I think he said haole was used for tourists or new people

Ah, okay. Although we have many blond Jamaicans who talk way more Patois than I do, it feels awkward to have all these uberwhite characters from the show talking that way. And she never grounded them in the island--I think they moved there too.

But! Not my place to complain, since I know jackshit. So, curious.

And believe it or not, roller derby has helped. My core has never been stronger.

Yeah, my problem with exercise is the head, so they exacerbate each other. I'm frankly scared to try unsupervised, but most of my "recent" PT made the pain intolerable.

Hil, we have an AWESOME book that a resident wrote a couple of years ago on the Jewish community here. The old synagogue is now the county historical society.

Cool. That's a bit of history that a lot of people tend to forget -- that throughout the 1800s, there were a whole lot of German Jews in small-ish towns all over the midwest and south. Mostly they owned small stores, or sometimes were doctors or lawyers or stuff like that -- basically, the non-farmer stuff that towns surrounded by farmland needed. Lasted several generations, but a lot of them moved to bigger cities when the local economies were collapsing during the Depression, and then, of the families that stayed, most of the baby boomer era kids went to college and then never moved back home -- also generally went to the bigger cities. I've seen a lot of articles lately about towns trying to figure out what to do with the old synagogue buildings.

I'm frankly scared to try unsupervised, but most of my "recent" PT made the pain intolerable.

Yeah. A friend of mine had to stop derby after a major concussion. It's one of my biggest fears.

There's a town in Alabama that has a synagogue like that -- used to be a thriving community, but now most of the Jews have moved -- that made the news several years ago when they started offering some pretty big amount of money (I think it was $40,000) to any young Jewish couple with kids who'd move there and make a commitment to staying for a while.

Most of the Jews that move here come to work at the university. There is still a synagogue in a town 15 miles away--where most of them go. I want to do a larger story on the history of Jews in the community.

Canadians pretty much say everything people think they do. Ask one to say "The moose is loose about the house" sometime.

Give the hairy eyeball to this conversation.

We are not cliches! We do not say aboot!

I was waiting for you to join the conversation, Sue!

I was out finishing my Xmas shopping, (Uh, with the exception of my Buffista Secret Santee, oops.) and then it was the work Xmas party. It was a busy day, eh.

(I will totally cop to saying, eh.)

OK, put my work-secret-santa gift in a prettier bag and have mostly assembled the salad for the potluck. Probably should have something besides two pieces of cheese for dinner, but that decision may be beyond my current capabilities. ETA: aha!I have cookies! That will round out the meal nicely.

We do not say aboot!

Everyone who's ever said that to me was saying aboot at the time. You're aboot-deaf, all of you.