Category Archives: General Musings

Food history?

about-food-historyIf I had unlimited time and resources, I might consider pursuing an education in the history of food. If you think about something like the history of architecture and building, it’s pretty easy to draw a line from the cavemen to the present. “Trees are hard and withstand weather, let’s use them to our advantage.” We haven’t come too far, in reality, from that basic principle, in building. But I’d really like to understand the history of how different foods were discovered and used. Shellfish. Plants. Fish roe. Eggs. Plant extracts. Spices. Yeast. It almost seems more of a form of alchemy than anything else. I think a more or less complete timeline on when and how different food basics, enhancers and processes were introduced into society, and how we got from there to here, would be an utterly fascinating document. Can anyone recommend such a volume?

Turgid vs Tumescent

turgidSome of us may have encountered these words in various places during our literary explorations. The younger folks have probably come across it in bad fan fiction.  Most of us know what they mean, or at least what they’re intended to mean in context. Let’s explore them.

tu·mes·cent t(y)o͞oˈmes(ə)nt/ adjective
  1. swollen or becoming swollen, especially as a response to sexual arousal.
  2. (especially of language or literary style) pompous or pretentious; tumid.
    “his prose is tumescent, full of orotund language”
tur·gid ˈtərjəd/ adjective
1. swollen and distended or congested.
      “a turgid and fast-moving river”
2.  (of language or style) tediously pompous or bombastic.
      “some turgid verses on the death of Prince Albert”
In context, despite the dictionary definitions, turgid comes across (to me) as more insistent. While tumescent is a condition, turgid is demanding something be done about it.
Interestingly, both of these words, in addition to the referenced “tumid,” which I don’t remember seeing before, have a latin origin, from different roots (tumescere, turgere and tumere, respectively).
all beginning with “tu.”
“Tu” is latin for “you” or “yourself.” Go figure.

The joys of being a homeowner

This week has been a challenge. Our upstairs air conditioner has been down for several months — the compressor is shot, and that’s an expensive repair or replacement. As in several thousand.  On Sunday, the downstairs unit stopped cooling. We were worried that it would have a similar or equally expensive disability. I spent a few hours on Sunday in the heat playing amateur HVAC technician, and was pretty confident that it wasn’t the compressor. I thought it was either the contactor or one of the fuses in the outdoor disconnect. Monday a tech came out and confirmed my diagnosis. What a relief. Replacing a contactor is a hell of a lot cheaper than the other possibilities.

Then later in the week, the disposal became the focus of our efforts. It has had a minor leak for a while, I thought it was the drain pipes, and had tried a couple of times to adjust them. Finally the leak became much worse, and last night when I got home I started the diagnostic process on that. Turns out the leak wasn’t in the PVC drain pipe at all — the unit itself had developed a leak, I guess it rusted out over the years. I ordered a new unit today, replacing our 1/3 hp Kenmore with a 3/4hp Insinkerator Badger 900. Eve picked it up this afternoon, and I set out to perform the replacement when I got home. Didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and voila, no leaks. I do like it when stuff works.

I sometimes reminisce fondly about the good old days when I was renting an apartment and could just call the landlord anytime something went wrong.

BUSY BUSY BUSY

The Fine Print Giveth

The other day, a tarot reading foretold of unexpected funds. Yesterday it may have come to fruition.

Last year at some point, we received notice of a class action lawsuit involving HSBC. I make it a point to examine all notices of class action lawsuits. There is a reason for this. SOME of them have a default behavior, if you do nothing, of including you in the class, and thus in the claim. This one, had we done nothing, would have excluded us from the claim. We completed the document and returned it, and promptly forgot about it.

We have received portions of class action settlements in the past. Usually they’re a few dollars, or ten or twenty. This one, likely because the default behavior was to exclude you from the claim, was different. The settlement was for a total of $39 million. Our checks were for around $100 each (Eve and I each received one).

Read the fine print, people. Sometimes it giveth.

Oh, and by the way, the settlement was for repeated autodialing of consumers without consent, and without regard to the Do Not Call registry.