Natter 34: Freak With No Name
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
It confused me that they talked almost nonstop about Artisanal, but didn't mention Picholine at all,
I think it got referred to once, in passing, in an "oh, by the way" sense.
since they share both a cheese cave and Maître Fromager.
I love that Cheese Master is a real job!
I am the Cheese Master....are you the Gatekeeper?
Hey, my Ex-DH is a college professor now. [link]
Yesterday would have been our 23rd anniversary, so it got me in a googling mood. Glad he's doing well. Even more glad we're not together anymore.
I think it got referred to once, in passing, in an "oh, by the way" sense.
They interviewed the owner (of both), but it got left off of the "Places to Eat Cheese" sidebar completely.
But they did list 'inoteca, which makes me happy, because it's one of my favorite restaurants anywhere, and deserves the press. (But not too much, because I like being able to walk in and get a table.)
Smear the queer is the worst name, ever.
When I was a kid, I had no idea how offensive this should be. Sometimes your adult self really cringes at your kid self's ignorance.
I was neither popular nor athletic, but I never found dodgeball especially sadistic. But I don't think I paid as much attention to the politics of it as JZ did -- I just enjoyed that it was a sport that didn't actually involve significant athletic skills, since (at least in my experience) avoiding the ball was mostly about luck.
Even now, I'd take dodgeball, where I had half a chance of not embarrassing myself, over basketball or tennis, which were nothing but humiliation for me, any day.
When I was a kid, I had no idea how offensive this should be. Sometimes your adult self really cringes at your kid self's ignorance.
Yeah.
Fag
was big as an insult when I was in school, and I didn't know until my late teens/early 20s that it actually was a slur used against homosexual people. When it first made the rounds at school, my friend and I even looked it up in a dictionary, because we couldn't figure out where it came from. We saw "bundle of sticks" and thought it was the stupidest word to use as an insult.
Thinking back on the games that my friends and I played when we weren't under adult supervision, we fell almost entirely into the "girls have social play" thing. One of my friends had a swingset that had some ropes to climb, and we'd play on that and pretend that we were making a TV show about wild animals in the jungle, and then the lions (or whatever) would attack and we'd climb all over everything while still trying to "broadcast."
Actually, we had a few similar TV show games. I remember another one where someone would be the newscaster, and she'd be "reporting" while the rest of us would act out what she was saying behind her, and try to keep up with getting the narration and action to coordinate, with the rule the newscaster couldn't turn around to look at what was happening (because that would be unproffesional.) I think the story was just about always either a war or a riot, so we'd usually be tackling each other for most of it.
Also, the youngest sister of one of my friends has Down Syndrome, and when she was about 2 or 3, and we were about 10, her doctor or occupational therapist or someone said that she was getting too isolated, and that she should be included more when the older kids were playing. So when we wanted to play tag, and she was supposed to be playing with us, she was way too little to run, so we'd sit her in the middle of the lawn, and say that anyone sitting next to her and holding her hand was on base and couldn't be tagged. So, from her perspective, it was a whole bunch of older neighborhood kids who'd sit down and play with her, and she loved it.
Smear the queer is the worst name, ever.
When I was a kid, I had no idea how offensive this should be. Sometimes your adult self really cringes at your kid self's ignorance.
Seriously, which is why I prefaced that it was a un-PC name.
Depending on the context (whether it was an adjective or a noun), back in those days queer=stupid, or queer=a stupid jerk, etc.
"Hassle the asshole" or some such would have been fundamentally less offensive, but we wouldn't have thought so at the time.
So when we wanted to play tag, and she was supposed to be playing with us, she was way too little to run, so we'd sit her in the middle of the lawn, and say that anyone sitting next to her and holding her hand was on base and couldn't be tagged. So, from her perspective, it was a whole bunch of older neighborhood kids who'd sit down and play with her, and she loved it.
That's sweet!
re: dodgeball.
I needed glasses rather badly from at least the age of 4. Due to various and sundry problems I actually got them at around the age of 9 or 10. The dodgeball games from ages 6-9 were really unfun, in as much as they were basically me standing around waiting to be hit by something hard, and then having people jeer at me for not dodging things that I couldn't see.
Swimming was much better. Even with lousy eyesight it's hard to miss a state the size of Michigan.
I remember another one where someone would be the newscaster, and she'd be "reporting" while the rest of us would act out what she was saying behind her, and try to keep up with getting the narration and action to coordinate, with the rule the newscaster couldn't turn around to look at what was happening (because that would be unproffesional.) I think the story was just about always either a war or a riot, so we'd usually be tackling each other for most of it.
Awesome. And a popular comedy improv game.
So when we wanted to play tag, and she was supposed to be playing with us, she was way too little to run, so we'd sit her in the middle of the lawn, and say that anyone sitting next to her and holding her hand was on base and couldn't be tagged.
So sweet!