I grew up surrounded by humor. My dad was quite creative, starting and running a one-man advertising agency in Tulsa, Oklahoma, winning advertising awards and becoming a bit famous in some circles.
He taught my brother and I to appreciate all forms of humor. He would drive me nuts asking, “What’s funny about that?” throughout the day. He told stories that had funny endings, or told so that you could picture the action so strongly you rolled on the floor with laughter. He drew funny or clever pictures. He constantly made jokes, made puns, played with the English language. He was sarcastic, snide, and one of the most caring people I’ve ever known.
He used humor as a protection against hard things in life and taught us to do the same. To this day, if I can stand back and see the humor in a situation, it calms me down, makes me smile, and allows me to handle things better. I miss him so much, but I can almost FEEL him looking down at me, saying, “Lighten up, Lin.”
This is our ‘flying pig’ that used to hang over our driveway until the pig and the huge branch from which it hung came down in an ice storm. The pig is sitting on my table in our shop now, waiting for me to refurbish it. I’m hoping to convince my husband that he would look fine bolted onto one of the huge boulders at the top of our driveway, looking as it he’s taking off in flight.
I have developed yet another Pet Peeve. I KNOW! But I can’t seem to help it.
I download huge numbers of free books from the Kindle Unlimited Book Store. I’m really grateful to get them there because I’m a voracious reader and I simply cannot afford to buy lots of books anymore, have no place to put paperbacks; though, sometimes, I try to stuff JUST ONE MORE into a bookshelf.
The upside is that they are free. The downside is that I end up deleting so many of them – some after reading only a few pages – because of the lack of editing. I have done a bit of writing, though I’ve never had anything published. I’m a bit offbeat about my punctuation, wanting to write as I talk, showing emphasis by commas, semicolons, bold text, parenthetical phrases, quotes, dashes, etc. It is almost like sprinkling seasonings into a dish while I’m cooking. Each of us has our own style, rules or no rules.
But I have very little patience with those who don’t proofread. Misspellings, poor grammar, wrong use of words, etc. becomes so distracting and annoying that I just don’t want to continue. The delete button is a very handy tool on my Kindle, but I would really prefer to be able to finish the book before I use it.
Puns – BoredPanda.com – Migle Miliute and Gabija Saveiskyte
Hahahahahahah! I love puns. My dad was quite a punster. He was also sarcastic. He was so much fun. He taught me the importance of being able to stand back sometimes, try to see the humor in any given situation, and to be able to laugh at myself. I do that a LOT these days. :0)
He would say something and wait. He was waiting to see if I ‘got’ the pun or not. It took me awhile, and I still do better seeing one in writing than hearing one, but I truly admire the wit and humor involved.
His sarcasm was a bit more difficult to deal with. He would look at me and say, “pretty skirt.” That meant he thought my skirt was too short, too tight, too SOMETHING and that he thought I should change. I still have a bit of trouble accepting a compliment, even though I’m now older than dirt, because I’m unconsciously looking for the criticism behind it.
Indian Hills Signs – Vince, The Sign Guy
Sigh. Snort, Smirk, Groan, Smile, Laugh. I do them ALL when I see the Indian Hills Signs. I would really love to meet Vince. He would be a challenge to talk with. I would imagine he has a very busy mind.
Unknown – sorry about the spelling error.
Plagiarizing is theft, pure and simple. So is showing art work without attribution, implying it’s your own work. Both are odious. It shows so much about the plagiarizer or thief. I guess it’s done because of lack of confidence in a person’s own ability or worth. It’s the lazy way, the fast way, like people are now using AI to write things for them.
It’s much better to write drivel and have people scoff or create artwork that has people holding their nose than to act as if YOU are the person behind the ideas, words, or art.