Dept. of Monday Again

[kaffy_r]

Bits and Bobs and Tiny Tornadoes

I kept meaning to post, and check on others' posts, all last week. It didn't happen. But the old bicycle beckons and I'm a sucker for checking my balance on it.

ETA: I mentioned links, and didn't include them. Here they are.

Comments

[strannik01]

Anyone who understood that, just as we take down statues of slavers and don't count that as destroying history, we should stop valorizing people like John W. Campbell.

Oh, and should be someone who learns how to pronounce peoples' names because it's the right thing to do, FFS.

The name pronunciation I'm kind of more forgiving, considering that there's a total of two non-Russian people in this country who were able to pronounce my name 100% correctly (it requires understanding the distinction between soft consonants and hard consonants, which is simply not a thing that exists in the English language), and I'm dubious about the whole Hugo statuette criticism, but Campbell's politics are pretty well-known, and Michael Moorcock criticized them all the way back in the 1960s, so GRRM praising Campbell, especially in this the year 2020, is inexcusable.

As you may have seen on Twitter and Facebook, my particular corner of Rogers Park was virtually undamaged, though I passed quite a few downed trees when I was coming back from the 'L' on Monday evening (It was an... interesting day. As you may have gathered, I was in West Garfield Park that afternoon, and I literally saw the storm clouds approach as I tried to interview people. I decided to try to reach a local record store, hoping I would get there before the storm hit and that... didn't work out. I was surprised by how suddenly it hit, and just how quickly the winds picked up. But I made it to the 'L', and wound up writing the article as the 'L' kept getting delayed.)

But I digress quite a bit. I'm glad you guys were spared, too.

[kaffy_r]

The name pronunciation I'm kind of more forgiving, considering that there's a total of two non-Russian people in this country who were able to pronounce my name 100% correctly

Oh, I definitely understand the difficulty in conquering names - but the convention apparently sent phonetic pronunciation guides out ahead of time. He claims he didn't get all of the guides, which strikes me as ... possibly not accurate, let's leave it at that. And since some of the award announcements were pre-recorded, the convention should have noted at least some of his mispronunciations and required him to correct them.

I'm so glad your area of Rogers Park escaped - the power of just one relatively tiny tornado is still quietly freaking me out, days later! And I'm sorry you weren't able to make it to the record store.

Our neighborhood is still not completely cleaned up, and the crushed and semi-crushed cars are still on the streets. Just today I was driving home and saw another tree upended in a nearby courtyard, resting against one wall of the courtyard. I'm sure the residents are really happy about that, but I know the tornado's aftermath is probably keeping private tree removal companies in this area busy.

I was actually on the road in Niles, heading up to Super H Mart when my phone buzzed with the warning. I hightailed it even more quickly to the supermarket, because it's huge and I could get well inside and away from walls. I honestly thought the burbs were going to get the worst of it. I was completely croggled as I came down Seeley from Howard. Our Fed Ex guy was caught in it; he told us he crouched down in the neighbor's gate area, which could have gotten him killed, since the biggest downed tree hit about a yard from there. Then again, it could have saved him. Tornadoes really are a matter of inches, this has taught me.

Bob was sleeping - he heard what we later realized was the simultaneous crashing of trees, and thought it was one of the cats knocking something off the bookshelf! Since we don't tend to keep our sidewalk side window blinds all the way up, he didn't even see any of the damage until I came in and dragged him out to see. I was glad to help at least a little in dragging some of the smaller branches off, but was glad to leave it in the hands of big guys with gloves ... and machetes. Machetes are wicked looking things close up ... but I digress.

[strannik01]

Oh, I'm not letting GRRM completely off the hook. I do think that one should at least make a good effort, especially when one is a host of a major event, and he has... clearly fallen short of that.

It sounds like your return home had was, as my Grandma Tanya would have said, full of adventures. And I'm impressed that Bob managed to sleep through much of a hurricane.

[kaffy_r]

And I'm impressed that Bob managed to sleep through much of a hurricane.

He was a little dumbfounded himself!