3543 NYC-Speak

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands

until they've flung it away.

-- Sophocles --

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"They" say people in New York City talk fast. That's not precisely true. It's not really talking fast, it's running things together, with no attention to distinct syllables, let alone accented syllables. That has the effect of speeding it up because it shortens it, but it's not the same thing.

The Nugget was hugging a doll when The Man was here, and he said to her, "Gimilmo. Gimilmo."  She stared at him, confused.  It took me a few seconds to figure out that he wanted her to give him the doll she was holding, an Elmo muppet.  I said, "Show the man Elmo", and she give him the muppet.  He hugged it properly and gave it back, and she fell in love with him.

Mostly he doesn't do that NYC-speak, except when he makes some offhand remark, and then I flat out don't understand him.  He says, "Yeah, I mutter".  I used to ask, but now if I don't catch it, I just let it go.  If it's important, he slows down and says individual words.

I mentioned the Nugget's confusion to Daughter, and she said that yeah, since she's been talking to the Nugget, she's much more conscious of how fast she talks, how she's slowed down now and doesn't run things together when she talks to the baby.  But she still gets frustrated by how non-NYC/NJ people (like ME!) talk so slowly.  She wants to shake us, "Come on!  Get it OUT already!"

She and I both get frustrated when we talk on the phone.  I have to ask her to repeat every other phrase.  "Slow down, please."  She says she understands a bit better now, and almost apologized for accusing me multiple times of going deaf.
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3542 I am shocked!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

-- Bertrand Russell --

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I go to maps.google every so often to look at the street view of houses I have lived in.  They're gradually filling in more houses as time passes.  The latest country house doesn't have a street view yet, nor does the current city house.

Today I looked up where we lived in the St. Louis area.*

I'm sorry I did.

At almost every house I'd lived in since I was on my own, I've planted a dark red lace-leaf Japanese maple.  I love them, and I never got to see any of them grown up, but it felt good anyway.  Like I'd left a gift for the new owners and the old neighborhood.

So I was looking forward to see what 35 years had done for the tree I'd left in St. Louis.  I had planted it on a bit of slope outside the door.  It should be 7 feet tall and spreading 14 feet around and lush by now.

I'd also planted barberry bushes along the line of the porch at the St. Louis house, and a crepe myrtle at the north corner of the house.  Rose of Sharon bushes at the side of the garage.  The upper windows had window boxes spilling petunias, and there was a long box under the window along the porch, full of geraniums.  The lawn was super fine thick red fescue that I kept cut to 4 inches so it looked lush and shiny, and it was loaded with crocus bulbs that would have multiplied amazingly.

I am shocked!

Not only is there NO sign of the Japanese maple, the barberrys, the crepe myrtle, or the rose of Sharon, the upstairs window boxes are gone, there's nothing in the lower window box, and the lawn looks like crap, with thin brown scalped patches (you can't cut red fescue so short!)  It looks like somebody came through and tore out everything living.  The place has that bare naked look of new construction.  It looks blasted!

The only token to landscaping is a 20 foot multi-colored totem pole smack in the middle of the front yard.
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*The address is in a comment, where, I hope, it's less likely to turn up in a search.

3541 Challenge

Monday, June 4, 2012

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.

-- George Bernard Shaw --

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June!  Agh!  Already?

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The GPS says my city house is 29 feet above sea level.  Not enough, I think.  Next time I go to the country house, I'll have to check there.

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I went to a small hafla last Friday evening.  Some kids were selling raffle tickets at 20 cents each for some charity.  I bought five.  I won.  First time I've ever won a raffle.  Each of the vendors there had contributed something to the raffle, so I won a shopping bag containing a tiny glazed mirror exactly the right size for the sink in the half bath, a CD from the group who performed the music, a nice jingle hip scarf, a plush camel, two long sexy yarn hair doflinkies, an anklet, and a couple other things I can't remember now.  After I got home I found a card entitling me to a hula hoop - which annoyed me because I'd actually considered buying one from the vendor.  (After reflection, it has occurred to me that said vendor, knowing there was a coupon in the bag since the hoop wouldn't have fit, should have searched out the raffle winner.  Hey, there weren't that many people there.)

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Sumthin' else I don't understand:  Howcum if God tells you to do X, like join the priesthood, marry a particular person, or run for national office, then you can publicly claim God speaks to you and many people will believe you and consider you favored by God.

But if God tells you to do Y, like kill a particular person, set fire to yourself, or bomb a building for political reasons, then the courts and public opinion consider you insane if you claim God told you to do it.

Who are we to decide what God will or will not tell a person to do?  To whom He will or will not speak?  Who are we to ascribe motives to God?  If Man did not create God, then how can Man define God?   We can read God's mind?  We know what He's likely to say, and to whom He's likely to speak, and what His ulterior motive is for what He says to them?  If He says only things we want Him to say, then we have created God in our own image.

Read the Bible.  That God ain't necessarily nice, doesn't always play fair.

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I've been playing "Every Word" on the Kindle.  I'm not good at it, but I figure it's good for me.  They give you a bunch of letters, and you have to find all the words that can be created from those letters to rack up points, and at least one word that uses all the letters to proceed to the next level.

Yesterday I was given W S T O G H R  on level six (of ten).  I had to find 34 words of 4 letters or more, including one using all seven letters.  (The program, by the way, doesn't accept proper nouns or abbreviations (a lie!  It accepts things like "prof" and "ref") or a a lot of other perfectly good words.  There's this "list".  So if you find more than 34 total, some of them weren't on the "accepted" list.)

Anyway, try it.  

I worked at it forever, handed it to Daughter, and she got the seven-letter word almost instantly.

Um, no, I don't remember what it was.  Sorry.  Take a whack at it in the comments.  (I'll bet Becs gets it first.)
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