ArtieShaw

My colleagues from Europe are always fascinated by Wal-Mart. They walk the aisles and usually buy an insane printed t-shirt or blanket as a souvenir. They also like to stock up on “American snacks,” so that accomplishes a few things with one trip. Pop tarts, corn chips, maple syrup - just things with a different flavor profile or philosophy of what counts as “food.” And Pork Rinds (aka chicharrones) are fried pig skins. Somehow I can never quite persuade them to get those.

Tex-Mex and BBQ are the two biggest food recommendations for Texas. BBQ may include beef brisket or chicken. If you’re keeping a halal diet, just be aware that these restaurants may incorporate pork into seemingly vegetarian choices, like collard greens or beans.

One tip: you can usually ask a restaurant to make a substitution to a meal and they will be happy to oblige unless it’s integral to the cooking process. For example, you can ask for a bacon cheeseburger with no bacon, but you can’t ask for beans without pork because it’s more like a soup. (Sorry if this seems obvious, but my coworkers from EU are super reluctant or shy to ask for modifications. In the US it’s considered perfectly normal to make this type of request.)

Since Houston is reasonably close to Louisiana, you may be able to find a decent Cajun style restaurant. Very regional and very delicious.

I’ve heard that you can find shark teeth on some of the local beaches, but they also just sell them at Murdoch’s, which is a gift shop in/near Galveston.

Lol yes.

Right? I know a lot of people who were subject to absolute educational neglect for their K-18. Some lean in, but others have questions.

ETA - and some days I smack myself on the forehead and realize something I should have known at age 8 but it just clicked now.

I can smell it.

I think they were just trying to promote math. I always thought about it later in life as I tried to drunkenly calculate pool angles at the bar.

“Dammit - Donald tried to explain this when I was 10! Why can’t I remember the details?”

The most hauntingly memorable was a weird mid-century Donald Duck piece of math propaganda. We watched it in school.

Donald Duck in MathMagic Land. Not scary, but odd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BqnN72OlqA

My husband is still scarred by that one.

More of a hardcore Jewel/Osco shopper?

No - I think Mariano’s and PicknSave would be competitors in that region. I travel a bit through the US, and I’m flummoxed. My Kroger discount card works more times than not, no matter where my work takes me and no matter which the local branding is.

Each state has different rules. Some allow “early voting” on selected days prior to the main election day. This allows people who can’t get time off from work on the main day to work it into their schedule.

Absentee or mail-in votes are also done early. Where allowed.

Votes aren’t counted until the main day.

I could believe that. Alternately, someone knew exactly what they were doing and just let it ride to see how far it would get.

I’ve seen both cases in real life.

I’ve always preferred skirts to pants, precisely because they’re less restrictive to movement. I’m not sure why, but the comment was always, “I’m not sure you’d be able to do this while wearing a skirt.” It seems like people who haven’t worn them habitually don’t know how they work.

Worst case: I fall down and you can see my knickers. Well that’s why I wear the knickers. And in nearly a half-century, I can think of maybe 2 times that’s happened. Both times I was sprinting madly to catch a bus and both times were due to my shoes and/or bad decisions.

Field hockey and lacrosse are both traditionally played in kilts.

Some other objections:

Need to don some Tyvek coveralls for work? It’s really no problem with a basic skirt. You just hike it up a bit. Those suits are baggy and everything fits. You also avoid the discomfort of two layers of leg fabric.

Cold weather? Tights are great, as are thigh high socks. And boots. All of these also look cute.

Oh, and packing for vacation? I can pack 3-4 skirts for every pair of jeans. It’s just a simple cloth tube which folds down to nothing.

I think you get it from eating turkey.

oooh - pure destruction. I can respect that.

That’s wonderful!

My orange cat has appointed himself as house monitor, so he’ll alert us to any danger or weird situations. When the kitten escaped from the back patio, which is enclosed, he ran to my husband and alerted him. He can be a jerk, but overall he’s a good dude.

When I’m home alone I can always count on him. If I hear a weird noise? If that little guy is snoring I know that it’s just the wind.

My current oldest was a stray for about 4-5 months and she seemed to regard anything wrapped in plastic as a valid food source. We assumed that reason is that she had been scavenging garbage.

One of my favorite “new kitten” moments was coming downstairs to find that she had taken about 12 sample bites from a package of toilet paper. She stopped doing that.

I swear we fed her well, but she had some habits from life on the streets.

My best girl is really into being petted while standing in a bathtub or shower. No water. She’s done this since she was a kitten. Like Kika, she’ll lure you to the spot for petting, then meow until you and she are both standing in the tub and she’s getting pets.

Two different houses and three different tubs are involved here.

I sometimes wonder if it’s related to the time I had to give her a bath when we first took her in as a stray. She was weak and underfed, and had a bad case of fleas. I gave her a bath, which she hated and I hated - but when she hit the water you could see blood in her fur from all the flea bites. Poor kitty. It was probably the first time a human had given her much attention. And it helped with the fleas, so she probably felt much better afterwards.

Sometimes I tell myself that she’s trying to tell me she’s still grateful for that, and that she trusts me.

Or else she’s just a weirdo. I’m fine with either.

I didn’t really expect anyone to know that, which was sort of the joke. He was very famous in his time, but by now it’s a bit of a deep cut.

Artie Shaw was a clarinetist who ran a jazz band. In addition to that, he was also quite the weirdo. Womanizer, liked math a lot (like more than is natural), was an expert marksman who was nationally ranked in that sort of thing, and really into fly fishing. Also, currently, very dead. And that’s good because otherwise he’d be 114.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Shaw

here’s a sample of his work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_v3GY3ZqdM

Shock: I’m not really Artie Shaw.

I collect ancient coins and this explanation doesn’t fly for me. There’s a certain amount of “artisanal-ness” in the production of ancient coins - which were all handmade. Like, I’m looking at a tray of coins right now and there’s no way a simple go/no-go tool would be helpful. Also, for this purpose a simple handheld counterweight balance would be more accurate and portable. The existence of these simple balances, along with reference weights for various denominations, is well documented.

Moreover - if you’re an ancient merchant, what is more important? The weight of the silver or the ability for it to pass for a denarius issued by Rome? Particularly for international trade, it seems to have been the former. Bankers’ cuts and countermarks are commonly seen on coins, and seem to have been an early form of foreign exchange. (eg - I’m travelling from Athens to Ephesus with a stock of my local currency. If I pass it to a local banker in Ephesus, they can evaluate it, determine the local exchange in terms of silver, and give it a locally recognized countermark to assure their own merchants that they’re getting the equivalent local value).

That being now off my chest, I’ve got no great answers for the dodecahedrons. I strongly suspect that it was a nifty thing that metal workers made as a master’s thesis.

Casefile. It’s not that content is boring or uninteresting. It just knocks me out.