A new season of DWTS

A new season of Dancing with the Stars began on Monday. I am not going to do the low-down of who is who. I'll just give some general reflections this time around.

• The first man out was the right one. Jeffery Ross couldn't dance and he wasn't particularly funny, although in the end, his praise for his partner was surprisingly touching.
• Ted McGinley was this year's Steve Guttenberg. I wish "Ace" would have lasted a bit longer, but oh well.
• I don't get the whole Brooke Burke thing.
• Warren Sapp is graceful. Who'd have thunk it?
• I have a soft spot for Cloris Leachman. She was Phyllis on the Mary Tyler Moore show and the subsequent spin-off. Mike Allen used to sing the theme song from "Phyllis" to me in Mr. Tienvieri's history class in 1977. Anyway, I about peed my pants laughing last night as I watched her dancing and dishing out the tom foolery (which was a great bar in Mt. Pleasant in the late 70's and early 80's). She won't go all the way, but she'll make it entertaining.
• I'm cheering for Toni Braxton or Misty May-Treanor this time. You girls rock.
• The others are fun, but eh.

On a side note, did you know that "thunk" doesn't come up as wrong on a spell-check?? Have to add that one to my pet peeves list.

BUZZZZ OFF!!!

Earlier this year, I read an article about the hazards of a dying bee population. Well, I can tell the beekeepers of the world where all the bees have gone...they are residing in my attic. Um, that is, they were residing in my attic until I waged chemical warfare earlier this afternoon. I swear, there were several MILLION (well, ok, seriously, several hundred) swarming around the window, and at least a hundred more dead on the floor from the stifling heat of the attic. Apparently there is a nest under the eaves, and they are coming in through the vents. What makes it worse is the fact that I have two kids who have very nasty allergic reactions to bee stings--not life threatening thus far, but enough that we've made trips to the emergency room because the localized swelling is so bad. I understand the role bees playing in making my gardens look lovely and can tolerate bees in that environment. I refuse, however, to share my overall living space with them. Yuck.

I'm also starting to see spiders...big, hairy spiders. I whacked one that was crawling on the ceiling in my family room the other day. I was pretty sure that I had put it out of its misery, but all I managed to do was to knock it into the crevice in my couch. The vacuum cleaner eventually swallowed it. Yuck again.

Well, I suppose I could have the birds in the attic or the field mice in the family room or the groundhogs under deck as I've had in the past. Regardless, I'll going out to restock my creepy crawly removal arsenal.

Where are the grammar police when you need them?

I have reached my quota of listening to grammatical errors today. I will confess to not always being perfect in my sentence structure (and fat-fingering into typos periodically). My worst offense tends to be dangling prepositions. I know this is incorrect, but sometimes I get lazy.

I am, however, a stickler for matching tense. Past participles are the worst! I just heard an announcer in either the Tigers/Royals or the Reds/Padres game utter the phase "should have ran." It is "should have RUN". If one more college educated person in my work place (or household) says "should have went" instead of "should have gone," I think I am going to lose what is left of my sanity. I also overheard a colleague state that they "seen someone." AAARRRRGGGHHHH.

My latest nitpick is the phrase "I have got to." The word "got" is totally unnecessary, yet usage of this phrase has become so commonplace, it's easy to overlook the fact that it is off kilter.

OK, enough of my ranting. What are some of YOUR pet peeves?