November 9, 2012

Sometimes when I sit down to post, I have a definite idea as to what's gonna come out...today is not one of those days. 

Last night was one of those where the wind was blowing down from the hills north of us, and the hills are alive with the smell of thermal activity.  Tons of hot springs bubbling up from the not so far away meshing of tectonic plates and releasing a heady steam of sulfur into the air.  Not the greatest smell, but it is something to a person with a love of How The Earth Was Made that makes this place so interesting....the knowledge that the ground below you is so alive.  That linked episode abouut gold from one of the greatest documentary shows ever is really worth watching.

This morning, took Betty early and there were not many people about.  At one intersection, saw a couple of girls that were all dressed up and looked like they were talking the walk of shame.  I think I noticed them mainly due to their legs being so skinny.  The combination of a little black cocktail dress and scrawny little legs made me coin a new term for that look...swizzle sticks.  Think it's going to take off.

That reminds me of something I learned at Chinese class the other day...our teacher is very sincere in telling us that the Chinese language is easy to learn in so many ways.  A common theme for her is that while there are over 1.5 million English words, there are only 50,000 Chinese characters.  Not only that, but words are continuously being added to the English dictionary, while in Chinese, they never add a new character but combine old ones for new inventions.  For instance, airplane in translated as a flying machine and a computer is an electronic brain.  I can see a benefit in keeping it simple, especially as someone new to a language, but there is something about the variety of the English language that allows one to turn a phrase that is far more interesting.  Has to be a total bitch to learn it, but has to be the reason why English is the language of comedy. 

On our route home from the Costco, we pass by this duck store...it has my favorite neon sign in town and finally snapped a picture to share.  No commentary, just think it's cool.

 

Finally for today, it's November 9th and we're 1/3 of the way into MO-vember...that special time of year when the fellas are encouraged to grow facial hair as part of prostate cancer awareness month.  It's a great time for yours truly as I've been able to grow the thickest of beards ever since I was 16 (which made me the designated under age alcohol buyer), but even more so as the Chinese just don't have that gene in their DNA (wonder what the Chinese call DNA).  It's a common trait amongst humans to be envious of what you don't have, and have been getting frequent envious comments from the men.  So far, the chicks seem equally split between being horror and arousal.  At the 7-11 this morning, this little little girl was just staring at me with her mouth agape.  Was chatting with Carolyn's 4th grade teacher at a Parent/Teacher function (with free booze) on Tuesday about facial hair, and he asked me if I knew why the Italians wore gold chains?  To let them know where to stop shaving of course. 

Hi, y'all.