Larriane Wills a.k.a. Larion Wills

One of my readers has responded to both blogs with stories andopinions. I asked permission to post them. He's agreed and promisedmore to come. Welcome Larry.

Just got back from your blogabout living with pets.  I enjoyed it and it reminded me of our lifewith a dog and a cat.  I've told you some about about our cats, butwhen we had Sugar the Spitz dog, it was just her and our tomcat,Prancer.  My wife is in the habit of bringing home an occasional burger& fries from the drive-thru at McDonalds and Sugar had an incurablehabit of begging for table scraps.  I discovered that Sugar lovedFrench fries.  I could never finish all my fries so I'd flip them toher and she'd snap them out of the air and then one day, (the devilmade me do it, honest) I flipped a pickle slice instead of a fry.  Shesnapped it out of the air and immediately tried to spit it out but itwas already in the back of her throat, so she had to go ahead andswallow it.  For the next several fries, she'd let them go by and sniffcarefully at them before she gingerly picked them up and eat them.  Iwas almost convulsed with laughter.  Thereafter, I'd insert a pickleslice at random.  I'll have to tell you some tales about her and mytomcat sometime.WhileI was there reading your blog, I went ahead and read the other oneappropriately  titled "Number One," which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Youwrite very well indeed for a little old lady.  LOL  I know what youmean about finding errors in spelling and continuity in publicationsof all kinds and size.  Our local rag, the Daily Times, has theirshare.  I enjoy calling and chiding them about the errors, usuallyspelling.  I once wrote a letter to the editor about an unfortunatewrong word in a want ad.  It was in the column under Trucks For Sale. In it, the owner of a pickup listed the things it was equipped with,you know, new tires, etc, along with a wench.  I looked up the exactdefinition of a wench and proceeded to write my letter with glee.  Init, I pointed out that if I was still single, I would be veryinterested in this unusual piece of equipment and then inserted thedictionary definition of a wench.  They didn't print it.   Occasionally there is an especially glaring error in a headline.  Theydon't use a proofreader anymore and depend on......you guessed it.....aspell checker.  You have to pay a proofreader wages so when the cuts inspending come along, the first one out the door is the proofreader.

I edit my stuff as I write byfrequently looking over what I've written and sometimes I decidesomething can be said a little more succinctly or whatever.  I alsofind my  continuity errors that way, and my spell check automaticallyhighlights spelling mistakes.  I play with changing the word untilspell check likes it or sometimes I have no idea how to spell the wordI want to use.  Then I have to indulge the spell checker and sometimeseven it doesn't have any suggestions, then I have to go to myMerriam-Webster program and play with it until I find the word.   Itmakes for part of being a slow typer.   The rest of the slow typing isthat my typing speed is only about 30 words or so per minute.  I'venoticed that in the things I read and find those errors in is that thewriter misspells a word once and the rest of the time he/she spelled itright etc.  The writer was too lazy or in too much of in a hurry toproofread their material.  If the same word is misspelled all the waythrough, then the writer either didn't use his/her spell check ordidn't have one.  I have also noticed that many writers have stoppeddouble-spacing after a period at the end of a sentence.  We live in afast paced world and people let a lot of things fall by the wayside intheir rush to get things done.  I grew up in a much slower era.  Backthen, the saying was, "in a little bit" or something like that, then itbecame " in a minute" and now it is "just a sec".  I get a chuckle whensomeone, a waitress or other, uses the latter "in a sec" and I tellthem that they had better hurry because their second is already gone,or I tell them that they had better take a minute because their secondis gone.  LOLLarry