Room on "The View"

Mr. Bill Geddie

Ms. Barbara Walters

ABC-TV 

c/o The View

320W. 66th Street

New York, NY 10023

Dear Bill and Barbara:

May I call you Bill and Barbara?  I feel as though I know you personally as I am such a fan of the The View.

I must admit that I am a little conflicted about all the changes coming to what I once referred to as "my absolute favorite daytime television program" in this very blog.  I love the ladies of The View just the way they are, and I'm nervous watching the parade of guest hosts who are clearly auditioning.

I watch daily, so your ultimate choice does affect me.  Respectfully, may I make a suggestion?  Honestly, I would like to see someone like me on The View, at least as a guest host.  You know, an everyday citizen with the qualities you are seeking who is initially unknown to your viewers,  so that they will be unaffected by any preconceived notions related to her celebrity.

Why not try someone like me out as a guest co-host, especially in your self-proclaimed Year of the Viewer? As a matter of fact, why not try me?

Here are the Top Ten Reasons to Have Rip as a Guest Host on The View:

1).  I watch the show every single day, so I'm familiar with your routine.

2).  I keep up on the news and pop culture of the day. I peruse the local paper online and watch a LOT of television, including the local morning news and Hot Topics on The View.  Oh, and I found out that Osama Bin Laden was killed on Facebook, although I didn't believe it until verifying it with a reputable news source.

3). I am a member of a large Italian family, and I have THREE sisters, and so I am used to holding my own in a conversation when everyone is talking at once.

4).  I have strong, serious and well informed opinions on the issues, and pretty much everything else, but no matter what I say people think it's funny.

5). I respect the opinions of others, even when they're wrong or disagree with me, which of course is the same thing.

6). I've been told that I'm a pretty good storyteller, or maybe they just said I talk a lot, but either way it works for the show.

7).  I was a freelance journalist for several Pittsburgh area newspapers for a few years, so I have interviewing and reporting skills.

8).  I've done some acting in community theater and a whole lot of public speaking so I should be  comfortable speaking with a live audience present.

9).  I jump at any chance for a quick trip to New York City,  and being a Guest Host on The View seems like as good an excuse as any.

10). I write this weekly humor column called "Rip Aches All Over" in the form of a blog that you are reading right now.  An appearance on The View would be an amazing chance to promote the column, which may help me later as I try to syndicate it.

Surely, you can see what a win-win situation this could be for all of us.  So what do you say?  Can this faithful viewer be a Guest Host on The View in the Year of the Viewer?

Let's talk.  Have your people call my people...wait, I don't have any people, so just call (or e-mail) me.

Here's hoping that I can take a little of your time to enjoy The View.

Love,

Sharon "Rip" Ciraulo Wolf

Where Was I When That Happened?

Did you hear that the fountain at Point Park in Pittsburgh opened back up?  Everyone is so excited about it, and there was all this hoopla and a big grand reopening celebration.  I would be more excited about it myself if I had ever been aware that the fountain had been shut down in the first place.

Where was I when that happened?  

See, I should have known about something like that.  I love that fountain.  Of course, I haven't actually been in Point Park in years, but I love the idea of Point Park and very much enjoy looking at it from afar.

I do remember the extended period of time when they shut down Point Park entirely for renovations, because they relocated all of the Three Rivers Arts Festival (one of the very few outdoor events I attend on a regular basis) to the heart of downtown Pittsburgh.  The concert acts were on that triangular strip of grass across from Fifth Avenue Place.  Familiar with Pittsburgh and still can't imagine it?  Well, it wasn't ideal and it wasn't pretty.

 

Is it because I no longer work downtown that I didn't know about the fountain?  That can't really be it because it turns out that the fountain closed four years ago, and I was still working downtown then. I mean, I still go downtown frequently, and I do notice things while I'm there.  Like all the new restaurants opening up - there seem to be new ones every time I'm there.  I mean where were the Nathan's and The Noodle Company and that little place with the Middle Eastern food when I was working there?  

Truth be told, I didn't always know what was going on downtown when I was there every day.  One day when I was still working in town my sister in North Carolina called me at work to ask if I was okay.  Sure, I was fine.  Why wouldn't I be, I asked her.  Seems there was a hostage situation and a gunman on the loose or something like that going on in Gateway Center.  She heard it on the national news.  I was blissfully unaware of this from my 18th floor office on Wood Street although I heard about it later on the news (and thankfully no one was hurt).

Which brings me to another point.  I watch the KDKA-TV news faithfully every morning, and sometimes even in the evening if there are no Toddlers and Tiaras reruns on.  They cover stuff that happens in Pittsburgh every day.  Sure, I tune in primarily to see Dennis Bowman and his weather forecast, but I listen to the rest of the broadcast, too. That's where I heard the fountain opened up again; they must have mentioned it when it closed.  Where was I when they said that??

Perhaps it's best this way.  I would have really missed the fountain if I had known it was gone.  I wish that I didn't know that they demolished the Civic Arena.

Not Just on Fridays Anymore

Sometimes you fight and you fight for something you believe in  and you never see any results, but that happily was not the case when I went to bat with Eat n Park to advocate for the return of the Tuna Melt to their menu.

In case you haven't been following the saga as documented in this column, it all began back on Easter Monday back in April 2012.  I wasn't able to get the Tuna Melt advertised online by Eat n Park because it was a Lenten Special (and they hadn't yet updated their website).

I was sorely disappointed.  In the immediate moment of my despair I wrote an online complaint to Eat n Park that included the following passage:

I remember a time when Tuna Cheddar Melts were a regular menu item at your restaurant, and the store manager verified that this was true, and that it was actually a pretty popular item.  May I respectfully suggest that you reestablish the Tuna Cheddar Melt as a regular menu item?  How hard could this be?  I assume that you have everything on hand for the sandwich already except for the tuna, and how inconvenient could it be to stock some canned fish in the store?  It doesn't go bad.

A few weeks later I received a $5 gift card from Eat n Park in apology (a classy move), and then in August 2012 the Tuna Melt showed up as the Friday feature on their 7 Days 7 Deals 7 Dollars special.  I was very happy to again enjoy this delicious sandwich, and made Eat n Park my special Friday place.  I knew it wouldn't be forever, but I was just grateful for what I could get.

Then last week, Diane, my friend and obviously a faithful Rip reader, posted on my wall in Facebook:  "Sharon, Eat n Park has a new menu -the tuna melt is available every day now!"  

Oh, happy days!  I can order the Tuna Melt any day of the week - not just on Fridays! 

So, the Tuna Melt returns to the daily menu just a little over a year after I hit the "send" button on my elegant plea to Eat n Park.  Coincidence? Maybe, but let's indulge me for for a moment and pretend that I had some small part in bringing back the Tuna Melt.  

In my interpretation of this turn of events, Eat n Park deserves a huge shout out for being so responsive to its customers.  It is clear to me why the restaurant is so successful - good fresh reasonably priced food with lots of variety and a commitment to their customers.   

It would also mean that one small, albeit very reasonable, voice made a difference.  Now if we could just talk some reason into those legislators of ours.

Don't It Make My Right Word Wrong

I take pride in being a good speller and in having a firm grasp of the English language, as tricky as it may be at times.  I usually understand and use proper grammar, even if it means not always fitting in with those around me.  

Now there are several factors that make producing totally error-free communications a challenge for me, despite my affinity for spelling and language.  First, I cannot type.  Therefore,many times what looks like a misspelling is actually just a typo.  Secondly, my inherent lack of coordination will occasionally result in my mouth saying or my hand writing something different than what my brain is thinking.

Luckily I have had tools over the years to help me to overcome these challenges.  There have been the word processing programs that allow me to proof my work before preparing a final draft, and which include spelling-and-grammar checks that will flag what they think may be errors so that I can review them for accuracy.

God has also blessed me with people in my life who have a mission to keep me on the linguistic straight and narrow.  My sister and my husband (aka Mr. Rip) share a passion - some may even say an obsession - with proper spelling, grammar and punctuation, and are on some sort of quest to get the world to speak and write correctly.

Trust me, I never question the judgment of my sister or Mr. Rip when it comes to all things grammatical, and I do appreciate their help. Nonetheless, I have had to set limits with these "sticklers" who love me, drawing the line at sending back my letters with corrections made in red pen, or correcting the spelling or grammar of my latest Facebook post.

So, I was happy as the proverbial clam, writing accurate, correctly spelled and grammatically correct prose unless I chose to use a questionable turn of phrase for what I like to think of "color."  For instance, in a clear pop culture reference, sometimes I "can't get no satisfaction."  Or I'll start a sentence with a conjunction or (if I'm feeling particularly daring) split an infinitive.  But it was all up to me - I had total control.  If I did make an error it was my error.

So, then along comes Auto-Correct into my life courtesy of my I-Pad Mini.  Initially, I thought it would be nice to have this feature to correct my typos.  

But then I realized that the program was making other changes as well.  It was arbitrarily changing one word into another, based on nothing reasonable, and often changing a correct word into an incorrect word.  As it turns out,  the name "Auto-Correct" is a misnomer; it should be called "Auto-Change."

I would re-read something I wrote and I would see an incorrect word choice that I would never knowingly use - like the time it changed "its" to "it's" - this sort of word misuse is one of my pet peeves.  It was not okay with me for anyone to think that I made that mistake. Besides, the two words are homophones -why would it presume to decide which one I meant to use?

I started to suspect that my friends were also victims of Auto-Correct. One friend wrote that someone was "quiet appreciative."  That didn't seem right.  She probably typed "quietly" or "quite" appreciative.

My friend Karen shared what might be the most chilling example of Auto-Correct run amok when she told me a story about her friend whose phrase in a message to her was auto-corrected from "from there it"  to "chemotherapy" making her think that her perfectly healthy friend had cancer.  

Auto-Correct is not just a handy tool; it is a nefarious, possessed feature with a mind of its own, the likes of which you should never see outside a Stephen King novel.  I wanted out.   Was it possible? Could I just turn Auto-Correct off?  

As a matter of fact I could, and I did. I chose Settings - General - Keyboard - Auto-Correction OFF.  I immediately felt free, and, yes, lighter. I can now type the word "its" without fear.  

And what about those typos, you ask?  Well, I'm no fool. I left the Spell Check ON.