Irony and other Cool Words

Irony

Back in March of 2009, we used the title "Irony" and my brain had some memory of it.  So, I hunted it up and you can feel free to take the link if you are curious.

Tammy and I have one smallish television in the house.  We do not have satellite tv, we can't get cable, internet is too slow and the bandwidth isn't there and we don't have a converter box.  In short, the tv is there to watch dvd's.  That's all there is to it.

So, what should appear in our mailbox yesterday?  A large envelope from the Nielsen Ratings.  Yes, they want our household to tell them what we watch on television.  We realize they use a random sampling technique, so we should be just as likely as anyone else to be asked our opinions.  But - if they only *knew*!

We were just going to toss the envelope, but for some reason I opened it.  What should fall out but two crisp one dollar bills.  Fresh from the printer (hmmmm).  They also included a SASE.  So....why not?  How do we answer the "What are your three favorite TV shows?" question?  Or the one about our normal TV watching time?   What we probably should have done was select some of the long since terminated shows we have watched in the past, or bother to see on DVD.  Maybe I should have said "Sesame Street."  You can't go wrong with that show.

Fortuitous

We haven't, according to my memory, focused on this word before - so you'll just have to deal without a link to another post!  And, if you are on limited internet time, that would be fortuitous for you.

For each of the past three seasons we have worked hard to figure out our field plans and our seed orders.  But, for some reason, we always seem to be ordering our seed in February - March.  This can be a bit late if you want to order the bulk amounts of certain seeds that our farm requires.  As a result, we find ourselves looking for substitutes in a few cases.  Not the end of the world, but a bit of a pain.

So, this year, we are looking to get our seed orders in earlier.  We received our Johnny's catalog at the end of last week and Rob has already gone through the whole thing from front to back.  Evidently in the mood for this sort of thing.  Now that we have an idea of what interests us in the Johnny's catalog, we need some of the others to arrive in our mailbox.

What should arrive today? The Seed Savers catalog.  Now, if we can get another one on Wednesday and the next on Friday, we'll be in great shape!  In fact, that would be fortuitous.  (note: Tuesday's mail brought us the Fedco catalog!)

Perspicacity

Now, here's a word I've always liked.  But, I can't always get my voice to say it without messing it up.  So, I'll type it instead!

Every so often, it seems like one or both of us pick up on things much quicker than normal.  In other words, we exhibit a higher perspicacity at those times.  Last week was not likely one of those weeks for me.  So, if I came across as a bit thick....sorry.  I got better (I hope).  At least I'm trying to refine my vocabulary....whatever that is.

Ostentatious

The word is, in itself, what it is.  So was that sentence.  But, other than enjoying writing big words in blogs, it is something neither Tammy nor myself wish to be.  But, because we run this farm business, we have to call attention to ourselves to make sales and promote what we do.  And we are finding there is a fine line between honorable self-promotion and being ostentatious.

Case in point #1 - we set up a trifold display with pictures and information about our CSA and our farm at the Harvest Market on Saturday.  We both agreed that it was probably a good thing to do, but part of me wondered if it would not go over well with the other vendors who were there.  There is always a fine line to walk between attracting customers and belittling others who are also trying to attract customers.  And, if we go too far over the top with our own self-promotion, we wonder if they might conclude that we *are* ostentatious.

Case in point #2 - Facebook.   If that web application doesn't invite one to try to call attention to oneself, I don't know what does.   For those who only have a personal page and no business page, they might not be aware of the 'metrics' Facebook tries to use to indicate your 'success' at reaching people.  We continue to do our best to use Facebook as a communications tool, but we're not always sure it is the right tool.  On the other hand, so many people we are trying to reach seem to be using it right now, it is hard to ignore.  So, forgive us as we attempt to integrate Facebook into our farm communications system.

We hope you had the perspicacity to enjoy this attempt at irony with respect to the ostentatious premise of this blog post.  We trust that its timing is fortuitous in that it will allow you to read it and....

Post your favorite big words as comments to this post!  Challenge us to try to use each word in a future (January) post.