Couch 199: The Unennennium Couch

Well h must be having a good trip. He hasn't called in a couple days. I actually kinda miss the big lug. He'll be home tomorrow.

well that was fun. One of our prompts for this week is to write a poem about what we ate for dinner last night from the point of view of one of the ingredients, or the silverware, or the store we bought the ingredients in, or the dishes.... haha. Mine is called "The Disgruntled Pepper" and it's about an orange bell pepper who is mad because he's only ever used in red lentil chili and nothing else. heehee! I even managed to use one of my favorite words "alacrity".

Info fashion report:

White halter top with some gold lame pattern, clogs with gold and silver lame stripes, and...I’m not sure what the pants were? They were mustard colored, tied in big knots at the knee, and when she sat down they split to reveal thigh.

So, no cleavage, but lots of thigh.

Wow. Just, wow. Maybe she was going to be a backup singer in a music video after? Sounds sorta Charlie's Angels-ish.

We got off onto how I’ve been seeing her two years this week. She started talking about what she’d learned from me, which was: choose her words carefully and think about their impact, don’t make assumptions, and try to remember better the key, important points.

Shouldn’t she have been doing that all along the 35 years she’s been in practice?

Later she asked me where I was when I heard JFK was assassinated.

In your mother's ovary, just hanging out, waiting for your other half to join you in ten years or so?

Where is quality these days? I spent over $100 on a pair of Levi jeans that have worn holes in them in just over a year. My last pair of Levi's lasted 10 years. But I do wear them 24/7 that might contribute to the wear. My last pair of $20 jeans lasted 6 months longer.

Two strong thunderstorms in a matter of 3 hours is a bit much. Can summer be over now? (Yes, I know, it's only July 2.) Or at least have the t-storms not timed exactly when we'd pick her up and she'd want to go to the outdoor pool...

We haven't even had our first storm yet here. I need to look up when monsoon is supposed to start.

That is definitely excessive and I would go to a doctor. I would even go to urgent care if I had to because of the July 4 holiday (I think you're in the US?).

I wish it would rain more here I have recently planted new things and my D started her vegetable garden and I keep forgetting to water because that was my ex job.

Oh wow, apparently monsoon started June 15, but we haven't had a storm yet. I'm reading an article that says it's a slow start this year, um yeah. ha ha. I'm ready. I love thunderstorms myself, I always have.

I just got sent an email from my insurance company saying that a letter was sent on the 9 June about my arrears and now they have cancelled my policy. I never got the letter.

I want to go out and get new paint because some of the paints I got from the market artist are getting old and not drying properly and are really hard to work with. The problem is they are colours that I wouldn't use very often and I don't know whether to go out and buy my preferred paint brand. If I do use these colours I use a fair bit of one and not much of the others. They only come in one tube size. Should I invest in just one tube if I look after them they will last a fair while. Will it make me happy? Yes.

I am panicking about this new T. I wish I wasn't so scared he does a few things that my exT didn't as long as this guy doesn't want me to see my childhood as neglectful and abusive we should be ok.

There's nothing wrong with a good pluperfect. You're right: it's active. And you kids get off my lawn.

Linguist hat on: tense v aspect. Such fun!


Tense is a point in time or a period of time--present or past.


Aspect is duration/completion of action from the speaker's perspective in the progressive (be + ing) or perfect (have/had).


Progressive aspect, present tense + present ( X past)--


"Marching for 3 days, the army is exhausted." Active, progressive aspect--action completed in the near past, and speaker's perspective on the action is present. A construction often used in news accounts.


XXX--"Marching for 3 days, the army was exhausted." Can't be correct because the action is past, but the speaker's perspective is more past than the action preceding it.


Perfect aspect, past tense + present (past)--


"Having marched for 3 days, the army is exhausted" means that the active action of marched in the past is finished, but the state of exhaustion is present for the speaker.


"Having marched for 3 days, the army was exhausted" means the action of marched is past and finished, but the state of exhaustion is past for the speaker.



Passive voice, progressive aspect, present tense + present

(X past)--



"Being forced to march for 3 days, the army is exhausted." Passive action of being forced in the near past is finished, speaker's perspective is present.


XXX--"Being forced to march for 3 days, the army was exhausted." Can't be correct because the action is near past, but the past tense makes the speaker's perspective more past than the action preceding it.



Passive voice, perfect aspect, past tense + present (past)--


"Having been forced to march for 3 days, the army is exhausted." Passive action of been forced in the past is finished, but speaker's perception is present. But because the speaker is "twice removed" from the event, the present emotion is emphasized.


"Having been forced to march for 3 days, the army was exhausted." Passive action of been forced in the past is finished, and speaker's perception is past.



Aspect tells us the speaker's intended perception of the time of an action separate from grammatical tense. Now isn't that more than you wanted to know???? Have sympathy for non-native English speakers grappling with this stuff!

Oh my! My English classes in school are looking really shotty at this point

fkm thank you for that information!! I have forgotten so much.

Ancient Greek verbs are all about aspect—which was never mentioned in my English grammar classes.

Shall we discuss the middle voice next?

Hey, I never learned this stuff until grad linguistics! Eng classes for Eng speakers all seem to treat grammar prescriptively.


Middle voice--do we have that in Eng??? I'm drawing a blank!

ETA--just read about it. Sort of like English reflexive. But actually it sounds a lot like Japanese as it's translated into English. I don't know enough Japanese grammar to say if it's that way within Japanese.

Like if you order something in a restaurant, you'd say, " Tonkatsu desu." Which means to us, "I'll have the pork cutlet." But a strict translation is "pork cutlet is."

The way I tell my students to remember the middle is that there’s a Greek verb that in the middle means “to have children”—because the Greeks thought one had children for oneself (to care for one in old age, carry on one’s name). It can be translated reflexively in English but it’s much more nuanced than that.

No kidding! Thanks, fkm!

I basically told my T tonight that there was no way in h e double hockey sticks that I'll spend my 4th of July inpatient and ruin yet another holiday for my kids. He said that we'll continue to talk about this tomorrow. And he said something along the lines of working together through it if possible if I went in. I'm scared of making that decision after how my H reacted when I was sick in the hospital in April.

I have too much time to think right now. I wish we were still working all that overtime.

I hate my brain. I'm worrying about my son again, and why h hasn't called me since Sunday, and about the discussion post I'm trying to write that's due tomorrow night and I can't think of anything to say. Maybe I'll head to bed early and try to find the old Bob Newhart show or something.