"her faded flannel gown"

In Garth Brooks's "The Thunder Rolls", a wife is waiting for her philandering husband to return home, late at night. She's anxiously waiting by the telephone, "praying it's the weather that's kept him out all night". I find it vexing that Brooks chose to put her in a "faded flannel gown". It makes it clear that this is a woman who doesn't dress up for her man, and who is angry that he is cheating on her. I don't see how the listener isn't meant to draw the conclusion that at minimum this relationship is stale and old, and possibly that her casual ways drove her husband into the arms of another woman, one who (presumably) is perfumed and dresses better. Or - dresses not at all, perhaps.

swirling eyes

Occasionally, I come across a description of someone's eyes swirling with emotions. I'm all for the occasional eye-roll, but unless you're one of Anne McCaffrey's dragons, your eyes won't swirl, no matter how much angst you have. K? Thxbye.

lack of context

The American Library association has a new poster about Ramona (the Beverly Cleary character). Several librarians have complained about the poster's lack of diversity - no people with disabilities, only one or two people of color.
Apparently, these librarians have an inaccurate memory of Cleary's books, and that is what annoys me. Why on earth were they expecting a wildly diverse group of characters on a Beverly Clearly poster? No one is forcing these librarians to buy the poster, if it isn't diverse enough for their libraries! But it's ridiculous to blame ALA for creating a poster with Cleary characters that reflects the books - would they have preferred ALA to change the races and physical abilities of Cleary's characters, just to fit some idea of diversity?
To phrase this another way: if the poster were of Ann Cameron's characters ("Julian and friends"), would anyone expect ALA to make some of Cameron's characters Caucasian or Asian?

homegoing

"Homegoing" was the trigger for this blog. Someone I know attended a "homegoing" this weekend, though here at Cranky DearReader, we call those "wakes", or even "funerals". Yes, I understand the religious meaning, and even have some appreciation for it, theologically speaking. But it's an irritating euphemism that needs to stop. While there is a religious meaning, there's also quite a bit of presumption there - should everyone be so sure that their dead loved one is going straight to God?

about this blog

I was going to write a cranky blog post on my regular blog, but then I realized that I have a lot of pent-up crankiness. So I decided to devote a whole blog to things that annoy me. I wouldn't be surprised if I post more often here than on any of the other blogs, sadly. I'm a curmudgeon, after all.