Sheryl, a professional copy editor, is helping me edit my book for no charge, and I'm pretty sure she is already secretly regretting it, because I seem to throw commas down on a page about every two seconds or every other breath. I was never good in English and didn't understand much of it—especially the comma part.
The same teacher I had in Fort Worth, who taught me to make the 'H' silent when pronouncing words like Houston and herb, which sound like Uston, and erb, when I pronounce them, also taught me about commas. Her comma rule went something like this: "Always put a comma down every time that there is a pause in your breath, when you are reading your sentence out loud." I did as I was told and held my breath and passed her English course. All I can say is thank goodness I am not a smoker! Can you imagine how many more commas I'd be using in my sentences!
Looking back now, I am wondering if she used a fake teaching certificate or something, to teach us kids poor English at South Hills Elementary School. She was from Russia. Unfortunately by now, it is too late to find out, because she was pretty old back then, probably about my age now, and I am pretty sure she must be dead by now or comma-tose in Uston, Texas in some nursing home.
Our lunch with Sheryl was a lot of fun and our meals were delicious! Tone didn't talk much, because Sheryl and I discussed my book and her suggested edits. During our meal Lisa walked in and sat down at the table next to us with her and Randy's two precious grand kids. "Hi Lisa!" I said. "Are those Trisha's and Rodney's kids?"
"Yes!" Lisa proudly said, wearing a big smile. "Trish was busy at Copies Plus, so I took them for a few hours."
"They sure are cute," I said, as T. and Sheryl agreed with me.
After our fun lunch at Randy's & Lisa's Save Inn restaurant with Sheryl, we went to Wolfmueller's Books so I could purchase another copy of my book to give to Matt, our great dog walking volunteer. Sandy and Mary Jo were holding down the fort and they were busy helping customers, so we didn't stay long.
Our next stop was at H.E.B. so we could buy our dogs their Christmas dinner. We bought six boxes of cornbread stuffing, four giant bags of shredded Colby Jack cheese, two (h)uge bottles of olive oil, five dozen eggs, three jars of minced garlic, nineteen pounds of ground turkey, ten pounds of mixed vegetables and one hundred and fifty flour tortillas for the daily quesadillas. It cost $131.30.
Y'all have a great evening!
4 comments:
"She was from Russia. Unfortunately by now, it is too late to find out, because she was pretty old back then, probably about my age now, and I am pretty sure she must be dead by now or comma-tose in Uston, Texas in some nursing home."
Nancy, you have the most stellar sense of humour, you are so clever and hilarious!!
Hi Fay! Thank you for your comment. Mrs. Reece was probably a Russian spy sent to dummy us down in Texas. Unfortunately, it worked and I am living proof of it!
That woman was so weird! She made me and the rest of my class, eat caviar and borscht, or however you spell it, soup. It made me upchuck on my desk, and she told me that if I didn't play with Jeanie, the six foot tall wannabe jerk in my class, that nobody liked, she would flunk me.
I played with Jeanie one day, after school, at her house, and she beat me up, and I went home crying and never went back to her house again! Jeanie was such a jerk and Ronnie really wanted to beat her up for me, but he didn't!
Mrs. R. was fired that same year, right after the Beatles made their debute on the Ed Sullivan Show. I guess she was sent back to Russia, because Kennedy was murdered in Dallas.
It's amazing what impact and lasting memories teachers can leave on ya!
I had one from Germany that utilized all 'extra' time spent indoors during recess and lunchtime when the weather was bad to make us all learn KNITTING! Yep, even the boys had to knit! She loved the music of the Nutcracker Suite and played that 33rpm record album (remember those? As the Riders in the Sky say "they were big enough to READ! and they didn't take 1 1/2 hours to open") for us religiously during all those times too!
As for today, I don't knit and I still wince when I hear the Dance of the SugarPlum Fairies!
Good morning, Mari! You sure can weave a funny tale! At least you learned a skill and you didn't get beat up! A negative thought just entered my head—what if Jeanie is one of my readers! Yikes!
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