We hadn’t mentioned it because we didn’t want a buzz going on, but Jane had been having trouble with irregular heartbeat, and after 2 bouts with a Holter monitor and visits to a cardiologist, plus an angiogram, we were shunted over to a second cardiologist with a specialty in the electrical (nerve) aspects of the heart, who ran an MRI and declared it was weird, but that an ablation might be in order, but HE sent us over to Seattle to consult with one of the specialists in the Cardiac unit of the University of Washington. Which Jane did. And that doc said indications are it’s over-active cells up in an inconvenient place, that urgently needed to be gotten rid of, and she could do that. So Jane got a surgery date for the UW Hospital, and we went home, then back again this Monday.
The surgery involves catheters passed up into the heart to zap the rascal cells, and this happened Tuesday. Jane overnighted in the hospital, a real nice place where even the hospital food is good—and the procedure was a success. She is now off the med that was controlling the problem. The doc is happy. We’re happy. We’re safely home again.
That reminds me, about the Alcubierre-White warp drive — A YouTube video, I let the reference escape me, sorry, was saying that the math involved with a recent refinement of the concepts, making it more feasible, implied also that “anti-gravity” was not only not precluded, but might be required, if a workable A-W warp drive could be made; that a starship (or a technological system) capable of a workable Alcubierre-White drive might also have to have “anti-gravity” (and thus some control, at least on a large scale the size of a starship, not necessarily a small scale like a crew deck or a forklift / pallet) might be a side-effect, er, a technological side benefit, of such a drive. That would mean something like anti-gravity involved in propulsion and possibly the key to “gravity plating” for crew decks, and so on. If so, that would mean “flat” crew modules rather than spinning cylinders, more like most video science fiction ships than, say, CJ’s rotating crew cylinders.
I don’t know, but the video claimed that was outlined in one of the recent papers refining the concepts for the drive.
It sounds like a working interstellar drive, something that doesn’t require huge amounts of energy to function, is still a long way off. But the implications seem to be leading into other technological advances on the way to such a drive.
Cool, so…well, I don’t know if any of us will be around to see it, but it’s worth pursuing. With advanced technologies like that, energy and food and water production probably become easier to do.
Aw, heck, I just want a good fanboy and fangirl cheer out of this. — If habitable planets and moons are more common than we thought, and we know exoplanets are common now, and if we are getting closer to a workable drive to get to those stars — those are strong points in favor of space exploration and science fiction alike.
First of all. let me say that I’m happy to hear that your both doing well, and that Jane is recovering from her operation. Not quite the same thing but my Mother ( she`s 87 now ) had an operation to replace a heart valve a few years back. She came out of the operation ok, but really she’s not quite the same woman she was, she gets confused sometimes, forgets some things, and is less mobile than she was.
Moving on however,
Raesean said, ” Slànte Mhath ” which had Blue Cat asking about pronunciations. So, knowing as I do that it’s pronounced Slange Var, can I suggest that you check out a weird little site called
slangevar.com
gives you it’s meaning, spelling, a little bit of historical context, then tries to introduce you to the concept of a non alcohol based drink that is called, ( I’m sure your gonna guess this ) Slangevar, which this website would be happy to sell you. Apparently it’s made from lime, ginger, honey, and water, Scots Water ( they say ).
On a side note, I’m fairly sure that when they say ginger, they mean the Root. `Course, if you grew up in Scotland ( as I did ) you would pretty much call any carbonated soft drink ” ginger “, Can you imagine my embarrassment when I was in England, I asked an ice cream van driver what kind of ginger he sold ( I was missing my Iron Bru , something that was not easy to get in England back in the early/mid eighties ) The driver told me he sold Ice Cream and Sweets, not groceries (!!!)
Hey, Deesha. In Texas, where I’m from, and much of the Southern USA, not as commonly in the rest of the country, we do a thing like that, but instead of calling any carbonated beverage (soft drink) a “ginger” (I had no idea they did that in Scotland), here, any soft drink gets called a “Coke,” even if it’s a Pepsi or a Sprite or whatever other flavor or brand! This, of course, confuses people from other parts of the country when they move here. 🙂 We also understand asking for a soda, and in other parts of the country (nation) they’ll call it a pop or a soda. (Hardly anyone has, “carbonated beverage” or “soft drink” roll off the tongue, even though everyone knows those more formal words for it.)
You’d get one of two responses here if you asked for a ginger. (Hmm, maybe three, depending on, ah, quite where you were and with whom, haha.) — (1) You might get the person thinking you wanted ginger as in the root, something with ginger in it. (2) They might wonder if you meant a ginger ale or a gingerbread cookie or bread/cake. Gingerbread cookies can also be called ginger snaps, and I think you folks over in Scotland and England have the same words for all those, ah, although you’d call them biscuits instead of cookies. (3) Some wit might ask if you were looking for a redhead, since “ginger” also means that here, but it’s possibly a more recent import from the UK. We can call cats and humans gingers. (And personally, I can’t understand why some people get superstitious or prejudicial. Redheads are just fine.)
Haha, too bad you didn’t tell that ice cream vendor that there is ginger ice cream. (I’ve never tried some, only heard of it, but I’d imagine that’s good stuff.) Also too bad he/she did not know a perfectly good common Scottish word for a soda. Being in England, you might have reasonably thought he/she would. But people don’t always know regional things like that. — I wouldn’t have known what you meant and would’ve needed to ask, or I would’ve been confused, or else would’ve assumed you meant one of those others. Ginger ale is a common enough drink over here. (A ginger ale ice cream float might be a lot like that ginger ice cream. I may have to pursue that….)
slangevar, eh? And since you’re Scots or English, I’d guess the -r is silent and colors the a, the usual way UK speakers handle vowel + R.
Lime and ginger and honey and water? The ginger and honey, I have no problem imagining, but I am not sure what the line and ginger would taste like together. It sounds good enough, though. Heh. Whether it sounds good enough to buy any from overseas, I’m not sure. But who knows, Amazon and others will sell you (almost) anything these days. Heh. — Jeff Bezos for Grand Nagus, Ferengi Entrepreneur? 😀
About your mum, not to be alarmist, but has she been checked for signs of Alzheimer’s? Yes, the symptoms you said can be from a major thing like a heart valve replacement and recovery. But a checkup might be a good idea, to catch it early. — There are newer treatments to help combat Alzheimer’s these days. — My grandmother had help from a couple of good doctors, both more holistic, one who took a broader whole physical wellness approach to healing (he was an oncologist mainly, but saw a lot of older patients and had other interests), and the other, a geriatric specialist, a Chinese-American man (very strong Texas accent, very Chinese features) who gave her a very helpful regimen of vitamins and supplements, plus some prescription meds, to help allay the effects. A multi-vitamin, and calcium, a B-complex vitamin, Vitamin E, an iron supplement, these were all daily. He checked against her other prescription medicines to make sure there wasn’t a conflict, too much of something, or chemical troubles from overload or underload, one thing outdoing another. — You can probably get a good recommendation from a local family doctor or from a geriatric specialist. The Chinese-American doctor was also aware of, and used, some Asian practices, but not others; he was American and trained here, and viewed traditional Asian or American / Western health beliefs as that, beliefs only, unless proven well enough by modern science. — But he was also open to the idea that those could have benefits if tested and used properly. I believe he did acupuncture too.
Especially if Alzheimer’s is caught earlier on, it’s possible to ease that, to keep it from progressing as fast, for some patients. It’s still not well understood and it’s regarded as not necessarily gong along with aging. If it would help your mum, it’s worth looking into. — And even if you don’t feel that’s needed, a good routine of vitamins and activities to help keep mentally and physically active and enjoying life, is well worth it. The battery of vitamin supplements went right along with my grandmother’s prescription meds in that little pill dispenser’s compartments per dose per time of day through the week.
If she is having trouble with memory or confusion so that it’s noticeable to you or to her or to friends, it may be normal or it may be a symptom of Alzheimer’s or it may be a symptom of something else. Since she’s had the heart valve done, it could well be that. But if so, some mental and physical activities to enjoy, and a good vitamin/supplement and healthy food/diet routine would help anyway. — Ah, but, drat it, at mid-50’s and in one’s 80’s, there’s a place for being careful, but there is also something to be said for enjoying what you like, foods and drinks and whatever activities. It’s no good and no fun if you feel like a slave to your pills and diet, after all. — And I’m 53, so I get this more these days. Heh. I saw how overly careful my grandmother was for so long, and then when she got older, she needed to enjoy, and actually was told (quite firmly) by more than one doctor that she had to change some of her habits, too restrictive on that. It meant that she got to enjoy more, but some habits, oh, she was not going to change much. Heheh.
Yes, CJ’s blog is one of the few places where one can go for books, cats, languages, food and drinks and cooking, health stuff, astronomy, biology, SF&F, you name it. Also, friendly and helpful people who don’t much like to argue with each other At least not in a destructive way, usually. (I suppose if the furniture and chandeliers get a bit worn down in the discussion, well, haha, this happens. Mostly not overly rowdy, though.)
Deesha, it’s not uncommon with invasive heart surgeries such as valve replacements to get personality changes. These surgeries tend to set loose what is called a “clot shower” which typically goes out the aorta and up the carotid arteries. The clots are tiny, but they “infarct” (stop up) tiny blood vessels in the brain and cause microstrokes which result in brain damage. It all depends on where in the brain they hit, and how much damage they do.
This is the mechanism for what my dad had, “multi-infarct dementia.” Repeated clot showers, like shooting the brain with tiny buckshot. Shoot it enough and the damage can really add up.
BTW, For those who are into sea life, https://www.youtube.com/user/EVNautilus/videos has ROV feed from deep sea exploration all over the place — sea mounts, hydrothermal vents, whale falls, corals, (and a guy who can’t pronounce “anemone”! Drives me nuts. He keeps saying “a-nen-o-me.” AARRGGHH!) What’s available on YouTube are highlights, but I understand that when they are actually on an expedition, there is a 24-hr live feed going on. Cool stuff there.
@Hanneke et al, on the ineffable naming of cats; or at least this cat;
I thought to look up “rust, rusty” in French, and want to check my Larousse to see if the French word has connotations besides rusted iron, rust-colored. But the word given was, la rouille (n.f.) and rouillé (and probably enrouillé) for the adjective / past participle verb forms. As this also fits with la roue (wheel) and la route (route, way, road, path), and the French word sounds much like Ruy, the Spanish nickname for Rodrigo, I am considering this one. Ruy / Rodrigo ~ Rouillé might work, dunno.
But I wanted to ask to make sure Google Translate isn’t giving me misleading connotations or false equivalent meanings. I tried a few other words, to see what Dutch would do with them.
Dutch – English
verhaal – tale, story
verhaler – tale-teller, storyteller (I thought of “to holler,” to raise one’s voice and yell) but I don’t guess that’s related (it could be, though);
verteller – tale-teller, storyteller
(What’s the difference there, please?)
sage – saga, so the Dutch word just gets a schwa e on the end;
sprookje – tale, fairy tale, story — This looks like it’s related to spreken, to speak, with Dutch and English similar in the family of words related to spreken, except the R disappeared in English for some reason. So I get the sense the word might mean a spoken story, from an oral tradition, like a tale told around a campfire or hearth in an old “hall” in the very old tribal, ancient, and later medieval sense.
Verteller and Verhaler and Verhaal — Even though that prefix matches English for- (forgive, forget, fore- but not in the before sense, etc.), I am still going with the pun factor, so, Fur-Teller, Fur- (?Haaler?), Fur-Holler. Hmm, he shows, thankfully, no tendency to holler. — Ahem, very bad, very silly puns aside, I’m going to try out Verhaler and Verteller and Sprookje to see if anything fits.
And — While looking up copper, bronze, brass, copper alloy, and words like rust and tale and saga in Hindi and others, I came up with, hmm, a few unusual things which didn’t quite fit, but also, Google Translate gets particular: it assumes “cat” in English is most likely a female cat in Hindi, while if you put in “tomcat,” you get the male form of the same word. (So “billee” is a female cat and “billa” is a male cat. Since I have a friend named Billy, this might come as something of a surprise to him, haha. I’ve also had a friend, years ago, named Billie, a lady.) — Nuts, I didn’t retain which word translates to “kalpit” in Hindi. The transliteration to Latin alphabet didn’t show which kind of T (that matters, Hindi has two series of t/d/n sounds), but it sounded like the English kind, not the retroflex.
This kitty is playing hard to get about his name. I don’t know why things aren’t suiting me or him yet. Something’s bound to turn up. I’ve never had a cat go unnamed so long, and “New Kitty” is not really a lasting name.
Oh, and Spanish for tabby is “Atigrado,” very much like that Dutch getijgerde.
I found Abessijns in Dutch for Abyssinian, though this kitty doesn’t appear to be an Abyssinian, a plain tabby instead. (And now I’m not sure I got the Dutch spelling right except the -ijns.
I tried “tabby” and something else in (Irish) Gaelic and got back, “meirgeach,” I think it was. (Meirgeadh?) which might be /mair-yakh/ or /mair-yah/ if I’m guessing right. This is too close to Spanish María, and he doesn’t seem like a Mario. Hmm. — But if there’s something in Gaelic that would fit, I wonder….
(I’m recalling a medieval folklore bit that’s supposed to explain why tabby cats have a sort of M shape on their foreheads. The tale goes that a tabby cat supposedly purred to comfort the baby Jesus, and so Mary blessed the kitty, touched his/her forehead, and that’s how the cat got an M shape there. I think this was supposedly an English story, but given how things traveled in medieval Europe, it could be from many places.)
Kitty, you must have a name somewhere. I don’t think you’re Tybalt (Thibault), Prince of Cats, either. You’re not grey enough to be Greymalkin. (My Shakespeare is too rusty too. I need to reread.)
@BCS, all those Dutch words are correct, except I don’t think “verhaler” is in use in the Netherlands (it might be Flemish).
“Verteller” is the one that is in use, or sometimes “verhalenverteller” ( teller-of-tales).
And to answer your earlier question, “oker” is a yellowish beige, so the yellow ochre; the orangish would probably be terracotta and the reddish ochre would probably be brickred “steenrood” or dark red “donkerrood”.
“Jonkie”, young one, another one to try for the new cat? Even when he gets old, he’ll still be younger than you, so you can still call him that.
Or maybe we’re confusing the issue with all our exploring of foreign words, and he’d have settled into Rudy by now if that’s what you consistently called him…
(For Rudyard Kipling and ruddy-colored)
Heh, I don’t know, he will probably get an English name, but it seemed natural to me to consider Dutch, Spanish, French, or others, to see if anything rang a bell, to see if it would fit him. He’s still not really responding to being called, but he’s beginning to figure out he can communicate with me, that Goober does and that I understand some things, or that he can maybe figure out what I’m doing. I haven’t gotten a head-turn or other reactions to trying names on him, because of this, I think. But he can hear and talk back when he calls and I say something, and he’s responded a few times when Goober has talked to me, the typical sorts of meows and chirrs and other sounds cats make to humans and each other.
I am leaning toward Curry. He’s a little mild, a little smokey, a little spicy, and there’s variety and mystery there. Rudyard would likely get shortened to Ruddy. — I tried Tang and Tangy, but those haven’t stuck. — I’m likely going to put a temporary name with a note that I’ll call back with his new name when I find it, or list him as Cat W. with my last name there, temporary. Rufus almost fits but not quite, and Cyperse and Cyprus, as much as I thought those (or Bronze or something like that) would fit, they don’t seem too. — So between me being extra picky about this for no good reason I can figure, and him being not as responsive as most (tame) cats would be to a name, I’m still trying to figure it out. I’ve never gone a whole week without a cat having a name. This guy is his own brand of unique. I’m overthinking it, and don’t know why I’m being so fussy. Curry seems to fit better than Rudyard, but we’ll see. He can’t be “New Kitty” forever. (He’s not really responding to that either, darn it.)
Verhalenverteller? Oh, that’s a mouthful! But it’s just two words strung together and English has that “teller-of-tales” reduplication going on, plus “storyteller.” (I also tried tale-spinner and story-weaver. Google Translate thinks spinner is the same in Dutch, but might be confused by that fad for the little spinner gadgets, and wever for weaver looks fine to me. (The ay/eh sound instead of ee makes sense from a Middle English standpoint too.)
While hunting around for cat names, I also tried one for an Old English tale of the Wayfarer or Wandering Stranger. I got back a Dutch word that says it’s wayfarer, wanderer, traveler, and several others, all with about the right meaning / connotations I was looking for. — Google Translate claims that’s “Reiziger.” And if that’s a good equivalent for those, or a pilgrim, Peregrin/pelegrin, rover, roamer, etc., then that will work really well for a ship name; at least I think so. — Is it ever used as a ship name or family name, or a story persona / character that might be well-known in Dutch stories? Does it translate the way Google Translate claims? Thanks. If so, I have at least one new ship name chosen. (I have some others on hand in case, mostly English.)
LOL, it also gave me “zwerven” and “zwerver” for a traveler or wanderer. English has to swerve, which is primarily to turn or move out of the way to avoid hitting something. It looks cognate, so there’s probably a story of how the two words relate. Somehow, a starship that’s constantly swerving doesn’t quite do it, lol. Unless it’s skiing…. Hmm, never would’ve thought of that, haha! I guess they needed that on Hoth, spaceships with skis and snowshoes and snowplows…. OK, that would actually be pretty funny for something. Huh…brain is wandering around in free-association again.
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I’ve been up a few times. Goober’s had some kind of trouble spitting up, and although that’s not totally abnormal, the way he’s done so now, twice, is worrisome. I don’t know if it is or is not related to the two of them sharing a space, with potential body, food and water, and litterbox contact. But Goober needs his checkup and booster shots anyway, and because they’ve been in contact, he will need tests too, to see if he’s now carrying anything, microscopic or macroscopic, that’s, ah, very much unwanted. Also had to do normal cat owner duties, feeding, litterbox sifting, etc.
The new kitty might, maybe, be starting to get the idea that wanting to grab or hold with his paws, claws, or (more gently but still there) with his teeth, is not the way to make friends or get the human to play with him. — This looks like that’s what he wants, not aggression, but wanting to initiate or continue contact, playing, attention.
Thought the little doofus was going to get himself shut up in the fridge or get his little noggin banged by accident, with the refrigerator door, this past evening, and (sigh) we’ve had a couple of items knocked over (nothing broken so far) in kitty explorations.
We had, aha, one meal where both cats disliked the moist food. That is a major occurrence for this little guy, who will happily inhale all his and some of Goober’s too. On the positive side, I have finally seen Goober twice go back after feedings to get more food, whatever’s left. Too bad I didn’t look at the can to know what flavor they both rejected. :-/ Poor guys.
They might be getting a little more tolerant or friendly with each other, but they are not yet best buddies. The new kitty is not as alpha or naturally aggressive / assertive / bossy as Smokey, though he does have a little of that. He seems mostly mild, except that yes, he doesn’t know housecat cat or human manners yet. But there’s potential there for him to be mild enough to be a friend to Goober. (I’m surprised they haven’t made friends more strongly yet.)
—–
I missed getting their paperwork filled out from the vet’s website. (That’s a thing now.) And I’m about to chance going back to bed, because I’ve been up since 2:00am. — Getting the cats to the vet and seeing if the new guy needs to stay for deworming (if he needs it, please stay over, it’s worth the extra cost, but ouch), and find out what his health is, get his shots started, schedule for neutering, and so on. And hope to heaven that he doesn’t have anything major, terminal. Also hoping Goober will check out fine. There’s a mole, wart, or some nodule covered over with fur, right above his right shoulder, to have the vet check too.
So…this will be his first vet trip and shots, flea meds, deworming, the whole thing, and his first time being put in a carrier. Goober’s an old hand at the carrier, but he dislikes it. Separate carriers, since they are not yet sure of each other, they’ll be extra stressed, and I’m expecting Goober will come home and the new kitty will stay for a night or two. — Oh, I am sure the vet bill will be more than I expect, and big, without the neutering yet. (I think he may be at the age where that should be done soon.) I also have a couple of questions and observations for the vet, to make sure we’re doing well, that I do right in training him, and whether what I’ve seen indicates anything. (He has a loose stool, still after one week, and as far as I can tell, isn’t peeing as much as I’d expect. Er, I don’t see any marking behavior or peeing in inappropriate spots, and (unless I have missed it) he’s now using his litterbox, or, er, the bathroom floor near Goober’s, exclusively, without recent / further pooping elsewhere. I think that problem might be resolved. Oh, I hope.)
So…busy day ahead.
@BCS, Reiziger is a good word for any kind of traveller, would be fine as a ship name.
(Not to be confused with German riesiger = gigantic).
Zwerver has more negative connotations: a hobo, a homeless person, or a wandering around sort of footloose person, not tied to routes or destinations.
The verb “zwerven” has less negative connotations as well as the one related to the noun.
A sailor on the “wilde vaart” i.e. on a ship that has no fixed destinations or routes but goes wherever they can get or move a load, could be considered to be “zwervend” (wandering), as could a backpacking hippy-type crisscrossing the continent by hitchhiking and railway-passes, wherever he can get a ride.
“Vaart” comes from the verb “varen”, which means to sail a ship or boat (even if no sails are used: sailing by using sails has the verb “zeilen”). So nothing to do with any unfortunate English associations for that word…
Tramp steamers transporting goods criss-cross on no fixed route are said to be ‘on the wild sail’, “op de wilde vaart”; as such “Wilde Vaart” is a good name for an independent tradeship on no fixed route, something more akin to the Millenium Falcon or the Firefly, while “Reiziger” is a more stable and dependable traveller like the supposedly staid tradeship the Dutiful Passage or Phoenix, travelling a fixed circuit.
My old neighbor’s dad was “stuurman op de wilde vaart”, helmsman on an independent trading ship, and he was away for months at a time, with the family not knowing when exactly he’d be home (this was before mariphones and satelite phones etc.). “Stuur”= stearing wheel or helm on a ship, and from the verb to steer.
For deworming, my vet just gives them a pill & they come back home with me; repeat 2 weeks later… no need to stay.
If the lump is an abcess he might have to stay to get it treated, if he needs sedation.
Loose stools, spitting up and extra-smelly poops might mean a Giardia infection, which is highly contagious (even for humans) – that needs stool samples collected over 3 days to diagnose. My kittens had that ☹️. Luckily, from what I saw in the linked article, it’s not very common in America.
🙂 Imagine that, librarians and (well, whatever that job is) are full of good information. Thanks! “Wilde Vaart.” A fare, to fare, and wayfarer, wayfaring, in English — is there something like wegfaren, in Dutch? — are the same root verb as Dutch paren, to travel. (Oh, and “farewell,” as a wish, “travel well, safe journey, bon voyage,” basically. Positive connotations there. — The Old English story of the Wayfarer is a rather somber tale of someone traveling mostly alone through life. (Now I’m going to have to locate the story in my old lit. textbook and read it. We read it translated into modern English.
Zwerven and zwerver could be useful too, to know the positive and the negative (or misunderstood or truthful) connotations.
In English, I believe a “steersman” is another old word for a helmsman or pilot, but I may be misunderstanding sea and river terms. Steersman may imply more someone who steers the rudder / tiller for a small boat such as a rowboat or dinghy.
I keep forgetting that sailors, especially with seniority or officers, might have wives and children back home, unless they were, for example, shrimpers or fishermen who keep to their own port and fishing routes out to sea, and return to port to their families when possible. — But that’s different from having a varying route like a “Wilde Vaart” ship/boat, or regular trade routes, longer for either type of vessel. So if their family are back home and they’re out at sea, hmm, that puts a strain on both sides and the kids.
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Well, I guess we’ll call it a trial run with the pet carriers. My friend did not get my voice mail from Friday or Saturday, and was therefore out doing errands, unaware of the appt. time, even though I’d talked to him before setting it, then called back to tell him, by message, it was confirmed. (And I’d called twice after but didn’t see any point in leaving more messages.) — So…darn it. I had to call and reschedule the appointment (for tomorrow) and my friend promised he’d be here tomorrow morning so we can get it done. — This keeps happening with these friends. They have jobs and families with kids and their wives work. (One’s a teacher.) But darn it, hey, it doesn’t help me to make appointments, be ready, wait, then oops, we forgot or we were busy and no call, nothing, and I end up having to reschedule. They work. They know you look bad to others if you do that a lot. — But the vet’s office was OK with it, and I hope we’ll get it all sorted out.
Really odd: the new kitty did OK with getting him in the carrier and staying. No great freak-out there. No panic or anger, and aside from some calling for reassurance, he did well. Once the door was opened again, he stayed in a while before coming out, but it didn’t seem like he was scared to come out, just taking it easy. That’s great, kitty, you do that and we’ll do fine! As far as I know, he’s never been in a carrier before. I would’ve thought he’d be distrustful afterward, since he’s been an outdoors stray. But he’s very friendly to be only a stray, and it seems like more than just the other guy being nice to him. So…I don’t know, but as far as I can tell, he didn’t have an owner, just a stray.
We are still working on the grab and hold or claw and mouth tendency when he wants to play or get petting. He’s reached out when I pass by, with a paw, as if to say, “Hey, pet me.” (This gets the desired result, too.) — If I can get him used to how to behave, what the rules are, that, “Ow, no, that hurts,” then I think he’ll do OK there, and I think his litterbox habits are settling in.
Seeing that he and Goober were both in carriers may give them a little bond, once they get past, “Hey, I didn’t do anything, did you do something?” Heh. But overall, they are getting along OK. — Behavior at the food bowl is improving a little.
Giardia — That can happen here in the US too. (I hadn’t recalled the name until you said it.) While it’s not super common, as far as I know, it does happen. And Houston’s climate and population and all the travel in and out of a big city, make it an environment where, well, biology happens, and things could potentially be there, micro life and more complex, visible life. He seems mostly healthy, but given that he was a stray and there are multiple sources around, potentially, to get something or other, yes, he needs to be tested for whatever might be there when the vet sees him. — I would still guess he’s 6 to 9 months old, but the vet may say different. So he is close to when it would be time for him to get neutered, when he’s cleared after his checkup and any treatment.
The little place on his neck near his shoulder feels like a mole or wart, and there’s fur over it. I don’t think it’s an abscess or a tick, for instance. (I’d know what a tick felt like, I think, and it’s firm, solid, and small, so it’s not an abscess. Bless his heart, good thing it’s not, or he would’ve been in for emergency treatment way sooner.) It’s smaller than the size of a pea, but it’s noticeable when I feel his fur and pet him there. So I want to know if it needs to be removed now or later.
Goober and the new kitty are doing fine. I gave them treats after getting out of the carrier, and I am going to try to get Goober out of being anxious / scared of the carrier, by leaving it open, around, and likely with a towel in there. If he and the new kitty get the idea it’s a safe haven, that should help Goober. He got to where he hated getting in the carrier for trips back and forth when I was taking care of my grandmother. He can still learn it’s a sheltering place, not a scary thing or a punishment. And the new kitty, if he can continue to think the carrier is just another place to chill out, that’s ideal.
— Curry — For now, I am going with Curry as his name. I don’t know if it will stick, but…he needs a name, already, a good name. Curry seems to fit the most.
“Haven” from above — In Old English, heaven and haven are related, and there is some other connection I am forgetting, the word-association behind the word. It’s inherited from Common Germanic or West Germanic (so Dutch, Friesian, and German should have cognates). In Old English, it was haven or hafen, (and probably the F in the middle was a V sound). Heaven was hêofanum, at least in the Lord’s Prayer and one other source I’ve seen. (What I know is from self-study, not classwork.) But the meaning was related to a “haven.” — If it’s een haven or een haven in Dutch, that would be another case where they’re very close.
Going to cook a little, tidy up or reorganize some (needed) and study some Spanish and Dutch. — I got irritated at myself when I could not recall one of the simple tense forms of “to give,” so some review should refresh me. I still need to finish reading Descartes’ essay. I may look for an ebook Spanish textbook, and one for Dutch besides what I’ve got. (I still can’t believe that those are not better organized.)
Hanneke, that site link you gave with all those pronunciation examples was very good. It gives me enough technical linguistics know-how and enough practical everyday examples to get a better handle on Dutch pronunciation.
Google Translate — I could swear at times their audio is giving an “au/ow” sound for “UI,” even though you said it’s like “l’œille,” which is [l œj] or [l øj] in French, and eu/œ is close or open [ø, œ] like German öh/ö are. Google also keeps giving voiced V and Z for the Dutch letters, even in initial position or final, and Google and the textbook sources I have all seem to say [x] /kh/ (voiceless velar fricative, a strong HH-like sound, the same as Spanish j in reloj, German Bach, Buch, Scottish Loch. When the same sound is voiced, it is a “blurry gh” like Spanish middle hard G, haga, agua, digo; or like Greek G in the same settings. I get from some sources that Dutch G varies by dialect from that voiceless KH sound to the voiced GH sound, and I know I’ve asked you before. :-/ (It is so odd to me that it could go to KH.) — Old English had the regular hard G, the blurry GH, and that blurry GH could become palatal to Y- (as in yellow) in front of or sometimes after æ, e, I, y, and velar / bilabial to W around a, o, u, w. (folgende became following, after the middle stop in Middle English, folwe, folwend(e), folwyng, I think it was. Then in Middle English it went to G, Y, W, and the GH dropped out. (Not our GH spelling , that’s H in Old English: cniht, liht, lahter (laughter) and so on. J/DG was CG in Old English, and the palatal dzh, djh, j sound was already there in Old English; also CH for words like children, church, Chad, many others.
Dang, I must have an inner foreign language lecturer trying to get out….
@BCS, “haven” is Dutch for a harbor (for ships), but the figurative meaning of a safe harbor translates literally to “een veilige haven”.
Heaven = de Hemel in Dutch (related to German Himmel).
“Hij is hemelen” = He’s gone to heaven (‘Heavening’), i.e. he’s dead.
Uncapitalised it can also mean the sky, though “lucht” (air) is more often used for that: “Een blauwe lucht/hemel” = a blue sky.
“Wegfahren”, IIRC, is German for to drive away; in Dutch we have “wegvaren” for to sail away.
“Reizen” is used for most of the travelling/wayfaring etc. alternatives, though “zwerven” or “trekken”/”rondtrekken” (trekking around) could be useful variants for less organised travels.
Migrating birds are “trekvogels”, “vogeltrek” = bird migration.
I did see steersman as well as helmsman mentioned when checking I got the right name for the job ☺️.
“Varen” is not the same as “paren” – that one means ‘to mate’, related to a pair and pairing up, I suppose. Probably a typo in your answer, but not one you’d want in your story.
The following / the next one is “volgende” in Dutch, with a v.
Laughter = “lachen” (verb, with the breathy kh as is usual for the -ch), “de lach” – the laughter (e.g. on the face of a child), “het gelach” – less kind laughter, e.g. the laughter of people surrounding you, but also “het gelach betalen” = to pay the piper.
That voice on the linked page speaks standard ‘northern’ Dutch. For the g and ch sounds, his example phrase ’88 beautiful canals’ =”achtentachtig prachtige grachten” contains plenty of examples (a bit lower on the page linked above) 😀.
If you want to hear the difference between the g and ch in northern and southern Dutch, listen to the phrase “geen groter genoegen”=’no greater pleasure’ on this follow-up page, first in northern then in southern Dutch.
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If by now everybody has had enough of Dutch, please say so!
I try to mark these comments @BCS so you can ignore them if you’re not interested, but we’ve wandered far afield from the happy news that Jane is feeling better!
Helmsman, steersman, and timoneer are all the same: the crew at the tiller or wheel. Pilot can mean that but also has a very distinct nautical meaning, as well as the common aeronautical meaning. Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens, was a riverboat pilot in this restricted sense. A pilot knows every shoal, seamount, shipwreck, or other navigational hazard in his literal area of expertise. He knows how the currents flow, and how the tides affect the flows and depths. He’s brought aboard ship to provide the local knowledge the captain and (sailing) master don’t have. Even now, pilots go out to ships to take them into harbor.
BCS, you mentioned tiki recently. How about tikka, a particular and particularly yummy curry? Or, I’ve always liked the sound of vindaloo. As a cat name, I imagine calling, “Vindalooooo!”
varen versus paren — I did not mean to type paren, and should have caught it. That’s either my own typo or my browser’s manically overzealous on-the-fly spellchecker. It can turn housecoats into housecoats and letterboxes into letterboxes in an eye-blink, and it doesn’t know much about science fiction and fantasy words, even such a thing as a starbase. (It thinks they might be staircases.) (Starships, though, it can spell.) — Throw college-level English, common or rare, at it, and it may balk. Mix in Old and Middle English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and oh, whatever else folks might speak around here, and hahaha, it really wants to respell everything. (And it does NOT want to be turned off. It will sneak back to ON. We are not amused.)
Paren might be a bit much for the story, yes, but a more adult story, well, things happen, though not necessarily in glaring detail on the page. Imagination can be a good thing. 😉
@Walt — Is “timoneer” with a long or short I? I’m going to look it up anyway. I’ve never seen that word before. Landlubber, I be. The name Timon in English is with a long I, and in Spanish it’s Timón, with an ee and an oh, like the character in the (now older) Lion King animated film. I know that’s from Greek, I should remember what it means, because I’d looked it up a while back, but I don’t recall now. (Timon is a character in one of Shakespeare’s plays, but borrowed from the Greek character.)
Tikka Massala and Vindaloo — Now I want to add those to the next grocery list! Side effects, dude. 😀 — I don’t know nearly enough about Indian food.
The new kitty may settle into the name Curry. (But I had a moment of cognitive dissonance at, “I love Curry!” haha.) — However, other cats are highly likely to show up in other stories, or maybe in this one, so hmm, a Vindaloo or a Tikka could appear.
LOL, the cooking that was supposed to happen did not: the meat was still frozen solid, though put into the fridge last night. Tomorrow, then. — But Curry, the new kitty, being adolescent and a cat and therefore doubly into everything, had to swipe-swipe-swipe with his paw to try to get my attention (and see what that thing was I was holding) while I was in the kitchen. Gave me a good laugh. Thankfully, they both steer clear of the oven and stove when in use. I was glad to see the new kitty didn’t get too close. Also discovered, being an outside cat when there can be big, noisy trucks and other loud noises, he is not much bothered by a sudden loud noise in the kitchen (pans, etc.). I don’t think he has a hearing problem. If he does, well, he’ll fit in fine.
I’m still impressed; he’s mostly a laid-back, easygoing sort of cat, just a little alpha, spicy side to him.This is something we can work with.
Another first: For a few minutes, Goober and Curry lay down beside each other. Goober felt annoyed and got up and moved so he could have plenty of space to stretch out. But this was a first try, by the new cat, at getting along without a fuss. Also could be another instance of trying to shoehorn in as the alpha, and as a teen cat, to see how much he can get by with, with Goober or with me.
I may have a peaceful feline household yet.
And — as Hanneke said, hey, I don’t want us to take away from the main topic of Jane’s recent bout of hospital stay and her chance to rest and enjoy. Likewise CJ needs that.
My study habits and a few other things are getting nudged back to former good habits; there’s progress. There’s still a ways to go, but any progress is welcome.
Amazon tells me they are having trouble and trying to get my subscription for cat litter ordered. (A delay from the seller/supplier.) In some horror at the prospect of running out with a new cat here, since I’m running low, I ordered a pail from another supplier, post haste. If I wind up ahead by a pail, that’s fine.
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The bit with cat care and cat litter and a new adolescent kitty to fit in, had me thinking two things:
Oh, man, if a kitten or a “teen” cat is such a handful, I hesitate to imagine what it must be like to deal with juvenile and adolescent hani boys and girls. That could be a good reason for some hani folks to get themselves out into space… Heh.
A few words that speak for themselves: Sudden starship vector change + Cat litter! = … Ugh, I had not at all considered the problem of, what do you do about that on a starship? Even with a mostly-enclosed litterbox…. — No idea if that would make it into a story, but the thought really, really made me pause! (I would consider that a general enough idea that many authors might tackle that, if they can brave the mental imagery involved. Heheheh.
Long I, schwa: tī’ mə nir or -ni ər
Zero gee toilets have to suck.
Cat-care in space, a new topic!
You’d need a permanent mini-maze, with several enclosed chambers beyond the actual litterbox, that have cat-flap entries and exits at right angles so litter cannot get out easily; those flaps probably need to be automatically lockable during manoeuvres, and the roofs need to be liftable so any litter that got out of the box into the portico or second entryway could be vacuumed up each day, before it got carried out even further (and maybe get loose in the ship). If the entire boxes-maze is small enough, padded and lockable it could also be the cat’s safe space to ride out those manoeuvres in.
I’ve also seen videos of cats trained to use a human toilet, and some even learned to flush. But as spaceship toilets probably won’t work with water reservoirs and gravity-assisted flushing (maybe more like those on an airplane? I don’t see catheters or nappies being used permanently), I don’t think that would be workable for a cat, the risk of it getting sucked out itself is too big.
Another thing: cats can’t suck up water, they spoon it into their mouths with a curled-under tongue. So could they only drink if/while there’s artificial gravity? Both to keep the water in the dish and to let the cat pick it up in its tongue.
Or could they learn to lick it from a bottle spigot like rabbits and guineypigs and hamsters do? If so, would a usual bottle-spigot with a ball (like a ballpoint pen) be workable in space, without gravity to keep the ball blocking the opening? It seems like even that bottle with spigot would be too leaky to keep around during weightlessness.
And would it have to be hand-fed, one kibble at a time, to make sure no crumbs or loose kibble floats off to cause problems later? Maybe a kibble-bowl with a domed cover with an elastic membrane portal, that the cat needs to stick its head into to eat. Hard to train a kitten onto solid food that way!
Or do shipcats only eat cans of mousse/paté that they can lick off the plate, with no crumbs to get lost? That would need gravity too, while eating, to keep the food on the plate. And cause dental problems down the road unless you teach them to accept teeth-brushing.
Further along the same line: keeping ship’s cats to keep vermin out of the lading is an old tradition, but if some leftover bits of dead mouse can float off during weightless manoeuvres and get lodged in unreachable places that would not be good. Maybe not as bad as mice or Dinner loose in the airducts, but not good.
So would they train their cats to bring all their prey in somewhere? How much training can one expect to be able to count on, with such spaceships’ cats? Maybe this needs extra-trainable extra-intelligent lineages of cats, like McCaffreys barque-cats?
Probably easier to decide cats only travel on ships with artificial gravity, that only do weightless manoeuvring for short periods at a time (not long enough to get dehydrated), and seldom perform unexpected sudden moves.
Cats can learn to use a water bottle like those on cages for other small animals. (They’re not the only ones that lap up water.)
@BCS — cats can be trained to use regular people toilets (and possibly trained to flush them afterwards — not sure about that bit). I could see how the instinct to cover the poop could be transferred to pawing a “flushing” device.
People are always selectively breeding and modifying animals for body shape as well as enhancing or modifying traits or characteristics for specific purposes, like breeding dogs to hunt various prey, or breed cows for milk production, or horses for size or gait. We breed chickens, goats, pigs, etc., and cats. A strain of cat specifically bred (and maybe genetically enhanced?) to be a companion to spacers is not that far fetched an idea. You could modify naturally occurring behaviors to be environmentally specific, like having their “den” also be an escape pod thingie, and their “litter box” a specifically designed space litter box that they could be trained to use. You could do genetic modifications to get around traits that might be problematic in space. A “hairless” cat would solve the shedding problem and with softer paw-pads to help with traction. You could even genetically modify for no claws. While you’re at it, breed for intelligence so that a cat could learn to manipulate things like a feeder or watering device, and how to manipulate its “toilet.” Cats raised from kittens in space would adapt and learn, and possibly teach their own young the life-skills necessary to live in space.
Science is not going to stand still, especially genetic science. If there’s money in breeding cats for space, somebody will do it.
You could have a toilet chamber with a “flap” the cat has to go through. This would contain the liquids in the event of zero-G. Passing out of the flap could trigger the cleaner mechanism. Again, if there’s money in it, somebody will invent a way for cats to poop in space.
I might aim you at some of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s books, in which cats in space feature. IIRC, Neogenesis involves a cat on a space ship (Crystal Dragon is the book that sets up the situation).
@ Henneke
Die lauchen lucht would be the laughing wind? I could see a cat named that.
@Tommie, that sounds more like German to me. Probably because “die” = “the” in German, but “that one” in Dutch, and lauchen has a German look to my eye (but Google translate didn’t know it). When I looked it up it isn’t quite: in German “die lächelnde Luft” = the laughing air.
Dutch would be “de lachende lucht” = the laughing air, while wind = wind: “een warme wind waait” = a warm wind is blowing (we’re having our third heatwave of the year! Unprecedented!).
Hi Tommie, BCS, I’ve been thinking on and off about why the word “lauchen” immediately looked like German to me, and not Dutch.
I finally figured out that though Dutch has both the -au- and the -ch- sounds, those two never ever follow one another in Dutch, while that combination is common in German, for instance in the German verb “brauchen”= to need.
I had to check it with a Dutch Wordfeud cheatsite, but even 7 wildcards + containing auch or ouch, both possible different spellings for the au-sound in Dutch, gave me no options.
Changing the -ch- to -g- gives nothing in Wordfeud either, because names aren’t allowed, but we do have the month Augustus, and the very rare Augiasstal (stal = stable, a very dirty one, after the fables of Hercules), so that occurs only in borrowed Latin names, not in ordinary words.
It’s a bit strange when I think about it, as all the other vowel sounds do combine with the G-sound, so why not this one? When it’s quite common in German, and occurs in English spelling a lot too? I’m not sure if the G gets pronounced as a G in any words ending on ough or ouch though – those are more of a -ow- and a -owtsh- than a -g-.
I made a list, and all the other vowels +ch/g occur in Dutch:
Dutch – English
Lach – laugh
Lag – lay (past tense of to lie, in the sense of to lie in bed)
Laag – layer
Echt – real
Leg – lay down
Leeg – empty
Leugen – a lie
Eigenlijk – actually, really
Vijg – fig
Lig – am lieing down (sp?)
Lieg – am lying
Ochtend – morning
Log – ponderous
Loog – was lying
Vroeg – early
Gehucht – hamlet
Rug – back
Hugo (name, pronounced with the long u though not written as -uu-)
Huichelen – to speak untrustworthily, to falsely pretend to care
Huig – the roof of one’s mouth
So why is the au/ou sound, as well as the long uu sound, never followed by ch/g, except in one name each?
My nephew’s girlfriend is studying linguistics, I think I’ll ask her.
Oh, I am copying that down! Thanks!
Lying — is the spelling for both lying down and lying, telling something untrue;
But IIRC, English has these exceptions:
Eyeing — to eye, to look at, to see;
Dyeing — to dye something, such as yarn or cloth or Easter eggs;
Dying — to die, not to live;
English spelling never has found a way to contrast wind, wound, live, and read (long versus short vowels or a diphthong versus a vowel, from the same long/short contrast originally). There are probably others I’m not thinking of at present.
ough and augh — that gh nearly always comes from H in Old English, the same as CH in Dutch and German in that position. — But because of how H [x~ç] and blurry G (the voiced velar fricative gamma and the voiced palatal of the velar fricative) changed from Old English to Middle English and into Modern English; together with Norman French ears respelling Saxon English to suit what it sounded like to them, and their medieval preferences for what looked good in writing; we have a mess in spelling and pronunciation for these. There is a literary rant, a short piece on all the ways English ough can be said from the spellings. I’ll hunt it up, if my Google-fu is good enough. — I can’t think of a case where gh gets pronounced as a G after ou or au, except maybe in foreign, borrowed words. However, English ghost and aghast do pronounce it as hard G. IIRC, it was from that blurry G English used to have. The two words are native English from Germanic roots, cognate with Dutch and German and Friesian words.
I was very surprised that an F sound changed to CH in some Dutch words, like Dutch Lucht instead of English cognates Lift, Loft, Aloft. But one of the reference books says this happened often in an earlier stage of Dutch. By contrast, English has words like laugh, slough, cough, where our HH/GH (cf. Dutch CH) changed to an F sound; it went the opposite way from the Dutch, Friesian, and German cousins. Otherwise, in English, it mostly went silent.
Why do Dutch and English do things like that? Do ask your nephew’s girlfriend, and I’d be interested in the answer. My understanding (from self-study) is that as languages change over time, there are sets of changes they go through that are easier or preferred or fashionable, speech habits that speakers use and agree on without much conscious thought, usually, and one group has one set, another group has another set, a third group has a third set, and this is how languages drift across gradients for regional dialects, and eventually, separate languages.
So Dutch people from centuries ago found that ouch/auch sound to be troublesome or it sounded bad or it was hard to say, so they simplified it to something else they liked better, while English speakers also changed their set of ough and augh and other vowel(s) + -gh clusters to suit them better. We started off, at some past point, with the same set of words and only minor dialectal variations, before English, Friesian, Dutch, and German split apart. (German’s sound changes went even more extreme.) — And American and British English differ over “A” in some positions as AH or AA/AE (cat, apple). I say laugh as laff instead of lahff/loff, and British draught is American draft.
An earlier Dutch auch/ouch could go to ach like in lachende, lachen, but it might also go to other sounds (probably och) and perhaps others, since I don’t know the patterns of how Dutch changed over time.
The one sound difference that really surprised me was Ducth SCH is ss + kh, not SH as in English or French CH. I’ve practiced that “ss-hh” enough that I think I will remember it, but my English brain, also used to seeing German sch, really wants that to be sh instead of ss+kh. I’m having real trouble not making my Dutch G’s into G or blurry GH or a Y- (yes, yellow). I’ll get there eventually.
English LIE versus LAY has always given me trouble, but I don’t have trouble with SIT versus SET. .I just do not understand why they were so picky that they insisted on the two pairs.
Dutch G can go to English G, -Y-, or -W- sounds, because it was a blurry G back in Saxon times, and it changed over time into those sounds in Middle and Modern English. So where Dutch has G in that list, you’ll see G, Y, and W (or I and U) in the English words. English C and G also often turned into soft CH and J/DG sounds in Saxon English, which carried down to Middle and Modern English. But in a few cases, Middle English had variations by dialect, so we have a few Modern English words that went back to the C/K sound instead. — All of that is from sound changes that follow in certain “linguistic phonetic environments,” meaning, which sounds are around which others, and the choices that made best sense or that speakers liked best, as a group speaking their language. — I’d like to read more on linguistics. Languages do so many odd things over the centuries.
A friend has a cat fountain that has a constant flow of water from a spout into a bowl. I presume it filters as it pumps. The cats invariably “bite” the water stream instead of lapping. She also has an auto-raking, kind-of-cleaning sandbox.
I need a word that means upset because of the obvious consequences of your actions or position. For example, someone gets upset that the cats miss the sandbox, but they still don’t clean it.
When it comes to naming a critter able to recognize it’s own name and one needs to be able to “call” it, I think it’s necessary to think of using “hard” sounds. Personally I’m aware of this because I sometimes think I hear my name called, but it’s mainly just the “ah” sound. The “P” is easily confused with other plosives, the “u” is silent, and the “l” isn’t easy to pick out, and hard to shout an “l”. One should think of the sound frequencies, higher frequencies are better for localizing. The “z” sound is easy to pick out, “Buzz” for example is a name with good sound characteristics. “M” is a sound I don’t think so good–one can’t shout a humming. 😉
De Lachende Lucht — or — De Lachende Wind (Winden?) — Which one conveys better the sense of “the laughing wind” or “winds”? And does Dutch make “skies, heavens, and winds” plural to refer to them? — I like “De Lachende Lucht” (or Wind or Winds/Winden) for a ship name or a pub/tavern/inn name, and it might work as a cat’s name.
There may be a more Dutch flavor to this book than anticipated. 😉 With a few other things thrown in for good measure.
LOL, don’t anyone tell their cats about that portico, because then they’d all want one! 😀 Hmm, some sort of flap for a letterbox on a starship makes sense. I’m presuming that losing spin gravity in the crew module(s) would be a major disaster, but it could happen, and a major vector or velocity change, either one, could do about the same, potentially.
After seeing the claim that an Alcubierre-White warp drive’s math and physics imply that anti-gravity (and therefore possibly control of gravity) might be required for the drive tech to work, that threw a monkey wrench into my notions of whether a starship would have rotational (centripetal/centrifugal) spin gravity, or the “gravity plating” and control that many film/tv series assume. — Until then, I’d felt a crew cylinder made more sense. — And depending on what’s involved in gravity control, it still might, especially early on in star travel.
@Hanneke, I am sure I have seen the word, but I don’t recall it. What is Dutch for “star, stars,” and would there be a change when it’s used to modify a noun, such as “Ster-Nederlands” for “Star-Dutch?” 😉 (Would there be times when star or Dutch need to be plural, such as when speaking of several people or a group? (For example, in Spanish and French, you have the choice of when to refer to plurals or to a collective group: Les français, la française, and I think Dutch does this too (de Amsterdamer, de Amsterdamern, singular, then plural).
Hahaha, all those options for cat litter boxes and drinking in space. — Well, videos of astronauts and cosmonauts eating and drinking in space show how liquids and gels and loose food or objects move. Potentially messy, but they tend to clump together, so you have little blobs of stuff floating around, and then they tend to stick to surfaces. So I think cats, being fairly smart and able to learn, would adapt to the spacing life. But, hmm, there could be interesting things going on there.
Although I tend to think that cats and dogs would still be regular cats and dogs in space, given only about 400 to 500 years, yes, humans, some group somewhere, are going to fiddle with cats and dogs through traditional breeding or through genetic engineering, and likely humans too. — I’ve kept that to a minimum, but cloning (and some prejudices and real health concerns with it) are part of the main story-universe I’d had in mind before this book idea. — I am still trying to decide whether, hmm, the rules work differently than I thought, so this belongs in that universe, or whether this is a sort of pocket universe or side universe; compare Voyager in Night and Port Eternity, two great books by CJ for that. (I loved those and the early Brothers from Earth, I think the title was. They were experimental and CJ was still learning novel writing, but they were exploratory and special in a unique way, and off to the side in Alliance-Union space, I think.) So what happens in this book is either its own separate universe, created by the accident, or else it’s connected to the story-universe I’d imagined before. I keep wanting to use concepts from that one, so I think I have to redefine how that universe works to include this story’s events and concepts. (Plus, it would let me move around in or cross over with, both.)
—–
Aarrgh — I’ve discovered an end table that I had books in, was invaded during the insect damage I had last year. This means that this afternoon, I get to clean out the whole thing and decide which books can be salvaged and which must be thrown out. At a guess, most may have to go out. Insect residue on the covers; they liked the spot. Ugh, and…a loss of some old original and some purchased used books, if so. — Any books there are going into plastic ziplock bags after attempting cleanup.
@Chondrite and @Hanneke — What should I do for salvageable books, paperback and hardbound? Bake them on a very low temp in the oven for 10 minutes or so? (very low) or pop them in plastic baggies and into the freezer overnight? Or simply wash with a damp cloth, let dry 48 hours, air dry, and then heat or cold, or simply leave them after the light, damp wash, air dry, and bag them? — I know there are books in there I want to keep, but seeing the damage, I expect to have to throw some out and replace if I can.
Other books here are fine, particularly on my headboard and living room bookshelf.
I have a bookshelf to put together, which now is going to be a priority for today or tomorrow.
Note: The books you both sent me are fine, sitting on my headboard. I went to sleep early last night and so didn’t study. So book cleanup, bookcase, and then study, are the tasks ahead.
Cat appointment very soon, so I’m off to do that. tails crossed!
The damage is not as severe as I’d feared. I may not lose any of those, but there will be some cleanup. — Side effect: One novel and one non-fiction (lang. related) book are not there. — Other side effect: I’d moved some things the other day, and now…where the heck did I put my Spanish textbook (here by the makeshift desk, I think) to study later? Apparently, I moved it along with other items. So, to find when I get back home.
I doubt I can replace one book if I don’t find that novel, Star Dog, either by Alexander Key or some other author (Stirling?), a juvenile adventure from the 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s that I loved as a young teen or preteen. (Mama dog has a strange puppy that turns out not to be hers, or was hers plus a “star dog”. Good read about dogs and boys and kids’ relationships to the adult world, and nice as a light SF&F book, YA friendly.)
The other is to find where or if I have my (old, used) copy of “The Romance of Writing” by Gordon Irwin. Either I missed seeing it in the quick search, or it’s not with those or in my living room bookshelf. Not sure if I can replace it if I don’t find it, as that’s an old, rather rare book now. (Marvelous book geared for preteen and teen readers on history of the alphabet and a few side elements, such as a nice bit about Etruscans vs. Romans and Greeks.)
@Walt, I can’t think of one word that would express both the stubbornness and the chagrin/upset about the results of continuing to be stubborn about not doing something. It would have to be a complete phrase to catch all that.
“Spijtig stijfkoppig”, regretting (but) stiff-headed, comes closest in Dutch – it means stupidly stubborn, and regretting it, but doesn’t adequately catch the accompanying upset.
@BCS, for your maybe insect-infested books, putting them in plastic bags and freezing them for 4 days below -3°F/-20°C is generally seen as the best way to handle this. See this article about library pest control, scroll down to the header “Killing insects”.
Dutch for star = ster, plural sterren.
Star-Dutch would translate to something like “sterre-Hollands”, but is even more likely to get a whole new name, as all the Dutch-derived languages on earth have, mostly based on their location: Vlaams (Flemish), Afrikaans, Surinaams, and I think Papiamento is a Creole language with some ties to Dutch as well as other languages. We do not guard our linguistic heritage the way the French do, but tend to adapt to our surroundings.
I like the alliteration of “de lachende lucht”.
We do not use plurals for Heaven or sky unless you really mean multiple skies, either over time or in different places (like autumn skies, “herfstluchten”, implies different skyscapes over many autumn days).
Winds =”winden”, but be aware this can also mean farts (breaking wind= “winden laten”, letting the winds out), one reason it’s not often used in plural for the winds themselves, unless the context is very clear, and clearly plural.
In singular, wind = wind, but “windje” (little wind) = a fart. So we use “briesje” for a little breeze, or sometimes “een zuchtje wind” = a little sigh of wind, especially for becalmed sailors or people suffering a heatwave, waiting for the least sign of a breeze.
The Dutch = de Nederlanders (plural), singular Nederlander; but often Hollanders is used instead, as most foreigners know Holland instead of Nederland – a good merchant or tourist bureau adapts to its clientèle 😉. Though people from the non-Holland provinces can sometimes get slightly irritable about that, the irritation is not as prevalent as it’s played up online. As 2/5th of our population lives in those 2 out of 11 provinces, and those are the ones that contain the shipping companies and the ones that will be completely drowned by sealevel rises, the chance of the Dutch emigrating to space in your fictional future being Hollanders is quite high. As that word’s the same in Dutch and English, that just makes it easier.
Your Star Dog book reminded me of Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. If you haven’t read it yet, I think you would enjoy it.
“De Lachende Lucht” sounds like a good name for a starship, especially one that is family owned. Then again, the Dutch are one of many people with a strong traveling and/or trading tradition; locally, our voyaging canoe is called Hokulele, or shooting star.
Chondrite, rather than borrowing that name, I have a few idea that might make good ship names. — What would these be in Hawaiian?
Midday Star or Midnight Sun — Note there, I’m specifying a star or the sun, rather than midnight star or midday sun, on purpose. I’m presuming I might trip over important religious and cultural meanings, so that naming a ship Morning Star or Evening Star might be stepping on traditions that native Hawaiians wouldn’t want in a ship name.
For a world (planet or habitable moon) name:
Blue Moon, Green Moon, Pearl Moon, Magenta / Hot Pink Moon, Orange Moon, Lilac / Lavender Moon (going for light purple/violet there) — I’m after something there, with the idea that a ship started by Hawaiians (native and immigrant-descended, to mirror modern Hawaii) would have major goals to expand and maintain native Hawaiian culture and language, and to find new land and seas to settle for farming, ranching, fishing, and towns. I’m not sure what fits best, and the use of bright colors seemed like it would fit that.
Side Effect of the search for my misplaced (and found) textbook — I found where I’d put the Hawaiian book/CD’s I’d bought. I think I had said that I haven’t yet found where the set you sent me is (I hope) in storage, so, in frustration, I searched for the set online and bought a replacement. :-/ But if/when the one you sent me shows up, I can then donate the newer one to the local library system.
I’m not too satisfied with what I’ve got without the one character who was productive (story-wise) at the start and then not after that. So I’m paused, thinking it over, because I need more than what I’ve got there to drive the plot. On the other hand, other tings are percolating and should turn productive again. So I’m hoping to get back to outlining and/or writing tonight or tomorrow.
I’m about to write a chunk to fit in somewhere, somehow, regarding a subplot I realized needs to be in there. So while I’m stalled on one branch, I think I’m back to progress with another part of the story.
For a while there, this week, I was afraid I’d stalled out, but I think this is why, so this may kick things into gear again while I figure out what the story needs without that one character stuck.
These are the sorts of things I would not be likely to learn from a self-study textbook, and only in a classroom if there’s enough time or the teacher thinks to talk about it.
I could see Dutch people kidding each other about Hollander versus Nederlander out in space, where they’d likely merge. It would confuse non-Dutch people, which at times could be advantageous, or at least funny. — Since sea levels are likely to rise by the end of this century onward, that means migrations and refugee situations for people all over the world. (The Texas coast and Louisiana and Florida are especially prone, but a large number of the world’s most populated and influential, by trade and culture, cities are either around the coast or major rivers or both, so many of the world’s cities may sink permanently. For history and culture and commerce, and for the simple need for people to live somewhere else, it’s a significant problem for everyone. It’s also a reason to get out into space.) And those urban people either would have to start new cities (they will) or a move into space (or skyscrapers or something) would be likely. With even the more modest projections, my city is likely to be flooded or lost, for instance, and so is New York City.
Heh, good to know this about “wind.” (Interesting, briesje en zuchte, so breeze and sigh are cognate. All sorts of words in common between the two.)
De Lachende Lucht, then, seems like it fits best.
—–
I found my misplaced textbook. Whew. I’d put it in a sensible, out of the way place, and forgot. So it’s fine, ready to study tonight. The other two books, I haven’t located yet, but I thought they were here at my apartment. — Dogsbody sounds intriguing, but I might be guessing wrong from the title for what the story is about. I’ll look for it.
And…. My friend didn’t show up or call. Again. I was not too happy yesterday about it, but I didn’t complain, even though this keeps happening with these friends. They mean well, they say they’ll do it, and then…I get stood up, no ride, no task done. I’m irritated and unhappy and let down, at this, but I’m not going to believe promises from them anymore. (Sigh…zuchte.) — I wonder when or if it will dawn on him that he was supposed to pick me up for that appointment today. I called to reschedule with the vet for next week, and either I’ll ask the other friend, or…I don’t know yet. (I asked in case there might be a possibility of a ride from the vet’s staff, but they’re short staffed this week. They might or might not be better next week.) — So the new kitty, Curry, and Goober will have more time together, but that also means more time for anything to pass between them, if there is anything; and Curry is likely the one to have anything, if he does. — Very frustrating.
This means the cats have had two trial runs with the carriers. The new kitty (Curry, Gotta get used to that) did fine both times, like a champ. Goober…I am going to leave the carriers out, put in towels, toys, treats nearby, whatever, so that just maybe Goober will come to see the carriers as safe places to nap, not as threatening, scary signs of having to go places he doesn’t want to go. Poor little guy. So I have one who’s likely to be very good about it and one who has a history of not liking the carrier. I’m kinda stumped as to why Curry would be so OK with a carrier. But I still don’t think he’s been a pet before. — He is showing a tiny bit of awareness now to play / seek attention without as much claws/teeth tendencies. And based on some interaction today, that was definitely him wanting to play or wrestle. (But with other cats, they’d fuss about claws and teeth too. I think he’s had interaction with people and dogs playing rough, not knowing to be gentle, and so he has had to defend himself, and hasn’t learned to keep his claws in and be gentle. So, working on it. It’s going to take a while.)
I did a little cleanup and reorganizing. Not locating the books made me want to declutter and reorganize, to get things back in good shape. — The books and end table interior cleanup will be tomorrow. The bookcase and/or stand/cart will be tomorrow or the next day, but oh, I need that done to organize, and I want my books in a better state.
New ID tags are ordered for Curry, but won’t be here for a few days to a couple of weeks. — Looks like I’ll have month-end / start payments and maybe a grocery order before the vet appointment. Spare cat collars were in with the books in that end table, so I’ll see if they’ll wash up fine, or have to order new.
Very frustrating couple of days, but some progress nonetheless. I just want Curry and Goober to get their checkups and shots and treatment.
Well, I guess it’s time to face it: I really am middle-aged now. I don’t necessarily feel or sound older, but it’s showing up in little things. I could be OK with that, I guess, but I wasn’t ready for this one….
I haven’t really been paying attention to how I look in the mirror. I mean, it’s just me; I know that face. But I had let my beard grow out over the past few weeks, and instead of shaving it off entirely, I decided to trim it. I don’t always get good results with that, and so sometimes I shave it off entirely. I don’t like shaving anyway. So more often lately, I’ve let it grow a while, then shaved it.
So I’d decided to leave it for a while and let it grow and just trim it. It’s bound to get colder weather, or at least a little cooler, in October. Trimming it meant looking in the mirror, and in my case, going by feel some too, due to eyesight. Well, fine, no problem, typical.
Hey, wait a minute, my beard’s not usually this light blond. It’s usually a darker blond with a hint of red in my beard, though not really a hint of red in the rest of my hair. But nope, this is a lighter blond. My hair hasn’t been a light blond since I was very little. It turned a darker blond once I hit puberty, too, and went more wavy instead of straight. So, light blond? I wasn’t sure what was going on. Had my vision changed that much, somehow? Well, no, the hair on my head and my mustache is still a darker blond. So OK, but….
I checked via my iMac’s and iPad’s cameras. Huh…weird, they get more light perception than there is in the room, even around sundown and after. So….
So I’ve been going around the last couple of days telling myself it’s a lighter blond. I looked again in the mirror tonight, and shined a flashlight onto my face, because shining it onto the mirror and reflecting onto my face gives me a glare in the mirror that makes it too hard for me to see what’s going on. So….
So I get a good look up close, shining the flashlight on my beard and I’m blond, so it isn’t quite so easy to tell right away (I am still telling myself that, you notice)…but….
Yeah, I think my beard is turning from blond to silver, since it won’t really go grey much, being blond. Or, uh, silver is being nice about it. Oh, I could even wonder if maybe it’s the soap or shampoo I’m using, or the water, but on my head and mustache, it’s still dark blond, so….
Yeah, I really, really don’t want to face this, do I? But…OK…. My beard, at least, has been turning white, long enough for me to really notice it now. Not yet fully white, but lighter blond, maybe going white. — I don’t know how long it might take for the rest of my hair to turn, er, silver-gold, white-gold, but…it’s started. Since I’m blond, I’m skipping “grey” and going right to silver-gold and to white. (In my baby photos, I was that pale blond, almost white-haired color, and my hair color darkened to dark blond as I got older.)
Dang it, I wasn’t ready for that. I’m going white-haired. At least my beard is. The rest of me will follow, sooner or later. — If it turns out to be water or soap or shampoo, then OK, but no, I think this is aging. My mom and dad both had dark brown hair. My mom’s hair as a child was light brown, and my dad’s hair as a child was that white-blond Norther European color, and my uncle on my dad’s side is also blond. But my mom went prematurely grey, very grey, in her 40’s, and my dad started going grey in his late 40’s. My dad also started going bald in his 30’s and 40’s, but still had most of his hair on the sides, before he died. My uncle and I both have a full head of hair, and so I don’t expect to start going bald until I’m in my 80’s or 90’s, if I make it that far. Or maybe I’ll keep my hair all my life.
But…yeah, light blond to white-blond in my beard now. I can’t just claim it’s not anymore, which I’ve been doing the last couple of days. Man…. So hi, everyone, I’m officially into the Middle Ages…er, I mean, I’m officially middle-aged now. (I’ll be 54 in early March, I’m almost 53 1/2 now.) — I was not ready to see white or silver or pale blond or whatever my ego wants to call that, but yup, pretty much my whole beard. So far, my head and mustache are still dark blond. So, uh, I guess we’ll find out how fast I go white-headed.
I’m a little shaken up and a little amused and annoyed that I’d be shaken up by this. I mean, come on, 53, I do know I’m getting older. — And depending on whether I take after my mom and dad or my grandparents on either side, I have anywhere from 11 to 49 years to go on this ol’ world. My grandmother on my mom’s side has the record in any recent memory, of living to 102. My other grandparents lived into their 70’s, late 80’s, and mid-90’s, and my grandmother’s siblings lived into their 80’s and mid-90’s. So I’m likely to live into my 90’s or up to 102. So, uh, I guess we’ll see how long it takes me to go completely white-headed.
Wow. So not ready for this. But yeah, that’s what’s going on with my beard. I don’t think that’s just a lighter blond anymore.
My ego doesn’t like this. I’m not ready to be middle aged or a senior citizen. Now I know why my grandmother didn’t like being a “senior citizen,” because she didn’t feel old, until into her 90’s. (What’s wrong with calling people elders? That’s a good, respectful word. Elderly, maybe not as nice, but elders, seems almost better than senior citizens.)
Well, I’m on my way to finding out, I guess.
BTW, I have the rocking chair my dad’s dad (or was it his dad, my great-granddad?) made. I am not ready to sit in that full-time. Too much I want to do. But…wow. White in the beard…wow…. So not ready.
I’ve been developing my silver wings for a few years now, and it pleases me!
The joy of having white hair is that it can be dyed in so many different ways. My sister has done blue and purple, currently is a rose-red, and looks gorgeous with henna. (Mine was graying before I hit 40, and has been white for about 10 years.)
@Hanneke & BCS (posted here ‘cause I can’t figure out quite where to insert my reply in the sub-sub-sub comment chain) — we have a great, English (American, maybe, as I don’t remember hearing it in Scotland) phrase that captures the stupid stubbornness one can inflict on oneself:
“To bite off your nose to spite your face.”
As an example, before I first went to University in Scotland at age twenty to study for a year away from the States and my family (an ocean is a much wider distance both emotionally and geographically than a four hour car trip when attending college in the next state over), I had commented disparagingly on fellow Americans who would spend their Junior college year studying abroad but come back to the States and family for the Christmas holidays rather than take advantage of the time to travel. So, when I went abroad to Scotland for my Junior year, I’d be damned if I would come back for Christmas! Not me! ….Instead, I cried myself to sleep on Christmas Eve, missing my family so. Classic example of biting off your nose to spite your face.
Plenty more examples in my life of that character trait, but I will say that in later years when I returned to the University of Edinburgh to do a Master’s degree there, I made certain to come home for Christmas!
I think it was Walt who started that line of questions, about the stubborn spitefulness.
Dang, great catch, Raesean, I wish I’d thought of that. Heh, yeah, that example — but a tendency to be headstrong and know your own mind (or to think you do and later discover, hmm, not quite) I think is a good thing. It beats sitting like a bump on a log, another old expression.
I wonder if both of those are prior to the American / British (and Scottish) English divide. I’d suspect so. Maybe @Deesha can tell us if those are common expressions in Scotland.
When I went to A&M, that was about 2-1/2 hours away if the Houston traffic was not too bad either way. But on breaks, both Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, I was home. I think I would love Scotland, or England, or France, or the Netherlands, or Spain. But back then, oh, I would have missed being home for the holidays, and I suspect travel costs would’ve meant I wouldn’t have gotten to come home much. — But maybe that would have been a good thing and encouraged me (and my family) to be independent. — And of course, these days, it’s the cats and myself, no family in town.
That old saying is really a perfect one. — I can’t think of a single word that quite expressed the idea Walt was asking about, but hmm, such a word would sure be useful. I liked Hanneke’s example and noticed that “spite” and “despite” are evidently cognate with Dutch “spijt-“.
—–
Continuing adventures with the new kitty, Curry. He is not the only one trying to get used to his name. I keep having to remind myself of his name instead of saying, “new kitty,” and I have twice or more caught myself just before calling him Smokey, I am so used to calling his name with Goober’s. — And then it occurred to me, “Goober Curry?” that’s “Peanut Curry?” Hahaha, and “I love Curry!” just seems…haha, I don’t know. But I think he is going to be Curry, unless he sneaks in a better name.
New ID tags for him (and a non-dangling, slider kind for Goober) are due between Sept. 4th and 6th or within a week after. New collars are due in soon too.
Curry is still getting used to human and housecoat good manners about claws and (to a lesser extent) teeth. He keeps wanting to initiate play or wrestling with my hand, “Let’s play! I like you! Let’s have fun!” He is saying. “Ow, kitty, let go, dang it.” But I am not overreacting to escalate it. He’s still doing it, but off and on, signs he’s getting the idea, maybe. — A few times, he also seems to misread my body language and facial expression, and reacts, “Oh, big, scary human, I’d better grab and defend myself before he gets me!” He’s not being truly angry and not attacking with anything like the full force he could use, but he’s still misreading a few things. Certain times when I greet him or move my hand to touch him, he’s not reading me right and seems to want to fend me off, but lightly, still wanting to be more friendly than mean or aggressive. — So it’s something he and I are going to have to work on.
The two are adjusting to each other. Feeding time is going better. (Goober is getting in on this too, pushing his boundaries a little, but that might be OK.) Look like we’re settling down there. — Today is the 10th day the new kitty has been here. He is just now getting to where his appetite doesn’t have him ravenous for food. He has been a faithful member of the clean plate club except only once, when neither of them liked that flavor. (I wish I knew which flavor it was; I’d thrown away the can before I saw they both left most of it.) His litterbox habits are better or are solved.
So we are on the way to having him integrated and behavioral issues resolved. — He and Goober are still in the process of making friends, giving each other the other half of the apartment most of the time, agreeing on food, and now and then within a foot or so of each other. Twice now, sitting right together. Maybe a couple of times playing, interacting with a ball or other toy. (I now have new toys such as a wand / fishing pole / cat dancer, to avoid those claws.) So we may need to play more. Good for Goober too, and hopefully good for their interaction. — The last few nights, neither one has been sleeping on the bed with me, though early on, they slept with me, one cat here, one there, for three nights. — So I think this will resolve itself. I get the impression that, although they are not instant best friends, they are also not arch enemies, and the new kitty isn’t as alpha or bullying as Smokey was. He’s more mild-natured, easy-going, if given the chance. So I think it’ll work out. Still early days, as they say in the UK.
Last night, Amazon inundated me with an armload of mailer envelopes. Even though all those have been scheduled to arrive on the same day, ever since ordered, they arrived as separate envelopes. Good grief, the poor delivery guy/gal…. Why couldn’t those have been collected at the local distribution center into one box or envelope? Different suppliers and mailing dates, I guess. But wow. — Cat supplies, cleaning supplies, a couple of people-food items, a new, longer iPad cord. Ho-hum. (Kitty, you are expensive. Good thing I see more benefit in love and companionship and humor value than in money. They are worth far more return on the investment than the mere cost.) Some of the items, I needed for Goober anyway, resupply. So it’s fine, just, hmm, pushing the ol’ budget, which keeps shrinking as prices keep going skyward.
—–
CJ and Jane must have a heck of a time with food labels, since they’re allergic to onions. — Whenever I think of posting something about food, I’m confronted with, “Oh, but does this have onions? What can they substitute?” I don’t ordinarily ever think of that, because I don’t have food allergies like onions or peanuts, or gluten or milk/lactose.
Last night, I needed something quick; waited too long to fix supper, and the two cats (new kitty) are pushing boundaries on the kitchen counters. (Kitty, get down from there, that’s the stove! And that’s the counter, I prep food there!)
I threw together a frozen package of Bird’s Eye (?) Steamables – Spring Vegetables and a pack of prepared, refrigerated udon noodles. (I’m going to buy from Amazon; Kroger online doesn’t list any udon noodles except those.) The package had a nice beef-and-broccoli stir-fry recipe I didn’t copy down, so I’ll get it again. — Not even any sauce with the udon and spring veggies, and I had a very, very nice, tasty dish with some leftover roast. (The roast was a push of the budget, but I haven’t had one in a long time. The broth from the roast will be great with noodles or rice and some veggies.) My only complaint was that the zucchini in the spring veggies were a little bitter, so next time, I’ll add some butter or some sauce to help this. — But hey, that was a healthy, very tasty, very simple thing. (My grandmother would have liked that, fresh frozen veggies.) Rather than oil and the wok, I used the microwave, to good results.
I put up my small wok in a box in the living room. The large wok was out after drying. It has been too long since I used my small wok, and I have wanted it three times in the past two weeks. This morning’s next task is to locate where I put it and get it back under the counter for regular use, now that the bug situation is under better control. (Still not at all ideal. Dang apartment living. Good apartments, nice enough neighbors, mostly safe, but…maintenance is not always a high priority and does not always get a response. This, despite my rent and utilities are always due just the same. So…there is much less of a problem with bugs, but still there, I’m still fighting back.
I’m on a cleaning spree, but not doing this all day. I may take time out to do so over the weekend, but I want to do other things too. So reorganization and cleanup, decluttering and unboxing and repacking are happening. Maybe I’ll be done with what’s here fairly quickly, if I keep the momentum going. — Still need trips to the benighted storage space to resolve it. It is still crowded up.
No movement toward a house for rent-to-own and renovation. My friends have dropped the ball on that. Grr. I need that to happen while I still can afford to do so. — Still need income production (fonts, writing, audio) to be a major priority, and it’s still too slow. Si…c’est la vie.
OK, gotta do stuff and earn my keep. Bad thing about working for yourself: The boss never lets up, he’s always in your head, too. Heh.
(1) When I looked up “peanut curry” on Amazon, after realizing Goober and Curry was essentially saying peanut curry, I found peanut sauce and Pad Thai, peanut butter, and canned peanuts.
But right there Among them was — Duyvis Borrelnootjes Oriental — a large bag of peanuts covered with a spice mix coating or shell. The spice is dusted on over the colored coating. The bag shows what might be two other flavors. — I now have a (washed) bag with plenty of eager advertising / marketing text to read via dictionary lookups. Several words are almost familiar, and I’m interested to see if I’m guessing right. — It should be fun puzzling through this.
They taste great. I could really like these. I had no idea they’d get here this quickly. (Major port city, and Amazon must have a distribution center here now. But even so, I just ordered those, what, Tuesday or Wednesday.)
The serendipity of peanuts or goobers, curry or spices, and a genuine Dutch import product, with all the discussion lately, I couldn’t pass this up, and the price was right.
Hanneke, I thought you’d get a laugh out of this. — And Chondrite, the next gaming or video watch party you have, you might want to try these. One or two bags might be plenty for your guests plus some leftovers for later, as long as no one has a peanut allergy.
(2) Where in the frell did I move my small wok? The large wok is right there from when I last used it, but not the small one I was using more often. I know I put it in a box and put it somewhere, thinking that made sense and it would be clean and safe. I’ve looked through around half the apartment, all the kitchen, half the contents of the living room. Did I somehow throw it out by mistake? Ay, me, that’d be a serious mistake. I think it is just misplaced, but didn’t find it. — I had plenty of help looking for it, from the new kitty, LOL. — So, I’ve ordered another one, and I wonder when the much-used, much-liked one I have will turn up again. I also ordered a dome lid (it’s supposed to be for steaming and cheese-melting, grilling) for other kitchen ware. Watch the old wok turn up after I’ve used the new one. — I, uh, can’t figure out where I put the small wok, and it bothers me that I can’t. There’s not a lot more to search, but it’ll take time. — The one I had, has a stick handle that can be prone to tip. I therefore got one with loop handles on either side, an 8 or 9 inch small wok. I will see how I like it and keep the one I like best. I use a wok often enough, I might keep both, but I don’t think I need two. — Don’t know what to make of it that I moved it somewhere that obscure. Ridiculous. Also don’t know why I haven’t already found it. I will keep looking in another session. Nuts.
Despite this, it’s been a pretty good day. Being accompanied by the new cat (Goober was bored and napped) while I hunted through cabinets and boxes, haha, was entertaining and sweet.
— CJ and Jane, if y’all like peanuts, you might enjoy these. The slight Asian spice kick was very nice. Not hot-spicy/caliente, more savory. They have two other flavors too, it looks like. Imported from, a proud product of the Netherlands. The packaging is all in Dutch, no other language on it. Very much like any American food packaging, including a nutrition label. The wording is the typical mix of sales pitch and company pride and talking it up, along with what’s actually in the product. So it could be a fun item for your language interests.
International trade is a wonderful thing. Imagine, I can get something from a bit more than a quarter of the planet away in less than a week, because it’s been imported already and was waiting on a warehouse shelf for direct purchase. And from a very friendly country, too. And thereby, I get a nice new, tasty product to try. I get to be a satisfied customer, and nicely fed. Heh.
“Borrelnootjes” — of such small things are built world trade.
I had to look those up (Duyvis Borrelnootjes Oriental ). They don’t go by that trade name around here, but you can get them as part of a snack mix or on their own as iso peanuts. They also come in a wasabi flavor which is delightfully eye-watering!
There’s another similar expression, “Pyrrhic Victory”, where a conflict is persued with such heedless disregard for the consequences that winning becomes self-destructive.
That’s close. I didn’t want to give the actual situation since it was political. Unintended consequences is close, but doesn’t convey a continuing commitment and continued consequences.
Schlimmbesserung is making things worse while trying to improve them.
It’s kind of reverse serendipity, a bad thing found by chance; while serendipity comes from the Persian story The Three Princes of Serendip, it’s rather similar to serene, so a few people have coined malendipity to mean a bad thing happening by accident; malendipity has not been accepted by any dictionary I could find, though.
I suppose “Throwing good money after bad” is also close.
Good to hear Jane’s procedure went ok, hope she’s feeling back to her old self soon 🙂
Best wishes to you both.