Stranger things

[BigSkyDiamond]

i dated a Dine' (Navajo) guy for awhile.  There was no word for attorney in the Dine' language, so a phrase was cobbled together for attorney: Dinébe'iiná Náhiiłna be Agha'diit'ahii

 

This roughly translates to "those who talk too fast and help revitalize the well being of the Dine' people"

 

Edited July 27 by BigSkyDiamond

[liminal_luke]

I keep reading on MSN that younger people (generation Z) think it´s rude to call a friend out of the blue without texting first.  Could this possibly be true?  I´m likely very out of touch but this seems to me like a very Strange Thing.

[Taomeow]

43 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

I keep reading on MSN that younger people (generation Z) think it´s rude to call a friend out of the blue without texting first.  Could this possibly be true?  I´m likely very out of touch but this seems to me like a very Strange Thing.

 

It used to not be considered rude even to come visit friends without calling. 

And gen Z etiquette experts are reported to have a new way to answer the phone.  They cancelled Hello, instead they just pick up and keep silent waiting for the calling party to start speaking. 

Now that's rude far as I'm concerned.   

[liminal_luke]

13 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

It used to not be considered rude even to come visit friends without calling. 

 

 

Like many Generation Z people, I´m no stranger to social anxiety, so I get why it might be uncomfortable to have people stop by unannounced.  But I want to live in a world where my social anxiety is challenged rather than catered to.  We´re human and we need other people.  If someone is my friend, they´re welcome to knock on my door any time.

[BigSkyDiamond]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

I keep reading on MSN that younger people (generation Z) think it´s rude to call a friend out of the blue without texting first.  Could this possibly be true?  I´m likely very out of touch but this seems to me like a very Strange Thing.

 

we did this at work, as a way of confirming the person would be able to talk on the phone, i.e. not busy with something else.  But for personal calls, if someone doesn't want to answer, then just let it go to voice mail.

[liminal_luke]

10 hours ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

we did this at work, as a way of confirming the person would be able to talk on the phone, i.e. not busy with something else.  But for personal calls, if someone doesn't want to answer, then just let it go to voice mail.

 

Glad to hear it.  I´m not much of a texter but don´t want to be rude.  Letting unwanted calls go to voicemail sounds like the perfect solution to me.  I also think that people shouldn´t feel obligated to answer the door every time someone knocks, although, for me, that programming is hard to undo. 

[steve]

I'm a master of the art of tsundoku!

[Taomeow]

11 minutes ago, steve said:

I'm a master of the art of tsundoku!

 

Me too.  

[BigSkyDiamond]

me three

[BigSkyDiamond]

• Many readers buy books with every intention of reading them only to let them linger on the shelf. 
• Statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes surrounding ourselves with unread books enriches our lives as they remind us of all we don’t know. 
• The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits.

 

We have these stacks of books because we desire to read so much more.

 

Edited July 27 by BigSkyDiamond

[Taomeow]

43 minutes ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

• Many readers buy books with every intention of reading them only to let them linger on the shelf. 
• Statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes surrounding ourselves with unread books enriches our lives as they remind us of all we don’t know. 
• The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits.

 

We have these stacks of books because we desire to read so much more.

 

 

One extremist in this respect was Umberto Eco who collected a home library of 50,000 tomes and couldn't possibly have read all of them.  

[steve]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

 

One extremist in this respect was Umberto Eco who collected a home library of 50,000 tomes and couldn't possibly have read all of them.  

 

Appropriately, some of his books sit unread on my shelf!  

 

For me it seems to be that I buy books and then can't decide which to read next.

The other aspect is that once I have them available, I feel no urgency to read them.

Right now I am torn between three novels - Monstrilio, The Master and Marguerita, and Never Let Me Go

[BigSkyDiamond]

1 hour ago, steve said:

For me it seems to be that I buy books and then can't decide which to read next.

 

I can choose which to read next, and usually have about ten in progress at any given time.

However I do find that sometimes my interests change, and some of the books in the stack of "undread books"  no longer interest me.  In that case, I donate them to the library.  I don't collect just for the sake of collecting.  Also if I am unlikely to read a book again, then I do not keep it.  

 

I only keep on hand the unread books that still interest me.  And still qualify as having vibrant  practice of tsudoku.

Edited Sunday at 09:27 PM by BigSkyDiamond

[BigSkyDiamond]

Separately, in the category of (for me) very strange things.

A fellow i knew at work said he reads about 1 book per year.  Or fewer.  

Not for lack of intelligence, smart guy, makes a good salary, successful in his health care profession.

Just doesn't see any point in reading.  It does not interest him.

[Cobie]

 

18 minutes ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

.. he reads about 1 book per year.  Or fewer.  … Just doesn't see any point in reading.  It does not interest him.

Why do you read? it is possible he already has/knows what you are trying to find in books.

[Taomeow]

 

2 hours ago, steve said:

 

Appropriately, some of his books sit unread on my shelf!  

 

For me it seems to be that I buy books and then can't decide which to read next.

The other aspect is that once I have them available, I feel no urgency to read them.

Right now I am torn between three novels - Monstrilio, The Master and Marguerita, and Never Let Me Go

 

I vote for The Master and Margarita.  Now I may be repeating myself since it came up before, in which case ignore the rest:

I don't know if the latest translation (which is said to be better than the prior ones) can do it for you at all, hoping it's good enough to make an impression.  For me, it's one of the few books I've re-read -- I usually don't since there's still so many unread ones! -- and not once but at least twice.  I read it for the first time when I was 17 -- and then a decade or so later it was a completely different book, and then another decade later, a different book again.  I don't know many that are like that.  Most books you love in your younger years, you try to re-read later and find awful! -- at least in my case it's often like that.     

[BigSkyDiamond]

58 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Why do you read? it is possible he already has/knows what you are trying to find in books.

 

In his own words, reading does not interest him.  Other things interest him more than reading.

To each their own.

 

Why do i read?  Enjoyment.  Instruction.  Guidance. Learning.  Curiosity.  Inspiration.  Encouragement.  Support. Enhances intuitive flow.  Creativity.  Problem solving.  Understanding.  Resonance.  To receive message.  Self development. Satisfaction.  Beauty.  Insight.  Contentment.

 

Edited Sunday at 10:49 PM by BigSkyDiamond

[Nungali]

A stranger thing someone from Holland  sent   ( they say in the original language , it rhymes )  

 

A 'Christmas Song ' about rabbit for Christmas dinner  ... I have to say I was NOT expecting the content . 

 

 

'Flappie' 

 

It was Christmas morning 1961
I still remember it so well, my rabbit's cage was empty
And mother said that I wasn't allowed in the shed
And if I'd play sweetly, I would get some goodies
She had no clue either where Flappie could be
She would ask daddy, but because he was busy
In that bike shed, I should look for Flappie for another hour
He must certainly be somewhere on the grass

But I did lock the cage securily
Like I did every evening
I even went back last night
I don't even know why I did that
I had stood in front of the cage for a long while
As if I knew then what I know now

It was the first day of Christmas 1961
We were searching for Flappie, and dad just searched along
Near the trees and the water, but not in that bike shed
'Because he couldn't be in there?' And I shook 'no'
We searched together, together until it was time for coffee
The family having coffee, but I didn't want anything
I was thinking of Flappie and how cold and freezing it could be at night
My head hung down quietly, crying fat tears of sorrow Because I did lock the cage securily
Like I did every evening
I even went back last night
I don't even know why I did that
I had stood in front of the cage for a long while
As if I knew then what I know now

It was the first day of Christmas 1961
Dinner was noisy, but it didn't bother me much
I was thinking of Flappie, my own little Flappie
Where could he be? I couldn't eat a bite
When after the soup the main course'd arrive
My dad said extremely funny: "Look Youp, here is Flappie!"
I still see that silver tray and there he was in three pieces
For the first time I saw my dad as a horrible man!

And I went to bed shrieking and pounding
First spend an hour crying on the covers
Stood cursing at the top of the stairs one last time
And screamed: "Flappie was mine!"
Stood in front of the window for a very long while
But the cage just stood there forlorn

It was the second day of Christmas 1961
Mother still remembers it so well, dad's bed was empty
And I said that she wasn't allowed in the shed
And if she'd play sweetly, she would get some goodies

 

[Sanity Check]

[Nungali]

On 7/21/2025 at 3:28 PM, Nungali said:

Type ;

 

'The Line'  , Saudi Arabia  into  Google maps  ( terrain view )  and follow it along 

 

 

Now that is something one CAN see from space , even at this early stage . 

 

 

The end vision  ?    

 

 

 

               

 

 

No 'line'   ..... 

 

living in  'the taco'  

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

Strange mysteries of classical paintings.  The Umbrellas, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, is one such enigma to me.  Inside the hoop the little girl is holding...  WHOSE LEG IS THAT?!...     

 

[BigSkyDiamond]

19 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

Strange mysteries of classical paintings.  The Umbrellas, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, is one such enigma to me.  Inside the hoop the little girl is holding...  WHOSE LEG IS THAT?!...     

 

It is the leg of the lady standing to the left of the little girl  (our left facing the painting).

That is their foot.  Also their gloved left hand is visible resting on the little girl's right shoulder.

She is wearing a darker blue jacket, and a grayish skirt.

Her gloved right hand is holding the umbrella leaning it on her right shoulder.

 

Edited 4 hours ago by BigSkyDiamond

[Taomeow]

9 minutes ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

It is the leg of the lady standing to the left of the little girl  (our left facing the painting).

That is their foot.  Also their gloved left hand is visible resting on the little girl's right shoulder.

 

Which brings me to my next mystery:

Whose gloved hand is that?  I can accept it belongs to the same lady whose leg we see inside the hoop, but where's that lady herself?  ???

 

And another mystery.  Whose gloved hand (not the unaccounted for hand on the little girl's shoulder, yet another one) is holding an umbrella over the lady in blue who also has her own umbrella in her two hands (and is opening or closing it)?   

[BigSkyDiamond]

23 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Which brings me to my next mystery:

Whose gloved hand is that?  I can accept it belongs to the same lady whose leg we see inside the hoop, but where's that lady herself?  ???

 

And another mystery.  Whose gloved hand (not the unaccounted for hand on the little girl's shoulder, yet another one) is holding an umbrella over the lady in blue who also has her own umbrella in her two hands (and is opening or closing it)?   

 

43 minutes ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

 

It is the leg of the lady standing to the left of the little girl  (our left facing the painting).

That is their foot.  Also their gloved left hand is visible resting on the little girl's right shoulder.

She is wearing a darker blue jacket, and a grayish skirt.

Her gloved right hand is holding the umbrella leaning it on her right shoulder.

 

 

Both ladies are fully visible.

The lady with gloved hands is gazing down on the little girl.

The lady next to her (on her right, on our left facing the painting) is gazing up at the sky and closing her umbrella.  She is wearing a medium blue suit with black collar and black cuffs.  Her hands are bare (no gloves).

 

Edited 3 hours ago by BigSkyDiamond

[Cobie]

 

3 hours ago, BigSkyDiamond said:

It is the leg of the lady standing to the left of the little girl  (our left facing the painting).

That is their foot.  Also their gloved left hand is visible resting on the little girl's right shoulder.

She is wearing a darker blue jacket, and a grayish skirt.

Her gloved right hand is holding the umbrella leaning it on her right shoulder.

Well spotted. Yes, she is bending over. The black blob (it’s above the little girl’s head) is the bustle on top of her buttocks. It was ladies fashion in those days https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/bustle/ 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Cobie