61 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-11-18”

  1. Morning all. I had a fellow teacher over for dinner. She is leaving finish here and going to teach in Singapore. Then I took her home as it was dark. You need a car for single women after dark.

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  3. Good Morning from New Orleans. Class is at 8:30.
    Happy belated birthday Michelle.

    Today is 10 years since Big Jim left me I sure would like to talk to him. Argue with him. Share a meal.

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  4. My clinical tutor sent me home today. I was grateful, because between the physical pain from my asthma and the news about my father last night (at the end of yesterday’s thread), I did not think I could concentrate very well today. Part of being a nurse is recognizing when you are not capable of giving safe care.

    @Chas’ 7:37, I don’t know about PNG, but in Singapore, it would be safer not to carry gun, since the gun laws are extremely strict:
    “Subject to certain exceptions, any person who uses or attempts to use any arm shall be guilty of an offense and shall on conviction be punished with death. A person who uses or attempts to use arms is presumed to have intended to cause physical injury to a person or property until the contrary is proved.” Link: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/singapore.php

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  6. It does that to you, Phos.
    I was prepared to say that we have a prettier picture today. But i can’t say that a one legged bird is any better.
    🙂

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  7. Who is Big Jim? It isn’t 10 years since you shook off “Guy”. And I think you and BG’s dad divorced before that. .

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  9. Morning! I stepped outdoors and the air is cool and fresh. Deep blue skies and the crisp shadows of the trees on this forest floor are just stunning! We continue to pray for rain (predicted for next week…we just need to get through this week unscathed).
    That would appear to be a one legged bird up there but I suspect he is hiding his other under his feathers somewhere! 🐦

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  10. Chas, that bird is a killdeer, and I’m guessing it doesn’t only have one leg but has one of its legs gathered among its breast feathers (perhaps to warm the leg).

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  12. Our old wooden porch was red. Very red and it had a blue house, I enjoyed painting it but we did not think we would enjoy painting it forever so we put up a gray TREX deck with a red line near the edge so children would not fall off so easily. And built a concrete porch with a red brick walkway and a red brick patio. No HOA would ever accept us but we like it.

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  13. Recently, the subject has come up about the Boy Scouts accepting girls, and many have been upset about that. I then read that the girls are in separate dens, and mentioned that here.

    Well, I was talking to Nightingale about Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts a little while ago, and that subject came up. She informed me that girls have been involved in Boy Scouts, even sometimes being in the same dens, for a long time now, but it is only recently that they have been promoting it so publicly. It is up to each den whether or not to let girls in.

    There was also something in the news about them changing their name from Boy Scouts USA to simply Scouts USA, but Nightingale said she heard that they are not going to change their name after all, but she’s not sure one way or the other.

    I think some families would choose Boy Scouts over Girl Scouts for their daughters because Boy Scouts seems to have kept to the scouting idea, whereas Girl Scouts is more art and crafts, and less about scouting. (Maybe it used to be different.)

    I think I told you that Nightingale was asked to be the assistant leader of The Boy’s den. One of her strong suits is planning, so she has been busy planning for next year (which starts when school starts in late summer), and will pass her ideas by the actual leader. She has a good understanding of which elective activities the boys would enjoy and get the most out of.

    This past Saturday, The Boy “passed over” (walking over a little bridge with the Boy Scout values written on it) from being a Tiger to being a Wolf for next year. 🙂

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  14. Scouts: My parents were Scouts, that is where they met. She was a Mariner Scout and he attained Eagle.
    I was a Girl Scout from fourth to twelfth grades and earned most of the badges. It was a lot of fun. We camped and canoed and had two weeks of summer camp with sailing and rowing and swimming in the lake and all of that fun stuff.
    My brothers were Boy Scouts and did all of that stuff. My oldest brother was a Scout leader for many years while his boys were in the Scouts.
    But even then, Girl Scouts were changing. Becoming more focused on other things. The badges were changing and the leadership was changing and the whole focus was changing.
    Our first two boys were Boy Scouts and one was working on Eagle until he realized the Eagle projects he was seeing completed were being completed by parents while the boys hung back and let it happen. He lost interest.
    I was a den mother a few times and that was kind of fun.
    But we did not put any more of our children in Scouts. They missed out on some fun times but I knew there was a lot of stuff going on in there I did not want my children soaking up.

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  15. Not to say there are not some really good troops and some really neat people involved. But the other was too much for me.

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  16. I was a Boy Scout. I made it to Star Scout and Order of the Arrow at Camp Kaluga near Charleston.. But I got interested in girls and other things and dropped out of scouting. But scouting was good for me. Chuck never got into scouting.

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  17. I was a girl scout, had some fun times.

    I do think the GS’s as a broader organization have become quite politically liberal (while the Boy Scouts have tried to remain more conservative or traditional).

    Roscuro, I was sorry to read about your dad’s further complications last night, praying his condition(s) stabilize and treatments are effective. Glad they sent you home today.

    I’ve been getting really itchy bug bites from somewhere (others at the dog park mentioned the same thing this weekend so we’re wondering if it’s something we’re being exposed to there). The itch is intense. Last week it was my legs, this week it’s my hands, feet and one under my left upper arm. Going through the cortisone cream like crazy.

    Red porches on Spanish houses are pretty much the iconic look in the port town where I live. Red won’t go with the color I’m painting my house, I don’t think, so probably makes sense to pick a color from the main color scheme.

    I love the look of tiles on steps, too. Wondering there are outdoor stick-on tiles that I could do on a budget at some point. …

    I wonder if anyone will be in the newsroom today? I wish I could take another day off, last week the stress levels were almost scary for me. I’m trying to be more aware of that this week, though, trying to slow down a bit and not let it all get to me so much.

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  18. My son was in what was termed “a bit lead troop.” The adults were overseerers, but let the boys manage and learn difficult lessons without adult interference. One example was with son’s Eagle project. He had to forest the fellow scouts to dig underneath the platform area where his project was to be built. The leaders kept letting the guys dig a deeper and deeper hole when it did not have to be very deep. Then it has to be filled back in because of course it collected water that has to have a drainage system. I was there and also did not tell son or anyone that they could stop digging. Overall, son learned a lot of useful life skills in Scouts. When they go from Webelows to regular Scouts they have a nice ceremony called Crossover if it is like when son was at that point.

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  19. I forgot to mention the point of my long comment. When I was in ninth grade, I knew a couple of girls who had joined the Boy Scouts Explorer troop. That was a long time ago. But like DJ mentioned, Girl Scouts swerved left while Boy Scouts tried to stay conservative.

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  22. My dad talked of boy led troops because their dads were often involved in the war effort, leaving the boys to their own devices. They learned a lot by experience. That is how leadership skills are learned. Hands on experience. Leaders step forward and if they do it right, the rest follow.
    Like learning the value of a diversion trench when camping in the rain but not wanting to get wet from the floor up.
    My high school troop was girl led. My mom was the leader on paper but she just stayed in the back room and let us do what needed to be done. We all survived. My mom did take us canoeing and backpacking, but we had to do all of the planning and that sort of thing.

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  24. I didn’t have a good childhood. We moved five times from the time I remember until I joined the AF. The first move I remember was when I was 9. That Means about every two years. But Bobby Murray and I (a fellow scout, BTW,) remained friends. We kept in contact until after he talked me into joining the AF. We lost contact after that. But I visited him once while he was stationed at Kefliveck, Iceland and I was passing through.

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  28. Where is everyone?

    I know it’s silly, but this talk about Boy Scouts got a silly song in my mind that we used to sing at Camp Kanuga:

    “Our staff’s a killamago,
    They go for our scalps too.
    They go for our scalps too,
    You bet they do.
    And in our daily games,
    All they think of is dames.
    How in the heck did you get black and blue?
    Just ask the staff”.

    Sorry, but you started it.

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  30. Hey Mr Johnny Verbeck how could you be so mean,
    I told you you’d be sorry for inventing that machine,
    Now all the neighbor’s cats and dogs will never more be seen.
    They’ll all be ground to sausages in Johnny Verbeck’s machine.

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  31. We are the Girl Scouts green and jolly,
    We don’t swear we just say golly.
    We don’t smoke or drink or chew.
    We don’t go with the guys that do.
    Some people ask us do we have fun.
    We don’t.

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  32. Our toilets are in! Happy birthday to me! (ordered back in April; not yet installed, but the store finally has them as of an hour ago–wouldn’t think people would get excited about toilets, but wait on them a few weeks and anything can happen.)

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  33. I was a brownie and then a Camp Fire girl. Then we moved to the ranch and all joined 4h. It was fun showing steers at the fair each year and then selling them.

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  35. Never did scouting of any kind. The closest I got to it was Awana. And for all there was uniform shirts in that program, there was no real outdoor activities, just lessons, craft, gym games, and a lot of memorization. The only major activity each year was building model cars to race in the yearly competition. My father enjoyed helping us with them. Second won a couple of years running and went to the Awana Grand Prix, but all I ever got was third prize for design. I did get all the awards that I could for memorization, but one didn’t go to a Grand Prix for that 🙂

    I did, however, go camping with my family, as out tent served as a portable hotel on road trips (well, except for that one night in Maine, where the mosquitoes joined us in the tent, so we retreated to the car, which got too hot, so we opened the windows, and the mosquitoes joined us there and then a thunderstorm struck, so my father gave up and started driving). We canoed on our pond – and the occasional relative’s pond or at a nearby lake – and swam at the beaches around several of the lakes that are around those parts. We hiked in the forest behind us, and the many nearby provincial parks. We sled down any hill available in the winter and skated on our frozen pond and the swamps in the forest. My father taught us the basics of paddling a canoe and skating, but we became better at them by trial and error (such as the error of trying to switch places in the canoe out in the middle of the pond, as all parties involved simply end up in the water).

    Speaking of my father, he phoned my mother this morning. He asked the nurse how long he would be in for, and they told him about a week. So he asked my mother to bring in his computer, as he needs something to occupy his mind. He was already getting a bit stir crazy from having his foot in dressings, and this will be even more difficult for him. He has had a hard time reading ever since the car accident that left him with blind spots in his vision, so giving him books to read doesn’t work. But I am thankful he is well enough to be restless. This is not the first time he has had clots in his lungs. That car accident that broke his femur 22 years ago caused fat embolism, a condition where clots from the yellow bone marrow in the femur get into the blood and lodge in the lungs, and brain, in his case – hence the reason for the blind spots. My mother and I were wondering if surviving that experience helped him this time around, as the doctor and nurses couldn’t understand why he wasn’t having more severe symptoms when they saw the scan of his lungs.

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  36. I was a Girl Scout for less than a year. My mom decided I was not earning merit badges fast enough. I was working on a journalism one. Really I think she decided she didn’t want to bother driving me to the meetings.

    My brothers were in the Boy Scouts, but those were led by my uncle. Several cousins were in the troop. The sons of this uncle still lead troops and are very involved. My mom just visited with my aunt when she drove for this, so no one had to quit. For a few years, during my teens I spent my birthday at a Boy Scout Camp. There was some outing during that date and we joined in for a meal or some such.

    I did think Boy Scouts seemed much more fun, since they actually got to go camping. OTOH, I learned in Girl Scouts that every woman over 30 has her hair cut short, since no woman needs anything that draws attention to her face muscles weakening and wrinkling. I guess a whole lot of other women my age and over never had that particular seminar. ;D

    I do remember another uncle singing a version of that Johnny Verbeck song.

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  40. My hair was cut short well before I was thirty. In fact, it has been short most of my life. In my adolescent and teen years and again in my mid twenties, I did try to grow my hair long – in my teens, I got it so I could put it in two long brains, but when people saw how the ends of my braids curled, they demanded why I would hide curls in braids – but it just sticks out like a brush, and also gets very heavy and hot in the summer, so I always end up cutting it again. As a student, the dress code for the nursing uniform says to have your hair off your collar, and it is just easier to cut it short than to pin it up.

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  41. We camped but also did crafts in GS’s. My mom was an assistant leader in our first years as Brownies. I never remember hearing (or caring) anything about hair styles.

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  43. We did lots of crafts in Girl Scouts. I remember my grandmother coming in a couple of times to teach making flowers out of burlap, wise men out of burlap and other things, and wax candles like Santa Claus with whipped wax for the beard.

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  44. I was a Brownie for a year or two, but chose not to progress to Girl Scouts. We made angel tree toppers one time. There was some kind of cone for the body, and some eyelet fabric was wound around and glued to that, then it was spray-painted gold. The head was a styrofoam ball with eyes and such glued on, with wispy “angel hair” used as. . . well, angel hair. She (sorry, Cheryl) had wings made out of yellow construction paper glued onto her back.

    My parents used that tree topper until they stopped putting up a tree. At some point, my mom had replaced the hair with yellow yarn, and I think there was some other fix she needed to make.

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  45. For women, there’s short hair, and then there’s short hair. IOW, there is the kind of short hair that is pretty close to the head, which is how a lot of older women wear their hair these days, sort of like a pixie but maybe not quite as short.

    Then there is short hair that isn’t as close-cropped as the other kind of short hair, but it’s still considered short. More like a “bob”, I guess you could say. That’s how I tend to keep my hair.

    With warmer weather coming upon us, it is time for a haircut for me. Nightingale mentioned a style she thought would look cute on me and be cool. It involves an “undercut” in the back, with the sides being a bit longer. Not sure how it will end up looking, but I’m willing to try something new.

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  46. I’m glad that longer hair has come back “in” for older women, as I decided four or five years ago that the shoulder length I wore for two decades was simply not long enough, and it was time to wear it long again. (It only grows maybe eight or ten inches longer than that, but that’s still a decent length.) If I were the only woman over 50 with long hair, I’d still wear it long, but it’s nice to look around and see a lot of others and know that when it is our turn to be the 70-plus generation, we won’t all be sitting around with really short hair and tight perms.

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  47. Yes, good riddance to the short-short perm look. My mom’s generation seemed to all adopt that at some point.

    I like shoulder length or maybe a tad shorter, it gives my hair much more body and fullness.

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  48. I do think part of the problem with really long hair for older women is that hair does thin out, sadly. A young girl at the dog park has super thick, really long hair and she said the other day she’d never cut it. I told her wear it long as long as you can!

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  49. One of the few photographers left announced his resignation today. I doubt they replace anybody from here on out. And we’re getting the usual frantic emails about how we need to enter all expenses before the end of the fiscal year – or else.

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  51. My hair hasn’t gotten thicker–it was thicker when I was a child–but I still never get it cut without the person cutting it commenting how thick it is. It doesn’t seem thick to me because I know what it used to be like, but it must still be thicker than hair on the average twenty-year-old or I don’t think I’d get the comment on every haircut.

    To me, cutting it seems to say “I’m old now; time for the short haircut look.” Older women with long hair look younger–but probably not everyone can pull it off. (I don’t look younger, because a lot of women my age color it, and those who don’t color it still usually have a bit less gray than I do–it’s probably a third gray now, which is about what mom had when she was 20 or 25 years older than I am. But a seventy-year-old woman with hair halfway down her back looks youthful.)

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  53. Funny juxtapositions with Sheryl’s talk of toilets just after the camp ditties… I was expecting a ditty about toilets. And then my comment about A’s bird header just after Cheryl is talking about heads of hair.

    My hair is quite long now since I am intentionally growing it long for Locks of Love (wigs for children with cancer). I am always wearing it clipped up in a French twist. It has gotten almost too heavy for the clip. Sometimes I do a ponytail with an extra band at the end to keep it in better control.

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  54. I was a Brownie and Girl Scout but dropped out because I didn’t like doing “girl” stuff. I liked arts and crafts, but not things like wrapping artificial flowers around a bar of scented soap to make a Mother’s Day present that I knew my mother would throw in the trash (she had no use for artificial flowers or scented anything, and little use for presents in general if they were not something she needed/wanted). I got a badge for cooking, but thought it was pretty meaningless because we used mixes to make stuff. I already knew how to cook better than that, because my mother also had no use for mixes.

    As a young adult I was an AWANA leader, but didn’t think much of the idea that it was a Christian version of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts (I don’t know if the larger organization made such a claim but my church did). All the achievements were the kind of stuff kids do in school – memorizing, reading, learning, projects on paper – all good things, and good for them to learn the Bible and about missions and stuff like that, but hardly the equivalent of the practical skills that Boy Scouts learn, or even the more limited stuff I learned in Girl Scouts (not in the troop maybe, but at Girl Scout camp). I liked doing AWANA, but thought it would be a shame if parents kept their kids out of Boy Scouts because of AWANA.

    Our older son had no interest in Boy Scouts because he was busy with other stuff (mostly music) and didn’t care for outdoors activities. I wouldn’t have thought of suggesting Scouts for our younger son because of his autistic tendencies, but my husband signed him up at the end of kindergarten. I thought it would at least be a good father-son activity for the two of them. Then my husband got a second-shift job a couple months later, so I became the parent to go to pack meetings and den meetings and committee meetings and day camp.

    I didn’t think our son would want to keep up with Scouts past the first year or so, but he did, even though he didn’t fit in with the other boys and mostly stuck with me even during play time, and sometimes he had “incidents” (sometimes full-blown meltdowns but other times not as bad) as he did at school and everywhere else, when he got frustrated or just overloaded with too many people and too much noise. The Pinewood Derby was particularly stressful even though we worked on it being about having fun, not necessarily about winning. But I was thrilled the year he did win for best decorated car (we made it to look like a Kit Kat bar).

    We looked at two Boy Scout troops, one that most of the boys from his Cub Scout pack went to if they continued into Boy Scouts, and another that was much smaller and did not go on expensive trips. I was very glad he picked the latter, not only because we couldn’t afford the expensive trips, but because they seemed a much better fit for someone with special needs. They have a Scout who is in his 30’s physically but will never get past around 12 mentally. They have been wonderful with my son in so many ways, and I doubt he would be where he is today without that. I never would have imagined him taking a leadership position, but this past year he was senior patrol leader. He got very frustrated sometimes, when the younger boys didn’t follow instructions, but he has learned to cope better with frustration, largely I think due to his Scoutmaster’s guidance and encouragement.

    He finished his Eagle project in April (and he may have gotten somewhat more adult coaching than other boys because he is registered as a special needs Scout, which also gave him the flexibility of not having to finish by age 18, which would have stressed him out to much to consider it), and if he can just fit in three more hikes (two 10-mile and one 15-mile) this summer, he’ll become an Eagle Scout this fall. (The hiking merit badge is allowed as an alternative to swimming, which he does not do well, though he did finally pass the beginner’s test a few years ago.)

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  55. Twelve year old thinks the pool folk should let him in the deep end because he can swim across the pool doing the crawl. But I noticed he did it with his feet on the bottom, that kind of disqualifies one.

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  58. Excuse me. Where was I? Oh, yes, I did sign up son number seven for the local Cub Scout troop but they only met twice and that was it. Just enough for me to get his uniform and help him learn to sew the patches on.

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  59. I pull my hair up a lot at home, too, it’s so much cooler.

    These bites are making me crazy, SO ITCHY – I have a welt under my one arm that’s really large, but one of the most bothersome bites is one on one of my fingers, you can’t even hardly see it but it itches something awful

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  60. Mrs L has long hair. It used to be longer, but a few years ago she, my daughters, and a niece cut their hair for Locks of Love. It was the first time she cut her hair in 30+ years.

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  61. I don’t intend to have my hair this short again. Somehow I am not explaining what I want and they are giving me a different, short style. Depressing. Oh, well, it is not too hard to hide out around here.

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