Great Yiddish Word

I’m sitting at my computer. I just ate a candy bar that is parading as a granola bar.  (It’s covered with chocolate and has peanuts . . . not much different that a Snickers.)

It’s just a little nosh to quell my grumbling stomach until lunch time.

Nosh. What a great Yiddish word.  As a noun, it means a snack.  As a verb, it means to snack or eat between meals.

Mothers lean toward trying to make their children avoid any noshes.  Mothers want their children to be hungry at meal time so they will eat their vegetables. Go brocolli!  (Personally, I’d rather have a chocolate covered, peanut-filled granola bar . . . Wouldn’t you?)

Sometimes, workers need a mid-morning nosh to give them a quick boost of energy. (Eating a nosh at work fortifies you for the distasteful tasks you have to do.)

When you see a movie, eating a nosh is very appropriate.  It enhances your movie going experience.

If you are a frequent flyer, you know that you have to supply your own nosh.  Many airlines don’t give them to you.

Now that my children are grown, I don’t have to set a healthy eating example.  I can eat noshes any time of the day I want.  Yipee!

You Little Crapehanger, You

A new word recently crossed my path.  I love it when that happens.  It’s a good word.  Useful, too.

It’s crapehanger.

At first, the word made me think of someone who hangs crepe paper streamers around the room.  Maybe to celebrate a birthday.  Maybe for a Halloween party.  Or even for a New Year’s Eve celebration.  Alas, those thoughts were in error.  The definition has absolutely nothing to do with paper.

Crapehanger (pronounced with a long A sound) is a noun that means someone who is gloomy or is a pessimist.  Someone who sees the gloomy side of things

Do you know any crapehangers?

I do.

It seems that every time I am around this person, all she ever does is complain.  Complain, complain, complain.  All she ever focuses on are the things that go wrong in her life.  The more she focuses on the problems that come her way, the more problems she seems to have.  It’s the Law of Attraction working in a negative way: she thinks about bad things and voila!  Bad things happen to her.

Then, she’s always negative about EVERYTHING.  If she does get an opportunities to do something, all she can see is the down side of doing it.  She only sees all of the cons of the situation. She sees all the problems there are and all of the reasons why she shouldn’t do it.

For example.  If she won a trip to Disneyland, instead of being thrilled, she would moan about how hard it would be to get time off from work and then how expensive it would be to fly there.  She would complain about standing in long lines at the airport, about having to pay a hefty fee to check in luggage, about cramped leg room on the airplane, and that you’d only get a snack during the flight and not a meal.

If she thought about driving, she would complain about the high cost of gas, the looooooonnnnnnggg drive to California, and the boring scenery through the Nevada desert.  She would say that the hotel prices are out of this world.  And, if she bought any food or souvenirs inside the park, she would be upset because they would be outrageously overpriced.

So, because everything is so expensive, she wouldn’t accept the trip. She would stay home.  Then, she would complain about her boring life and how she never gets to do anything fun.  And she would expect you to pity her.

Indeed, I do pity her.

She’s sad and unhappy.

Dear Reader, I have a word of advice for you.  Don’t be a crapehanger.  Be an optimist — and live life to its fullest.