Happy Birthay, Sheryl!

Officially losing it: I am listening to the Extra Hot Great Podcast, with Sarah D Bunting, Tara Ariano, and David T Cole, and found myself thinking, "Whatever happened to Wing Chun?"

*Snerk* Jesse

MBTV alums, yah?

Yes, the MBTV/TWoP founders.

For those who didn't visit TWoP, the joke is, Tara Ariano *is* Wing Chun. (David is her husband aka Glark, and Sarah is Sars "rhymes with 'cares'.")

And now I miss Strega. I still can't believe she's gone.

I feel like I have known Sarah and Tara for as long as I have known you guys, because I was a Dawson's Creek fan! It is a one sided relationship though. But I love that they are back and podcasting. It feels like having old friends back, plus Sarah crosses over with both the Crime Writers on and Pop Culture Happy Hour, which are favorites of mine as well

Aurelia, I love the wardrobe persons tribute to Brian Dennehy.

aurelia, that made me tear up. So lovely, what a lovely man.

msbelle, I'm so glad you're bringing sweet Miley home!

I miss Strega too.

Shir, now I'm thinking about it... We can also say "the heavens" which doesn't refer to Heaven but is almost the same as "the skies" but more like, including the cosmos, like "Hubble surveys the heavens". If we say "the skies opened up" it means a heavy sudden downpour of rain. "The heavens opened" could mean rain or a sudden burst of light through the clouds, but probably means something more metaphorical, like "I saw her face and the heavens opened and the angels sang" meaning I was really glad to see her. (You probably know all that, I just love language.) I wonder if it reflects a different way of looking at the world that in Hebrew sky and water are plural.

oy ... today started off with a (literal) bang. I fell on my way in - less than a block from the office - and landed face-down on the sidewalk. Hit my face and one boob. Cut the inside of my lower lip open on my teeth and hit my nose hard. Wrenched various joints, so it was all but impossible to get myself to my feet. Couldn't get anyone to help me up - construction workers, people cleaning the sidewalk, passersby - I guess they thought I was a homeless person begging. Finally got up, staggered into work. The security guard at the front desk was horrified - I was dripping blood from inside my mask. She offered to call 911 to get me to the emergency room, since there was so much blood. Got to the office, since it was close, mopped up the blood and I'm not applying ice to nose, mouth, knee, etc. Kind of wish I'd just gone home, but I have a couple things I need to get done. And the blood was all from my nose, which has mostly stopped bleeding. But OW.

Oh, no, Toddson! Glad you're all right, but OUCH.

Ouch, Toddson! I'm sorry. I hope your day will get much better after it.

And oh, Zen - first, thanks! - and the heavens thing - I think I figured it out sometime in the last five years after seeing a sentence that read really weird to me because it couldn't be heaven they were talking about.

"The heavens opened" could mean rain or a sudden burst of light through the clouds

I'm gonna make a suggestion on behalf of English as second, third, fourth language speakers and so on: If one already went on and bothered inventing new words to weather phenomena, how about using different words to clarify if it's light or rain? I mean, they're very different from one another. And some people live in climates where either can be a rare, so understanding that to get the metaphors right without googling to check the climate there first will be nice.

Shir, I'll bring it before the committee, but they'll probably just invent a new word for "clarifying local weather conditions".

English gobbles up new words/idioms/metaphors and incorporates them into the language as a whole. The idioms and such can be difficult - some come from poems, songs, etc. ... and even the internet ("all your base belong to me"), which means they're often hard to understand if you don't have the cultural context. But you know, you can try inventing something ... it might catch on. Otherwise, the Buffista grammarians will help.

I had a native Spanish speaker insist to me that English wasn't actually that difficult to learn because our verbs are so simple. Yes there are a lot of irregular things and spelling is a nightmare but the relative scarcity of verb tenses makes up for it.