Former Member

Anybody with a relatively recent Mac, a reasonably fast internet connection, and time can look up the information I find. Apple’s Dictionary.app finds almost everything I report to you. And of course, we all know how accurate and reliable information on the internet is… ;–)

Just how big is your klompen and how do you manage to suspend roughly 175 lbs from your fireplace mantle? ;–)

Coca-Cola was the original sponsor of one the most watched TV specials (first broadcast in 1965) – it originally included references to Coke that have since been removed. ;–) That special does have at least three connections to the Bay Area (Charles Schultz/Sebastopol, Fantasy Records/Berkeley, and members of the choir from St Paul’s Episcopal Church/San Rafael – the latter two being associated with the soundtrack). ;–) Peter Robbins (62, the first voice of Charlie Brown) has stated that he is bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic – he is currently incarcerated in the California Institution for Men in Chico.

Another holiday visit with Charlie & Kippy and plenty of Skwish! ;–) Thankfully these stories lack a heavy-handed religious theme common to many TV holiday specials. And these stories are much more suitable for an LGBTQ audience! You’ll wish someone will create an animated series based on Geron’s imaginative tales. ;–)

I wish the holiday feeling (minus the retail madness) lasted all year long! ;–)

Awwww! It’s already finished! I was hoping it would last another few days! ;–) After all, we didn’t even get to see a couple young elves, a lonely Aussie & his alien companion, or a couple of sentient ships… ;–)

It helps to be on Disability… ;–)

So I had parts of it right! I’d forgotten Nicholaas’ human origins. But hey, I read a lot of stories! ;–)

Pacemaker… Was that built by Studebaker? Or maybe Hudson? ;–) The little old lady from Pasadena only drove it to church on Sundays, right? ;–)

Yes, but your legend is very specific. Sinterklaas is from Turkey. But he travels from Spain (your past Imperial ‘owner’) by ship to the Netherlands! Then when he arrives, he visits different towns accompanied by a group of Piets who hand out candy while dancing and prancing around! ;–)

Okay, since CG decided not to reveal what he believes, I’ll put my thoughts into a Spoiler… ;–) It’s too late for me to get on Santa’s Nice List. I’m permanently on his Naughty List! It’s in my nature. ;–)

Santa lives in the North Pole. Or Canada. Or Finland. Or… https://satwcomic.com/merry-christmas Thank you, @Timothy M.! ;–)

So I tried Wikipedia and then DuckDuckGo and neither one found a Twombly, Vt. DuckDuckGo brought up a few people with the last name “Twombly’ and who live in Vermont. According to Wikipedia, Twombly itself is derived from Twemlow, a Cheshire parish. DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you like the behemoth ‘not-a-monopoly’ that no longer even pretends to ‘do no evil.’ DuckDuckGo is a built-in option for Safari and Firefox browsers. It’s also included in a few obscure Browsers. There are extensions available for most of the biggies too. ;–)

You’re kind of obsessed with the Preacher’s kid! 🎶 Billy-Ray was a preacher's son And when his daddy would visit he'd come along When they gathered round and started talkin' That's when Billy would take me walkin' A-through the backyard we'd go walkin' Then he'd look into my eyes Lord knows to my surprise The only one who could ever reach me Was the son of a preacher man The only boy who could ever teach me Was the son of a preacher man Yes he was, he was Ooh, yes he was Being good isn't always easy No matter how hard I try When he started sweet-talkin' to me He'd come and tell me everything is all right He'd kiss and tell me everything is all right Can I get away again tonight? The only one who could ever reach me Was the son of a preacher man The only boy who could ever teach me Was the son of a preacher man Yes he was, he was (Ooh…) Lord knows he was Yes he was How well I remember The look that was in his eyes Stealin' kisses from me on the sly Takin' time to make time Tellin' me that he's all mine Learnin' from each other's knowing Lookin' to see how much we've grown And the only one who could ever reach me Was the son of a preacher man The only boy who could ever teach me Was the son of a preacher man Yes he was, he was Ooh, yes he was The only one who could ever reach me He was the sweet-talking son of a preacher man The only boy who could ever teach me I kissed the son of a preacher man The only one who could ever move me The sweet-lovin' son of a preacher man The only one who could ever groove me Ahh, ooh, ahh… 🎶 Alas, some of us Preacher’s Kids aren’t very “sweet-talkin’” or “sweet-lovin’”… ;–) Will you be watching Fox’s Rent Live show in January? ;–)

There are plenty of hints that Willa Cather was a Lesbian or at least non-gender conforming on some level. The fact that she destroyed so many personal paper is suspicious to me too. But none of that would be interesting to Woody! ;–)

And that is why the camera on my MacBook Pro is covered! I’ve also turned off Permissions for camera access for nearly everything that wants it in both MacOS and iOS. I’m not a fan of selfies.

I’m also surprised that no author has pointed out how fond I am of crossovers, yet failed to recognize one right away! ;–)

The New Oxford American Dictionary definition of ‘tinsel’ differs from the definition in the Oxford Dictionary of English. What is unusual was that the definition didn’t have any reference to ‘chiefly American’ or ‘British’ as it does for other words with definitions that are dissimilar. Most commonly the entry is identical for both dictionaries. This suggests to me that there is slight difference in meaning between the two major variants of the language. ;–) The first paragraph of the Wikipedia page for ’Tinsel’ seems to have been primarily written by a Brit because, like the Oxford Dictionary of English, it defines the unthreaded strands as lametta (Apple’s US spellcheck doesn’t like the word). ;–) I don’t know what material our tinsel was made out of, but it seemed to be plastic-based. It was very light and bent easily. It is likely that my mother bought her tinsel in the ‘60s. Apparently lead foil tinsel was available through the ‘60s in the US, but the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) pushed a voluntary end to production and importation after Jan 1, 1972. I was born in California and have only lived here and in Hawaii. My parents were both also born in California, but they met in Chicago. I’m guessing the tinsel reminded her of the ice and snow on the trees. Even as we were enjoying temperatures well above freezing! ;–) Aside from the ones we made, my favorite Aunt made others that I still have. We had a crocheted wreath and a pair of crocheted mittens that she made. Back in the ‘80s, it was trendy to make reindeer out of clothes pins. Our tree also had felt animals and origami ornaments that I made. I see many of the same ones on my Aunt’s tree every year. ;–) When I was working, I used to give my coworkers ornaments that I made. Some years I made a dozen or more ornaments. I always enjoyed seeing them on their trees when I’d visit. Most of my coworkers only got one or two, but a few people I worked with for many years had a lot more! ;–) When I worked at Target, they had these flyers soliciting seasonal jobs at the store. There were stacks of them in Target red and white. We were supposed to be stuffing them into the bags, but most of us had stopped doing that. So in between customers, I’d fold & trim the rectangle into a square and fold cranes. They’d magically appear on the tree in the break room, a few at a time! ;–)

My mother always referred to the non-strung strips of shiny stuff as tinsel. She would force us to hang individual strips on the tree one at a time. Because we were poor, the strips were collected off the tree for use the following year. When I was growing up, we used to get the least expensive Douglas Fir available. When my mother started working in the late ‘70s there was more disposable income and we started to buy the much more expensive Noble Firs which had bigger gaps between layers of branches. Those spaces allowed ornaments to be more visible. We also shifted away from either the kid-safe styrofoam balls covered with shiny thread and the glass ball ornaments they tried to emulate to home-made or more rustic forms of ornaments (ie Northern European wooden or straw ornaments). For a while bread-dough ornaments were popular, but we threw them all away when bugs got into them while they’d been stored between seasons! There are a lot more memories with the home-made ornaments than there were with commercial glass balls. ;–)

1950s UK would have still been suffering through rationing, right? Did that affect consumer goods (like trains) as well as food? My impression is that ‘50s England wasn’t affluent like the US was at the time either, having even up their colonies and rebuilding after the war…

Eight years old is a little young to have discovered that! ;–)

Until you mentioned the sound-proof nature of the building, I was thinking The Warrens reminded me of Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse and numerous other illegally converted warehouses in the Bay Area. They coexist with other, legal, warehouses that have been converted into expensive artists’ lofts. The illegality of the Ghost Ship-type conversions makes them difficult to discover by city regulators even while other government agencies are well aware of them.

Didn’t you mention that Steve threw pottery? Was the dust associated with the glaze? Or is it powdered, dry clay?

When I was doing laundry at a laundromat earlier this week, I was folding my clothes after they finished in the dryer. I noticed obvious DNA samples (ie other people’s hair) on my clothes that was picked up from the folding shelf. There were probably a dozen different people in there during the two hours it took me to finish with my washing. How can the investigators differentiate those sorts of samples from samples left behind my visitors?

The noodles look like chicken scratch? ;–)