Away for a bit

Having a holy holiday until Jan 7.


Blessings upon y'all.

HJMW

an interesting new blog

well, new to me.

WitNit.

I like the template especially. (Wish I was hip to html. I really don't like Blogger templates. Never mind.)

I thought his bit on why men don't ask for directions to be fairly good. Straightforward and more or less what I already knew, but good. And I see he also recycles old posts. That makes it OK.

Something I posted a couple of years ago. Thought it time to repost:

*******************

Well, some men ask for directions (not that I've met any).

There is actually a very good and very sophisticated explanation for this fact of male-psyche life.

It's because men are lines and women are circles.

You see, men have a natural orientation to the external, to explore, to pioneer, to manipulate the environment, to play with things, to engage in sports, to talk about politics and football and computers and their entertainment centers and to build complex machines that hurtle other men (and grudgingly women, but only if they don't act girly) into outer space. The line.

Women have a natural orientation to the internal, to nest, to make a home, to talk about their inner feelings, their relationships, what they think about everything, how others perceive them, what people must be thinking. The circle.

Men are comfortable with discovery and problem solving and taking something apart to see how it works and operating complicated remote controls on tons of electronic equipment and not talking about inner things like Why don't you ask for directions. They like the complexity of the external world. They hate the complexity of the internal world. They want the internal world to be simple. Yes, no, right, wrong, let's do this and get on with it.

Women are comfortable with security and knowing that things are in their place and keeping the external world simple, with only a single remote that has one power button, one volume button and one channel changer. They want the external world to be simple. They love the complexity of the inner world. The possible meanings, the subtexts, the implications, the dreams. Men hate that kind of stuff.

So why don't men ask for directions? Cause they like figuring out the external world on their own, they are solving it like a complex time-space problem, thinking about the GPS possibilities and the spatial relations of this street to that highway, and they will only ask directions if they are badgered into it by someone who wants to keep that external world as simple as a remote with three buttons.

Men love having four remotes with 100+ buttons. It's something to figure out and tinker with.

Not that there are many men who could explain it that way... Men are rarely skilled at explaining their own psyches. We hate that kind of stuff...And don't make me say it again!!!

Shooty Thing

I've been noting Kathy's efforts to get a gun license in Canuckistan and every time I go for a walk in the country lately, I hear the sound of shooting.

I really hope someone will give me a gun for Christmas.

A gun and a dog.

More pics and a link later today if poss.

The real joke, of course

is that whenever the BBC is thinking about what CD to put on next and I think London has been nuked, I'm secretly hoping that it is true.

But then I recall that I have nice friends in London and I then secretly hope that they're all taking a holiday in France.

Child of the Cold War, Me.

I laugh because I just realized that every time there is a bit of dead air on BBC Radio 3, the first thought is, "Oh, hey. I wonder if someone has nuked London."

That early childhood training will never never leave you.

BTW: anyone old enough to remember them,

you know those "Emergency Response Test" things they used to have on TV? You know, "This is a test. This is only a test. If there was a real emergency, you would be given instructions..."

Then that long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

then, "This has been a test of the emergency response system..."

you may now return to your regularly scheduled Saturday morning cartoons.

Was I the only one to wonder, "If the emergency came when no one had the TV on, is there some master switch somewhere that would turn them all on so we would know something was happening? How would we know what to do if we didn't happen to have the TV on at the moment the Emergency Response System came on."

It was not until years later that I realized the whole thing was a scam. The "emergency" was nuclear war, and with or without your TV telling you to put a paper bag over your head, there wasn't going to be a lot of point anyway.

I'd be interested to see a study done on people who were raised with the 15 Minute Spectre. You know the one where we were all told that any given 15 minute period could easily be our last. I have often wondered if it resulted in the "slacker" phenomenon where people my age, raised by hippies, simply made no plans for their lives because we all thought there wasn't any point.

I've probably written about this before.

Looking at the pics below,

it occurs to me that the axiom, "Every woman grows up to become her mother" seems to have skipped a generation. I seem to have grown up to become my grandmother.

Cottage Life

My row. I'm the last white door on the extreme right...

...not the really snazzy one across the road...


Inside, almost finished.
Welsh dresser installed, but no pictures hung yet.

view from the sitting room window.

all finished. (Note row of jars of crab apple jam.)

My hidey hole.

Looking up the road towards St. Alban's

Birds of Prey Know They're Cool

I don't know why, but the coolest of all cool birds of prey are owls.

Maybe it's the hunting at night part.

Bread Pudding

or, a message to Jamie Oliver..."You got some explaining to do, young man!"

What do you do with the worst crumpets in the world?

1/2 oz butter
three tbs brown sugar

lining the bottom of an earthenware baking dish

Chop up ten or so of the offending objects, into little diced bits.

Layer over with more little chunks of butter and more brown sugar.

Slice up two apples and add a 1/2 cup of currants. Mix it all gently.

Mix three eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, a tsp of vanilla extract and,
because you don't have any cinnamon, a teaspoon of organic ginger (three times the strength of ordinary ground ginger.)

Pour milk and egg mixture into the pot all over the bread bits.

Shove in a medium to hot oven for, probably, about 45 mins.

Don't know how it will turn out, but I'll let you know.

Ah. very good

Much better.

Got some lovely shots of the village, my street, the row of cottages, St. Alban's, etc.

Stay tuned.

hmp.

is this any better?

hmm...

a bit teeny...

let's see what I can do....



how's that?

Testing new picture methods.



so, does it work?

1. In your dictionary (you should have a print version but the great Lewis and Short is online http://www.perseus.org/cgi-bin/resolveform) the verb “vulgo” means
what?

I don't know about the verb, because Lewis and S. only gives nouns, but it has to have something to do with lots of grubby common people. Right? and an o on the end can mean things like ablatives and datives right? Hmm...still no verb form. Hmph.

2. If the form “vulgata” means “having been made _______”, and if what I said
above about Greecisms, Hebraisms, and inelegant things is true, (which it is), then
what conclusion can we make about Roman Christian society in the late 4th century?

That they weren't really our sort.

Getting back to Latin

First lesson by correspondence:

I have attached the Lesson in pdf. Begin at your own peril; proceed at your own pace. (But remember that it is impossible to master anything without constant application) An e-mail with your answers shall be answered with my corrections and another lesson. Remember to ask questions about anything you like; if you don't ask questions I can't help you!

First question:

1. In your dictionary (you should have a print version but the great Lewis and Short
is online http://www.perseus.org/cgi-bin/resolveform) the verb “vulgo” means
what?

HJMW: "I vulg" or "I am vulging"

from the verb "to vulg" which means...errr...to do socially odious things on the subway in front of little old ladies/nuns.

A bit like "vogueing" but less arty.

The Dog Rule

In fact, I think I'm going to institute a new rule. Anyone coming to visit me, must bring a dog. Preferably a springer spaniel.

Or any type of spaniel.

I might make it a requirement that they bring two dogs, one of their own and one to leave.

Yes, I think I need a spaniel.

There are lots of them around here, but every time I see one, it seems clear that the person owning it is unwilling to share.

"Hey, lady," I am tempted to yell, "you're not usin' that dog are ye?"