Thank you!

What drives me crazy is a group noun getting singular verbs. It always sounds so wrong. 'A number of students is taking the test.' Is that technically correct even though it sounds completely wrong?

Owen made me bacon for breakfast and Olivia made me pork dumplings from scratch for Mother's Day so I think that goes in the win column.

Gud, AH! That sentence makes me crazy, correct, or no.

Is that technically correct even though it sounds completely wrong?

It depends on whether the subject (in this case, "number") is acting as a group or individually. Since all students are taking the test, the verb would be "is."

Or, it's complicated, and don't ask the Brits.

and don't ask the Brits.

Always a good idea, especially when drawing national boundaries.

...and don't ask the Brits...Always a good idea, especially when drawing national boundaries.

Reminds me of this bit from Yes, Prime Minister [link]

Timelies all!

My parents left early this morning. The weekend went decently, even if Mr. S didn't fall asleep until at least 10 each of the nights.(My dad's tendency to have the tv on very loud probably didn't help matters.)

I have been avoiding people as much as possible. Not so much Matthew's mom.

I got so frustrated at customers yesterday, there 2 families that don't live together who were not practicing social distancing. I didn't realize they had just seen each other in the store (I thought they had come together). I went to sanitize the pin pad between and the mom of the second group was like "oh , we know each other it's no big deal"

YES IT IS A BIG DEAL.

Mom is driving down on Wed and we will chat in the drive way. I want to hug her so bad. SO BAD. But I won't. I just can't risk it. I wish now we had met up when I was furloughed but I still woudln't have felt ok hugging her.

I got my first paycheck from coming back and it's only one week. It's more than what I was making, less than if this were Before Times & I was commission. If I didn't have my stupid out of pocket expense for my meds for most of the year I would have more options, not a lot more but a few more. As it is with that there are few older complexes with tiny apartments I could afford. It's not something I can do now or probably not by the fall but it feels more realistic.

Mom is driving down on Wed and we will chat in the drive way. I want to hug her so bad. SO BAD. But I won't. I just can't risk it.

We went to my mom's yesterday for Mother's Day -- I offered to just leave her present on the porch and go (what I actually said was "I can drive by and hurl it out the car window in a gesture of daughterly love"), but we ended up sitting in camp chairs in the driveway like 10 feet apart and had a glass of wine and chatted for an hour. (I said "Stand back and I'll set the present by your chair and back away and then you can sit down and open it, like we're doing some weird hostage/ransom exchange.") It was so nice to see my mom and stepdad in person, but SUPER weird to not hug them.

Last week I made a casserole of leftover rice, sliced leftover pork roast, and frozen corn. This morning I catch myself wondering if it would be good to have my leftover stir-fry on top of.

I feel like I'm in some kind of recursive leftovers spiral here....