Sunday Silly

Every Monday at work, I send out an e-mail with a list attached of materials that arrived and were processed in the past week, so that the scientists can decide if there's anything germane to their interests.  I always put a meme or comic in the body of the e-mail, more for my amusement than anything else, but quite a few people seem to enjoy it.  

As you can imagine, in a natural history museum, this one was a big hit.

Have a good one!  :-)

Of *Course* It Worked Out This Way

Happy Saturday!  I hope you are enjoying yours.  It's cold but sunny here, and I went out again early to do some running around, so right now I'm sitting here working on a pair of socks, watching the Navy-Notre Dame football game.

So ... remember this?

My Pabaigh sweater, SO close to being finished!  I really wanted to finish this to wear in the fall, but because I was making the body longer than the pattern called for, I ran out of enough yarn in the kit I had purchased a while back to finish the sleeves and the funnel neck.  And though I was trying to use up my stash and not purchase more yarn it once again meant that I would have to do that.  Fortunately, it's not too expensive, even with overseas shipping.  So I ordered two more balls of yarn at the end of  September.  I got a notice that it was shipped on October 1st.  

Oh, well, no big deal - I received a notice that it should take 10-14 days to arrive.  So I started other projects, and waited.  Finished a couple of projects and waited.  Finally decided I'd waited plenty long enough for it to arrive from Scotland to Philadelphia, so this past Wednesday, I contacted them and re-ordered 2 more balls, this time paying for tracking.  

We got the mail today, and as you have likely already guessed, this arrived:

with the shipping label dated October 1, 2019 ...  

This is only slightly more annoying than having to buy a whole other ball of yarn to finish the scrappy socks project.  I got notice this a.m. that the second package shipped today, so it's too late to contact them and cancel the order.  

Sigh.

Oh well, at least now I can finish Pabaig before the end of the year, and though fall will be over, it comes every year, and I can wear it as a layer anyway.  I'll use the extra yarn for a hat or something, it won't go to waste, but it just figures that it would work out this way, right?

Are You Saying That TGIF Means Something Else?

I couldn't resist this image - it made me laugh out loud and I hope it at least amuses you.

There are some weeks where you just wonder ... about a lot of things.  This has been that kind of week for me.  Granted, I'm always wondering about something or someone, but this week outidid itself.  

Because I am privileged to be able to do so, and in order to remind myself of the good, I've decided to do a TGIF post about the good.

Thinking about - The Tim's birthday on Monday.  I have a couple of gifts that I know he will like (this is one of them), and he has requested to go to a new pub attached to a local brewery on Sunday night, followed by stuffed cabbage and birthday cake on Monday.  Sounds good to me, as we have been wanting to try the pub, and stuffed cabbage and birthday cake are always a good idea, as far as I'm concerned!

Giggling about - this morning, when the Koodle entered the room meowing.  I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Koodle!" and the Tim immediately followed with (in a deep, annoucer voice), "Straight from his groundbreaking act in Las Vegas!" and for some reason that is still making me crack up.

Interested in - watching the new season of "The Crown."  I really love Olivia Colman for one, and though I am not a fan of the royal family, I love costume and historical shows/movies.  I hope it will be as good as the previous seasons.

Feeling good about - being more on top of things this year regarding birthdays and holidays than I have been for the last few years.  Granted, last year I had a legit reason to struggle, since I had the broken wrist.  But without really much effort on my part, I feel like I know what I want to do for the people I buy/make gifts for.  I've even started thinking what kind of baking I might do (WHO AM I??).

I hope you can think of at least four good things, and that you have a good weekend. :-)

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Well, no, not *that* kind of darkness - though I guess it is an old friend, even if not that welcome - I'm talking about the fact that our daylight hours are fewer right now, and darkness is hanging out in the morning and in the late afternoons, instead of just "overnight." 

Unlike nearly every single person I know, I am always happy when there is so much dark.  Since today is Three on Thursday, and I haven't participated for a bit, I thought I'd tell you three reasons why I really like the darkness.

1.  It means that the holidays have come/are approaching, and if you know me, you know I love the fall and winter holidays!  This is the time of year that I really enjoy, as much for the anticipation of said holidays as for the actual days themselves.  

2.  The lights and the resulting coziness factor!  Lights in houses, office buildings, even car and traffic lights shine as much because they have to as much as anything else.  And then, there are candles, holiday lights, and such, which to me are such happy, twinkly smiles in the darkness.  They all show up so much better when it's dark, and where there is more darkness, you can enjoy them longer.  I never really feel cozy in warmer weather when it is light longer.  And I am all about cozy.

3.  It's easier to relax.  When it's still light during evening hours., there is always the feeling or implication from someone else that you should be enjoying it, doing something, taking advantage of it.  If you're not outside, people wonder if something is wrong with you.  Whereas, if you decide to stay inside during the evening to curl up and read a book during the time of the year when it's dark, no one gives you grief about it.

(And of course, my unspoken reason to enjoy the darkness this time of year - you know it's not gonna be hot and humid!)

Don't get me wrong, I love daylight, and there are definite advantages to longer daytime light, but I realized a long time ago that the darker, colder time of year made me a lot happier overall.

I can live with that.  :-)

This street is right near my house - the lights look so much prettier when it's dark (the street has these lights all year long)!

It's All in the Translation

Hi all - first of all, if you usually hear from me, and have not - in response to comments you left on any recent posts - I apologize.  My e-mail has been all wonky again and returned ALL of them to me as undeliverable, and I have no idea why.  It has to be something on their end, because I double-checked all of the addresses.  Sigh.

In any event, I got a charge out the comments people made, and the private e-mail messages I got regarding my Friday Letters post and the term "nebshit."  I tend to forget that it's a regionalism, from Western Pennsylvania and the area where I spent most of my growing up years (Wheeling, WV, about 40 minutes from Pittsburgh).  It describes someone who is always nosing into others' business, aka being "nebby" or a "neb-nose."  Which you probably got from the context.

I will admit that it's one of my fave words, because it so accurately describes the person being talked to or described.  It's also one of the classic words in Western Pennsylvania English (from Wikipedia):

Western Pennsylvania English, known more narrowly as Pittsburgh English or popularly as Pittsburghese, is a dialect of American English native primarily to the western half of Pennsylvania, centered on the city of Pittsburgh, but potentially appearing as far north as Erie County and Limestone, New York (north of Bradford), as far east as Sunbury, Pennsylvania, as far west as Youngstown, Ohio, and as far south as Clarksburg, West Virginia.

One of the things we never said/did (maybe because we moved around a lot, who knows), was call bologna "jumbo" as in, "Would you like a jumbo sandwich for lunch?"  The Tim's sister Kathy went to college in Cleveland, and when she said to her roomate that she was going to fix herself a "jumbo and ketchup sandwich," her roommate said, "That's not elephant meat, RIGHT?"  Which still makes me laugh to this day.  My mother did however, call rubber bands "gumbands." 

I love this kind of thing - regional words and phrases.  "Yinz" is a real fave as well - it's the plural version of "you."  And the Pittsburgh Steelers are often called the "Stillers." 

But my all time fave - maybe because as a kid it was considered the epitome of impolite - is "jagoff."  That's someone who can be a variety of things, a jerk, an a**hole, really stupid, or just annoying. 

I guess you could say that one of the worst things that could happen would be if yinz had a nebshit neighbor, who never shared a jumbo sandwich at a Stillers game - what a jagoff, right???

There's a million of them, everywhere.  And I love finding out about them!  I think it's sad that so many local expressions are being lost, because people move around a lot, or don't want to seem to be/sound uneducated.  I get it, but I also think we lose a lot of what makes it interesting to go from one place to another and meet people.

Words to live by. :-)