A Writer by Any Other Name . . .?

. . . would be someone else. But who knew that there were so many other writers who share my name?

Have you ever made fun of someone's last name, and then later said 'yes' when he asked you to marry him? Don't you just hate it when that happens? 

Well, I had that exact thing happen to me! Yes, I confess to everyone reading this (all 2 of you) that I made fun of Derek's name when I first met him. About a year later, he asked me out on a date.  I said 'no' the first few times he asked. 

I remember talking it over with my room mate. She helped me list the pros and cons of dating this guy. (Hi Kim, if you are reading this! Kim reads my stuff. I'm not sure who the other person is who reads what I write. I know it isn't Derek.) Anyway, one of the items on the 'cons' list was his last name. What if I agreed to go out with him, and we hit it off, and what if he would ask me to marry him? Yes, I was that shallow. In my defense, though, I was going to university to get my bachelor of education, not any other bachelor. I was planning to be a teacher, and I didn't think I could be a teacher with the name Mrs. Gross. 

Well, short story made long, I did eventually say 'yes' to both going out with him, and later, to marrying him. And I was a teacher with the name 'Mrs. Gross.' The students were very gracious to me (or maybe terrified of me) and never made fun of my name, at least, not while I was in the room. One mother, when introducing me to her 10 year old son before the first day of school said something like, "This is your new teacher, Mrs.Gross. That's a funny name isn't it? But we are not going to make fun of it, are we?"

The random part of this think so far is that I have just written the back story of my topic for today's rant. I tend not to stick too closely to my topics. Keeps people on their toes, so to speak.

What I was intending to write about today is an explanation of why I am now using my full name, Karen Lucille Gross. It is because, now that I am a published author, with dozens of people Googling my name and all, I need to distinguish myself from all of the other famous women named "Karen Gross." I am surprised at how many there are. I would not want to take the credit for their accomplishments and I am sure that the feeling is mutual. 

There is a Karen Gross who is a cabaret singer from Philadelphia. Her hit single is called "Sex and the Single Singer." That's not me.

Then there is Karen Gross the educational consultant and former president of Southern Vermont College. That isn't me either.

Karen E. Gross is an attorney at law who specializes in  24-hour jail releases and legal emergencies. That is so not me!

One bio of a Karen Gross that I wouldn't mind getting confused with is an Associate Professor of English at Lewis & Clark with a specialty in Medieval England and Italy. Apparently she is currently  working on a project involving illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts. That sounds like a better educated and ambitious Karen Gross than I am. Her profile picture is very pretty. But alas, that one is not me either.

Other Karen Gross's that are not me include a Conference Interpreter at the European Parliament, a State Farm Insurance agent in California, and a Century 21 real estate agent in Kentucky.

Half way down Google's page 2 is the Triond profile of a writer named Karen Gross. That is me! I wrote and posted more than 600 articles at Triond, but the site is not well maintained, and most of the links don't work anymore.

There are a couple of my blog entries listed, but no links at all about my one published book, a novel called "Sacrificed to Vanity." Even an Amazon search would confuse the average person looking for me, as there are two other authors listed there named Karen Gross! One wrote a book called "Failure and Forgiveness" which sounds a bit like something I would write, until you see that the subtitle is "Rebalancing the Bankruptcy System" (Yale  Contemporary Law series). Yeah, no. I didn't write that. The other is a Karen M. Gross who writes horror and vampire books. 

So, as is my wont, I have given you an 800 word essay to answer the question that no one is asking. But for the 2 of you who read my blog entries, you can find me on Google and Amazon or wherever  you buy books online if you search for Karen Lucille Gross.

Who knew my name was so popular?

I've Heard it Said . . .

I've heard it said . . .

(on the topic of extinction)

  ~"We have a responsibility to bring these species back."

I say . . . if evolution is true, and depends on genetic mutations to create new species that will thrive on current conditions, then our meddling with the gene pool to preserve specimens 

I've heard it said . . . 

 (as a comment when discussing a death)

   ~"What a shame that she died,  she was so beautiful!"

I say . . .What difference should it make if the one who died is beautiful or not? Isn't it a shame when ugly people die?

I've heard it said . . 

~ "A watched pot never boils!"

I say .... and have noticed  far too often ... A pot never boils until I finally notice that I have once again turned on the wrong element and turn on the right one.

Things that make Canadians go: 'eh'?

Like, Canadians count, eh?

July 24, 2015 - Ok, like I've been using Windows 7 for almost long enough to figure out how to add clip art, and now 'they' want me to start using Windows 10 next week. Hey, like, I can count, eh? What happened to Windows 8 and 9, eh?

Gravity -- A Poem by Me

Gravity.

Gravity is a law that you cannot break.

Gravity holds you in place.

Without Gravity, the Australians would fall off the planet. That would be bad. I like Australians. They have cool accents.

Gravity is a force that we can only break free of if we had a rocket launcher, and a rocket to launch.

 But not for Mennonites. If you tell a Mennonite that it is launch time, he will go get his launch kit to have launch. Unless you take him to MacDonald's for launch, and offer to pay.

The laws of Gravity are suspended while we sleep, so that we can explore the universe in our dreams. When we awake, the laws of Gravity are reinstated, But there is a buffer zone between asleep and awake during which the forces of Gravity are exponentially stronger than π times the length of your snooze alarm. But you can’t have π for breakfast. If I could, I would have cherry.

Gravity. It sucks. But that is a good thing. Good night. Pleasant dreams!

Who is the Father of my Baby?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions on Question and Answer websites. Why?

I have had an account at the online Q&A site Web Answers for a few years, and I find it disconcerting that so many women ask this question. I did a search on the site this morning, and found 54 pages of about 30 questions per page. They were all asking the question: “Who is the father of my child?”

That means that on just this one website more than 1600 women wrote in to ask strangers for help in calculating their ovulation cycles. Am I the only one who finds this line of questioning to be just a bit too much information?

I know that the anonymity of the internet makes users more comfortable to share personal information that they normally would not say to a roomful of strangers, but to disclose the days when they had sex with each of the contenders and correlate a chart of their most fertile days seems just a little icky to me.

Ovulation charts and icky personal information notwithstanding, how sad is it that thousands of children are being raised by mothers who are not sure who their fathers are? I know we can’t legislate morality. Perhaps we just need more education about the facts of life and where babies come from.

What's up with that?

You know those signs they have in public washrooms that say, "All employees must wash their hands before going back to the kitchen and making your pizza" (or something like that)? I noticed one recently that was posted over the mirror, and it had braille. I could just imagine a blind employee, about to go back to work after using the facilities, but then stopping to read a sign in braille. If she didn't wash her hands before she read the sign, she would get germs on the sign, and then when the next blind person came in she could get sick.That would be rough. All of the blind employees getting sick at the same time.

They have braille signs on the outside of the washroom doors in lots of places, too. Again with my imagination - I see a braille sign that says, "Ladies" and I start to think about a blind person, searching the walls, trying to find the sign for the Ladies room. It's like that Star Trek NG episode where they captured an injured Borg and put him in the brig on the Enterprise. He was searching along the wall, trying to find a plug-in to regenerate, poor guy. Can you imagine, being exhausted but not being able to get to sleep because you can't find a plug-in? I hate it when that happens.

I have nothing against blind people. I just thought the sign was funny. I don't really know any blind people, except the guy who did my tattoo, and he is just legally blind. True story. He can see a little bit, with a bright light. I hope he washed his hands after using the bathroom.

It Goes Without Saying . . . . . . So why are you telling me this?

Lately, I have been taking note of the signs and warnings all around. Things that really ought to be obvious to all. But – we live in a litigious society, and we need proof that we did warn you, so you can’t sue us, we hope.

The first example that comes to mind is the infamous “McDonald’s coffee is hot” incident. Can you believe that this product liability lawsuit is still the ‘poster child’ of frivolous lawsuits 21 years after the fact? It was 1994 when a jury in New Mexico awarded $2.86 million to the plaintiff Stella Liebeck who left the McDonald’s drive through with a cup of coffee stuffed between her legs and suffered third degree burns in her pelvic region because cars didn’t have cup holders back then. So now the cups have to carry the warning that the coffee is hot. Doesn’t that go without saying?

And I would think it would go without saying that sleeping pills may cause drowsiness and that you shouldn’t drive or operate anything dangerous after taking? But I have a prescription bottle of sleeping pills with that warning label emblazoned on a bright red label. I should hope that they make me sleepy. The label also carries the warning that alcohol might intensify this effect. So if you are taking sleeping pills and don’t want to go to sleep, avoid alcohol. On the other hand, if you are taking sleeping pill because you need to get some sleep . . . well, it goes without saying that . . . you know . . . a nice glass of merlot just might be better than counting sheep.

So there you go, knives may be sharp, glue might make things sticky, and that frozen microwave entree might just be hot when you take it out of the microwave oven. Please don’t sue me if you read this blog and think it sounds random. I thought it went without saying.