11 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I went to the bookstore yesterday. I love bookstores. I love books. I love reading. This great book leaped off the shelf and into my waiting arms while I was at the bookstore. Lets get real. Several books leapt off the shelf into my waiting arms. Usually my husband tries to keep me well away from bookstores. There aren't too many times that I can exit a bookstore without having purchased at least one book.

Anyway, the book I'm writing about in this blog is called, "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers. I have to say, after paging through the book, that not all cliches are listed in this book. The ones that are listed, however, are wonderful. What would life be without cliches? "Not to beat around the bush, or hedge the bet, this is a must-read for every Tom, Dick, and Harry under the sun!" This is the quote from People magazine that graces the front of my new book. There are over 2000 entries so I now can find out the origins of almost every cliche that may cross my path. I'm going to keep it right next to my abridged dictionary and my thesaurus. But first it'll reign supreme in a place of honor.....the bathroom, until I've gone through every page.

I'm always on the lookout for good bathroom reading material. Not every book receives this honor. You won't find any mysteries, romance, or suspense in my "Throne Room". Bathroom reading needs to be something that one can read in short doses by the page and that will not keep you sitting any longer then necessary. Afterall, unless you live alone, there may be other people interested in reading a few pages of your bathroom reading besides yourself and the goal isn't to develop hemeroids. Ideal candidates for bathroom reading are such books as, "The Essencial Calvin and Hobbes", "The PreHistory of The Far Side", and "The Bathroom Trivia Book". "The Far Side Gallery" and "National Lampoon's Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted Cartoons" have finished their reign in my "The Throne Room" and will be moving to a Nebraska Throne Room this summer. I do not endorse or condone any of the humor in the book "National Lampoon's Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted Cartoons" but such reading sometimes becomes necessary when one is researching an indepth definition of "Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted". OK. I admit that the book was funny. The kind of funny where you find yourself laughing but you really feel bad and guilty that you find yourself laughing. I am now a more educated person having read such a "Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted" book.

So I'm starting on the A's in "The Dictionary of Cliches" and will share just a couple with you today in this blog. I'll try and share a few more in the coming blogs when I stumble across ones that are a must to be shared. So Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here which means that "You're going into a dismal, unpromising, no-win situation. The expression comes from Dante's Inferno(1300) where it appears as, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." "Here" was the Inferno, or Hell." Because I shall keep this book as my Ace in the Hole which means that it's "A good move, maneuver or argument kept in reserve for use at a strategic time. In stud poker it is an ace that is turned facedown on the table; only the player who holds it knows he has a secret source of unmatchable power." (Insert an evil laugh here.) Don't you just love cliches?