Day: February 17, 2023

TGIF — Almost Over

Fandango14 Comments

Paula Light, at Light Motifs II, has this prompt she calls TGIF. She encourages us to take this opportunity to openly chat or jabber about anything we want.

This is my first TGIF post since Friday the 13th, which for many, is an unlucky day. But for me, that Friday the 13th was the last day that I was able-bodied, as on Saturday the 14th I fell off a ladder and fractured my left hip and broke my right arm near my shoulder. Hence, I haven’t had much to TGIF about.

But almost five weeks after The Incident, things are starting to look up a little. I still need to use a walker to get around, and I still have. 50% weight limit restriction on my left leg, but I am starting to put a little more weight on my left leg and hope, within another two to three weeks, to begin being able to bear more weight on my left leg and maybe advance from a walker to a cane. And maybe a few weeks after that to migrate from in-home PT to outpatient PT.

My right shoulder and arm are still not doing great, but I’ve got daily exercises that I’m doing to try to get back my strength and to improve my range of motion, but there’s a lot of physical therapy ahead to look forward to.

Today I received a California Temporary Disabled Person Parking Placard for our car.

This will be helpful for my wife and me when my wife has to drive me to doctor appointments and physical therapy, which she has to do because I haven’t been approved to drive yet and probably won’t be until April. So at leased now we’ll be able to park in handicapped parking spots next to the building entrances. Every little bit helps.

And on that note, happy TGIF, everyone.

WDP — Law Breaker

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Have you ever broken the law and didn’t get caught, if so how?

I am, for the most part, a law abiding citizen. That said, outside of quiet neighborhood streets where I always stay within the posted limits, when I’m on highways or freeways, I am heavy-footed and tend to drive anywhere from 5 to 15 miles over the posted limit.

So technically speaking, when I drive above the speed limit, I am breaking the law. But seriously, who doesn’t, at times, exceed the posted speed limit?

Have I ever gotten stopped for driving above the speed limit? Yes I have. Twice. But I’ve never actually been issued a moving violation (speeding) ticket. Both times I was stopped, I managed to talk my way out of a ticket and to get off with a warning.

Hence, I can say that I have broken the law on numerous occasions but have yet to get caught.

Fibbing Friday — Marla’s Word List

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Di (aka Pensitivity101) hosts Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. For this week’s Fibbing Friday, Marla provided the list of words and Di wants to know what these words mean.

1. Bumfuzzle — The unkempt beard of a homeless man.
2. Gardyloo — A public restroom attendant.
3. Taradiddle — The bubbles a man makes in the toilet water as he’s standing and peeing.
4. Snickersnee — The chocolate that drops onto and melts on your pants as you’re eating a Snickers bar.
5. Bumbershoot — A shot in billiards that bounces off of at least two bumpers before dropping in a hole.
6. Snollygoster — The gooey residue left on a toddler’s finger after picking his (or her) nose.
7. Brouhaha — The wicked laughter of a villainous person.
8. Wabbit — Bugs Bunny according to Elmer Fudd.
9. Pandiculation — A fear of getting vaccinated in the event of a worldwide health pandemic.
10. Borborygm — A mixed drink that contains both bourbon and gin.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — February 17th

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Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 17th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on February 17, 2010 on my old blog.

Fuh-Cough and Other Oddities

Here’s an oddity of the English language that may not have occurred to you. The letters “o-u-g-h” in that order can be pronounced in at least seven different ways.

  • though (like o in go)
  • through (like oo in too)
  • cough (like off in offer)
  • rough (like uff in suffer)
  • plough (like ow in flower)
  • ought (like aw in saw)
  • borough (like a in above)
  • Arguably, there is an eighth way of saying “ough,” and that would be hiccough (like up in puppy), although, admittedly these days, the word is often spelled hiccup because of the way it’s pronounced.

The English language usage can be a little off-putting in other ways, too. For example, take the item that is in the basements or utility rooms of most American homes. It’s that device that heats the water for our showers and baths and so we can wash our dishes and our clothes. It’s the ubiquitous hot water heater.

That’s what you call it, right? A hot water heater? It seems that most people refer to it as a hot water heater, when, in fact, it doesn’t heat hot water, it heats cool water. When you don’t have hot water, it’s because your water heater is on the fritz. In other words, it’s not heating the water, which wouldn’t need to be heated if it were already hot.

So why is it called a hot water heater if its purpose is to heat water that is not already hot? Perhaps the device should be called a cold water heater, or a tepid water heater. Or maybe simply a water heater.

Another strange term, in my mind, anyway, is “air conditioning.” We have come to recognize air conditioning as the process by which the air in our rooms, homes, offices, and stores gets cooled.

When I was a kid our house was not “air conditioned,” so on those particularly hot and sticky days in July and August, we’d all pile into the Chevy and drive to the movie theater to spend a few hours relaxing in the air conditioned comfort of the theater.

In addition to advertising the name of the movie, the marquee would also tout, “It’s COOL inside.” It didn’t really matter what movie was playing as long as the air conditioning was working properly.

But why is air conditioning synonymous with cooling? If one is conditioning the air to make it more comfortable, couldn’t that include warming it in winter as well as cooling it in summer? Why is warming a house in the winter called heating, while cooling it in the summer is called air conditioning?

Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

FOWC with Fandango — Equal

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FOWC

It’s February 17, 2023. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “equal.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.