75 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-19-16”

  2. Good morning! Those butterflies result from having all the passion flower vines. For us it is a win-win because we get beautiful flowers and beautiful butterfies♡ Thanks to God, of course.

    Chas, maybe go to Gravitar to select from your photos the replacement?

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Good morning, Chas. I don’t know how you’d get your picture back. I don’t even know how one gets one on in the first place. 🙂

    Another nice header photo. Real pretty, Janice. And, Kare, from yesterday, those were neat pictures you sent in. My youngest two got a kick out of the porcupine pics.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Fantastic photo. Were you just using your phone?

    Hoping to accomplish something today . . . so at least I’m going to burn some calories at the gym.

    Last heard, Jo was in Brisbane, but she’s probably in Port Moresby now and missing the first day of school which, I figure based on the time difference, is already over.

    This was her posting 14 hours ago:

    “Safely arrived in Brisbane and even got some sleep on the 14 hour flight. I have my boarding pass for the flight to Port Moresby. Once there I may have to wait until tomorrow for our next scheduled flight up to Ukarumpa, but I am sure that I will be well cared for by our Moresby staff. I will miss the first day of school, but they have already found a wonderful sub. Diane! Who taught this class the last school year.”

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  11. A school year starting mid-July? I guess it must be a year-round school, but that really seems like “school vacation time.” And year-round schooling would definitely not have worked in Phoenix–I well remember that the first couple of weeks of school in September were often pretty hot with 30 kids in a classroom, and that for recess all I wanted to do was head straight for the shade.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I am having a moment this morning. I checked the news sites. Supposedly Melania Trump plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech from 8 years ago. The late night pundits had a field day. Everyone and their brother is making fun of the GOP Convention. I went on a rant. I opened my mouth and my father went on a rant would be a better way of putting it.
    I am now telling you, don’t bother to vote this year. It wouldn’t matter if 90% of the US voted for Trump, Hillary is going to be your next president. The system is rigged and the only thing that makes sense is that Donald Trump is playing for Team Hillary.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. It’s the middle of winter down there.
    Looks like a publicity stunt by Colvert.
    I’ve never seen him. Never seen a late night show.
    Never saw Johnny Carson.
    I may have missed and important part of life.

    You may never see my picture again.
    Doesn’t matter. I don’t look like that anymore. The picture is a couple of decades old.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Michelle, yes, I was using my Samsung S5 Smartphone. The butterfly had just emerged and was slowly drying it’s wings so I was able to get some good shots unlike when the butterflies are flitting all around.

    I have not read anything about the convention. I did see something about the Bushes backing Hillary. Is that true?

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  20. Anybody who has my e-mail address, if you want to see my photo book of Florida pictures (with several pages from Alabama–and no, my sister and family aren’t in it, and neither is Kim, because usually my photo books don’t have people except sometimes my husband unless they’re specifically about people), then e-mail me and ask.

    Fair warning: I took close to 3,000 photos in Florida alone, and so the book is long (160 pages, one to four photos per page). I didn’t make a short version of this book as I did with the Smokies photos, but you can move forward pretty quickly through pages. There is only one spider photo and it’s a small picture with several pictures on the same page, and no snake pictures, but there are three or four photos of large insects. One page has some really pretty turtle shots, and I have several action-sequence shots (a brown pelican flying across the water, an egret in flight, a dolphin leaping out of the water) and more pictures of the osprey nest. And lots and lots of bird photos, including some very pretty birds.

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  21. Good Morning…we got rain last night!! I have been so enjoying the photos every morning…ya’ll are quite the photogs!
    I had to turn off the news this morning…it’s all about Melania plagiarizing Michelle…now wouldn’t it just be so nice if Michelle made a statement about how honored she is that she could inspire the next First Lady of the USA?? :-). We all know imitation is the best form of flattery after all!!

    Liked by 2 people

  22. I see Janice’s phone changed Fred to Freida. I don’t think they changed genders in the stone age.

    Kim- Mrs L has thought all along that Trump is only in it to get Hilary elected. But please go vote in November. Skip the presidential part if you want, but the good candidates running in other races will need every vote they can get.

    Liked by 2 people

  23. 🙂 You can send it to me, cheryl 🙂

    Beautiful butterfly shot, Janice.

    LA schools start in mid-August, which still seems too early for me. But they get out early, at the beginning of June. I remember back when I was covering LAUSD the big controversy was the implementation of year-round schedules as in the mid to late 1980s the schools were very overcrowded. Everyone was up in arms over it. The middle school son of one of the parent activists I dealt with back then is now an LA school principal himself, which is simply too weird for me to even think about.

    Yes, everyone was having quite a laugh all day and all night over the GOP convention. The kicker, of course, was the plagiarism issue which had the CNN commentators nearly in stitches at the time I went to bed.

    Gleeful, they were.

    Sigh.

    Meanwhile, the workers should be here shortly to continue with the patio demo in the backyard. I’ll owe them for materials they’ll have to buy at Home Depot, not sure if they did that yesterday already or if they’ll do it this morning.

    I didn’t sleep well for some reason, woke up around 2:30 with a headache, took some aspirin and did some reading — but then I only dozed off and on until I decided to just get up at 5:30. I’ll be dragging today.

    Ah, the workers have arrived. Early birds, they are.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. In the military, G2 is intelligence.

    😉
    Elvera locks the door every time she comes into the house. I don’t know why. She doesn’t either. It’s a reflex. I tell her that if ISIS came and rang the bell, she would open the door.

    Liked by 3 people

  26. So what’s odd about that? We always lock the doors out here, whether we’re coming or going.

    Weird though, the other night during the big police action there was a banging on my door. I figured it was the cops, social media indicated they were going door to door on my block by then … But for a moment I thought, well, what if it’s the bad guy?

    It wasn’t, of course, which is a good thing since I did open the door. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  27. There was a peep hole in the door in Annandale. We don’t have one here. We never peeped before opening the door.
    Nothing bad has happened.
    Yet.

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  29. I do miss Johnny Carson — different era, but he was actually funny and was pretty much a-political (if he made political jokes, they were equal opportunity jabs — and they were funny).

    Liked by 2 people

  32. Some of those things can be daunting, Mumsee. I can remember trying to open a container.
    I was stymied several minutes before I noticed that it was sealed with a fine layer of plastic.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Of course, as a matter of some consolation, ten year old (remember four year old in glasses?) is making bacon and eggs and toast for his breakfast after doing his morning chores of feeding the rabbits and walking the dogs about one mile.

    Liked by 2 people

  34. Mark this day on the calendar, I achieved a great tech moment! I was able to download a 28 minute memo from my phone to my computer, find the correct player and then successfully embed it in today’s blog post.

    My husband was impressed. “No weeping, wailing or gnashing of teeth!”

    Nor did he hear seething, muttering, tears or screams.

    Score!

    Liked by 3 people

  37. Cheryl, I’d like to see your Alabama book, if you’d send it to me. Thanks!

    About school year-round — we do that. We didn’t in the early years, but it’s probably been more years than not that we have.

    Of course, we do have an air-conditioned home rather than hot classrooms. 😉

    I teach piano year-round, too. The only weeks off are the weeks of the seven major holidays in the U.S. — Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.

    Good for continuity, in both piano and homeschooling.

    Liked by 1 person

  39. Stephen who? Actually, I know, dimly, who Colbert is, as I have heard his name before. I’ve heard of most of the talk show hosts before, and seen at least parts of their shows here and there. However, I have yet to be impressed by any of them, whether politically conservative or liberal. The ability to speak well does not translate into authoritative speaking in my mind. I always end up wondering what all the hype is about when I finally see a talk show host in action. Even the clips I’ve seen of Johnny Carson were a disappointment. A talk show host is a weird creature, a person with a glib tongue who gets to be a celebrity by talking to other celebrities.

    On plagiarism: No surprise there, plagiarism is rife among conservative and liberal politicians. I remember the slight scandal when it transpired that a former Conservative premier of Alberta had plagiarized on his thesis which earned him a degree (and he didn’t lose the degree either – no wonder I’ve overheard students saying it wasn’t cheating to copy and paste if you aren’t caught). I have very little time for or interest in political speeches. To use a time worn saying, “Actions speak louder than words.”

    Year-round school: Eldest sibling does that with her brood. However, she takes week long breaks throughout the school year – I think it is something like 6 weeks of study, 1 week off. The children like it that way. Second nephew is hilarious, because he will get up at seven, start his school work and be done before lunch, leaving himself the rest of the day to do as he likes. When he learned that his friends had to spend most of their days at school, he was so glad he was homeschooled.

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  40. What was it that Colbert did that made Kim say, last night, “I think what Stephen Colbert did was wrong and tasteless”?

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  41. Years ago, I read about a large school district that implemented the year-round school model. But they staggered the schools, which resulted in families not being able to take vacations because their children weren’t all off at the same time. I’m sure they must have fixed that eventually, because parents were not happy.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. Roscuro, my sister used to live down the street from a school, and periodically the oldest two, seeing, children laughing and having fun on their way to school, would wish aloud that they too could attend school at that school. Well, they only had to do two or three hours of schooling, so after they complained a couple of times, my sister gave them the same time schedule as the public-school kids. After about two days they were happy to be homeschooled.

    I’ll tell you, when I had foster children who had six-to-seven-hour days in kindergarten and came home with homework, I wouldn’t want to attend school today. (Neither my husband nor I had homework growing up. What we had, we did in school.)

    Donna, to me it isn’t “early” to get out in early June. Growing up, we got out in early June, but we started either right after or right before Labor Day, depending on the year. We had just shy of three months off.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Roscuro, it wasn’t plagiarism, but I remember a few years ago when a memoir became a best-seller . . . and when it turned out the author had made up the whole thing, the publisher simply changed it to a “fiction” book. It could still sell well and make money, so who cares about integrity?

    Liked by 1 person

  45. Thanks, Cheryl.

    Yesterday I was sitting on the porch,, thinking about how language has evolved since I was young. Specifically, that there are words now that are both nouns and verbs, when they were formerly not verbs.

    Words like text. I wouldn’t have thought 30 years ago that someday people would “text” others.

    I got to thinking more today about the noun-as-noun-or-verb phenomenon these days. Take the word “parent” — I didn’t really hear that word used as a verb much, if at all, in my childhood. Children were “raised” or “reared,” not “parented.”

    I was, however, familiar long ago with the concept of children being “mothered” or “fathered.”

    I note with interest, though, and some sadness (that might not be the right word, but I can’t articulate as well as I’d like my mixture of thoughts and emotions right now on the topic) that, whereas a reference to a child being mothered seems to imply a process, “fathering” a child is generally considered these days the act of conceiving a child.

    As if fathering a child is a one-time deal — like once the child is conceived, the “fathering” role ends.

    Maybe I’m just over-analyzing things semantically, but it does seem that our culture has a distorted view of the importance of fathers and the ongoing roles they play in the lives of their children, and I have to wonder how our narrow definition of “fathering” a child ties into that.

    Just some random thoughts on a warm summer day.

    Liked by 3 people

  46. I don’t know who paid the $445 for the home warranty on this house.
    But somebody got shafted.
    It was in the contract. Nobody asked me.

    I’ve been fighting this for two days. Mostly waiting.

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  47. Have you called the realtor Chas? Our buyers asked for a home warranty for our house in town…even though everything was new and under warranty ie stove,dishwasher,fridge,furnace,air conditioner,hot water heater, garage door opener, garage doors…everything new! It cost us 500 dollars. The owners of this house we purchased gave a home warranty as an incentive….but…the dishwasher,oven,stovetop and garage door springs all broke within that warranty period…nothing was covered…I was a tad bit livid…we had to replace all of the above…I did let the realtor know about it…just so that he would not use this “warranty” company in the future….

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  48. 6 Arrows, I’ve long thought of that discrepancy between “fathering” a child and “mothering” a child. Is it a recent thing? It seems to me that all my life those two terms have had the connotations you say.

    I’m not sure it’s a deliberate thing, though, any sort of slam on fathers as though all they are is sperm donors. I have a hunch that “mothering” got verbified in a way “fathering” never did, but I haven’t researched it. The English language has many, many places where what should-be parallels are not, and where we are missing a word to say something. Here are a few random inconsistencies I can think of:

    We write backyard but front yard.
    There is no singular for the word “cattle” in the English language (“cow” is female, “bull” male).
    “Razing” and “raising” are opposites.
    We speak of brother/sister, aunt/uncle, mother/father, but just “cousin” for both sexes.

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  49. NancyJill, you and Kim suggested I call the realtor.
    This is for the house I bought. I don’t know who the realtor was and I don’t know if the $445 was paid by the seller or is hidden in one of the fees I paid. I don’t recall it being mentioned at closing. But the document is part of the bundle of papers I got.
    I called a plumber on my on. It has to be fixed.
    It burns me. I left everything in the house I sold working.

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  50. 6 Arrows, on the train of thought about how nouns become verbs, I propose that we use the word “verb” as a verb, meaning to turn a word into a verb. Thus, your post describes the verbing of the words “text”, “parent”, and “father”.

    There, I just verbed “verb”.

    Liked by 2 people

  54. Cheryl used “verbified” in her 4:41; Kevin used “verb,” “verbing” and “verbed” in his 5:31.

    Seems we’ve got lots of reverb bouncing off the walls of this room.

    Liked by 2 people

  58. We must be at about 100 by now, right?

    Sheesh. I’ll be quiet now.

    Except for one thing I was going to tell Cheryl…

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  59. Cheryl, yes, you’re right that “mothering” and “fathering” have had the same connotations for quite a while now, meaning they haven’t changed at all in our lifetimes, I don’t believe. My thoughts, on the other hand, sort of meandered as I wrote my 3:59 post, and ended up in a place not consistent with the start of that post.

    Or something like that. 😉

    OK, I just looked up “father” in my 1828 Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language. It was used both as a noun and a verb back then, too.

    The verb “father” is defined as follows:

    1. To adopt; to take the child of another as one’s own.

    2. To adopt any thing as one’s own; to profess to be the author. (Example: “Men of wit Often father’d what he writ.”)

    3. To ascribe or charge to one as his offspring or production; with on. (Example: “My name was made use of by several persons, one of whom was pleased to father on me a new set of productions.”)

    “Fathered” and “Fathering” are also listed, with similar definitions.

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  60. AP style had back yard as 2 words until just really very recently. Now we can write backyard, which really is more natural for some reason.

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  61. Chas, I actually called the realtor we used to purchase this house since he handled all the paperwork for us…he actually called the listing agent and she did contact the warranty company when the dishwasher was leaking water all over the wooden floor in the kitchen…they did come out, but the dishwasher was 12 years old and was so outdated we decided to purchase another instead of continually fixing the old cheap one… 🙂

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  63. A wooden floor in the kitchen? That doesn’t sound like such a great idea, although it probably looks nice.

    As for nouns that have been verbed, one that I have read has gained popularity in recent years is “impact”. I have tried to resist using impact as a verb, but recently gave in, because it does seem to fit at times.

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  65. The warranty would have worked for a year on the dishwasher…they sent a repairman out after the listing agent stepped in (I don’t think she had an obligation to do so, but she was a friend of our agent and a very nice lady…who was a fellow believer). The guy told us he had to order a part…he fixed it temporarily…but then it broke…again…it was a cheap plastic part..Kenmore made it 12 years prior…so we decided to purchase a Bosch…stainless inside…it works great, never had a problem. The garage door springs…which broke one week after moving in…were not covered…the stovetop and oven were covered but they too were original to the house and not worth fixing over and over…I suppose everything worked well enough to pass inspection before closing…but it all fell apart soon after! After living here six years, we have a new fridge, dishwasher, stovetop, oven, kitchen sink and furnace…all at our own expense…the costs of homeownership!

    Liked by 2 people

  66. Karen, “affect” can generally work where “impact” would be used, only a less “harsh” word. I also change nearly all uses of “utilize” to “use” when I edit. (The exception would be if the word “used” is used several times, in which case I might leave “utilize” just to have a variation. Or if the author is trying to sound “uppity” by facetiously using a string of big words, then “utlize” works great: “Utilize the vernacular in all your confabulations with the aristocracy” or whatever.)

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  67. We have a wood floor in our kitchen – original spruce. It was covered with lino and particle board and then more lino – took us a whole winter to remove the layers and refinish the floor – it’s gorgeous ( I think) and perfect for a farmhouse kitchen.

    Liked by 3 people

  68. Cheryl – Yes, affect usually works well, but there are times when impact has a little more oomph to it than affect. 🙂

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  69. The patio work is coming along nicely, the frame is all up and I suspect they’ll be able to wrap it up tomorrow. It looks so stable and tall and sturdy! I’m already thinking of ideas to make it perfect for outdoor reading and general hanging out. 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  70. On the dog walk tonight Tess grabbed a little lizard, but let it go. Never saw her do that before, it’s such a cat thing.

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  71. There is no singular for the word “cattle” in the English language

    Bovine comes close, but can include an ox or buffalo.

    As for back yard vs. backyard, I think of them as being different parts of speech, as “every day” (n) and “everyday” (adj) are. A back yard is a place, whereas backyard is an adjective describing something related to the place. “We’re having a backyard bar-b-cue,” as opposed to one in the front yard. “The bar-b-cue is in the back yard,” tells where it is.

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  72. Peter, you’re right about the “every day” and “everyday” (though most of my authors don’t seem to know that distinction). I think the backyard thing is simply usage. English tends to take two words and meld them into one. Initially they are set as two words (“blue bird”) and then as they are commonly used together, they become hyphenated (blue-bird), and eventually they become one word (bluebird). So we end up with inconsistencies. Why is it a blue jay but a bluebird? Why do we write “front seat” but “backseat,” and “front yard” but “backyard”? It’s because people get invited to events in backyards, and I suppose because people do illicit things in backseats (like, for example, criticize the driver). In college I was amused to read a book that in the course of one book had world view, world-view, and worldview. Yet I have authors who in the course of a book say email and e-mail or mind-set and mindset.

    Thus, editors have “standards.” The publishers for which I edit all use Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as their standard (not just any dictionary that says “Webster’s,” but the big red one). So if we come across an author saying blue-bird and we don’t remember whether it’s hyphenated, we look it up in Merriam-Webster’s. But publishers also have house standards. For example, the dictionary will say that either “worshipped” or “worshiped” is acceptable, but one publisher for whom I edit specifically says only “worshiped” will do. It’s fine to say either okay or OK, but within that same book you need to be consistent (and editors need to make sure you are), and ok is not OK (and it’s not okay either). I’ve been watching for a long time for mind-set to become “mindset,” because it has been a word all my life, and eventually the hyphen gets dropped. I finally am seeing publishers put it in their standards, and so undoubtedly the dictionary will change it soon (and some probably have). We take words like “stovetop” for granted, but at some point in history it was probably “top of the stove” said more simply as “stove top,” and eventually it came to be treated as a single word.

    And that’s the situation with “backyard.” It’s one entity now. (Just out of curiosity, I looked up “backdoor” just now, and it doesn’t mean the back door of one’s house, but things done secretly. Eventually the door to one’s house will probably be one word, too.) But when people say “yard” they tend to think “backyard,” so “front” still has its own word when paired with “yard,” because it’s still seen as an adjective and not part of the word.

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