An open letter to daughter Karen

The following blog entry will be yet another blow to my image as a professional (cough!) business owner, wife, mom and quilting "arteeest"....

Karen, her BFF TiJae and my adopted "son" Patrick (thereby her adopted "brother") are extremely casual about burping. At times, they take pride in emitting a particularly rich, deep, rumbling explosion.... and to be honest, Mr. B. does it too. Not sure why, but I just can't. I think it was my Southern upbringing.... A proper young lady would never do such a thing.

If I feel a burp coming and Karen is around, and my inner child is feeling competitive, I let fly with abandon. I get this little sound more like a staccato gasp, and looks of pity from Karen. Then I get "Good try, Mom!"

Her dad lets one rip and HE gets "Nice one, Dad! That one had BASS!" I usually follow that with my own comment...

"SEXY!"

(not)

Anyway, I just sent the following note to Karen at her work email....

My dear Karen,

I just thought you'd like to know that taking an Airborne Tablet (because I hear through the grapevine that an acquaintance is under the weather and, you know, I hugged on this person yesterday....) with the tablet only BARELY DISSOLVED in the water, and in fact, still a tad crunchy, with the added challenge of swallowing 9 vitamin and mineral supplements with the Airborne Tablet, speeded along by the phone ringing (business line) and the need to swallow before reciting my many-digit corporate tax ID number to the Surgery Center's official tax dude.....

(Fitting in this staying healthy stuff is a challenge.)

All of the above will result in you being able to exit my office, round the corner to the kitchen for a cup of tea, leap over the Wuss dog who picks that moment to rise, barely land on your feet in an upright position, and thereby expel a deviant bilabial fricative which registers on the earthquake sensors out in the desert.

(It qualified as a DEVIANT bilabial fricative in that it does not meet with #3 definition)
1. Its manner of articulation is fricative which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation causing turbulence. (Turbulence, Karen, are you impressed???!!)
2. Its place of articulation is bilabial which means it is articulated with both lips. (I think my cheeks may have also been involved.)
3. Its phonation type is voiceless which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. (Sorry - this was a DEEPLY RESONANT utterance.)
4. It is an oral consonant which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
5. It is a central consonant which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue rather than the sides.
6. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

All of Corona sat up and took notice as it blew through to the east. Max the Wuss barked ferociously.

You would have been proud!  I think George Carlin high-fived me from the grave, even though he (God rest his soul) incorrectly used the phrase bilabial fricative to refer to the sound of blowing a raspberry which is correctly called a linguolabial trill (except as performed by chimpanzees).

Carry on...

Love,
Mom...

:)