Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Carol wrote: "I have just realised that Americans (unless I am very mistaken) do not use the same word for chips that we do. I believe you call our chips French Fries and what we call crisps are your chips. Migh..."

And old joke. An Englishman and an American were talking about a car. The Englishman said, "Let's look at the engine. Please lift the bonnet." The American said, "You mean the hood . We invented the car, after all." The Englishman replied, "True. But we invented the language."

Carol wrote: "They live in Wallonie, the French-speaking area. Daughter has lived there for 18 years and is now Belgian, thanks to Brexit! The children were originally French and British but are also now Belgian..."

Carol,

I've only been to Belgium twice ... once for two days of negotiations with EU and once on a trip through Europe with some American agricultural industry people. On that second trip, a scientist who worked on pesticides told me a story about a chocolate shop in Brussels. He had visited it on a few occasions but was amazed when he had been away for a year and came back in to the shop ... only to be greeted by his name. He took me to that shop and it really did have fantastic chocolates for sale.

John, how goes the decision to relocate?

Such a good way to start my day ... reading this poem by Hardy!

Carol, is it a Flemish or French school? (I’m assuming that it is not a German one!)

Carol, I apologize but where do they go to school?

Carol, that does make it more strange.

Going back to the pronunciation issues, our NPR reporters, especially if they are Hispanic-Latino, regularly pronounce the names of Latin American locations with the Spanish pronunciation. So Mexico City often becomes May-hee-co City. It doesn’t bother me at all and I guess it is meant as a statement of affirmation directed toward Hispanic-Latino listeners … but Paris never gets pronounced as Pa-ree. Like I said, it doesn’t bother me. It just seems a little odd.

Carol, I read about half of the first Harry Potter book and stopped. But if my granddaughter worked her way through the books, and so far she has not, I think I would read them all.

John wrote: "Katherine Rundell is a brilliant writer and I am reading her biography of John Donne.

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

Eventually I would like to read one of her ..."

John, I'll move that up higher on my TBR stack.

Carol wrote: "It was reported yesterday that so many new buildings have collapsed as the builders were able to circumvent the law concerning earthquake structure requirements by paying money. If it is true it is..."'

We saw that about the new buildings. I immediately said to my wife that I admire the Japanese for having establishing building codes that result in most buildings surviving really strong earthquakes ... and for enforcing those building codes. Japanese corruption involves too much concrete being used all over Japan (one result of Yakuza involvement in the cement industry)... but it doesn't result in unsafe building practices.

Carol wrote: "I avoid the BBC as I cannot bear to see either the war in Europe or the earthquake victims in Syria and Turkey. Such harrowing scenes. Instead I continue to watch the French or Belgian News which t...I know that the US, China and many other countries have given aid but it was only the day before yesterday I saw the first practical help being reported in the rubble and that was at just one building."

I think your point is well taken, but we still watch the BBC twice a day ... BBC World News in the morning and BBC World News America in the evening. They are easily the best summary of what's going on.

Our county (Fairfax County, Virginia) almost always is one of the first responders to these terrible events. The Fairfax County team is in Turkey today, EMTs and dogs. I'm proud to live in this county.

I so enjoyed that poem by Mark Strand.

John, animals and cars don’t mix very well. Some of the wiring on some cars have a coating that is not truly plastic but a soy-based plastic like material. That has encouraged rats to get into the engine wells and chew on those wires. And squirrels like to store their nuts and acorns in engine wells also.

John,

I am not familiar with the poem either, but I really do like it.

Larry

The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

SOURCE: THE POETRY FOUNDATION

Thanks, friends.

I think you are both right!

Well, my wife and I caught Covid about a week ago ... we had been watching our granddaughters during the days last week while my daughter-in-law was in Austin, Texas. The elementary school called Friday afternoon to say that a major Covid outbreak had occurred. My son immediately tested and discovered that he and one of the two girls tested positive.

We went home and developed some symptoms over the weekend. Chills, fever, and general weariness. We slept a lot. My wife had a lot of medical appointments this week, so all that got cancelled. I didn't test positive until Tuesday and my wife didn't test positive until yesterday (Thursday). Our internist put us on Paxlovid.

I feel almost normal today, and my wife is coming along fine. I lost my sense of smell on Tuesday, but my sense of taste is only minimally impaired. Paxlovid has left us both with a metallic taste in our mouths. Not a terrible experience by any means, but the uncertainty of what can happen to anyone who catches Covid has made us very careful ... and that won't change.

One social media comment. I won't mention this on Facebook. Too many Facebook friends who are also real world friends who will want to bring food, etc. Sort of a nice problem ... but still a problem.

Posted by Mark Edmundson on Facebook today:

Those Winter Sundays
BY ROBERT HAYDEN
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?