Save the Penny--Again

 

Here we go again. Periodically we hear proposals to get rid of the penny. There was a major effort in 2014 and I wrote about it then. President Trump has now officially ordered the U.S. mint to stop producing the penny and I’ve decided to revisit the issue to remind us of the potential consequences.

 

The first thought that comes to my mind is still: “Where would that leave penny loafers?” I suppose they’d have to become dime loafers; a nickel wouldn’t fit in the slot. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I saw someone wearing penny loafers, with or without coins, so I don’t see this as a major impediment to discontinuing the penny.

 

The plans to jettison the penny generally propose rounding sales up or down to the nearest nickel (a so-called ‘rounding tax’ since so many prices end in 99 cents). Some economists are advocating that the government stop minting the nickel, too. If we also drop the nickel, we’ll need to round up or down to the nearest dime. It costs 14.5 cents to make a nickel; a penny costs 3.7 cents, which is twice what it costs to make a dime.

 

Canada discontinued minting its penny in 2012. Their penny is still accepted as legal tender up there, but I suspect that there aren’t a lot of Canadian pennies still in circulation. If you’re paying with cash, purchases are rounded to the nearest nickel. U.S. banks won’t accept the Canadian penny. Based on recent tariff discussions, I doubt the U.S. government will take any comfort in how successful Canada has been in getting rid of their penny.

 

Another use for the penny that came to my attention recently was using it to measure the tread on your tires. Insert a penny upside down between two of the treads. If any part of Lincoln’s head is covered, your tires are still good. If all of his head is visible, the tread is dangerously worn and you should replace your tires. You my want to keep a few pennies stashed away somewhere just for this purpose once they’ve disappeared from circulation.

 

Even once we stop minting the penny, the U.S. will continue to lose money minting its other coins. Maybe we should become a changeless society. There are some suggestions to that end floating around, as well as some that we should become cashless altogether and just use plastic or some type of chip mechanism. If that happens, you can be sure there will be plenty for me to write about.

 

If the potential financial costs to consumers aren’t enough disincentive for these proposals (pun intended), here are some emotional ones to consider if we remove ‘penny’ from our collective conscience.

 

Getting rid of the penny would be the death knell for the penny ante. Not to get too maudlin, but I still have the tin full of pennies that my late mother used when she played poker with her lady friends. My mother died in 1995 and the last member of her card group died in 2012 at age 103. Their penny tin lives on, as full as it was after their last game.

 

The title (and lyrics) of the Beatles’ song Penny Lane would have to be changed. Somehow Two-Bit Alley just doesn’t have the same ring to it. And if the nickel also gets discontinued, we won’t be able to press that into service to replace “Fifth.” Saks Nickel Avenue sounds sketchy anyway.

 

The expression: “I’m like a bad penny; I keep turning up” would lose its meaning. There would be no good pennies, and pennies in general would no longer keep turning up. I’m not sure how we’d replace this. “I’m like a discontinued penny; I keep rounding up” comes to mind (but quickly moves on).

 

Continuing with expressions consider: “For what it’s worth, that’s my two cents.” Turns out your two cents has actually been worth four cents, but what would it be worth now? Would you be “dropping a dime”?

 

How about your Penny Valentine? If you sent her roses on February 14, would she become your Dime A Dozen Valentine? Whatever you called her and whatever you sent her, what used to cost a pretty penny would now cost an arm and a leg.

 

It’s all just too sad to contemplate. Tissue, anyone?

 

 

Copyright 2025 Business Theatre Unlimited

 

February—The Month of Love

February's blog post is only one day late. Much better than I did with January! 

Ah, February! The month of great loves! With no disrespect to my husband of 34-plus years, I’ve been thinking about the loves of my earlier life. That in turn had me thinking about famous couples. What really started this was the recent death of President Jimmy Carter. He lived to 100 and had a 77-year marriage with his late wife Rosalynn. He first laid eyes on her when she was a newborn and three-year-old Jimmy peeked over her crib. His mother had helped to deliver her.

 

Carter was inspiring both because of his longevity and his marriage. Either one would be worth writing about. Without a long life, it would be difficult to celebrate a very long marriage. But some historical love affairs continue to be remembered because of their greatness, regardless of how long they endured. The earliest couple that comes to my mind is Antony and Cleopatra, made memorable in the 1963 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. The tumultuous Burton—Taylor affair that ensued (including being twice married to each other) is one of the great love matches of all time.

 

Several other acting couples had love affairs or marriages that we still remember decades later. The most famous is probably Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Both had other marriages and affairs, yet we always think of Bogie and Bacall when we think of great loves. The lyrics of Key Largo play a role in keeping those names paired in our memories.

We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall,
Starring in our own late, late show
Sailing away to Key Largo.

 

A more conventional love and marriage of actors worth celebrating is that of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. They were married for 50 years when Paul died in 2008.  Joanne was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease the year before Paul died. At last report, she was in hospice care.

 

We can’t very well talk about Butch Cassidy without mentioning the Sundance Kid. Newman’s costar in that movie also had a long marriage. He and his first wife Lola were together for 28 years. Regrettably, they divorced in 1985. He married again in 2009 and appears to still be with his second wife.

 

Some others in long marriages, unusual for actors, are Denzel and Pauletta Washington, who’ve been married for nearly 40 years. They met on the set of a TV movie in 1977 and started dating a year later. Denzel said Pauletta turned down his marriage proposal twice before accepting it. They married in the ‘80s.

 

Another long-term acting couple are Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. They met in 1981 on the set of a TV comedy and their paths crossed again in 1985 while filming a movie. By 1988 Hanks and Wilson were married, and they've been together ever since. That’s 36 years!

 

One long lasting love that can’t easily be categorized is that of Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham. They met in 1986 and have been together since then. Winfrey has talked about why they haven't married even after she accepted Stedman’s proposal. “I wanted to know he felt I was worthy of being his missus, but I didn't want the sacrifices, the compromises, the day-in-day-out commitment required to make a marriage work." For a relationship to last 38 years even without “a ring on it” clearly meant compromises and commitment, though perhaps not day-in-day-out.

 

Politics can also support great loves. Barack and Michelle Obama, President and First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017, met when they were both working at a law firm in Chicago. They married in 1992. The Obamas often speak about their marriage of 32 years, including how their relationship continues to flourish now outside of the White House.

 

The music entertainment field is not normally conducive to long relationships, what with touring and hangers-on. Country music's most iconic couple, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, have put the lie to that. They’ve been together for more than 28 years. They met for the first time in 1994, married in 1996, and have since had three children. Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood are another long-married country music couple, though not as long as Tim and Faith. Garth and Tricia have been together since 2005.

 

You can no doubt think of other couples that can celebrate great loves. They’re all around us. Perhaps you’re in one yourself. If so, congratulations! If not, it’s never too late to begin one and February is the perfect month to do it!

 

Copyright 2025 Business Theatre Unlimited

Banned Words and Phrases 2025

This is a very belated posting of my 2025 list. 

It’s time for the banned words and phrases for 2025. The popular list from Lake Superior State University is out. For the first time in years, there are no overlaps between our annual lists. So here comes mine.

 

Word Salad

Word Salad is one of my favorite entries this year. We hear it in the media all the time. A true word salad makes no sense to anyone, including the speaker. We take it to mean that he has spewed out a verbal potpourri. Maybe he thinks we won’t pay attention to something simple and direct, but we’re not likely to digest a word salad either. Best to just scrape it down the garbage disposal.

 

Bingo Card

Bingo Card is my other favorite entry. I may be the only one who has it on a 2025 banned list. My entry was inspired by its use by a lot of media personalities, especially during the election. The most common usage? When contenders perform beyond expectations, the speaker says, “I didn’t have THAT on my Bingo Card!” It also works when couples like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck announce they’re getting a divorce.

 

Pale Pastels

As in previous years, some entries have political connections. Pale Pastels is one of these.  This appears on my banned list because Ron DeSantis used it to insult Nikki Haley in the Republican primary. Haley was wearing a pale suit. Unless the intent is to insult, just say “tint.” That’s all a pale pastel really is.

 

Nasty

Staying in the political arena, I’m banning Trump’s favorite word for women who disagree with him. He should bring a thesaurus when he moves back into the Oval Office because he won’t be allowed to use “nasty” any longer. This ban will probably get me labeled nasty. I can live with that.

 

Some People Say

Another favorite Trump phrase that we’ll likely hear more of is “some people say” (or “people are saying”). This is how Trump makes outrageous claims. He simply tells us he’s quoting some unspecified other person. As with “nasty,” I’m banning this phrase. Some people will say that makes me doubly nasty.

 

Misinformation

 “Some people say” is a good lead in to the next entry: misinformation (or disinformation). It was submitted by my friend Wendy and it accurately describes a lot of what is presented as what people have said (usually without attribution). Broadcasting misinformation is a bad habit of politicians on both sides of the aisle.

 

Coconut Tree

This entry began with Kamala Harris (or more precisely, her mother). Kamala and her sister did not fall out of a coconut tree, but the graphic image had legs. It’s sprouting up all over. It was fun when it started, but enough already. I’m banning it unless it’s part of a botany course.

 

My last three entries are examples of popular aphorisms.

 

Hope Springs Eternal

I should probably consider Hope Springs Eternal to be a political entry. I found myself saying it a lot during the presidential election when nothing seemed certain about the outcomes. But I think the phrase during a lot of non-political situations, too. Maybe if I ban it this year, I can purge my brain of the notion of hope except when it relates to health, where hope always springs eternal.

 

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

This phrase makes me cringe. It reminds me of an event I attended decades ago for company executives. I’d had too much to drink and started describing my latest systems project to the CEO. I was developing the support systems for his “pet” venture. Most of us knew it was doomed, but I told him—you guessed it—it was an idea whose time had come. I’d forgotten about this until the phrase became the tag line in a commercial for The Farmer's Dog fresh dog food. It’s a long way from a Fortune 500 CEO’s “pet” venture to fresh dog food.

 

God Willing

This aphorism is the last banned phrase for 2025. God willing has so many reasons to be banned. The corollary of “God willing” is that God wasn’t willing. Let’s not lay the blame on God for everything that’s gone wrong. A substantial percentage of folks either call their guiding entity something other than “God” or don’t believe in a higher power at all. Then there’s my former roommate from Kentucky who used to say “God willing and the cricks don’t rise.” Cricks or no cricks, let’s ban “God willing” altogether.

 

This completes our 2025 banned words and phrases list. Keep in mind that it’s never too soon to start collecting ideas for 2026!

 

Copyright 2025 Business Theatre Unlimited

Christmas Trees Over the Years

 

A decade ago I wrote an essay about un-trimming my Christmas tree. Back then I had a live tree and themed party where my guests actually did trim the tree. There was a Teddy Bears’ Christmas trim, a Scented one, a Cozy Slippers trim and many more.  My chance to appreciate the ornaments was when I took the tree down each year. It was always a time to renew acquaintances with old friends—both ornamental and human.

 

I now have three artificial trees, so I don’t hear that telltale “Plink! Plink!” when the needles start dropping, letting me know it’s time to take them down. That sound used to herald an evening of cherished memories. I no longer have holiday parties, so I can put the trees up in early November and take them down in late February. That timetable makes a lot of sense when you consider it takes me two weeks to do all that trimming on my own and at least that long to take the trees down.

 

You may wonder how I went from one live tree with themed parties to three fake ones and a solitary job of decorating them each year. It’s the inevitable result of retiring and growing old. Once I stopped working, my circle of guests diminished significantly. In an effort to get my husband to slow down, I moved us to a condo-type community about two hours from his store in Providence. At the same time, we reached an age where we simply couldn’t handle the weight of a live tree. Sadly, I switched to an artificial one.

 

That explains half of the transition. But how did I wind up with three trees? That happened in two steps. The first artificial tree was seven feet tall. That seemed to be a good size, but it was dwarfed by the high ceilings in our new living room. The next year, I succumbed to the Balsam Hill commercials on Hallmark’s Rom Com channels. Their nine feet tall tree is perfect. The seven feet tall one was relocated to our enclosed porch.

 

By now you’re probably wondering: “What about that third tree?” And: “How do I decide what ornaments to put on which tree?” The answers to both questions are intertwined and they afford me the opportunity to explain my decorating themes.

 

The third tree goes in our family room. It belongs to our cats, with animals and items a cat would like to see. There are cat ballerinas, angels and fairies and even hobo cats. There are white mice, many in red felt outfits, a fluffy-tailed squirrel and some birds. More unexpected are the tiny knitted socks and mittens and the miniature funky sweaters. Our cats are very senior now, so we don’t worry about them trashing things. They like to curl up under the trees on the quilted skirts that cover the stands. If the ornaments get disturbed, it’s usually by accident.

 

What will you see on the large living room tree? That has a lot of hand made crafts, especially blown glass balls, as well as stained glass and pottery stars and hand-etched gourds. But its real claim to fame is all the funky animals. A diligent guest will find several zebras, ostriches, and a flamingo. There’s also lots of elephants, giraffes and a frog or two. I’m sure I’m forgetting some other exotic animals. Several are playing saxophones, by the way.

 

The tree on the enclosed porch is the stateliest. It’s decorated with white china and metallic ornaments, as well as clear glass and crystal ones. A Coalport china bell and lantern were gifts from my former significant other. He’s no longer with us, but his memory lives on in those two ornaments. I have nine silver snowflakes that my father gave me from the Metropolitan Museum, one for every year from 1976 thru 1984. They ended the Christmas after he died. When I touch those snowflakes, it’s as though I’m still touching a small piece of him, too.

 

As I put each ornament on one of the trees, I think of the person or place it came from. Those memories trigger others, often having nothing to do with Christmas. Not all are happy ones, but all are treasured. When I take the ornaments off the trees and carefully wrap each in tissue, I get to savor them a second time. I miss having my friends help trim the trees, but I’m grateful for all the time I now spend with my Christmas treasures and my many years of wonderful memories.

 

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited

 

On Being Bald

November blog delayed  

On Being Bald

At the same time that COVID first broke out, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I joined a trial with Yale Medical that included chemotherapy. I didn’t lose my hair and the cancer seemed under control (though not gone) for a few years. I’ve been having regular tests to watch the tumor. Several months ago we discovered the cancer had spread outside my lung. I received additional but different chemotherapy and this time I went bald.

 

It was not my first rodeo. I had breast cancer 34 years ago and I lost my hair then. My wedding photos (second marriage) show my dark hair was growing in like Sinead O’Connor’s. My hair has started growing back in again now, but this time it’s age-appropriate white. With several weeks of growth behind me, my look is more Yahya Sinwar than Sinead. I don’t plan to dye it and I’m still wearing snood hats, so it will be awhile before I know what reaction Yahya will get from friends and family.

 

I got a wig when I lost my hair to chemo in my forties. I hated wearing it and except when I was at work, I often wore scarves from my copious collection instead. I’m retired now and I usually just go around bald at home; I wear the hats when I go out. They’re quite stylish. I bought them from Headcovers.com in several colors with and without embellishments. I got a knit cap that I wear in bed at night to keep my head warm.

 

I learned that there are quite a few reasons why it’s good to be bald. You save a lot on shampoo, conditioner and other hair care products—dye, in my case. You also save time washing it and styling it. I used to brush mine 100 strokes every morning even when I kept it short. When I had longer hair, my mother was always nagging me to get it cut or wear it differently. There’s only one option when you’re bald. I also need just one towel when I shower and it takes no time to dry my head.

 

When I had long hair, my toes were forever getting tangled in stray hair that had collected on the bathroom rug. And sometimes in bed at night, it was difficult to tell where my head ended and the cat’s fur began. That’s never a problem when I’m bald.

 

I’m not sure how long I‘ll let my hair grow eventually. I have what is called a widow’s peak and even with that feature, longer hair was always dragging in my eyes. So I might keep it really short. I’ve seen magazine ads of white-haired older women with very short hair. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pull that off, but I might give it a try.

 

There’s room for an exotic tattoo. That’s probably something only younger folks would be interested in and it will be covered over when the hair grows back. People of all ages will be glad to be done with dandruff flakes. I always loved long, dangly earrings, but they didn’t hang right with my short neck. Once I lost my hair, this was not an issue. Baldness also helps you tell if your ears are off-center, but there’s nothing you can do about that.

 

If you’re stressed about going bald, consider some famous bald figures in history and entertainment.  We had Gandhi, Churchill, Yul Brynner and Kojak. More recently we have Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel. And Patrick Stewart, Stanley Tucci and James Carville. All the bald women who turn up on searches have shaved heads; I don’t think they should count. I earned my bald head with chemo; shaving it seems like cheating.

 

Being bald has been a different experience this round, but I won’t complain. I spend most of my time at home and we don’t have many visitors. I could probably wear my Little Orphan Annie wig and no one would notice, especially because it’s grayish, not red.  Once my hair grows back, I’m willing to loan out my headgear. If you’d like to add your name to a list of borrowers, let me know. Those on chemo will have priority.

 

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited

Pumpkin Season

 

Belated October post

 

Fall is here so it’s officially pumpkin season. Everywhere you turn there’s something in pumpkin flavor or scent. The New Yorker even ran a cartoon at the end of September that featured gasoline pumps with Regular, Super, Diesel and Pumpkin. I was already planning on having October’s column be on unexpected products that are pumpkin flavored or scented, so it made sense to start it off with gasoline. You can blame The New Yorker for this.

 

A household item that’s available in some unusual varieties that could add pumpkin is mattresses. They already come in charcoal-infused bamboo and there’s an Avocado brand. I’m not sure if that’s scented or just green. Ditto for the Purple brand that features eggplant mattress covers.  I don’t know what color or fragrance the Nectar, Mango and Apricot brands are (and yes, they all exist.) One thing is certain: a Pumpkin brand mattress would be orange.

 

In a household with two senior indoor cats, I’d welcome cat litter in pumpkin scent. I’m not sure my girls would agree, but I’d be willing to give it a try. Even with pee soaked in, I expect it would smell better than the name brands we’ve used. A lot of the time, my cats’ aim shoots over the edge of the litter pan and much of their pee lands on the newspaper spread outside the pan. I’m not sure if newsprint comes in a pumpkin-scented option, but I’ve been known to write letters to editors for causes I believe in. This could be one of them.

 

We generally use lemon-scented cleaning products in the litter room and the kitchen. It would be a welcome change to have pumpkin dish liquid, scouring pads and cleanser. I haven’t seen any of those in the grocery stores, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see pumpkin Fabuloso dish liquid at some point this month. Fabuloso comes in about eight fragrances already. How difficult would it be to add pumpkin?

 

Before any of my readers panic, I’m not recommending pumpkin scented or flavored personal care products. No pumpkin deodorant; no pumpkin toothpaste; no pumpkin shampoo. I’d probably regret this, but I’d welcome the addition of pumpkin flavor to the Zero Water electrolyte juice that we drink every morning. Right now there are three flavors that we like. Having a fourth could provide a welcome change of pace.

 

I’d take a chance on pumpkin flavored vitamins, starting with a multi whose RDAs of each vitamin in it would be competitive with the market leading multi vitamins. Plus I’d suggest adding separate vitamin A and betacarotene pills. I’d wait to see how much interest there is in those first letters before I’d invest in separate supplements of the rest of the alphabet.

 

A brand that has ads all over TV these days gave me another idea. Let’s see some pumpkin scented Skechers Slip-ins! If it’s too much trouble to do the entire shoe in pumpkin, then just give us pumpkin-scented Dr. Scholl's shoe inserts. Howie Mandel could be the spokesperson to announce the launch.

 

One of my final suggestions for pumpkin based products could be a risky one and that’s   vaccination shots. This certainly seems like a logical pairing. After all, flu shots are the most common vaccination and they’re usually given during pumpkin season. Also, pumpkin fragrance could make COVID shots more appealing, helping to prevent a seasonal pandemic. I wouldn’t recommend these for babies and toddlers, but they would be worth the R&D expense if they significantly increased the percentage of adults who get vaccinated during flu season.

 

Lastly—this is really an after thought—is a plea directed at a specific company. Those of you who are fans of Marshmallow Peeps should appreciate this. I’d like to see pumpkin flavored Peeps at this time of year. You’ll find lots of options for pumpkins on the packaging, but the Peeps inside are all classic vanilla marshmallow. Join me in lobbying Just Born Quality Confections, the manufacturer, in “birthing” them in pumpkin!

 

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited

 

Hairballs and Dingleberries

September Post (belated) 

A Canadian friend on Facebook blogs about her rescue cat. Recently a neighbor in her condominium complained about the cat’s hairballs and dingleberries. I’m not sure how the neighbor would even know about these, as the cat stays inside or on the balcony. The neighbor must be a nosy balcony peeper with a dangling microphone. Anyone who has ever had cat knows that a hairball gives plenty of notice as the cat hacks one up. But on a balcony, I would think the sound would be muffled by the wind.

 

I’ve often wondered why some people call them hairballs and others call them fur balls. This is what my brief research determined. Technically the term fur is used with mammals with thick body hair (and therefore cats) while it’s still attached.

 

Hairballs describe the fur that cats swallow and then hack up. If the fur is sparse, as with humans, we generally call it hair even while it’s still attached. If you’d like more detail on this distinction, visit: https://www.thesprucepets.com/cat-fur-vs-hair-554813. We call it hair once it’s fallen out onto our clothes or our furniture and we’re trying to brush it off.

 

Dingleberries were new to me. It turns out they collect around the exit hatch at the cat’s rear, especially on those with long hair. They require constant, fastidious grooming to prevent blockage. The balcony peeper might have observed that, especially if she uses binoculars. I imagine a persistent peeper would. They’d undoubtedly have a kit with all their peeping tools in it. And a notepad to keep track of their findings by date and time to report to the condo board.

 

The dingleberry name reminded me of one of those silly jokes from decades ago. “What do you call red crepe paper that hangs from the ceiling? A dingle dangle. What do you call green crepe paper that hangs from the ceiling? Crepe paper. Dingle dangles only come in red.” I warned you that it was silly.

 

Getting back to the dingleberries at a cat’s exit hatch—this could get gross. I’ve had nine cats in about forty years. None were long hair and all of the females were spayed. I never noticed any dingleberries. What I did notice was that when some of my girls got older, their lower bellies began to droop and they flopped when they walked. The hair at their back belly also got longer. I referred to it all as their fuzzy baggies.

 

I came up with that name from a commercial on the radio for Fazi Battaglia Verdicchio wine. A man was in a liquor store wanting to order it but couldn’t pronounce it. One of his attempts was Fuzzy Baggies. He finally settled on Fizzy What’s It, as I recall.

 

Stella Periwinkle, one of my current girls, now has fuzzy baggies. Kallie Jasmine is more petite and is still svelte. Once I had dingleberries on my radar, I decided to inspect Stella’s exit hatch. What I found shocked me. Dingleberries galore, some larger ones almost blocking that out ramp. I pulled one or two off for her, taking some fur along with it. She was not pleased so I stopped.

 

There must have been at least four to six of those buggers still there. I decided to make this a multi-day project with regular inspections once I had her completely de-dingleberried. Don’t even ask where that project stands.

 

Just to be safe, I also checked Kallie’s rear end. No dingleberries there; no surprise because her fur is not very long. However, she seems to be more prone to hacking up hairballs than Stella is. Her pre-hack meow is so pitiful that I usually have plenty of time to find her and catch the blob in a tissue as it comes up. I say usually because there are occasions that I don’t get there on time. Cleaning throw up on carpeting is not pleasant.

 

Neither is stepping on a dried up hairball days after it was deposited. I imagine that happens when I’m out on errands. Once those dry, they blend in with the Oriental rugs and it can be weeks before I happen upon them.

 

It took a friend’s Facebook post on hairballs and dingleberries to get me thinking about all of this. I hope my column has you searching your rugs and examining your pet’s exit ramps, too.

 

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited

X Appeal

 This is the August post;

The other day I noticed that a message was addressed to me as Mx. Decker. I assumed it was because the sender couldn’t decide whether I was a Miss or a Mrs. I thought that problem was solved with the use of Ms. Apparently it’s more complicated than that. With the increasing frequency of transgender and androgynous members in our society, it’s not just ones marital status that could be in question. It’s also ones sexual orientation. The use of the letter X has become a common way to circumvent all sorts of societal unknowns.

One of the more common uses that have been popular for ,a while now is LatinX. That’s the gender-neutral alternative to Latina or Latino. But I blame the explosion of the use of X today on Elon Musk for renaming Twitter X. It started with his SpaceX rockets. He even titled his artificial intelligence company xAI and created a special logo for it. Lord only knows what he’ll christen with X in the future.

To be fair, X has been around in many forms for a while now. The X Games, a semi-annual ESPN extreme sports competition, began in 1995 in Rhode Island as the Extreme Games. I don’t know when it was shortened to just X. The Xbox gaming console has been available in the U.S. since 2001.

I’m not sure what drives this X appeal, but it’s all around us. X has always symbolized something unknown and often mysterious. Simply thinking in terms of it having four points, we can group it with other similar symbols. The four-leaf clover is considered lucky, perhaps because it’s so rare (unlike X). When we find one, we usually preserve it in plastic and put it in our wallets.

Old fashioned Dutch-style windmills that were used to mill grain or pump water have four blades, though modern wind turbines usually have three. Railroad crossing signs are always an X. I still remember the scene in the movie Two For the Road with Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn. They’re hitchhiking and she gets a ride, leaving him behind. Farther up the road, she’s on foot again and has been hiding behind a railroad crossing sign; she’s so thin you can barely see her. When he gets within sight, she pops out, flapping her arms like the crossing sign. It was a great movie.

There are dozens of areas where X marks the spot. Take clothing sizes for instance. We have XL, 1X, 2X, 3X etc. in women’s. It gets even crazier for men, with XXL and XXXL. In mathematics, X is always the horizontal axis. In science, X-rays have countless uses, but Y-rays and Z-rays are virtually unheard of.

In popular culture, we had the X-Files science fiction TV series back in the nineties. Remember Scully and Mulder? There’s yet another remake of that in progress. We still have the X-Men team of mutant superheroes from Marvel Comics. Just the thought of Nightcrawler or Wolverine can send a frisson up ones spine! On the opposite end of the spectrum, in the Greek alphabet, X represents the letter chi. Many devoted Christians use chi to refer to Christ, especially when combined with the Greek rho to make the first letters of His name.

The uses for X keep proliferating. It’s prominent in company and brand names, like Xfinity, introduced in 2010, while that stalwart workhorse Xerox was founded 1906. Tesla has several models, but its Model X is the most popular. If you text a lot, you no doubt enjoy receiving XOXO kisses and hugs from your friends.

All this having been said, I still blame Elon Musk for the ubiquitousness of X in our lives today. Anywhere we go, there it is. With a name like Musk, you’d think he’d overwhelm us with sex appeal. But no, thanks to Elon and his rebranding of Twitter as X, we’re all drowning in X appeal.

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited

 

Gardens of Time

 This is a delayed posting of my July column;

April showers bring May Flowers;

Weddings in June bring Bouquet tunes.

But July is when Gardens fully bloom!

 

This year’s Met Gala, The Garden of Time, based on a short story, inspired today’s column. I’m celebrating gardens from mythology to imaginary ones to historical examples to those we can still visit today.  There are many categories of gardens. Often we think of those with myriads of colorful flowers, growing informally around our homes. Public gardens are likely to be formal, with hedges and paths and even topiary, usually found around museums and estates, both public and private.

 

Gardens are where life begins anew each year, where love can be secretly nourished and passions kindled. They can provide places to relax and meditate, places to recharge emotional batteries. We can enjoy them in solitude or with friends and family. You could have a bucket list with nothing but wonderful gardens still extant to visit.

 

Our retrospective begins with the Garden of Eden, the garden of God, from where both Adam and Eve were expelled after Eve gave Adam that apple. In Greek Mythology, The Garden of the Hesperides, aka Hera's Orchard, was the sacred garden of Hera from where the gods got their immortality. Heracles (the Roman Hercules), had to retrieve golden apples from the tree in the center of the garden as part of his twelve labors. Also in Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields are the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. Obviously, none of these gardens can be visited today.

 

Other historical gardens no longer bucket list options are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. They’ve been described as marvels of agricultural engineering, filled with flowers, fruit, exotic foliage, and impressive waterfalls. Similarly, literary gardens are wish-list only, the Garden of the Finzi Contini, for instance. And you can’t spend midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Do we even know where The Secret Garden is?

 

Another summer garden is the Elizabeth Park Rose Garden, in Hartford, CT a walkers' haven, with several gardens along its wildflower trail, a lovely pond and sports and concert facilities It’s best known for its magnificent rose gardens, with 800 varieties of roses.

 

Some gardens celebrated in paintings and literature can still be visited. Monet’s Gardens in Giverny should be on your list. Mercifully, The Garden of Earthly Delights depicted by Hieronymus Bosch was imaginary. You’d be certifiable to want to visit it. On the other hand, somewhere in England and well worth searching for must be that Host of Golden Daffodils that inspired Wordsworth when he wandered lonely as a cloud.

 

By now you should be looking for good examples for your bucket list. I’ll start with one that you’ll want to visit next spring; lt's past it's prime in summer. It's the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens in The Netherlands. Pique your interest by looking at some photos on line. They’re glorious.

 

There are two fabulous botanical gardens to include, one on each side of the pond. The first are the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew Gardens in Richmond (Southwest London). It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Centre. There are both formal and informal gardens to explore and various houses to visit, especially the Great Pagoda.

 

The second is the New York Botanical Garden, located in Bronx Park. It contains fifty different gardens and plant collections, and even a cascade waterfall. Throughout the year there are exhibitions, immersive botanical experiences, art and music. It’s well worth an extended visit.

 

For those wanting to add some formal gardens to their bucket lists, you can do no better than visiting the Gardens of the Palace of Versailles, a UNESCO World Heritage Centre outside Paris. The gardens of Versailles contain some 400 statues, making them the world’s largest open-air sculpture museum. Go for the palace, but allow plenty of time for the gardens.

 

For a similar experience, travel to Vienna to see the Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn, an impressive and well-preserved Baroque property. The gardens form an organic extension of the palace, so plan to visit the entire complex. It, too, is a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

 

A very different option would be the formal Gardens of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. It’s another UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The focus of the gardens is the white marble mausoleum, built by the emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife. Forewarned: depending on when you visit, it can be a challenge to fight the crowds.

 

We’ve barely scratched the surface of gardens worth seeing. The sooner you build your own bucket list, the sooner you can plan trips to visit them. Start looking for comfortable walking shoes now!

 

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited

Polyamory and Other Polys

This is a delayed posting of my June column.

Lately I’ve been seeing the term “polyamory” in the media quite often. I know that “poly” means many or several. And I know that “amor” means love in Latin and Spanish. So I assumed that polyamory is a strong affection for several people. Hardly anything to merit media coverage unless there’s more to the story. I decided to research the term.

 

It turns out that polyamorous people have romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, and all the partners involved agree to this. It’s also defined as consensual nonmonogamy. You might think I’d want to travel down that road in more detail for this column, but you’d be wrong. I did wonder how many people would be needed for a relationship to be polyamorous (vs. just a love triangle). But what really piqued my interest was other uses for the compounded “poly.”

 

The notion of polyamorous relationships did call to mind Pollyanna, whose irrepressible optimism finds good in everything. But I want to explore “poly” with a single “l”. An obvious word to include here is polygamy. It doesn’t seem as sexy as polyamory, and it’s more structured, usually with one husband having multiple wives. Technically one wife could have multiple husbands. Either way the practice of polygamy is now illegal in the U.S.

 

As a lover of language, I quickly thought of polyglot, someone who knows and uses several languages. To be considered more than bilingual or trilingual, a polyglot can usually communicate in at least four languages. This is different from someone who prides herself on speaking polysyllabically. Using a lot of multi-syllable words does not a polyglot make. It just makes someone a long-winded sesquipedalian.

 

The most commonly known poly word is probably polygon. This one-l poly word shouldn’t be confused with the two-l “Polly gone,” meaning your pet parrot has flown the coop. Sorry. I couldn’t resist some silliness. A polygon is a multi-sided geometric figure with a certain number of sides and angles. First the triangle (3 sides), then the quadrilateral (4), and then they morph into the “gon” series: pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon, and so on.

 

A word that sounds like it could be related to polygons is polymath. Its actual meaning has nothing to do with mathematics; it’s someone who knows a lot about many different subjects. Leonardo DaVinci is probably the most famous polymath; Thomas Jefferson is another celebrated one. Elon Musk’s name appears on some lists. Polymaths are usually great solvers of complex problems.

 

Mathematics does have special meaning for polytechnic universities. They specialize in providing hands-on, practical, and applied education in STEM fields. These are increasingly popular and important fields, specifically science, technology, engineering and math. Some schools that are not polytechnics incorporate art into the mix and use the acronym STEAM. Brown University and RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) have had STEAM collaborations.

 

Far less interesting are poly words that come from science, especially the many types of polymers. First of these is polyester, the easy-care fiber for all seasons. Then there are the PVC and PET bottles (polyvinylchloride and polyethylene terephthalate) that we’re encouraged to recycle. We coat our outdoor furniture with polyurethane. I see your eyes glazing over the way the furniture does, so I’ll move on from science.

 

I love the next two poly words because they have creative connections. Polyphonic instruments are capable of producing many sounds simultaneously, like my mother’s baby grand on which I took piano lessons in elementary school. Polyphonic choral pieces are written for many voices (but not mine). Polychromatic artworks use multiple colors vs. monochromatic ones. I majored in art in college and always liked polychromes.

 

One of my favorite “poly” words is polydactyl. We see this most often when describing cats that have extra toes. They’re always so adorable with the cutest little mitten paws! Not so common are polydactyl babies, those born with extra fingers. I don’t know anyone who has a baby with this condition but I’ve seen many polydactyl cats. I’m sure I’ve adopted one or two, though it’s not something I paid a lot of attention to. I think I’ll go count my cats’ toes right now.

 

Copyright 2024 Business Theatre Unlimited