Just Saying… – Keep On The Sunny Side

November 25, 2018November 25, 2018

EE AH KEY

Texting “EE-AH-KEY” back and forth for a few days now with my best friend instead of the usual “Hey! Got a minute?” type of message. Cracks me up every time. Where have we heard that before?

Well, EE-AH-KEY was used as a locating shout between Jeff and his pal Porky on the 1954 TV series “Lassie”.

January 6, 2017June 11, 2019

12 RULES TO LIVE BY Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.
Make the best of our circumstances. No one has everything and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t think that somehow you should be protected from misfortune that befalls other people.
You can’t please everybody. Don’t let criticism worry you.
Don’t let your neighbor set your standards. Be yourself.
Do the things you enjoy doing but stay out of debt.
Never borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than real ones.
Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish jealousy, enmity, grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
Have many interests. If you can’t travel, read about new places.
Don’t hold post-mortems. Don’t spend your time brooding over sorrows or mistakes. Don’t be one who never gets over things.
Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.
Keep busy at something. A busy person never has time to be unhappy.

December 31, 2014

Soigné

Soigné – Also soignée, an adjective, pronounced (swän-yā’)

It’s a French word, according to the dictionary, that means:

Showing sophisticated elegance; fashionable: a soigné little club.
Well-groomed; polished: The soigné celebrity granted a brief interview.

“Soigné dining”, a phrase my father often used while my brothers and I were growing up, to describe the meal and table set before him in the dining room. It was such a compliment to my mother on an exotic dinner she had made, fit for a king, cut glass dishes for the condiments, fine china and fancy serving bowls.

In 1994, after 50 years of marriage, my parents both passed away, three months apart from cancer, and it was while writing the eulogy for their memorial service that I realized I had no idea how to spell this word, soigné. And for almost 10 years, no one I asked had ever heard of this word.

The phrase “soigné dining”, passed down to my husband and I along with the cut glass and fancy serving bowls, would make me smile whenever either of us would say it, thinking my father must have made the word up.

Until 2004, I was watching a show I had taped on VHS and at the end, the last half of an old episode of Frazier was playing. Niles had gotten a good deal on some beluga caviar and the brothers were so excited. I was just about to hit the Stop button when I heard Frazier say, “Oh Niles, won’t this make our soiree soigné?”. I played it back several times. I couldn’t believe it! More determined than ever, knowing then that it was a real word, I searched the internet for the spelling and definition again and came up with nothing.

And then one day, I passed this woman coming into the building where I worked. She had overheard me tell this story about my father and the word, soigné, and she looked right at me and said, “Soigné, it’s a French word. Did you ever figure out how it is spelled?” No, I hadn’t, I told her. She wrote it on a post it note and handed it to me. The search and mystery had ended. Since then, I have heard the word used on Project Runway and in a song by The Pine Leaf Boys and on a few other occasions and it makes me smile every time.

February 20, 2013February 20, 2013