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larryhammerI was tagged by sovay with a meme: "three things that I may or may not know or care about."
Altitudes.
There's personal altitude. For a long time, I divided people into three categories -- taller than me, about my height, shorter than me, with the last bucket by far the biggest. I now feel these categories are silly and more or less irrelevant. What's more important is, can someone reach or get to what they need or want help.
There's geographic altitude. I have to be careful about this now, having a partner who does not deal well with being higher than 2500 m and has trouble below that (though dealing with it much better post heart surgery). And yet, those mountains we live among, that we fell in love with, that we want to visit as often as possible from down here on the desert floor … not easy to give up on, by us campers.
There's aeronautic altitude. I like flying. I hate just about every aspect of contemporary airline travel, plus I no longer get the window seat. *waves from the middle seat at the mountains far below*
Spatial altitudes, alas, are a dream of another lifetime. wanders off humming "Rocket Man"
Peanut butter.
I used to eat a lot more than I do now. Cutting out sugars such as jams means I've few good compliments for PB on bread.
Seal script.
My first reaction was, That's just mean. I have enough trouble working through simplified hanzi in modern print, much less (ack!) handwriting, let alone traditional characters in forms that are ancestors of the ancestors of the ancestors* of regular script. They are so different from modern forms, reading them would be a whole 'nother round of memorization. As Confucius supposedly said of the altered pictograms of his day, the Ancestors must have had some very strange looking dogs.
But, it's not like there's no seal script in my life.
Our most useful small bowls hold a bit more than a deciliter. They're porcelain, white with blue seal-script characters on the outside and five good-luck bats on the inside bottom. Perfect for small servings and cooking prep. We keep 3-4 around -- when one breaks, we replace it from the nearest large** Asian*** grocery. We've tried some of the other designs they have, but keep returning to these because, well, they just look and feel right.
So one day, I'll find a seal script dictionary and puzzle one of them out. It's a stretch goal. You always need stretch goals.
* Taking the progression of Large Seal to Small Seal to Clerical to the Regular Script that's recognizable as essentially the modern brush style.
** The small Korean grocery a block away doesn't carry them.
*** Stock focused on Vietnam and south China but stretching from Thailand to Japan. I got not better adjective.
Anyone else want three things?
---L.
Subject quote from Pogo, Walt Kelly, spoken by Porky Pine.
sovay with a meme: "three things that I may or may not know or care about."Altitudes.
There's personal altitude. For a long time, I divided people into three categories -- taller than me, about my height, shorter than me, with the last bucket by far the biggest. I now feel these categories are silly and more or less irrelevant. What's more important is, can someone reach or get to what they need or want help.
There's geographic altitude. I have to be careful about this now, having a partner who does not deal well with being higher than 2500 m and has trouble below that (though dealing with it much better post heart surgery). And yet, those mountains we live among, that we fell in love with, that we want to visit as often as possible from down here on the desert floor … not easy to give up on, by us campers.
There's aeronautic altitude. I like flying. I hate just about every aspect of contemporary airline travel, plus I no longer get the window seat. *waves from the middle seat at the mountains far below*
Spatial altitudes, alas, are a dream of another lifetime. wanders off humming "Rocket Man"
Peanut butter.
I used to eat a lot more than I do now. Cutting out sugars such as jams means I've few good compliments for PB on bread.
Seal script.
My first reaction was, That's just mean. I have enough trouble working through simplified hanzi in modern print, much less (ack!) handwriting, let alone traditional characters in forms that are ancestors of the ancestors of the ancestors* of regular script. They are so different from modern forms, reading them would be a whole 'nother round of memorization. As Confucius supposedly said of the altered pictograms of his day, the Ancestors must have had some very strange looking dogs.
But, it's not like there's no seal script in my life.
Our most useful small bowls hold a bit more than a deciliter. They're porcelain, white with blue seal-script characters on the outside and five good-luck bats on the inside bottom. Perfect for small servings and cooking prep. We keep 3-4 around -- when one breaks, we replace it from the nearest large** Asian*** grocery. We've tried some of the other designs they have, but keep returning to these because, well, they just look and feel right.
So one day, I'll find a seal script dictionary and puzzle one of them out. It's a stretch goal. You always need stretch goals.
* Taking the progression of Large Seal to Small Seal to Clerical to the Regular Script that's recognizable as essentially the modern brush style.
** The small Korean grocery a block away doesn't carry them.
*** Stock focused on Vietnam and south China but stretching from Thailand to Japan. I got not better adjective.
Anyone else want three things?
---L.
Subject quote from Pogo, Walt Kelly, spoken by Porky Pine.
no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 05:16 pm (UTC)I love the idea of good-luck bats.
These are wonderful answers! Thank you.
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Date: 13 June 2019 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 05:53 pm (UTC)I found out at one point that my husban groups people into four height categories: children and little people, short, about his height, and really bloody tall. Since he's 6'3", "really bloody tall" is about 6'6" and up, and "short" is anybody below 6'.
. . . I have tried to explain to him that his yardstick is a bit skewed. :-P Most of us consider over 6' to be pretty tall, and our female friend who's 5'8" is not, in fact, short.
And sure, hit me with three things!
no subject
Date: 13 June 2019 06:18 pm (UTC)Feathers, polyhedra, angst.
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Date: 14 June 2019 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 June 2019 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 June 2019 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 June 2019 04:15 am (UTC)Freki, furnace, fog.