jesse_the_k: kitty pawing the surface of vinyl record (scratch this!)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

This is our song for me and MyGuy. When we met in 1977, we both lived right on Lake Mendota. We walked everywhere — fortunately, Madison is a lovely city for strolling.

Listen on YouTube or stream it here )

The cool thing is we actually did talk about all the things in these lyrics

Wouldn’t it be nice to walk together
Baring our souls while wearing out the leather
We could talk shop, harmonize a song
Wouldn’t it be nice to walk along

I’ll show you houses of architectural renown
Some are still standing, some have fallen down
Farm houses buried under Canada’s snow
Spanish villas on the Boulevards of Mexico

And I’ll learn to tell the ash from the oak
And if you don’t know I won’t make no joke
We’ll climb to the top to view the world from above
Or carve our initials in the trunk like teenagers in love

And when we get hungry we’ll stop to eat
Gotta think of our stomachs and rest our feet
If we get thirsty we’ll have a drink or two
In a mountain top bar with a mountain top view

And when we get tired we’ll stop to rest
And if you still want to talk you can bare your breast
If it’s Winter and cold we’ll take a rooming-house room
If it’s Summer and warm we’ll sleep under the moon

And we’ll talk about the sports we played
‘Bout the time you got busted or the time I got laid
We’ll talk blood and how we were bred
Talk about the folks both living and dead

This song like this walk I find hard to end
Be my lover or be my friend
In sneakers or boots or regulation shoes
Walking beside you I’ll never get the walking blues.

https://www.mcgarrigles.com/music/dancer-with-bruised-knees/walking-song

What I'm Doing Wednesday

May. 13th, 2026 06:06 pm
sage: a closeup profile head shot of Murderbot (murderbot 2)
[personal profile] sage
books (Wells x 11, Condemi & Savatier, Wyman, Mukherjee, Chakraborty) )

healthcrap
Left hand is so borked. Allergies are worse than ever. Still not resting.

yarning
some lovely someone bought out nearly all my remaining cat-shaped ornaments today. And another lovely someone commissioned a purple bunny. I've rested the hand for a month, so maybe I can do this.

#resist
June 27: the next #50501 protest

I hope you're all doing well! <333

Dreibelbis redux

May. 13th, 2026 10:34 pm
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

You may remember the "Customer Experience Manager" named Steven Dreibelbis whom I met in a Home Depot about half a year ago (see the post I wrote about him and his surname, the first entry in "Selected readings" below).  This afternoon, I received the following communication from his father:

This is James (Jim) Dreibelbis, father of the Steven Dreibelbis mentioned in the original post on your Language Log. Steven's son, Esteban Dreibelbis, a student at Drexel, found and sent me this interesting discussion on our family name. 

Some years ago I was historian for the Dreibelbis Cousins of America, an association of Dreibelbis related individuals, so I can provide some relevant background. The Dreibelbis are all descendants (with their relations) of John Jacob Dreibelbis, who came to Philadelphia from Rotterdam on the ship Mary of London, on September 26, 1732. He was the son of Jacob Treibelbiss of Hassloch, Germany, though the family had moved there from the village of Hemmenthal, in the Canton of Schauffhausen, Switzerland.

Previous family historians who had researched our family genealogy concluded that in Switzerland the family name was Dubelbeis. Regardless, the thought is that the name Dreibelbis originated on John Jacob's arrival, because the English agents receiving German speaking immigrants in the port of Philadelphia wrote names as they sounded, so Johann Jacob Treibelbiss became John Jacob Dreibelbis. John Jacob initially worked out his indenture with the Wister family in Philadelphia, later settling in Berks County, PA, near the village of Fleetwood. 

That is a very short summary of our Dreibelbis origins. We have two massive Dreibelbis History books researched and published by my Historian predecessors, and presently, an online database (on Ancestry.com) well managed by our current historian, which lists over 20,000 Dreibelbis cousins. I can provide more, if interested, probably not on the Language Log, as that would be significantly off topic.

Notes

For many years, my brother Thomas Lee Mair maintained a fascinating website on devil's bridges.

One of our most dedicated readers and contributors is June Teufel Dreyer (of Swabian ancestry).

 

Selected readings

 

5/13/2026 Inspiration Trail

May. 13th, 2026 02:16 pm
mrkinch: Erik holding fieldglasses in "Russia" (bins)
[personal profile] mrkinch
When I arrived the weather looked good, but when the sun came up, the fog came in. It's supposed to go the other way! Anyway, it was sufficiently unpleasant that I turned back at the corner rather than continue through the bit of trail that gets the worst wind. Between the weather and the shortened route the list is some ten species shorter than the last one. No one specially interesting showed up. I briefly heard one MacGillivray's Warbler and again quite a few Lazuli Buntings. Lots of Purple Finches singing, an Olive-sided Flycatcher was calling, and the Northern Flicker was again drumming on the tower. The list: )

No raptors out on a morning like this one. Friday looks better so I'll try again then.

(no subject)

May. 13th, 2026 05:17 pm
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
I've been procrastinating on finding a dentist, but a tooth on the lower left of my mouth has been intermittently slightly achy for a few days (it's such a slight ache that it's easy to forget about it most of the time) so I have been propelled into doing some minimal research. I.e. I asked my daughter what dentist they use and then went to his website and filled in the online contact form. Unfortunately, like everything else here and unlike many things at my old house, this dentist is slightly too far away at 2 ½ miles to be easy walking distance, but at least it won't be twenty minutes in the car.

I also asked her about where they get their car serviced and she told me they've been using a place in Fairfield, about 20 minutes away, but have recently been recommended a place much closer (just under 4 miles away) which turns out to be the place where I had my emissions test done before transferring my car registration, so after I've dealt with the dentist I'll see about getting the car serviced there.

My teeth and my car have been on my mind along with my hearing, so it will be good to have all these appointments set up. The final thing will be my eyes, but that's not high on the list right now because my eyes don't change much from year to year and I just got new glasses just over 6 months ago.

On a completely different note, earlier I went outside to empty some food scraps into the compost bin and Aria came running over to tell me she'd been sitting in their car and to beg me to join her. So I went and sat in the car with her and she proceeded to point out all the amazing and wonderful features of the car: *two* glove boxes, two hidden compartments in the centre console, a TV screen, a glasses case above the rear view mirror, a sun roof *and* a moon roof, and so on. According to her, it's the most amazing car in the whole world and everybody wants one the same. (It's a 2011 Toyota Sienna minivan.)

i'm grumpy

May. 13th, 2026 09:56 pm
dhampyresa: (Default)
[personal profile] dhampyresa
Not only did the dreaded lurgy get worse again today, but I still can't read my fucking book. I bought it legally and everything, but nooooooooooooooo fucking DRM

Wednesday Word: Stan

May. 13th, 2026 03:31 pm
med_cat: (cat and books)
[personal profile] med_cat posting in [community profile] 1word1day
Today's word is brought to you by [personal profile] amaebi 
~~
Stan (n.)

slang, often disparaging


: an extremely or excessively enthusiastic and devoted fan

Examples from the Web:

… an abbreviated season that even the most die-hard Westeros stans seemed lukewarm about.— Alan Sepinwall

In a 2007 interview, J. K. Rowling opened up about Albus Dumbledore's sexuality and confirmed that the Hogwarts patriarch is, in fact, gay. The revelation has been a subject of fodder among Potter stans for years.— Christopher Rosa

Etymology:


from Stan, name of such a fan in the song "Stan" (2000) by the American rap artist Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III)
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

Finished Platform Decay

Read Jonathan Coe, Bournville (2022), which was a Kobo deal, and I have been vaguely interested in reading something by him since coming across his really rather good intro to that archetypal Sad Girl Novel, Dusty Answer. However, was rather meh and tempted at points to give up on this family saga from VE Day to Covid told as vignettes at various Memorable Dates in History of C20th Britain.

There was a certain amount of picking things up and reading a bit and thinking, no, at least, not now, if ever.

Re-read Sally Smith, A Case of Life and Limb (The Trials of Gabriel Ward, #2) (2025), as there is another one forthcoming shortly.

Kobo deals turned up a new Simon R Green, For Better or Murder (Holy Terrors Mystery #4), alas, this was pretty much phoning it in.

Muriel Spark, The Hothouse by the East River (1973), which is a very very weird novella, absurdist, grotesque, is it about something that happened when they were working for Secret Organisation with German POWs in War and is that why the unheimlich frisson (turns out, no).

After that I just wanted the perhaps too simple and predictable pleasures of Robert B Parker, Silent Night (Spenser #41.5) (2013, unfinished at his death, completed by his agent Helen Brann).

On the go

Persuasion, which I began somewhat behindhand of the daily chapter group read on bluesky.

Up next

Well, there's that new Literary Review, but apart from that.

Am being irked by certain writers whose new ebooks are pretty 2x or more what they used to be. (I might have gone for this I suppose had I not been a bit underwhelmed by some recent offerings.)

RIP (Read in Progress) Wednesday

May. 13th, 2026 02:22 pm
silversea: A woman typing at a typewriter (Typing)
[personal profile] silversea posting in [community profile] booknook
Happy Wednesday! Are you keeping up with your reading? Falling behind?

Gruel and Unusual

May. 13th, 2026 07:46 am
madbaker: (Chef!)
[personal profile] madbaker
This week's Resolution Recipe: 90-second Microwave Oatmeal.
Read more... )

Drink Up, Me Hearties, Yo Ho!

May. 13th, 2026 01:00 pm
[syndicated profile] cakewrecks_feed

Posted by john (the hubby of Jen)

 

Happy National Beer Day, everybody!!!

Or, yeah, that.

Please decorate responsibly.

 

A toast to Lisa Q., Bambi W., Haylee H., Nancy M., Hayven, Amy J., Kathy B., Leah P., & Yenni, the best wreckin' buddies a guy could ask for.

*****

P.S. Want to get your Father's Day shopping done early?

"To Dad" Beer Glass

BOOM.

*****

And from my other blog, Epbot:

MerMay The Thirteenth

May. 13th, 2026 10:10 pm
leecetheartist: Photo of me coming at the camera, in my colourful mermaid gear (Default)
[personal profile] leecetheartist posting in [community profile] drawesome

Title: Getting a Wriggle On
Artist: leecetheartist
Rating: G
Fandom: n/a
Characters/Pairings: n/a
Content Notes:


A pretty odd one for today's MerMay. I was thinking about molluscs and some of those odd nudibranch species - colourful sea slugs and the like, and this guy developed. Drawn with the Kakimori steel nib, and one of the Van Diemen's ink moving day specials, Persian Princess. It is very sparkly.

Sea slug like merman

Close up of shimmer

Blue Wednesday

May. 13th, 2026 09:19 am
rolanni: (Default)
[personal profile] rolanni

Wednesday. Sunny and cool. Rain called for this afternoon.

So! Yesterday was not the Best Day Ever, and today is sadly looking to be more of the same. I did not go to needlework last night, which may have been the wrong decision, but seemed like a good idea at the time.

In a few minutes, I'll be going out to get my hairs cut. When I get back, I need to decide if I am indeed going to be offering an adult ed course on writing believable characters this fall. Later on this afternoon, the third contractor will manifest.

The cats have been taking turns on my lap, which is very kind of them. Firefly got right down to the nitty-gritty during this morning's session in sunlight, and put herself to chew off one of my shirt buttons.

Amazon tells me that the paper edition of The Fey Duology is in queue to be visible for order on June 1, which gives me plenty of time to review the proof copy, which will, it says here, be with me on Friday. In the meanwhile, I'm told that the ebook is listed as "coming" on some venues, the most notable being Smashwords, but it cannot be pre-ordered.

Preorder numbers for the ebook edition of The Fey Duology as of ten minutes ago was! Amazon 141; Apple 23; BN 7; Kobo 16.

And that's the news from the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.

What's the news from your place?


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