Seriously? I only just heard that he got married. (Orlando Bloom, that is.)

I was looking into going there with the last of my savings but the motel prices there are insane. I'm disabled so camping's kinda hard for me to manage even if I'd been farsighted enough to have made a reservation a year or more ahead. Hopefully I'll get to see it one day.

flea, I was just reading an article at the Tribune which said that Chicago will be breaking a record this afternoon with the most consecutive days over 80 degrees. The last day we had with a high only in the 70s was July 1st.

I think that, too. Not that I've ever done winter in New England, but people who promote Phoenix as a "year-round lifestyle" hit the monkey crack *hard*.

If you stay outside the park it tends to be cheaper. But, yeah, it's not Free Things to Do in California by any stretch of the imagination.

DH wants to know if he can use the word rigueur on its own (rather than as part of the expression "de rigueur," and if so what the precise meaning would be. (In context, he needs it to mean something like "discipline.") He's reviewing Dinner For Schmucks and talking about the original French version.

I was at the eye doctor.

You can definitely use it on its own. The most common way I've heard it is à la rigueur, meaning possibly/possibility, or at the very least.

Come to think of it, I've rarely heard the expression as it's used in English.

It often implies a more extreme discipline (harshness or austerity), as in government measures or punishments, but you can say manquer de rigueur for something that lacks discipline or precision. So, in an academic setting, someone's research might "manquer de rigueur."

Also, note to E: I was very disappointed that in this remake there actually is a dinner.

flea, I was just reading an article at the Tribune which said that Chicago will be breaking a record this afternoon with the most consecutive days over 80 degrees. The last day we had with a high only in the 70s was July 1st.

OMG, I'm so glad I was there when I was, then! ...and that I now live where I do. And had to turn on the heat in my car this morning, cause it was freezing. Low of 56. High 78, but since it's noon and telling me its 58, I disbelieve.

It often implies a more extreme discipline (harshness or austerity), as in government measures or punishments, but you can say manquer de rigueur for something that lacks discipline or precision. So, in an academic setting, someone's research might "manquer de rigueur."

Thanks! That's perfect for the context of this sentence. (Basically, that the American remake is kind of all over the place whereas the original was a tightly plotted farce.)

As to your second point, he agrees.

I'm pretty sure I didn't know traffic signs had words on them.

Individual leaves on trees--I knew they were there, of course, I'd seen leaves up close, held detatched ones in my hands. But I had no idea you could (or should) actually see individual ones on a tree across the street. Revelation, age 10!

stuff-oriented

I think this gets worse when young kids lose a parent, lose the family they've known, lose the home they're familiar with. They get clutchy with physical objects under their control, demanding about acquiring more. It's attempting to fill a gap they can't even articulate, sometimes, and almost certainly can't correlate for themselves. A's been dealing with it for five of his ten years, and is only now beginning to get a tiny bit of a handle on it. It may be something he struggles with into and all through his adulthood. But he's at least aware of the causes of it. Maybe talking with M about why he feels the need to amass "stuff" might help.