Halloween Spontaneity, Party Crashers, Ghostly Travelogue and The Raven - a ghoulish morning at EarlyBirds!

 

Dear Members, Guests and Friends,

 

To mark the start of a FUN Halloween meeting, tuxedoed and top-hatted Amazing TM Aleta launched us with very a propos topics.   We discovered that….

 

• TM Marie’s black cats – Puma, Suma and Sammy Miami – are very friendly and bring her good luck, although their noses and their warts protrude at night and they sleep freakingly close to the broom closet….  Just sayin….
• TM Jose plans to take flowers and clean the tomb of departed loved ones and then join millions of Madrid residents in a tumultuously horrendous traffic caravan straight to the nearest beach.  It beats picnicking in a Mexican graveyard!  He Won Best Table Topics Award.
• TM BeckyJo positively thinks stealing candy from a trick-or-treater bag is the crime of all crimes.  BeckyJo’s own mother stole candy from her bag when she was 8 years old and BeckyJo is still in therapy to this day.
• TM Chris highly doubts she will meet a vampire or a werewolf because she, Chris, turns into a pumpkin at 7 pm and dreams about the headless horse in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
• TM Jeff is declining the offer of a high salary paid by now-hiring Ghostbusters, Inc. because he’s got too much going on right now getting married and whatnot.
• TM Paolo dearly misses his young daughters’ mischievous trick-or-treating in their outgrown Halloween costumes and will be a candy-hoarding Gondoliere trick-or-treater on All Hallows’ Eve.

 

We then proceeded to prepared speeches….

 

• TM Lois donned a feather mask and, party girl extraordinaire, told us of her memorable costume party where her younger brother exercised his lifelong role as party crasher.
• I, Ana, also donned the same feather mask (Party City special) and took the group on an otherworldy magic carpet ride of weird, weirder and weirdest superstitions.
• TM Jim G. looked the part in a maddeningly horrendous 18^th century night cap and delivered his extraordinary rendition of The Raven.   He Won Best Speaker Award.

 

As far as evaluations….

 

• TM Paolo loved TM Lois’s speech and is definitely counting on being invited to her next party.  Otherwise he’ll crash it.
• DTM Kip liked my speech, word usage and my quick recovery from note-fumbling.  He seriously encourages me to buy a White House-style teleprompter (currently a Best Buy special).
• TM Marie praised TM Jim G.’s delivery of the heart-wrenching story from love to madness, avoiding Raven singsong and making good use of a hoodie.  She Won Best Evaluator Award.

 

The Word of the Day was

 

HORRENDOUS, adj.

Shockingly dreadful

 

Ex.: Horrendous is a catchy word – everyone used it multiple times during the meeting today.

 

Thank you, Kip, for taking on multiple roles – General Evaluator, Evaluator, Timer.  You are truly an inspiration to our group.

 

Here’s the link for the recording:

 

link https://youtu.be/wYrbSnrLDCI

 

See you next week!

 

Ana

Recap Writer

Miscellaneous Quotes, Cigar Smoking, On The Road and Pathways, not the Doldrums - an entertaining morning in EarlyBirds

Dear Members, Friends and Guests:

 

TM Pam started us off with great quotes that inspired us….

 

• TM Lois dreamily conjured up devoted visions of Gregory Peck, whose memory opens doors in her faithful heart.
• TM Tom revealed that improving with age is not gender-specific and his own mother was the best example.   He Won Best Table Topics Award.
• TM Aleta’s all-time favorite is Lucille Ball, whose formula for old age was honesty – except about her own age.  TM Aleta diverges from this theory by revealing her true age.
• TM Paolo agrees that it takes courage to grow up to become who you really are – recently demonstrated by his family’s major decision to partially relocate across the pond.
• TM Marie feels pure unmitigated terror that her crazy high school classmates are now running the country.  She rests her case.
• TM Carmine agrees that old age and treachery beats youth and exuberance while he’s challenged to correct his weekly calendar to the right day.
• TM Jim G. fully concurs with Einstein’s theory that human stupidity is infinite and thinks Al should have better managed his uncoiffed hair, but then, it’s all relative.
• DTM Mary Helen thinks the bastion of education is New Hampshire, closely followed by Massachusetts.  At least they know where New Mexico is!

 

Along came our prepared speeches…

 

• I, Ana, reminisced descriptively about the cigar cabal.  From the onset, the industry was an Equal Opportunity Employer (see attached pictures of he/she cigar rollers).  It was just not COED.
• TM Chris shared tales from the road as RV Debris, never Trailer Trash.  The audience clamored for a Part II, Part III and Part IV.   She Won Best Speaker Award.
• DTM Kip pushed Pathways with a detailed presentation that reminds us, again, that we don’t need to consider it the doldrums, just choose one of 11 paths and move on.

 

Lastly, the evaluations…

 

• DTM Kip enjoyed my speech and suggested I strategically position my notes so my eyeballs don’t bounce up and down – it’s quite distracting.  He Won Best Evaluator Award.
• TM Tom called TM Chris’s speech whimsical, delightful, entertaining and wants to know more about how they enjoy the outdoors while making scrambled eggs in a moving vehicle.
• TM Carmine congratulated DTM Kip for his comprehensive presentation and pondered how he makes it sound so easy.  He encouraged DTM Kip to engage in thunderous speech finales.

 

The Word of the Day was

 

CABAL, noun

 

A group secretly united in a plot.

 

Example:  Our children form a most potent cabal against the parentals.

 

Welcome back, Gondoliere Paolo, we look forward to you representing our Club at the next contest level!!

 

Recording Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kuYm64nxa4

 

See you next week for our Halloween-themed meeting!

 

Irreverently submitted,

 

Ana I.

Recap Writer

 

 

Humor, Humor and Zoomeranging - an indigenous morning at EarlyBirds

Dear Members, Guests and Friends,

 

I, Ana I., started the morning with comedian quotes:

 

• TM Lois is impatiently trying to slow down, a surefire way to achieve fast-acting relief – much like Dalka Peltzer.
• TM Carmine concluded in no uncertain terms that Elvis Pelvis will not be remembered in 100 years – while several in the meeting reported Pelvis sightings as Carmine spoke.
• TM Jeff had a near-meltdown while pondering on the incongruity of the misnomer rush hour.
• TM Chris reflected on her Book of Morning Meditation, The Jokes of Tao, and officially agreed not to pet sweaty stuff anymore.
• TM Marie admired the inherent quality of siblinghood’s life mission – to push buttons and annoy for a lifetime.  She Won Best Table Topics Award.
• TM Jose is grateful not to live in northern neighborhoods where 22 hours of darkness are spent drinking and eating salmon.  He much prefers eating tapas and drinking vino in 10 hours of light a day!
• DTM Kip compared North Carolinians, where he’s currently vacationing, to truck-driving rats.  He unequivocally stated they are indigenous to the area.

 

And then we heard prepared speeches…

 

• In a move that was clear as mud, TM Aleta divided her speech into 2 parts and went rogue on the first segment.  In the second segment, she avoided giving a sermonette, although she did quote humorous scripture which raised the endorphin levels of the crowd.
• TM Jim described the initially somewhat bumpy road from Denise’s to Zoomland and takes full credit for how we Early Birds have Zoomeranged.  He Won Best Speaker Award.

 

Lastly came the evaluations…

 

• TM Tom praised TM Aleta’s vitality, enthusiasm, engaging talents,  great sense of humor and was recently spotted signing up for Aleta’s  Unconditional Fan Club.
• DTM Kip enjoyed TM Jim’s tale, “The Saga of EarlyBird’s Person-to-Zoom Transition” and has formally applied for the movie rights.  He Won Best Evaluator Award.

 

The Word of the Day was

 

INDIGENOUS, adj.

 

• Living or occurring natively in a particular region or environment.
• Relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place, and especially of a place colonized by the now dominant group.
• Opposing Cristoforo Colombo, Cristobal Colon, Christopher Columbus – who sailed west to go east,  didn’t know where he had landed, but somehow managed to get financed -twice- by a woman, known familiarly as Isa.
•  

• YouTube Recording link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXBFzHxfzxk

 

See you next week!

 

Ana I.

Recap Writer

Idioms, Marrakesh Express, Chicago World Fair and Virtual Hurdles, a blockbuster EarlyBird meeting!

Dear Members, Guests and Friends,

 

TM Tom exacerbated the duplicitous confusion of some of us ESLrs (English-as-a-Second-Language) with some unusual idioms. 

 

For example…

 

• TM Lois is convinced that the right stuff consists of being a motivational speaker.  Period. Fullstop.
• TM Paolo was able to duplicitously ramble on about going for the brass ring because he only actually heard the ring, not the brass.
• DTM Kip made hay by burning money annually while working for the government as their motto is ‘use it or lose it’ (mostly abuse it).
• I, Ana, complained that modern parents make children picky eaters who eat neither fish nor fowl, only chicken fingers and greasy pizzas.
• TM Jim G. stays away from flat-footed projects and is as quick as a marsupial.  He Won Best Table Topics Award.

 

We had fabulous prepared speeches…

 

• TM Jose took us on a visual tour of Marrakesh, its tastes, smells, sounds.  “Take Me To The Kasbah”, courtesy of cheap Ryan Air, where you practically fly standing and pray while facing Mecca that the plane doesn’t land on top of the Minaret!
• TM Pam revealed to us, the unsuspecting audience, that our beloved Ferris Wheels were invented in the Chicago 1893 World’s Fair (held in the Midway section of town which is now merely an airport), along with the Pledge of Allegiance (now slightly adulterated) and the explorer formerly known as Christopher Columbus (now wokely commemorated as Native American Day).   Duplicitous, duplicitous, duplicitous is the present!
• Guest TM Julie took us over the hoops and hurdles of virtual technology in a speech chock-full of non-duplicitous tips and tricks. The key to success is audio, audio, audio… and wearing a sweaty headband.   She Won Best Speaker Award.

 

As far as evaluations….

 

• DTM Kip praised Jose’s charming eye contact, ease and comfort of speech delivery and suggested to superimpose zoom on the PowerPoint to avoid duplicitous power struggles.
• TM Chris reviews old speeches from TM Pam for hidden revelations and wants to know all about the serial killer who stalked the crowds at the 1893 Chicago World Fair (Mayor Daley’s great-great-grandpa?)
• TM Marie commended TM Julie on her speech and was extremely relieved – like the rest of us- to learn that the unplanned howling background noise did not refer to TM Julie’s husband.  She Won Best Evaluator Award.

 

The Word of the Day was

 

DUPLICITOUS, noun

Given to – or marked by – deceptiveness in behavior or speech

 

Example:  Being duplicitous is synonymous with being a politician – it’s clearly stated in the job description.

 

Recording link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBGMwQ2L-fc

 

See you next week!

 

Ana

Recap Writer