the ark of mark

Every year at about this time some organization or another will release a list of “words of the year” or some such.  I always enjoy hearing these, but not enough to go look up any examples for you.  Those organizations get enough free publicity from their own news releases.  They don’t need my help.

In fact, I think what they do is pretty smart.  Get a tradition like that going and every year when news is slow between Christmas and New Year’s Day, suddenly CNN is putting your organization’s name on TV twelve times a day with your list of “words of the year.”

Maybe I should give this a shot myself.  I have cited on several occasions my bizarre desire to coin a phrase or introduce a saying into the popular culture.  I don’t expect to get rich doing this, but would derive immense and inexplicable satisfaction if I knew that, for example, I had been the first person to describe Martha Stewart as a “domestic diva.”  Just overhearing “my” phrase in strangers’ conversations would be sort of a kick (unless I suppose they were discussing how stupid they think it is).

I want to introduce a phrase that fifty years from now will make people say, “Where exactly did that come from, anyway?”  And whatever Google has become at that point will eventually lead them to some pitiful archived copy of my little blog.  Sadly, I have all but given up on conjuring such a word or phrase by myself.

So instead I’m going to camp onto a couple of gems from Shelby, our eight-year old daughter who pretty much reads, writes, and creates stories all the time.

Our first phrase this year has already taken its place as an almost daily staple in our household.  It’s just appropriate for so many things.  I should give some background.  Our household is a big fan of the Beverly Cleary books about Henry Huggins and Beezus and Ramona Quimby.  In one of the books Ramona’s teacher admonishes the children that when creating their art projects that they do not want to waste paste.  I think Ramona describes some of her classmates as “paste wasters.”  Shelby seized onto that concept and thus was born the phrase that we use anytime something happens that was not worth the time or effort:

“That was a waste of paste.”

A meeting at work that didn’t accomplish anything?  A waste of paste.

Find some leftovers in your fridge that you forgot to eat before they spoiled?  Well, that was a waste of paste.

Keep this phrase handy.  I’m telling you it can be applied often.  And somehow it takes the edge off the frustration of whatever unfortunate event just happened.

Our second phrase is really more of a folk saying.  And I think it’s brilliant.  In fact, I think as a phrase it may work on a level that I haven’t fully appreciated quite yet.  This saying deals with disappointment.  It’s also about managing expectations and being a realist.  It’s also about injecting a little perspective into any situation.  Let me give you the background before I spring this one on you.

Shelby is creative and artistic and not a big eater.  Thus, much of her time at the dinner table is spent doing things like telling stories or asking questions.  Or rearranging her food.  Or making art out of her food.

Recently she had a round piece of baloney lying on her plate.  To her it was a medium.  I looked over and she was using a butter knife to carve pictures into the baloney before she ate it.  The government has subsidized lesser performance art.  And then this happened:

“Shelby, are you carving pictures in your baloney?”

“Yes,” she said sadly, “but there’s only one color in a baloney rainbow.”

Wow.  Remember that the next time you’re watching a TV commercial.  Or listening to a political debate.

Or making your New Year’s resolutions.