Nova News is Good News

Tonight’s “In the News” segment covers the spotted leopard named Nova who escaped her confines at the Dallas zoo last week. Fortunately Nova has been caught and returned unharmed. Actually she was found on the zoo property. She, like us, apparently wanted to see the animals at the zoo. Imagine that! Probably wanted to ride the train. I didn’t hear, but I bet whoever caught her put out a warm saucer of milk – cats like warm saucers of milk.

They plastered pictures of the leopard all over the internet. I’m sure that really helped the locals who were looking for the animal and wondering, “Now exactly which leopard am I looking for?”

 

Damaged Goods

Do you ever read book reviews on Amazon and see the one star-two word review from the angry guy who only writes, “Arrived damaged.” Well, I’m kind of tired of that guy. That’s a review of Amazon, not a review of the book. Is that ever an indicator of future events? Has anybody ever not ordered a book because this guy’s book "arrived damaged? “Don’t order that new book by Prince Harry hon; I hear it arrives damaged.”

You can’t tell me that a good percentage of these “arrived damaged” types don’t get the book, read it, damage it themselves(!) and then send it back and get a refund. You know they’re doing it. But to make it look real, they write the review saying the book “arrived damaged”.

One of these days they’ll get caught and some judge will throw the book at ‘em.

 

Digit Fidget

I was in a line at the bank recently, and the teller asked the guy in front of me (a little too loudly) for the last four of his social security number. The guy responded, “6-37-5” (number changed for privacy obviously). Wait. What? Nobody EVER states a four digit number that way. Nobody. You might combine the first two and the last two (“63-75”). We call this the 2-2. But nobody, I mean nobody, does the 1-2-1.  Or the 3-1 or 1-3, for that matter.

Speaking of numbers, remember when they had to add new area codes ‘cause all the phone #’s were used up? C’mon. Prior to that we all had had nice tidy 7 digit phone #’s. With 7 digits, you get 9,999,999 combinations of numbers by my count, right? There’s no way that there are that many phone #’s in my area code. Regardless, now we all have to dial the area code when we make a call. Ten digits instead of seven.

I’m running a blog here. I don’t have time for that.

 

Girl with the Curl

Remember when your dad used to tell you to “straighten up!”? Well, I’ve been “curled up” with a new book I received for Christmas the past few days. I can’t put it down. Do we really “curl up” with books? Can I curl up with a kindle? My phone? I think we can, and we do. We like to curl up, don’t we? (“Don’t bother me – can’t you see I’m curled up?”) It’s a mini-hibernation of sorts…

But can we curl up too much? This curling up thing can’t be good for our posture, can it? Like, when you go to the chiropractor, does he or she take a look at your spine and then ask you if you read a lot of books?  Is that a thing?

I’m guessing this concept started from women in curlers sitting under the hair dryers at the beauty shop reading Glamour or some prince of the week’s book. I’m still pretty busy running this blog so if somebody could look that up, that’d be great.

 

Happy New Word!

Somebody noted recently that I used the word “vegetariosity” in a post. That of course refers to one’s tendency to eat vegetables versus meat. I’m not aware that there’s a word for that, so yeah, I made one up. Isn’t that how this is done? After 700+ posts, yeah, I’m gonna have some new thoughts which encompass concepts that the English language has not yet addressed. Am I gonna wait for Webster’s to add the word before I use it? Of course not! If we all waited until the word was added, it would likely never get added.

Having said all that, it must be cool when one of your words gets added to the lexicon. Yeah, I would be thrilled with that. And it may have already happened; I don’t have time to look that stuff up – I run a blog.

I would like to see the process of developing new words to be known as “lexiconception”. Let’s get that one added.

 

On (Door) Dasher Part 2

If food continually gets left on your porch that’s not yours, you’re gonna get to know your neighbors. After a few of these incidents, you’ll know their favorite restaurants, food allergies, likes and dislikes, vegetariosity,  propensity to drink and maybe even their religion. For instance, do they continually get fish on Fridays? Do their eating patterns change during Lent? Do they fast? If so, how often, and in what times of the year? Where do they stand on wild game? Are they rares or are they well-doners? Are they meat and potatoes, or do they venture into kale and sprouts?

Back in the day my Mom would bake a pie to take to the neighbors. This is so much easier!