People often pronounce "Fogelson" as "Ferguson," which who knows why.

I was going to try to be in bed by now, but downtown Mogadishu out there is making it unlikely. The remarkable similarity to some of those sounds to automatic gunfire is making me antsy, I hope any local veterans are somewhere quiet or have very good ear protection on.

fireworks may not go away, but they are unlawful here - and the fire danger is high. I have no problems with the municipal ones, but the one all around me that could set my yard on fire . And I have neighbors that left town to go a quieter area - because their dog rips apart a metal crate

I have so burrowed into zen handling my parents underfoot & also kinda trapped by the heat that I am not doing my usual pretravel anxiety swoop. I have barely even thought about packing because they spent 2 hours updating & combing over every single detail & I was all, eh? I guess I should book us a taxi from the airport.... (cheaper with 7 of us than bus.)

And this was after missing my swim because the pool closed.

Don't visit Baltimore in July. I don't even want to endure it, & it's not hazardous to my health. Though I did make them take a walk thru the hood after my cancelled swim, in 85 F with 70% humidity. We stayed in the shade...

(Of course, I'm also up at almost 1 am & will wake by 6, just so I can have alone time, but...)

I went from a difficult last name to one that confused everyone even more when I married 20 years ago. I am resigned to having to carefully spell it out every time I do business. I'm unique!

My neighbors LOVE fireworks so much there's a constant bang! Boom! Pop! Going on all around me. I could see at least six different locations sending up rockets. My favorite crew is at it again this year. They do a professional quality show and send up 20 firecrackers in a row so it looks like a giant sparkling sky flower I can see from my front lawn.

I used to worry about fire danger, but apparently my neighbors know what the are doing because I never hear emergency service sirens or read about horrible injuries in the local news. The kitties are not pleased but they are old enough to remember that this keeps happening on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve.

People often pronounce "Fogelson" as "Ferguson," which who knows why.

It's that whole template thing, I'm telling ya! People just want to slot information into their expected categories.

Private fireworks are illegal here, but you wouldn't know it. The dog spent the last couple of hours lying on top of me while I watched Steven Universe on the laptop, and now she's hiding in the closet. At least she isn't crying.

Lisa and I flipped a coin on changing last names when we got married (almost 20 years ago, egads.)

I was almost a Collins. Easier to spell than my German/Danish monstrosity. But Lisa has never complained, bless her.

My DH suggested that we both change our last name to his mother's maiden name (which she had not used since she was married) since that one actually meant something to him. I immediately suggested we change our last name to my mother's maiden name since that one would actually mean something to me. End of conversation, we kept the names we had. Daughter has my last name as her middle name.

Both DH and I use my mother's maiden name when making restaurant reservations or things like take out because it is Greene, and much easier than either of our last names.