If I ease myself away from the temptation to eat Hallowe’en candy, I can usually resist. If I banish the idea of eating it completely, the temptation becomes greater. Strange…
This post is part of Tuesday Use It In a Sentence! You can find the prompt this week here: https://fortyandfantastique.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/tuesday-use-it-in-a-sentence-banish/ Please join in! It’s lots of fun!
This is a post to say that I won’t be posting today. Please ignore this.
Have you ever seen so many cat pictures in your life as you’ve seen since Facebook came into being?
What?
Of course not. They seem to be the world’s favourite animal now. When I was growing up I loved horses; I still do, I suppose. But they’re not all I think about the way I did before I had kids. I suppose my kids are my new horses… Yeah, stream of consciousness.
I still notice many little girls are saying horses are their favourite animal. But let’s face it, horses are something you’ve got to get off Facebook to spend time with, unlike cats. Horses don’t sit on your keyboard when you’re trying to type, so that’s a plus. And you can’t ride a cat. At least not a house cat. You could ride a lion, and you’d have something to hold onto. A mane. Hey, horses have manes. Did you know horses and cats have something in common? They both lay their ears back when they’re mad. They’ll both bite when you get them upset enough… but horses don’t scratch. They both need their nails trimmed though.
This is getting out of hand. Catapult me outta here.
This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. You can join in too!
It’s a bit of a no-brainer – we all need the internet. Right? I mean, it’s a basic necessity, right there near the bottom of the pyramid that is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. So what if we’re in Japan and, say, our WiFi doesn’t work in our hotel room? This was my Japanese lesson for today, so it will also be yours.
WiFi o shigoto o shimasen* (Wifi o shee-go-to o shee-mass-en) -keep in mind the “o” is always long.
Translation: Wifi doesn’t work. This phrase will obviously be accompanied by much red-faced hair-pulling jumping up and down, whilst gently cradling your laptop in one arm. I’ll leave you for a while to picture this…
…
…
So as I was saying, if such a thing occurs, and you manage to get your point across, chances are the person manning the front desk (assuming they don’t call the police on the crazy lady/man with the portable computer) will hand you your very own modem to plug in in your room, giving you the best WiFi you’ve probably ever experienced.
Conclusion: This phrase is definitely worth learning.
*I’m learning Japanese – if this is wrong PLEASE let me know. I don’t want to pull my hair out (or worse) for nothing.
This essential post has been brought to you in conjunction with Nano Poblano. Try it, for a healthy diet!
Blogger’s guilt. This should be a thing. A recognized condition to describe how we writers in blogland feel when we want to write something but we just can’t.
Take, for instance, the matter of theme. This can range from the entire basis for which our sites exist, or it can be as small as something we decided in a fit of inspiration that our Nano Poblano challenge would revolve around. Yes, you guessed it. Today I fail. There will be no Japanese lesson today. I simply haven’t the heart, the brain, nor various other body parts for it. It’s been a rough day, full of doctor’s appointments at which I folded in the face of a red-eyed frightened child who didn’t want to get his flu shot, and a car parked in a parking lot miles from home, causing me to have to walk with the aforementioned child.
But tomorrow will be better! Perhaps we’ll talk about the joys of ordering coffee, not only in Japan but worldwide! Or maybe I’ll expound on the treat that is saying “I’m sorry.” Stay tuned! It’ll be fun! As everything should be when your life is in progress. Right?
Right?
Right.
This strange confession/cheerleading session is brought to you by NanoPoblano. Find all the links here!
Every time I go down to the lake for a walk, I end up with goosebums.
Geese
…diving for food
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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Have fun!
Getting lost in Japan, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, is one of my favourite things to do. Knowing this even before I went there last December, I learned what I thought was a helpful phrase:
Koko desu ka? (ko-ko dess ka)
Where am I? Or, directly translated, means “where is here?” Since it is assumed when speaking in Japanese that you’re speaking about yourself, the “I” is not necessary. Makes sense so far, right? HA! I have had more strange looks asking this question than I got that time I told someone “I have woman” in French.* Ask a Japanese person “Koko desu ka?” and you will invariably be blessed with a facial expression that says, “Is this a trick question?” Perhaps it’s because people there don’t walk around carrying maps, though I seriously doubt it considering how difficult it is to find anything. Actually, the Japanese love maps. Probably because they can’t find anything.
Conclusion: Carry a GPS.
*In French, if you’re hungry, you say “J’ai faim” which directly translated means “I have hunger.” If you pronounce the word “faim” as “femme,” which means “woman,” people will look in your backpack.
Nano Poblano is fun! Check out some more posts at Rarasaur’s blog!
Today’s Japanese lesson involves something that affects all of humankind. Nay, all animated being-kind. It is a need unsurpassed since the dawn of time. No, not coffee. Though coffee is essential! Don’t get me wrong.
No, this requirement outweighs all other requirements. From mere brewing to utter urgency, it is a force to be reckoned with. It is… the need to go to the toilet. And it is a must to learn in any language native to where you’re traveling. So let us consider the phrase in Japanese, “Where is the washroom?”
Say it with me:
O-tearai wa, doko desu ka?
Directly translated it means, “The toilet, where is it?” As you can see, the word for toilet has a lot of vowels in it. In Japanese, we pronounce each one individually. So, “O” always sounds like an O in the alphabet; “te” has a soft “e” sound, as does “a,” and “i” always sounds like “ee.” I give you: O-te-a-ra-ee. Try it. Try it again. Now imagine you’re bursting at the seams and try it again. It makes the rest; “do-ko dess ka” seem like a leisurely stroll in the park, doesn’t it?
Conclusion – cross your legs and eyes and whine. Someone will point you in the right direction. It’s a human thing, after all.
This post has been part of Nano Poblano, found here: https://rarasaur.wordpress.com/nanopoblano-2015/#comment-53592 You can also type “Nanopoblano” into the search tabs in your reader to read more entries.
Strangely enough, I’m still tired after sleeping until 10am (thanks, Alex for letting me lay in) and so I’m writing this while I wait for my tea to steep. I’m a bit picky about how I make my tea. I used to have a teapot, but it broke and I haven’t bothered to get another one. So I have this cup that came with a lid and a plastic basket for the tea bag that I use all the time. I still always put the milk in first, even though I’m pouring boiling water over the tea bag in the cup. (I can hear all you teaophiles gasping. But I’m halfway there, aren’t I?) It makes a pretty decent cup of tea.
I find it strange how things work out sometimes too. For instance, as I already noted, I woke up at 10, which means I didn’t start Alex’s first feed on his feeding pump until 10:20. The feed takes about 2 hours to go through, so he finished his breakfast at 12 or so. He’s having his lunch now, at 3:46pm, which means it’s going to be a late night for me as he’ll want to go out trick or treating before he has his dinner. BUT. I’m hanging on to the fact that we have an extra hour tonight. It’s like a gift from the g-tube god. Or the clock god. Or maybe it’s some sort of spooky Halloween god-type-vampire who goes around giving rest instead of taking blood. Or something. Did I mention I’m tired?
I went for a walk with, Alex, my best friend John, and his two young granddaughters today. There was an elderly gentleman walking a little dog (we were on the path that runs along the water) and the two girls ran up to the man and asked if they could pet the dog. It both amazes and scares me how easy it is for little children to run up and talk to strangers. I do say hello to people I pass on the trail all the time, but at least I’m more than two and a half feet tall and weigh more than 40 pounds.
Anyway, now I’m rambling and my tea is ready. I’ll leave you with a pretty picture of the water though, that I took a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!
This post has been brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link and join in today: https://lindaghill.com/2015/10/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-3115/
Yes, I know it’s not Tuesday. And I’m not here with a prompt. I’m actually here with an offer.
I started Tuesday Use It In a Sentence three weeks ago with visions of a prompt that would spread far and wide over the vastness that is the internet – and it still can! But I have neither the time nor the energy to host a third weekly get-together. I thought I did. I was wrong.
So I’m here tonight to see if there’s anyone who would like to take over. I’ll participate in it, and there were five bloggers and tweeters combined who joined in last week, which is about how many I started with when I began Stream of Consciousness Saturday.
Any takers? Email me at bacamjoly at gmail dot com and we’ll talk about what’s involved. The first person who’s seriously interested can have it. Or maybe two people would like to share it… the possibilities are endless. If you’d like to see what it’s all about, click here: https://lindaghill.com/2015/10/20/tuesday-use-it-in-a-sentence-overrun/
It seems a shame to just let it die after three whole weeks. 😛
Edit: I’ve had one person respond. I’m just waiting for her to confirm.
lindaghill.com 