, one blank document from Sandpoint High when I graduated again in 2002 and one from the U of I) being made of sheepskin.
There's gotta be a story there about when sheepskin got replaced by paper, but I'm not gonna research it this morning. Got too much to do.
Back to brain mass deficit. What could I write about today?
I could tell about the fencing we did last night. I've written about Bill and my fencing projects before. We always get along, and I always re-learn the basics of fencing.
This time we're putting up a board fence on dry ground rather than having to slosh through deep snow with an Appaloosa filly named Lily helping? us every step of the way. It's a lot easier except for a few minor problems with dogs.
One, which we encountered last night involved one dog and one coffee can. It eventually escalated into two dogs and one old woman tangled up in that pink string Bill uses to make sure things are straight. Well, some of the string was lying on the ground near the fence when Kiwi wanted me to kick her coffee can.
I kicked the can. She ran and got her hind leg tangled up in Bill's string. I ran to help her get untangled. She kept running and pulling more string through the pasture away from the fenceline. As I bent over to grab the string and remove it from her hind leg, Kea came along and decided she needed to help.
Kea wiggles a lot when she decides to do anything, and Kiwi gets more and more hyperactive with human contact. Within seconds, the three of us were totally tangled in that pink string, and the more I hollered at Bill about the dilemma, the more unimpressed he remained while continuing to mark off board length, saw off the extra and drill holes for nails.
The two canines and one human remained entwined with the unruly pink stuff for about five minutes. It was definitely a Peter at the Dike scene or maybe a Lucy with the chocolates. One untangle led to several more doggy wiggles and more pink stuff clinging to those perpetually moving bodies. We eventually escaped our confinement, and then Bill asked me to wrap up the string and hang it on a fencepost away from dogs and old women.
Kiwi chased that coffee can string free for the rest of the night, and I continued walking the fence line free of obstacles for the next hour or so. We now have one stretch of fence along the west lawn two boards deep. Maybe tonight, if we can manage to keep the string out of the way, we'll have the other two stretches nearly ready to keep horses confined in the pasture.
Now, what was I going to write about? I guess it came to the brain, and now that I've babbled like a brook, I'm guessing it's time to shut up and get outside for the morning watering, picking and mowing. Lots to do, and the brain is now fully engaged to get at it and spend the day pondering sheepskins. Maybe Kiwi can help me.
Well, the latte is almost gone, and my computer screen is blank no more. So, have a nice Tuesday.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Family day at Roman Nose Lake
About five carloads of Brown, Thompson and Tibbs family members drove the Snow Creek Road to Roman Nose Lake yesterday. It would be safe to guess that we had the oldest visitors with the great-grammas Helen and Virginia. The wind blew mosquitoes away, but also kept folks moving to stay warm.
We decided, after running into half of Sandpoint at the lake, that the locals are figuring out how to deal with the population influx. They just go to the mountains. We saw Chapins, Hawkins and Paula Lund and her kids.
A good time was had by all; the day was topped off with dinner at Slate's.
Note: Annie has posted photos from her Mount Rainier climb on her blog at www.rainiergirl.blogspot.com.
Enjoy.
It had been a while since both Jim and his mother had seen Roman Nose Lake. Forty years for Jim who worked for the Sandpoint Forest Ranger District before becoming a smokejumper and more than that for Helen who also worked for the Sandpoint District for years. She said her one and only previous trip to the lake came by horseback, under orders from Gene Napier who also worked for the district.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday slights from Saturday
Yesterday was a busy day here with storing hay, jelly making, fencing, visiting and getting ready for weddings. Our day was topped off with a visit from friends in our old neighborhood. Ed and Ann (Eitzmann) Kritzeck stopped by when Ed spotted the new building. They had no idea who lived here and were pleasantly surprised to find us minding the store.
The fence has a good start; maybe by next weekend, I'll have it painted and we can look out the kitchen window and admire the horses grazing in the pasture with their new fence.
While our motor home guests attended a wedding yesterday, I attended a wedding reception at Schweitzer Mountain Resort. My former student Haley married her sweetheart Branton on top of the ski hill. I did not attend the wedding because of my fear of riding the chairlift. Another fearful soul sat with me near the lodge as we waited for the wedding guests to filter down off the mountain. Haley and Branton planted a small tree on the top as part of their ceremony.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Sunny delights: kids, flowers and berries
While Annie was climbing Mount Rainier yesterday, I was keeping my ear close to the phone and my finger on the camera. We picked berries, walked through the woods, initiated new folks into the Lodgepole Society and enjoyed a generally good time of visiting.
Later, as we began to dine at the Blue Heron Cafe aka Samuels Store (highly recommended, by the way), my cell phone finally rang and Annie's name popped into the window.
She was driving down the freeway, headed for a geocaching event south of Portland. We couldn't talk long because of her cell phone range, but she sounded like she was floating, now being a veteran of Mount Rainier's summit. We didn't learn a lot, except that all went exceptionally well, and she was thrilled.
That news made the day of impatient waiting worth it all.
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