I can never think of that stoic and certain kindness without crying.

Me neither, now. That's lovely.

That is absolutely lovely. I do something not quite similar, but I like to think it binds the benevolent spirit of my brother to the family. I haven't done it in a while, but for many years after my brother passed I would buy my daughter an angel ornament for the Christmas tree in his memory. She loved the thought and any year I didn't buy one, she'd be disappointed. We haven't done it for a few, I think it may be time to add another to her collection.

The mispronounced word I remember the most as causing me the most embarrassment (and shouldn't, I was around 10) was epitome. I was reading aloud to my mother in the car and came across that word and pronounced it EP-i-tome. When I found out it was ep-IT-o-mee I was quite upset. After that, I started looking up any word I came across that didn't seem to have an English origin and followed a similar pattern. And I didn't find out until I was in my 30s that ennui was AHN-wee and not EN-you-eye. Those damn foreign words that sneak into our vocabulary.

Both JZ and Bonny's stories were lovely.

Hil's story about Coke on FB made me think of something else ridiculous I saw on FB the other day (ok, really, I see something ridiculous daily). You know how people will post pictures of some "old" item like a floppy disk or a washboard or some such and then say, "Like and re-post if you know what this is." Its supposed to make us feel superior for being old, as far as I can tell. Anyway, someone posted one that was a picture of potato mashers. Granted, they looked like they were old ones, but the technology hasn't exactly changed. You can go to Walmart and buy they exact same thing (albeit with plastic handles instead of wood). I was mystified that someone might not be able to identify that, doesn't everyone have a potato masher? Ever since I saw it I have been wondering if there is some newfangled way to mash my potatoes that I am missing out on.

I have been wondering if there is some newfangled way to mash my potatoes that I am missing out on.

You don't use your Food Network-approved brain implant to mash potatoes with the power of your mind? Man, Europe is *weird.*

I saw one of those that was a paper cutter. I used one just like it a couple of days ago in the copy room at work.

I have a really, really old "Webster's Instant Word Guide" that I lifted from a previous job. It's small and a terrific resource to check spelling and where to hyphenate words (which I occasionally have to do manually). I've seen people look at it and try to figure out what it's for (it was created for people who were using TYPEWRITERS, which didn't automatically spellcheck and hyphenate words for them).

The Lockerbie and the elderly Chinese gentleman story brought tears to my eyes. and the little white dog story. (are the spouses of all police officers required to carry guns?)

When I was a kid, when we first moved to Pennsylvania, and while my parents were building their house, they rented in a residential area that was called the park because it was park like and abuts a huge State Park at the base of the big mountain that the entire area is named after. All us kids were allowed to play anywhere in the park. One day we all went beyond the boundaries over closer to the base of the mountain. There were all kinds of things that we hadn't seen before, there were some caves, and it just was different and wilder. One of the girls, a Catholic, said that she saw a white figure and we all shrieked and ran away. She told her parents, who took her to see the priest, and she described it all to him.

the Catholic family and the priest came out to the edge of the park and went into the woods where Heidi had seen the white figure and, since I didn't go with them, I don't really know what they did, but the implication was that he was going to check out what it was and help it move on or help determine what it was. it was such an extraordinary thing to us Protestants that a) Heidi was taken seriously and b) the head of local church came out to do something about it. Pretty cool.

and it blew the cover that we were outside of the park and over at the base of the mountain, which we were all promptly forbidden to do again. In retrospect that's probably where the very few bears that hadnt been shot yet hibernated over the winter.

Both JZ and Bonny's stories were lovely.

Yes.

I have often wished for a typewriter again when I just want one label, but I don't feel like going through a whole rigamarole with the printer and Word label, and which number are these labels? I just want to label a file. That's all.

...and now I'm that person. Wow.

I will go to great lengths to avoid dealing with the printer. And before you all tell me to get a wireless printer, I have one. But apparently the wifi connection isn't strong enough in the room it lives in, and we have no other spot to put it. Oh, and although I have installed drivers several thousand times, my computer hates it, so I can't direct connect. I have to carry the stupid thing downstairs and use it wirelessly while my computer is setting next to it. Real practical. Also, I swear the ink has dried up every single time I need it. Which reminds me, I need to buy ink because I need to print stuff for Luna's passport renewal that I need to take to the embassy next week. Groan.