A Day in the Life of the Markses

Notice the title doesn't leave a dangling apostrophe? Most people butcher our last name in the plural and singular possessive forms. Marks. How many ways can that go wrong? I've seen them all, and even professional journalists can't get names that end in s right most of the time.

For the record, to pluralize a name ending in s, add es. No apostrophe. Our family is more than one person, so we are the Markses.

For the singular possessive form, as in the thing I own, add an apostrophe, then s. My business name is Rebekah Marks's Alterations. No lonely apostrophe cut off from the s it needs. Sounds the same as above, but it scratches my eyes when it's written wrong.

I know I shouldn't do this, but in church, I listen with one ear to the sermon while I make my weekly lists. If I don't do that, I can look like I'm paying attention, but I'm really just making all sorts of mental notes of what I have to do all week, or what the menu should be. It's more efficient to write those down when I'm thinking of them, and get them out of the mental rotation in my head so I can really listen to the sermon.

I'm having trouble getting scared over the corona virus. It just seems like the latest smoke screen from the media to cover somebody's tracks, or an insidious effort to promote panic. Panicked people will run off a cliff. I have lots of other thoughts on this that don't necessarily need to be said here. In short, I hate the mainstream media.

Today involved more eviction of junk. Kris and Kal took a load of shtuff (it would be so fitting to call it something else, but that's not ladylike) to Goodwill while I found all sorts of other things to go on the next trip. We call it house dieting. And we feel so much lighter when we can see floors, walls, corners, and clear surfaces. It also gives my eyes and brain a break.

Kara and Kal played basketball in the driveway. He's teaching her all he knows about basketball so she'll be ready to play in the fall. His current season is finishing out, and she's interested in playing.

I finally dragged out the ladder, a bucket of soapy water, and my Norwex mop to clean the backboard. It's been bugging me since we moved here. Now instead of a dirty and faded Huffy board, it's just faded. Kal and Kara got in the action. Mopping is fun when it's not actually in the house on the floors that need it.

Kara and I went for a bike ride around the neighborhood. She was more alert than I was about a car coming around the bend. She made us pull over and wait for the car to go past. I'm proud of her.

Another day of love, laughter, a few tears, and lots of hugs is closing. Oh, I forgot to add in dishes, laundry, groceries, changing sheets, rearranging furniture, eating leftovers (refrigerator medley as we call it), reading, and dreaming: dreaming that if we had a bucket of money left that we didn't need for a real necessity, we would have our house sided in dark blue with white trim.

That was more my dream than Kris's. He doesn't see a reason to fix something that's not broken. I think beige is fine when depressing is the look we're going for. Oh, well.

One thing at a time.