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RTDNTOTO 🐻 Random Thoughts Deserving No Thread Of Their Own 19 (2024)

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It’s starling season. Thousands of them flock in the cemetery behind the houses across the street. When they startle, some land on the gutter above my living room picture window. The older cats are used to it, but the kitten is beside himself trying to figure how to catch them.
 
Maister said:
So last night I was driving across town and as I drove down a hilly road a cat darted out into the street and I didn't even have time to hit the brakes. The cat was killed instantly. There were apartment buildings on either side of the street so I ended up just pulling the cat's corpse off to the side of the road. No collar or tags. I felt terrible and still do, but I find myself asking, who would let their cat roam free? I'm assuming the cat was a pet, but have no actual proof of that. This morning I drove past the place and saw the corpse had been removed, so maybe so. But, again, if you're going to have a pet why let them outside unless you want this fate for them?
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We have sizable feral colonies around here. There is a cluster of houses in my hood that feed the ferals but they don't bother to get them spayed/neutered so there's always a sizable colony. A friend of mine a few miles away is a crazy cat lady; she has 3 or 4 indoor cats but feeds all the ferals that come around. She's been trapping them and getting them fixed lately, mostly because she has a quasi-feral indoor/outdoor cat that came of age and he is quite the horny devil. (This is the same crazy cat lady I got Iggy from. Iggy was a feral but really wanted to be indoors, but her indoor cats didn't like him.)

1708349609869.jpeg
 
So we got a new cat teaser and Sullivan really likes it. He'll chase it, flop around, jump, pounce, stalk, etc. As soon as he catches it though, he'll release it because he recognizes it's just a game and he's just playing. Still I want him to have all those skills because if we ever get mice I want the cats to earn their keep.

Iggy, on the other hand, will watch sometimes, then come charging across the room, pounce on the little critter at the end of the line and hold onto it and bite it. This is not a game for him; he's seriously hunting.

Between the two of them, though, I am confident that if a little rodent ever found its way into the house, it wouldn't last long.
 
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
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My friend had a picture of Bill Clinton in his house.
 
kms said:
My friend had a picture of Bill Clinton in his house.
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That's surprisingly recent. I had a great uncle who reverently kept a picture of Jimmy Carter on top of his bookcase.
 
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Saw the Bob Marley movie over the weekend. It was ok but I would not recommend spending the money to see it in the theatre. To me it just seemed very superficial. It tells a story but it was like the Wiki version of it if you know what I mean.

For the first movie I've seen in a theatre since before COVID it was kind of disappointing.
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
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Kennedy + Pope on the wall was a nod to the fact that Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic president; it was a big deal at the time.
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
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Ms Fringe hung a copy of New Yorker cover image showing a full moon honoring the big O, Obama.
 

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Was a portrait of the President hung on the wall a thing years ago in school classrooms ?
 
fringe said:
Ms Fringe hung a copy of New Yorker cover image showing a full moon honoring the big O, Obama.
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JNA said:
Was a portrait of the President hung on the wall a thing years ago in school classrooms ?
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None. Public school. Ninth grade English teacher spelled in full page prints a Bible verse Ye shall know the truth etc. which malefactors had to write x times in notebook paper.
 
It may be Tuesday, but it feels like a Monday and not in the "I have a week ahead of me to get things done" positive spin vibe.

With that said, I am listen to Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson at this very moment, and it is making me think about the summer, which is nice.
 
Boy I am sure am looking forward to getting a lot of work done today.
 
Had the day off yesterday. Completely emptied, gutted, repainted, and reconfigured the big closet in our house. Gained about 10" of linear hanging space and some shelves. The inside hadn't been redone since we bought the house 15 years ago (smartest thing I did was paint those closets before we moved in, wish I had had the wood floors done but had no $).

Anyway it still took the ENTIRE day which was frustrating but only one trip to the hardware store which was good.
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
Click to expand...

My dad's mother had pictures of FDR and Truman on a shelf in her living room.

When I was a kid, the neighbors down the street had a picture of JFK (they were Catholic but I don't recall a picture of the Pope, but maybe there was one of those too).
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
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I had two maternal great-aunts that lived in the house that their father, my great-grandfather built. One never married and never left and the other was widowed twice and came back to the farm. All that to say is that the house was their parents home and was a time capsule, maintained like their parents decorated it. In the front foyer was a printed portrait of a Caucasian Jesus, a print of George Washington crossing the Delaware, a portrait of my great-grandfather's parents, and a portrait of my great-grandmother's parents. In the back hallway, there was a framed 1976 Bicentennial Poster that had all the US Presidents.

On my father's side, I don't recall anyone have presidential portraits but my father is named after Harry S Truman and Franklin D Roosevelt.
 
Maister said:
So last night I was driving across town and as I drove down a hilly road a cat darted out into the street and I didn't even have time to hit the brakes. The cat was killed instantly. There were apartment buildings on either side of the street so I ended up just pulling the cat's corpse off to the side of the road. No collar or tags. I felt terrible and still do, but I find myself asking, who would let their cat roam free? I'm assuming the cat was a pet, but have no actual proof of that. This morning I drove past the place and saw the corpse had been removed, so maybe so. But, again, if you're going to have a pet why let them outside unless you want this fate for them?
Click to expand...

We had a little black cat once when my girls were very young. We found her one day after she had gone missing, and she had been hit by a car. Whoever hit her, took her from the road and laid her down under a pine in the neighbor's yard. At the time, it was a great comfort to my little girls that whoever had accidentally killed her felt badly, and didn't want her to be found in the road like she didn't matter.

You did a good thing, moving the cat from the road. That's not required behavior and a lot of people just keep moving. The little things matter. To me, it says a lot about you - and I wouldn't have expected anything less.
 
I don't think I have ever seen a portrait of any Prime Minister (living or dead) decorating the home of anyone I've visited.

Queen Elizabeth II on the other hand...

The Queen's portrait used to be in pretty much every town hall/school/arena/community centre/curling rink, etc. when I was a kid. Not as common in the last few decades, and I've not yet come across a portrait of Charles III in the wild.
 
JNA said:
Was a portrait of the President hung on the wall a thing years ago in school classrooms ?
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We have a picture of the President, Vice President, and HUD Secretary in our entrance foyer at work. I was told that during Cheetolini’s era that a decorative item was strategically placed above the three photos and the part that hung down somewhat obscured Cheetolini’s face.
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
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I think the only one I will see is George Washington.

I do enjoy exploring Google maps and visiting areas that have photos within buildings and similar spaces (in addition to the standard street view images). I often find photos of Putin within buildings in Russia, which I think is interesting, although somewhat expected.

Maister said:
That's surprisingly recent. I had a great uncle who reverently kept a picture of Jimmy Carter on top of his bookcase.
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I have a vintage watch with Jimmy Carter on the dial, like this one:
m83134220101_1.jpg
 
Maister said:
Has anyone here ever been in someone's home where you saw a portrait of some President hung on the wall? Maybe FDR or Kennedy (maybe next to the portrait of the Pope)? People used to accord a certain reverence to the President that you haven't seen since Nixon flew the coop.
Click to expand...

When we toured Salve Regina College in 2010, they had a photo of Obama with candles and the pope next to him and JFK on the other side
 
We’ve got an old sepia photo of the Capitol @ night circa 1910. It’s just a cool photo with the contrasts & lighting. No presidents.
 
A bee in your bonnet, a bug up your arse, a moon in your pluto, or maybe somebody is just messing up the kitchen in your mojo-dojo-casa-house with no intent to load the dishwasher.

I have no idea what I'm saying, but I stand with lp at all times.
luckless pedestrian said:
Is there a moon in pluto or whatever because I am feeling quite impatient with everything today
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I think we're all aware of rhotic (pronouncing trailing r's) English as commonly spoken in North America versus non-rhotic (leaving off trailing r's) in British English (and some American east coast accents). Another feature of rhotic English that is the intrusive r, like in the song A Day In The Life by the Beatles when John Lennon says, "I sawr a film today, oh boy."

This speech coach noticed a "tell" when British actors try to speak in an American accent. They will get the trailing r's right, except that they tend to insert the intrusive r.

In this video he discusses it. Kind of interesting, at least to me. I was aware of rhotic and non-rhotic, and that sometimes people add the intrusive r, but I didn't realize the two were linked.

 
Yes, it's nothing more than click-bait, but I thought several of these centuries old jokes were actually clever (you'll die laughing at number 14 :epic: )

 
Doohickie said:
I think we're all aware of rhotic (pronouncing trailing r's) English as commonly spoken in North America versus non-rhotic (leaving off trailing r's) in British English (and some American east coast accents). Another feature of rhotic English that is the intrusive r, like in the song A Day In The Life by the Beatles when John Lennon says, "I sawr a film today, oh boy."

This speech coach noticed a "tell" when British actors try to speak in an American accent. They will get the trailing r's right, except that they tend to insert the intrusive r.

In this video he discusses it. Kind of interesting, at least to me. I was aware of rhotic and non-rhotic, and that sometimes people add the intrusive r, but I didn't realize the two were linked.

Click to expand...
I used to coach accents back when I directed radio shows. One of the most challenging aspects to doing an English accent is making a non-rhotic 'r' sound natural. The temptation when initially learning it is to lean into it way too hard, almost as if emphasizing the r at the end of the word ending in a vowel, as opposed to merely trailing off with it or making it serve as a form of liaison that it often serves as.
Not: 'I have some idee-err why you're visiting.' But rather, 'I have some idear why you're visiting.'
 
Maister said:
Not: 'I have some idee-err why you're visiting.' But rather, 'I have some idear why you're visiting.'
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Poor example actually. From my understanding (based purely on the video) is that the intrusive r would not be needed there since "why" begins with a consonant. (Maybe the "w" sound in why is a soft enough consonant that it's treated like a vowel wrt to intrusive r?)

A better example (perhaps) would be "I think it's a bad idear altogether" where the r delineates the separation between the trailing vowel in "idea" the leading vowel in "altogether."

I also find it interesting when I trip across discussions of the Mid-Atlantic accent, which (in some theories at least) is an accent that was contrived to sound aristocratic and is allegedly clearer in early radio transmissions and recorded sound.
 
JNA said:
crick or creek?
wash or warsh?
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Trick question. Patrick McManus (who I highly recommend reading) is the authority on this. When a person says "creek", they are referring to a simple type of stream, probably of a smaller flow than a river. A crick will have half-submerged cars, possibly a dead cow, will be a place where you as a child may have done unseemly things. In short, according to Mr. McManus, "...a creek has none of the raucous, vulgar, freewheeling character of a crick."

He's a good read. :)
 
Faust_Motel said:
Creek and wash.

When I worked in MT nothing outed me as an easterner like saying "creek."
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In all of Wyoming and most of Montana, yep, them're gonna be cricks. "Check it out, DeLoss, Hollywood over here wants to know how we're gonna bridge the crreeeeeeeeek. With our pinky fingers held aloft, Sunshine, that's how!" And then they laughed and laughed and laughed.

I'm glad you survived. :)
 
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Doohickie said:
Poor example actually.
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It's a perfectly adequate example. Yes, if the next word began with a vowel it would, however, better demonstrate how the r can (but does not have to) function as a liaison consonant.
 
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