You said it

The other day, I told someone who had shared a picture of their impossibly adorable little girl that, "if she ain't cute, grits ain't groceries," and I hope the mom and dad knew what that means. Not that many people eat grits any more, and when they look up the word grits, they find that someone takes dry corn, soaks it in lye to remove the husk (which results in a bowlful of hominy) and then once the hominy dries out, they grind it up so it looks like sand.

Now, you boil that down in some water, add salt and pepper and butter and cheese to the resultant porridge, and you've got something there, I want to tell you.

It tastes better than it sounds, I promise you!

It'll be better with some cheddar.

Bosses and parents used to come out with "put some elbow grease on it." That meant to bear down and work harder, especially in the physical sense. Literalist that I am, I was once told to apply more elbow grease to some task I was supposed to be doing, and I covered both elbows in lithium grease to see if that would make the yardwork go faster. It didn't, but it did slow me down in getting washed up for supper.

This one still confuses people, when I say, "I haven't talked to you since Hector was a pup." They say it goes back to the Trojan War (and many a fight has been fought over Trojans, I must say) and Hector, one of the participants who had been around for a dog's age. I guess. But I can't see Greek soldiers standing around talking about old dogs, what with a war going on. I tend to associate the name Héctor with Héctor López, the old Panamanian-born Yankee outfielder who became the first black manager in AAA minor league baseball. That Héctor was born in 1929, so he was a pup a long time ago. 

And there's always this: "You need to get all the food and the supplies and make the reservation for the picnic grove. Get all that together, and Bob's your uncle."

Bob was not my uncle. Barrett was my uncle. "Bob's your uncle" means you've got the hook up and everything will be taken care of because you know the right people.

I know all the right people, because only the right people read this blog. Thank you for being one of them!