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.

The only thing I can think of is maybe they were afraid readers would confuse sew-ers with the sewers dirty water flows into. But how ignorant are their readers????

A couple of days ago I signed up for a craft/sewing newsletter email. Today the first one arrived and the salutation is:

"Hello Sewists!"

Sewists? Seriously?

Sewers, certainly. Seamstresses. Crafters! But "sewists!!"

In my mind it's a book by Mary Stewart but I've been looking online and none of her titles seems to be it. I read the book in the mid 70s though it might be older. A woman and her husband (his name is Roarke) live in Italy? Greece? He used to be involved with an opera singer whose last name is Mallory, and then married his present wife, who is younger. The opera singeri is referred to as "la Mallory." Circumstances make the wife think that he may have started up the old affair again. The motif of a boy riding a dolphin (frieze, fresco, sculpture, something of that sort) is important.

Anybody remember it?

Groovy wrote: "I don't know the meaning where most of you come from, but where I live, when someone says, "It is what it is", it usually means it's none of your business,"

I've mostly heard people use it in TV interviews, basically to mean "What can you do, accept it." But again, they rant about whatever and then chirp, "But it is what it is." Or you ask someone about a situation and they say, "It is what it is" to mean "(I'm) not going to change it (for you)."

Has anyone mentioned, "It is what it is" yet? I'm sure the first person who thought of that (like it took a lot of thought!) considered themselves brillant. Great insight, there, dude.

The one I dislike, Groovy, is "What's that about?"...again, because of overkill. A few years back some comics used it as a vocal tic. They'd make a joke and then repeat the line several times: "What's that about? I mean, what's that about?"

Susan, I remember A Wrinkle in Time being huge when I was a kid in the 60s. I think I may have read it once back then, tried again last year and just found the kids so annoying I couldn't carry on.

Rereading as I do every 2-3 yrs.

Frenchie wrote: "I love 'Comeuppance'' too. Lately, it is a word I could use everyday."

Comment ça va, Frenchie? Tu m'as manquée.

Almost as annoying as "well fit!"

You gotta laugh sometimes...
We switched electric companies a year or so back. The old one keeps sending young workers round claiming that the old company has a "claim" on us for back billing etc--which is of course not true. We never get a legal notice, it's because DH is retired and they think they can pressure or scare him into signing something. HA. DH used to get angry and shout at them. Then,he consulted a lawyer and the company we're with (and the lawyer contacted the old company) and it's all a fabrication. Every month or so, here comes another person with this "claim".

Well yesterday I was expecting a friend at a certain time, and when the buzzer downstairs went I just opened the door and stood there waiting. Here came two *very* young guys--what? maybe 17 or 18, with their same old song. But first one said, "I don think you were expecting us." "No, not unless your name is Maria." That put him off his stride, but he came up with line about the claim. I smiled and said nicely, "No, there's no "claim", we have nothing to do with that company at all." DH came up and said, "Oh you poor guys, you're on a three month "trial" contract, aren't you? Every time someone gets the push, they send us a new one. Tell them we're onto them, and I really hope you can find a decent job."

You could see the wind come out of their sails and one nearly teared up. They just turned and left. Poor guys.

This one shocked me. Watching a BBC made documentary on insects, the narrator said, "There's plants for food." There is plants. No dear, there ARE plants.

Who wrote the narration? And didn't anyone check it?

I thought accuracy was fundamental to science?

LOL Kim, "sleeps" is supposedly Native American/Inuit talk but I've never actually heard one use it.

As to seeing a grown up man, maybe he isn't. So many aren't these days!! I mean they get taller and older, but "grown up" seems to be optional for many.

As for man-cave, yeah! In the US they sometimes called it a "den" when I was growing up. My DH has one and it is lined with books and DVDs and CDs (used to be videos and cassettes) to the place he calls it "the submarine."

The over use of "literally" to mean things that are not "literally" so. For example, from a GR discussion on Wuthering Heights:

"Heathcliff worships Cathy, he literally dies for being with her in afterlife, his life revolves around her, this is not "my daughter, beware". Isabella is here for showing that aspect of Heathcliff, but the thing with Cathy literally takes place in a different planet. "

Yeah...on Venus, in zero gravity...whatever floats your boat, or blows your hair back...

Groovy wrote: "A nice Jewish old lady is walking down the steet. A streaker is coming toward her. Finally, when he gets close to her, he opens his trench coat wide for her to see everything. She looks at him and ..."

Reminds me of a joke from back in the seventies, when streaking was a fad.
This little old lady lives in a retirement home, and decides to see if she can catch the eye of a certain gent by streaking where he can see her. As she jogs past in the nude, the old man says, "Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm streaking," she replies.
"And what's that you're wearing?"
"It's my birthday suit!"
"Well, I have to tell you, it sure needs ironing."

Everyone says you shouldn't snack straight out of the fridge at night...so why do they have that light in there?

The four basic laws of Newtonian physics are equally applicable to interpersonal relationships. Here are the laws in plain English:

1. If you don’t touch it, it stays where it is.
2. Things move if you give them a push.
3. If you push on it, expect to be pushed back equally hard—if not harder. If it’s bigger than you, get out of the way!
4. And once things get going, they’re hard to stop.

Good life-lessons, too.

My dream holiday would be Normandy. Specifically Lisieux and round that way. And of course Carcasonne. (I had to learn the poem in school about the guy who died without looking on Carcassonne, which no matter how I spell it looks wrong.)

Currently reading Death of a Red Heroine. Interesting. As a translator myself, I find myself thinking about the couplets interpolated in the text, how they work in English and wondering how close they actually are to the Chinese originals; do they "feel right"?

If I were younger and smarter (and had the money) I'd study Chinese.

I'm wondering if I'm going to finish The Mistress of Spices. I do usually have 2-3 books going at once but it's just so negative. I haven't touched it for several days, and that's not a good sign.

We finally got the house straightened, only to find out that there was a slow leak in the pipes leading to the shower, as well as a serious crack in the floor of the shower unit itself. Thank God for insurance! But--what a mess. Tile dust, cement dust, sand, brick and plaster dust. And no shower for 3 days, so just catbaths. I had chapel-cleaning duty (another big job as they also had had decorations to clear, with consequent dust) as well--so that plus cleaning up after the plumbers meant 3 big cleanups in 4 days. I am very sore in the shoulders from mopping etc!!

BUT--tonight I am gonna stand in the shower for a good long time instead of the ten minutes I usually allow myself!! ;) I have to say, DH was such a blessing, he dealt with the plumber and the neighbour downstairs (we discovered the leak thanks to them, but he seemed to think we could get it all fixed for him in less than 48 hrs, just around NYE!!). He told me, "Why don't you go get your hair cut, and take the morning out." I did that. Bless his heart. I don't deserve that man.