Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
I thought I would share this again. It is my friend M and she is doing a food blog, and would also like to start a book club. I am going to help with that. Some of the first books she would like to read were written by M. F. K. Fisher.
“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others”.
Kim, I had to reread “haunt but aunt,” because in my family of origin we did not pronounce it “ant” and I silently read it as rhyming with “haunt.” I go back and forth now, since I still prefer to say it the way it is spelled, but people are far too likely to make comments when you do, and I mostly (I think) say it the other way now.
It used to be that the way you talked depended on the part of the country you lived in.
But TV has eradicated most local jargon. I remember moving from Spartanburg, SC t Charleston. In Spartanburg, one might say, for example, “Who does that belong to?”
In Charleston, they would say “Whoseown is zat”. The difference was not always that apparent, we could communicate. But it was different.
Now, everyone is about the same.
Linda, I enjoyed it so much that I posted it on Facebook. I used to love reading the obits in the local paper, and I’m going to say it anyway, the ones from our citizens of African descent were the BEST. They had family, in-laws, outlaws, and numerous “adopted” aunts, uncles, cousins, and even god-children.
They were especially good when they got in a last shot by naming names of those who didn’t “do right”.
I would have used more paragraphs to make it easier for old eyes like mine to read–but otherwise saw a warm, kind and loving man–who didn’t mind admitting he wasn’t perfect–in that obituary.
He was also 13 days younger than me, which is weird.
Speaking of being old, when I was about 15 years old, I was riding my bike on Western Ave. near Peck Park, when I looked up and saw snow-covered mountains far to the north.
I was gasped and stopped the bike, absolutely shocked.
Where had mountains come from?
Okay, I was a teenager, but I stood there trying to understand how mountains could have suddenly appeared–I’d lived there my entire life and never seen them before.
That beautiful winter view in LA–when the sky is crystal blue and everything seems so close as to touch–was the result of the fight against air pollution.
Michelle, we lived close enough to California to drive there quite often. We vacationed near Ventura quite frequently, a specific campground that has quite a few memories for me. I remember playing on its playground; I remember that if we drove in or out of it around dusk, to look for rabbits, because there typically were several of them in one grassy area; I remember that we saw (and grew to love) skunks; I remember that it had sunflowers; I remember that it had a sort of a bear-looking carved rock where we got our pictures taken. And one time when we were there, there was a fire engulfing a mountain nearby, and we left our campsite to watch (and one older brother to film) as small planes came and dumped orange fire retardant on it.
And if during our trip we went to LA, it was so smoggy we were amazed, and we’d go back home and Dad would clear off the grime from the car–which was visibly dirty from driving through LA.
Journalism colleague shared that obit on FB last night.
Woke up today to the news tip that the coroner’s tent is out at our homeless encampment, apparently a transient was stabbed by other transients in the park overlooking the port. Crime team is on it (one of the nice staff changes we’ve made, we now have a dedicated crime and breaking news team for all 11 papers with 1-2 reporters dedicated to each of our areas).
The photo — this was a coastal defense station of some kind, with stationary guns back in the day that now is a little platform for tourists to take in the view — you can’t see the water in this direction (because of all the port infrastructure below, but a swing to the right would give you the view of the breakwater, lighthouse and ships coming and going into port along with a few sail boats on a good day (which this was).
There was an Army base in that area for many years through WWII and the Cold War years.
Morning! We are off to have lunch with our neighbors. It is brrrrr cold here and I believe lunch will include coffee for me ☕️ 😊
Lovely view up there Dj! Snow capped mountains are a favorite around here! 🏔
I spent the morning dealing with more car business. I went to the shop to pay the rest of the bill and since the tire inflation indicator was on I had that checked out. Then my brother came by and checked both the cars and put some oil in the one I drove yesterday. He discovered the clip that holds the rod in place that holds up the hood was broken so we went on a search for a replacement clip. He will get one from the dealership since they have them for only $2.10. He also was dealing with resetting the raccoon trap since we thought we heard one last night. And my brother always has to stop and have a snack because of his diabetes. It was a bunch of little stuff that takes up time. Now I can do my missed Bible study.
We’ve made so much progress against smog. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s in the San Fernando Valley, running around outside sometimes left me with a bit of burning sensation in my chest, and the sky was often pinkish. When I started college in Pasadena in 1975, most days from spring to early fall you couldn’t see the San Gabriel Mountains, which rose 4500 feet from a base only four miles away. (New students from out of town thought we were pranking them when we talked about the mountains.)
Now when we visit LA there is still some haze, but the mountains are easily seen. I love DJ’s spectacular photos from very clear days. Views of the mountains are one of the things I most miss most here in Michigan, where the highest mountains are short of 2000 feet and none of those is anywhere near me.
We are always surprised by the smog in some areas. Our air only gets that way when forest fires (often from Canada) are burning and the wind brings in the smoky haze. Yet, those from the bigger cities are always trying to tell us what to do with our resources, since they are worried about the pollution here (where they like to vacation). That always goes over big.
Aw, reportedly LA’s oldest hospital is closing (and the one where I was born, though not in the 1800s 🙂 — I only *feel* that old sometimes)
~ St. Vincent was opened in 1856 by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, an order of nuns that dates back to 17th century France. The hospital’s website describes it as the “oldest hospital in Los Angeles.” ~
We live a couple of hours out from the Canada’s, but the topography of where we are means that the air from the city and migrating air from cities south of the border tend to get trapped in this area. There have been some studies showing that the air quality here can be almost as bad as in the city. Not quite, because we at least don’t have the rancid smell of diesel hovering in the air all day as I would smell when we lived in the city. There is less industrial smog in most places now, as those industries have moved elsewhere, but there is still automobile pollution.
And I grew up in Downey, halfway between the viewpoint the shot is taken from and those mountains. I remember that view.
Those are the San Gabriel Mountains. Did you know they are the only mountain range in the lower 48 that run east and west? Those are the mountains that you see at the Rose Parade.
Located in a pine covered valley in the San Gabriel Mountains, the area was first developed as cattle ranches in the 19th century by Nathan and Truman Swarthout, then later the main ranch, owned by Sumner Wright was broken up into residential and commercial lots and by the 1920s a community took roots.
~ As highways were developed coming out of the major routes in the Cajon Pass, Wrightwood became an easy destination, with no serious mountain driving required for city dwellers. Through the last 60 years, Wrightwood has evolved from a vacation community to home to over 4000 full-time residents. ~
It is a fairly easy drive, especially compared to the narrow, winding, steep roads up to Big Bear. Shudder.
DJ, I was not born at St Vincent, but I had major heart surgeries there in 1962, 1969, and 1973. At that time it had one of the world-class pioneering heart surgery teams for “blue babies”, but those doctors moved elsewhere in the ’80s.
So I do feel wistful hearing about its closing. Is there an article about it?
I found some articles. They all have a picture of the big white building that was built after all my surgeries. My stays were in an older building, probably the same one in which DJ was born. I don’t suppose it was the original building from 1856 though.
I went to the grocery store earlier with sweat pants and a hoodie (no coat, not even a jacket). Unheard of in the Midwest in January, but I was dodging raindrops. It has rained nonstop since 11:00 or so last night, I think. If it were snow, it would be deep!!
When I moved to Nashville, I was surprised to find that January is Nashville’s “rainiest month.” An awful lot of places, if January is heavy on precipitation, it isn’t rain that’s falling! So far no snow in January here, either, though we did have two or three inches in November and perhaps the same in December, a single snowfall each.
Both hospitals where Art and I were born are still going strong, both now under Emory, but the smaller hospital where Wesley was born has closed.
I got more books from the library with vegan recipes and I found an official Scrabble word guide selling for a dollar. When Wesley and I played Upwords recently I used the wee word “cheapy” which he did not think was a word. I also used “cheaty” which again he said was not a word. I did find them in the online dictionary so he let me use them for points. This new book will be good to use for such occasions. He was being generous with his mama. Actually, he has never called me Mama. He calls me Mom.
I made pesto while Wesley was home. I really like it. Does anyone here make it? If so, could you share how you prepare it? I think a mini food processor would be very helpful for that and to make hummus.
Just drove through a lot of rain coming home from seeing G6. I’m glad the temp is over 40 or we wouldn’t have gone today. All that moisture at a colder temperature would not be safe for driving 90 miles.
Oh, and she is the cutest little girl on the planet.
I went to Costco today hoping to find one of those puffy jackets to keep me warm. Of course, they no longer carry them. But up at the front I saw one rack with jackets, but nothing I wanted. Then I noticed a gal going through some shopping carts that were sitting there. It turns out that the carts were full of returned items. On top of one was a light teal puffy jacket in my size. After trying it on, I took it. When I checked out I asked them how much it was since there was no price. She rang it up and it was 9.97. Score!!! Just exactly what I wanted and in my favorite color.
Hey Chas, I ate lunch at Chic fil a. I forgot to mention no onions when I got a chicken sandwich. I mentioned it to the gal who brought me my sandwich and she said that they don’t have onions there. Yeah!
We had a lovely lunch with our neighbors and on our way back home the sun was shining, the sky was blue and it was snowing…it was 24 degrees. Wasn’t it the cowardly lion who said “unusual weather we’re having ain’t it?!” 🙃
Congratulations Peter and Mrs L!
The hospital where I was born has been torn down, as were the two elementary schools I attended as a child. My junior high school is now an elementary school and my high school is a jr high school.
Oy, oy, oy. I was sitting in the living room reading and heard trickling water. All this rain is seeping into the house. After two hours of sucking it up with a 10 gallon shop vac, and emptying it 20 or so times (Mrs L had the 2.5 gal and emptied it a lot more often) I decided to call for service. Serv Pro is here now And our duct work is full of water as well. It’s going to be a looong night!.
Wandering Views 
Good morning everyone.
Not much going on here right now.
That’s good.
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Congratulations Peter.
😉
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What a beautiful view. DJ drove me through some breathtaking scenery and even braved LAX for me.
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I saw this on Facebook this morning and it amused me. I read it to myself and had to think about a few words. THEN I found out there is a video attached to it. It is read in a British voice, or I assume it is.
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/02/17/english-pronunciation-poem/?fbclid=IwAR3UY1gTlYcEJkp6m2jj1H0QT_Ha0y_GD7wfCodiQLkIKMyoM4ySxLdF_gc
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
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I thought I would share this again. It is my friend M and she is doing a food blog, and would also like to start a book club. I am going to help with that. Some of the first books she would like to read were written by M. F. K. Fisher.
“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others”.
http://littlecoastalkitchen.com/
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Kim, I had to reread “haunt but aunt,” because in my family of origin we did not pronounce it “ant” and I silently read it as rhyming with “haunt.” I go back and forth now, since I still prefer to say it the way it is spelled, but people are far too likely to make comments when you do, and I mostly (I think) say it the other way now.
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Kim,
My girls will love those lemony smashed potatoes and Greek chicken. I just bookmarked the recipe. 🙂
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Y’all, especially Donna, might get a kick out of this obit:
https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/desmoinesregister/194969073?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=obitshareamp&fbclid=IwAR1qKTN_Ataq_xuko2ucPr9yNNypjGjk9TI2RZY1kUp4ISnoYRDS8g6VVLY
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It used to be that the way you talked depended on the part of the country you lived in.
But TV has eradicated most local jargon. I remember moving from Spartanburg, SC t Charleston. In Spartanburg, one might say, for example, “Who does that belong to?”
In Charleston, they would say “Whoseown is zat”. The difference was not always that apparent, we could communicate. But it was different.
Now, everyone is about the same.
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Linda, I enjoyed it so much that I posted it on Facebook. I used to love reading the obits in the local paper, and I’m going to say it anyway, the ones from our citizens of African descent were the BEST. They had family, in-laws, outlaws, and numerous “adopted” aunts, uncles, cousins, and even god-children.
They were especially good when they got in a last shot by naming names of those who didn’t “do right”.
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Kim- I use a shortened version of that poem sometimes.
And here are the cartoons.
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I would have used more paragraphs to make it easier for old eyes like mine to read–but otherwise saw a warm, kind and loving man–who didn’t mind admitting he wasn’t perfect–in that obituary.
He was also 13 days younger than me, which is weird.
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Speaking of being old, when I was about 15 years old, I was riding my bike on Western Ave. near Peck Park, when I looked up and saw snow-covered mountains far to the north.
I was gasped and stopped the bike, absolutely shocked.
Where had mountains come from?
Okay, I was a teenager, but I stood there trying to understand how mountains could have suddenly appeared–I’d lived there my entire life and never seen them before.
That beautiful winter view in LA–when the sky is crystal blue and everything seems so close as to touch–was the result of the fight against air pollution.
Progress, for sure.
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Here is a link to that one-sentence paragraph written by that reporter in the obituary. Worth reading:
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2020/01/03/ken-fuson-des-moines-register-1995-weather-story/2807297001/
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Michelle, we lived close enough to California to drive there quite often. We vacationed near Ventura quite frequently, a specific campground that has quite a few memories for me. I remember playing on its playground; I remember that if we drove in or out of it around dusk, to look for rabbits, because there typically were several of them in one grassy area; I remember that we saw (and grew to love) skunks; I remember that it had sunflowers; I remember that it had a sort of a bear-looking carved rock where we got our pictures taken. And one time when we were there, there was a fire engulfing a mountain nearby, and we left our campsite to watch (and one older brother to film) as small planes came and dumped orange fire retardant on it.
And if during our trip we went to LA, it was so smoggy we were amazed, and we’d go back home and Dad would clear off the grime from the car–which was visibly dirty from driving through LA.
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Journalism colleague shared that obit on FB last night.
Woke up today to the news tip that the coroner’s tent is out at our homeless encampment, apparently a transient was stabbed by other transients in the park overlooking the port. Crime team is on it (one of the nice staff changes we’ve made, we now have a dedicated crime and breaking news team for all 11 papers with 1-2 reporters dedicated to each of our areas).
The photo — this was a coastal defense station of some kind, with stationary guns back in the day that now is a little platform for tourists to take in the view — you can’t see the water in this direction (because of all the port infrastructure below, but a swing to the right would give you the view of the breakwater, lighthouse and ships coming and going into port along with a few sail boats on a good day (which this was).
There was an Army base in that area for many years through WWII and the Cold War years.
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Michelle, yes, the snowy mountain views are gorgeous — and something I don’t remember, either, from my childhood growing up near LAX
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Morning! We are off to have lunch with our neighbors. It is brrrrr cold here and I believe lunch will include coffee for me ☕️ 😊
Lovely view up there Dj! Snow capped mountains are a favorite around here! 🏔
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Good morning.
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Good morning, big sister!
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I spent the morning dealing with more car business. I went to the shop to pay the rest of the bill and since the tire inflation indicator was on I had that checked out. Then my brother came by and checked both the cars and put some oil in the one I drove yesterday. He discovered the clip that holds the rod in place that holds up the hood was broken so we went on a search for a replacement clip. He will get one from the dealership since they have them for only $2.10. He also was dealing with resetting the raccoon trap since we thought we heard one last night. And my brother always has to stop and have a snack because of his diabetes. It was a bunch of little stuff that takes up time. Now I can do my missed Bible study.
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Very nice looking location on the header, DJ. Fun to see your neck of the woods.
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We’ve made so much progress against smog. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s in the San Fernando Valley, running around outside sometimes left me with a bit of burning sensation in my chest, and the sky was often pinkish. When I started college in Pasadena in 1975, most days from spring to early fall you couldn’t see the San Gabriel Mountains, which rose 4500 feet from a base only four miles away. (New students from out of town thought we were pranking them when we talked about the mountains.)
Now when we visit LA there is still some haze, but the mountains are easily seen. I love DJ’s spectacular photos from very clear days. Views of the mountains are one of the things I most miss most here in Michigan, where the highest mountains are short of 2000 feet and none of those is anywhere near me.
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We are always surprised by the smog in some areas. Our air only gets that way when forest fires (often from Canada) are burning and the wind brings in the smoky haze. Yet, those from the bigger cities are always trying to tell us what to do with our resources, since they are worried about the pollution here (where they like to vacation). That always goes over big.
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Aw, reportedly LA’s oldest hospital is closing (and the one where I was born, though not in the 1800s 🙂 — I only *feel* that old sometimes)
~ St. Vincent was opened in 1856 by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, an order of nuns that dates back to 17th century France. The hospital’s website describes it as the “oldest hospital in Los Angeles.” ~
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Kevin, didn’t you say your were also born there?
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We live a couple of hours out from the Canada’s, but the topography of where we are means that the air from the city and migrating air from cities south of the border tend to get trapped in this area. There have been some studies showing that the air quality here can be almost as bad as in the city. Not quite, because we at least don’t have the rancid smell of diesel hovering in the air all day as I would smell when we lived in the city. There is less industrial smog in most places now, as those industries have moved elsewhere, but there is still automobile pollution.
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And I grew up in Downey, halfway between the viewpoint the shot is taken from and those mountains. I remember that view.
Those are the San Gabriel Mountains. Did you know they are the only mountain range in the lower 48 that run east and west? Those are the mountains that you see at the Rose Parade.
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Downey. Carol lived there in assisted living for a while so I became a bit familiar with that area.
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Our GS troop used to have our winter camp in Wrightwood in those mountains — 77 miles northeast of LA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrightwood,_California
Located in a pine covered valley in the San Gabriel Mountains, the area was first developed as cattle ranches in the 19th century by Nathan and Truman Swarthout, then later the main ranch, owned by Sumner Wright was broken up into residential and commercial lots and by the 1920s a community took roots.
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~ As highways were developed coming out of the major routes in the Cajon Pass, Wrightwood became an easy destination, with no serious mountain driving required for city dwellers. Through the last 60 years, Wrightwood has evolved from a vacation community to home to over 4000 full-time residents. ~
It is a fairly easy drive, especially compared to the narrow, winding, steep roads up to Big Bear. Shudder.
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DJ, I was not born at St Vincent, but I had major heart surgeries there in 1962, 1969, and 1973. At that time it had one of the world-class pioneering heart surgery teams for “blue babies”, but those doctors moved elsewhere in the ’80s.
So I do feel wistful hearing about its closing. Is there an article about it?
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I found some articles. They all have a picture of the big white building that was built after all my surgeries. My stays were in an older building, probably the same one in which DJ was born. I don’t suppose it was the original building from 1856 though.
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Got the pics Kare.
Some of them are absolutely stunning. 🙂
Thankfully it doesn’t look like that here. We’re supposed to hit 60 both days this weekend.
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I went to the grocery store earlier with sweat pants and a hoodie (no coat, not even a jacket). Unheard of in the Midwest in January, but I was dodging raindrops. It has rained nonstop since 11:00 or so last night, I think. If it were snow, it would be deep!!
When I moved to Nashville, I was surprised to find that January is Nashville’s “rainiest month.” An awful lot of places, if January is heavy on precipitation, it isn’t rain that’s falling! So far no snow in January here, either, though we did have two or three inches in November and perhaps the same in December, a single snowfall each.
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Both hospitals where Art and I were born are still going strong, both now under Emory, but the smaller hospital where Wesley was born has closed.
I got more books from the library with vegan recipes and I found an official Scrabble word guide selling for a dollar. When Wesley and I played Upwords recently I used the wee word “cheapy” which he did not think was a word. I also used “cheaty” which again he said was not a word. I did find them in the online dictionary so he let me use them for points. This new book will be good to use for such occasions. He was being generous with his mama. Actually, he has never called me Mama. He calls me Mom.
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I made pesto while Wesley was home. I really like it. Does anyone here make it? If so, could you share how you prepare it? I think a mini food processor would be very helpful for that and to make hummus.
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Here’s the one hospital story I saw:
https://laist.com/2020/01/10/st-vincent-medical-center-hospital-closing-bankruptcy.php
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January and February/March are typically our rainiest months. But none appears in our forecast so far 🙂
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We are scheduled to do our roof next week. Storms and rain are forecast to begin tomorrow. Not what we wanted!
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Just drove through a lot of rain coming home from seeing G6. I’m glad the temp is over 40 or we wouldn’t have gone today. All that moisture at a colder temperature would not be safe for driving 90 miles.
Oh, and she is the cutest little girl on the planet.
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Congratulations, Peter!
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I went to Costco today hoping to find one of those puffy jackets to keep me warm. Of course, they no longer carry them. But up at the front I saw one rack with jackets, but nothing I wanted. Then I noticed a gal going through some shopping carts that were sitting there. It turns out that the carts were full of returned items. On top of one was a light teal puffy jacket in my size. After trying it on, I took it. When I checked out I asked them how much it was since there was no price. She rang it up and it was 9.97. Score!!! Just exactly what I wanted and in my favorite color.
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Hey Chas, I ate lunch at Chic fil a. I forgot to mention no onions when I got a chicken sandwich. I mentioned it to the gal who brought me my sandwich and she said that they don’t have onions there. Yeah!
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We had snow here, so I stayed on the mountain to avoid driving more then necessary in the snow. Should be in the teens tonight.
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I would “like” Jo’s 6:58 if I could.
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For Janice:
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We had a lovely lunch with our neighbors and on our way back home the sun was shining, the sky was blue and it was snowing…it was 24 degrees. Wasn’t it the cowardly lion who said “unusual weather we’re having ain’t it?!” 🙃
Congratulations Peter and Mrs L!
The hospital where I was born has been torn down, as were the two elementary schools I attended as a child. My junior high school is now an elementary school and my high school is a jr high school.
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The hospital where I arrived is still there. The schools are still there. I am not.
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Oy, oy, oy. I was sitting in the living room reading and heard trickling water. All this rain is seeping into the house. After two hours of sucking it up with a 10 gallon shop vac, and emptying it 20 or so times (Mrs L had the 2.5 gal and emptied it a lot more often) I decided to call for service. Serv Pro is here now And our duct work is full of water as well. It’s going to be a looong night!.
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I’m sorry, Peter. Hopefully your insurance will kick in and fix it right.
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Peter, I feel your pain. That sounds awful. 😦
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RK- We had this problem before and insurance won’t cover it since it’s not a leaky roof.
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