Old So What

  Unbelievably noisy.   It didn’t used to be, and it’s not just all the dogs barking, who suddenly showed up in direct response to the growth of crime in the township. No, it’s the trucks. We are Truck Central. Garbage, recyclable, lawn care, mowing services, pesticide, fuel, flower and gift delivery, elder transportation, huge construction trucks, paving trucks, cement mixing trucks, tree cutting trucks and a school bus (not technically a truck it’s true) which I reported and was illegally parked in front of my house for a month. You can see that we are inundated. It’s impossible to concentrate sometimes the decibel level is so high! My cat appeared bleary-eyed the other day from a nap in my blankets, which she was unsuccessfully attempting. What’s the problem, her black and furious eyes seemed to ask. I counted and there were at least seven incidents involving trucks just on that day alone. It’s probably certain that most of the same trucks were involved bu...

  Having actually attended a French school for a few years, I can say with authority that this word:  “Voila,” is pronounced with a V in the beginning of the word.  That’s a V.  Voila, not a W.   Why everyone seems to go for the W is beyond me! Just one of those quirky, contagious mistakes, I guess.   So, it’s Voila! It means: “There it is” or “There you are.” As when you do a magic trick and it’s successful: you could say, Voila! (I did it, it’s done! Here it is!)   (For pronunciation of Voila, you know where to go:   your phone, of course.)