Couch 252: Kitties and Hawks

It was dropped! The lawyer showed up by phone instead of in-person and we said we were ready, so the commissioner dropped it. She said they cannot sue us again. They can take us to collections, but we’ll still have our evidence if that happens. Three years of this hanging over our head, and now it’s basically over.

So happy for you, Scarlet!

I’m glad it went in your favor, Scarlet.

I just left my college reunion weekend. I’m not really a reunion person, but family lives nearby, and I like to see them in the flesh once a year at least.

I skipped most of the socialization except a few meals with former professors. But now I find myself reflecting on my college experience, a little melancholically: first year I loved it, second year I hated it, third and fourth were spent compromising. I got a good education there,, but I was never one of the group.

Ive got my 55th high school reunion coming up.

I am still freaked out that we are older than the Pope.

I havent even decided yet what i want to be when i grow up.

I’m going to my sisters house for a BBQ today. Is it terrible that I don’t actually feel like going because I don’t feel like being around the kids? Her 7 year old is a sweetheart and her 10 month old is adorable and all but I’m around kids all week for work. On weekends unless I’m working I just kinda don’t want to be around kids (Well it’s kinda hard to avoid kids all together. They are allowed to exist in the world too. I just mean kids I actually have to interact with)

Hey Jersey,

I'm sorry you're in this predicament.
I can understand 'kid fatigue' when you have to cater to their every single need during your working week.

Hopefully they're not too demanding, and you only have to be Auntie Jersey in small bursts.

I hope it's a good barbecue.

Take care,

Lost

Busman's holiday, jersey. When home computers became a thing, i went nuts. People at work would say oh you have to get one! I was like, do dentists go home and pull out their kids' teeth? I never got one until i quit working.

That's a good point. I also don't read as much as I feel I should (well, aside from news articles and doomscrolling Facebook, bluesky, etc.). But I think it's partly because I read all day for my job.

Jersey, I hope you still enjoy the cookout. Hopefully, others will be interacting with the kids, too (I imagine the 10-month-old, at least). And I don't think it's bad that you don't feel like interacting with them.

I mean...in my case, it's not my job, but that I'm a parent, so am around a kid much of the time at home. And I don't necessarily feel like hanging out with other people's kids. (Though honestly, I've never really been a baby or a little kid person, so...)

I love that the English actually have such a charming expression for it. I remember reading it at a pretty young age, and then finally figuring it out!

I turned 33 two weeks ago, and I've only just cottoned on.

The expression was used in a meeting, and I was clueless.

So I asked my mother, who had to look it up.

Take heart, you’re still younger than the President and half of Congress.

When I first saw it, I thought it referred to restaurant busboys…

What kind of shenanigans exactly did you get up to at reunion weekend?!

Thanks everyone. The BBQ wasn’t too bad. I got there at 12:30pm and was home by 5:00pm. Honestly the other folks there were all about the infant and the 7 year old just played outside most of the time with water balloons. (Though in my part of the world it wasn’t warm enough for that.)
LT- I think it’s probably pretty normal that you aren’t necessarily interested in hanging around your friends kids. Most people I met in life with kids aren’t all “goo goo gaga” over other peoples kids.

Oh, BUSman! Oh yes, very different than a busBOY. Sorry for the shenanigans remark! Bedding the horse grooms and all that!

I love babies and kids too, but it isn't terrible to also want some child free time as well. Kids are loud. Perhaps you could start meeting up with your sister at a restaurant , where it's just the two of you.

Happy birthday Lost!

Thanks Cake!

I LOVE that one, "cottoned on." Now im curious as to its derivation.

The phrase ‘cotton on to’, with the above meaning, appears to be limited in usage to the UK and other countries that were previously part of the British Empire, notably Australia and New Zealand. In the USA, especially in the southern states, ‘cotton to’ is used, with the slightly modified meaning of ‘take a liking to’.

As early as 1648, in a pamphlet titled Mercurius Elencticus, mocking the English parliament, the royalist soldier and poet Sir George Wharton used ‘cotton’, or as it was spelled then ‘cotten’, as a verb meaning ‘to make friendly advances’. ‘Cotten up to’ and ‘cotten to’ were both used to mean ‘become friendly with’.

Whether this was as a reference to the rather annoying predisposition of moist raw cotton to stick to things or whether it alluded to moving of cotton garments closer together during a romantic advance isn’t clear. John Camden Hotten, in his A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words, 1869, opted for the former derivation.

Cotton On To - Meaning & Origin Of The Phrase

Things with the first surgeon didn't work out. It lasted around a month.

I'm seeing an ophthalmologist now.

There was also someone else in between the first two.

Sitting at work on my 3 hour break while the baby naps. It’s rainy here. Nice afternoon for a nap.

Did you do anything nice for yourself?

Figures you’re an escaped character from a DH Lawrence novel.

Shenanigans? You kidding? We’re middle-aged ladies now! We all had to sleep in the morning after the dorm fire alarm went off at midnight and we had to spend 15 minutes out in the cold (40 degrees) and rain.

Hi Cake,

I worked in the morning, then went out for a curry with a friend.
A couple of days later, my first decent dartboard was hung on the wall.

I've been practicing ever since.

I went to a darts shop yesterday hoping to try some darts with more grip.
In the process I confirmed that I can't hit the board at regulation distance, but also learned about the impact that changing stems can have.

A shorter stem has transformed my darts and made them much more comfortable to use.

All that happened within half an hour - can't quite believe it.

How are you doing?

Take care,

Lost