Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)’s Comments (group member since Sep 20, 2013)

Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)’s comments from the Net Work Book Club group.

Good news!! My pastor has had his PET scan and has been declared cancer-free! The oncologist used the word "cured." 18 mos ago he was told if he'd waited 2 more weeks to see the doctor, he would have died.

His wife, whether she realises it or not, is in depression. Part of that is the last 18 mos but it actually started before that. (I live with GAD and periodic depression, I recognise the signs.) Maybe that's why, since it's a tiny group (about 12 people) and most of them are his immediate family, they are closing the church for the month of August so the pastor's family can go on a group vacation. Goodness knows they need it. I hope it helps.

Not a joke as such but it made me laugh at myself. I heard myself say aloud not 3 hrs ago: "I did ought to wash these windows, but it's not going to happen."

Did ought! You can indeed take the girl out of the country!

I thought a formation of flying geese was a skein. Maybe that's ducks, though.

mrbooks wrote: "or did he hide in the foi gras"

That's from geese, you silly goose! ;)

They probably put the comma in the wrong place and meant 17,000.
That said, a lot of people, ourselves included, live on 1,700 or less. It might be a good experience for him.

It's a word you use about the person doing it. Like she humblebragged about how her busy career kept her from taking a single day off for five years. Or like Emma's example, yes, the person who is hoping to qualify for Superwoman of the Year. But it can be used in many ways. Many of my students over 40 roll their eyes and say in pretended embarassment, "Oh, I can't cook, I don't know which side of the frying pan goes on the stove!" when what they mean is "I don't want to mess around with that."

Exactly! I'm all for parental concern, but when they won't let their kids watch TV and then give them free run of the Internet, you have to wonder!

Back when DH and I were dating, here in S Spain, he took me on a day trip to see the famous monastery where Columbus met with the King to discuss travelling to America. It's still active, and as we were leaving in his car, we saw a chicken running along the grass verge away from the main building. Pretty soon, along came a friar running with his habit hitched up, with a knife in one hand!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To show possums it could be done.

I hate when people say "I don't watch television" in a way that implies that they are morally superior to you because you do.
I don't watch much myself, but it's a choice. You want to, go right ahead.

I don't know if I've mentioned "humblebrag." I don't think so. It was new to me when someone here used it in a comment on one of my reviews. Y'all probably know what it means. I run into it constantly among my older female students who humblebrag about not being able to cook, clean etc. What they mean is "I am too busy doing IMPORTANT things to bother with that." And yet it's apparently OK to expect someone else to do it for them, usually unpaid. They think nothing of turning up each week at Mama's with empty Tupperware containers for her to fill so they can eat for a week! Do they take her stuff to cook, or offer to pay for the groceries? Not usually! Or they shuffle off absolutely all tidiness and cleaning onto their current SO.
My question is, be ye man or woman, since when is NOT having a life-skill a positive thing? And how does it make you superior to others who have it?

But I mean, a hyper-"evangelical" weirdo would not allow figures of saints ("idols") in her house! But then Di Palma, the director, was a Catholic, so...

Oh, okay. I've been here too long. Not that I'm complaining; more and more I realise I am in my right place.

OK, another question. What does it mean in the US when someone says "I hear crickets"? I just read a review panning a book (for reasons I found solid and would probably have shared if I'd wasted time on reading it) and at the end of the review it said

crickets (between < marks which won't show up on my remark for some reason)

Huh? Does it mean "bat shit crazy" or does it mean "I got nothing out of it" or what? And why crickets?

Also, with "Carrie" it was weird that on the one hand her mother was some lunatic-fringe "hyper-evangelical" and yet she locks her daughter up to pray over her sins...and there's an image of St Sebastian in the room? Complete with twisted posture, arrows, wounds etc. OK so mom's a nutcase, but you can't really have both.

I've only seen Carrie, and that was back when VCRs were new in Spain. My neighbour rented the video and wanted to see it. I was underwhelmed before it started, she was underwhelmed when it finished. She said, "That's not scary, it's just..gross!"
Indeed.

Reminds me of an Englishman I rode with in the Midwest, who ended up in the wrong lane on one of those Iowa highways with 2 lanes in the same direction, a grass strip, and the other 2 lanes in the other direction. He had turned instinctively into the left lane. Fortunately there was no traffic, but we did get stopped. The cop checked his international permit and then said, "Excuse me sir but you're driving on the wrong side of the road." This was in the mid-70s when highway patrolmen were still trained to speak with formal courtesy, no matter how rude the person was. The English guy replied "What? The right side's the wrong side. The left side's the right side. Everybody knows that."
He was let off with a caution. In those days in that place, an English accent went a long way.

The woman in question was a sailor's wife who refused to give the witch some of the roasted chestnuts she was eating. Sailors were supposed to be of extremely carnal morals and...well, pansexual. "In port it's wine, women and song; at sea it's rum, bum and concertina." As Spìke Lee once put it. (oh heck, not Spike Lee, Spike Milligan!)

mrbooks wrote: "Isn't that England?"

I meant the area immediately contiguous. England's a relatively large place. (Well, not to us, who have lived in America, but still.)

I think someone left a chute badly closed, or something like that. It was in the area just south of Scotland.