@AndyD said: Showing my age. Indian, indigenous. Is the word tribes acceptable these days? First nation? American aboriginals? Australia I know have gone through this process and is still evolving the non-offensiveness. Transfer that to the UK and you get a real messy jumble of us mongrel folk Personally I like 'aboriginal', even though it is an Italian rooted word. It’s definitely a bit fraught! Tribe isn’t used here - Nation is a safe term. We use First Nation Métis Inuit as a catch all sometimes but Indigenous has more or less replaced that terminology as well - I think largely because it isn’t acceptable to omit any of those three groups if you are using it as a generic term so it’s a mouthful. Aboriginal was used at one point, especially in legal documents, but it fell out of favour as it was seen as too general. Basically Indigenous leaders have asked that Indigenous be the general term unless you are speaking of a specific Nation or community in which case you should name that Nation. Be specific as possible, and use Indigenous when you are being non specific. When I am talking about a friend of mine with my students I will say that she is an Indigenous person so they understand where I am going with it and then will say that she is an Anishinaabe woman from Bkejwanong. Then I will usually tell them that Bkejwanong is also called Walpole Island, because that is a place name my students will sometimes recognize. I think of the word “Indian” the same way the one might think of the word “Negro” in the US. While it remains in legal documents and the names of some agencies, it would be offensive to use the term to talk about a person or group of people.

The world is a massively multiplayer role playing game. Many years ago, I, as an adult visiting Tokyo, saw a building with many pianos — a piano shop. I went inside, saw no employee, so I walked around, looked around, then sat down and played the biggest concert grand. When I looked up, half a dozen store employees, all men, surrounded me at a polite distance. Reading the room, I thought they treated my presence as a “security situation.” Turned out I wondered into one of their special rooms presumably reserved for artist recording (I could not be sure due to language barrier), and I was politely invited/escorted to another room — also with many marvelous grand pianos — a showroom where visitors are allowed to play the pianos. Would have been a cuter story in my memory had I been a six year old, though my parents/legal guardians may have had a big scare for having lost a kid in Tokyo. The New Yorker dude’s story might have ended up in a police report instead of the New Yorker had he looked like a delinquent teenager, the sort the princess-like woman would clutch her purse in his presence and call the cops.

@kluurs in measure 26, for the last rolled chord, are you moving that low C into the right hand, and then having the lowest note be the Gb?

@Bernard interesting! I’m glad you found a solution that works. The whole thing about consumer electronics and other household products that don’t last is incredibly frustrating. And so unnecessary, given the technological capability humans have acquired over the last 150 years. Today nothing of the environmental impact of all these broken products that get thrown away because they quickly become useless. My biggest household concern is our HVAC. It is working fine right now, but it’s 15 years old. When it goes, we’ll have to choose from whatever models are available. Besides the expense of replacing an hvac, what guarantee is there that we’ll get something that will last another 15 or more years?

On the other hand, we gave Harry and Meghan back. Major win.

Batten down the hatches!!

Thanks, so much SK, Adagio, Joe and Andy!! : ) @andyd Do I have lists? I don't have a long list of things I really want. I want a good full size mattress set! I have a long list of household things to have inspected by contractors and fixed. My clothes washer was 2 yrs old. It died. I'm getting a replacement different make from Lowe's. I want a Speed Queen all mechanical model at 2x the price but it's not in my budget. So the new scam is the electronic circuit board controls fail after a year or two and nobody can fix them. My bathroom has a minor leak. The source point is the bathroom vent cap on the roof. Also, the previous owner took the duct away from the actual fan to the roof. You can turn it on when you take a shower and it blows water up into nowhere. Similar is the floor structure. A few of the times are loose and a few broken from normal use not damage. Everything is white tile with a barely noticable slightly raised diamond pattern; I don't know who would make such a choice but it's tile in the sub-tropics- so it's all good. Well, these structures need something called a vapor barrier under the floor. This plastic vapor barrier and the AC unit's duct system have to be maintained or eventually new instalations and repairs @ x sq ft would be approx. 7k. I've got to get estimates in September. I'm sleeping on a $200 Wal-Mart all in one mattress. I put a folded towel over it and prevent the metal springs from causing pain, discomfort, and nerve damage. I want a GOT certified wool mattress. I'm an Anglophile and a history fan. Sleeping on an organic wool mattress is an interesting idea to me. It seems archaic in a good way. But $$. I wish you and your wife many years of restfulness and happiness with your new mattress! BTW, I was able to find the perfect size rug for the living room. It covers as much floor space as it can without blocking any air vents. Wal-Mart, 100% wool, hand-tufted in India, garden pattern, not organic dyes of course. $399. Not a great price but met requirements. Then I got a great little canister vacuum for less than $70 that's a Miele base model copy and slightly miniaturized. Bag. Filter. Clever!

The TING came from State Farm. It helped during a recent power outage.

@DougG said: Great, now Jon’s last post expects me to come up with a rhyme for “lits”. I’m pretty sure there isn’t one. Could this be the end of the word association thread?

Sadly, my Thai basil. Now the leaves aren't much good.

Lits

Link to video Omg!

Yes and seems so random as always.

@jon-nyc said: [image: 1786805318857-screenshot-2026-08-15-at-09.07.28.png] Yes, and Madonna took the first "selfie" in "Desperately Seeking Susan." I mean this as a cultural phenomenon, strictly speaking. People have been pointing cameras at themselves and others for a long time. Lol!

Well, they were a communist country for the better part of a century. I will make a note to unpack my smallest violin to play for the oligarchs whose assets are seized. I know the subtext is- "Putin bad!" 10 years of Trump the Ubiquitous and- "Putin bad!" have made a long 10 years. I know this is a legitimate news story but Russia didn't practice "capitalism," either before the break up of the USSR, or after.

Interesting. QEII had them. Assume she could have had any breed. That's a recommendation. Not a dog person. Wouldn't know where to begin.