My father was deaf in his left ear, probably due to military artillery when he served in the army. He liked to call it his “Buy My! Give Me! Get Me! Ear” because he slept on the right side of my mother. My mother said my father’s real hearing problemwas that he was hard of listening. Helistened when it wasinteresting to him; otherwise he ignored the chatter. Do you know people like that? They just don’t listen, or they listen selectively. Worse these days is distracted listening. You know what I mean: People who are multi-tasking or texting and scrolling
Read more →Do women apologize too much? According to several articles includingone recently in The New York Timesby Sloane Crosley (June 23, 2015), women say “I’m sorry” more than they need to and far more than men do. Excuse me for asking (whoops!), but why is that?One studyreportsthat “men apologize less frequently than women because they have a higher threshold for what constitutes offensive behavior.” So men can be boorish where womenarepolite to the point of being overly apologetic. I agree that many of us apologize too often for reasons that don’t really matter. As in “I’m sorry to bother you.”
Read more →RecentlyI received three invitations to “pop-up” events. All were taking place within a few days afterthe invitation arrived inmy inbox. I explained to the senders that my schedule was booked and I wish I’d been given more notice. Two replied: “But these are pop-up events.” I don’t understand whypop-up events are so popular. There are countless pop-up restaurants, stores, parties and beauty bars being promoted from cities to resorts. The problem is you never seem to have enough notice to plan to attend them. Many of us have pretty full schedules. Popping into a pop-up isn’t always feasible. I’m a
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