Does not work that way!

The nice man on the TV news said “Paris may have the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe, but the most unique spot in France might be on the Normandy coast...”

I yelled at the TV “There aren’t degrees of uniqueness! That’s literally what it means!”

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Overheard in the Office...

RX: "These are the people Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars with."

Me: "Funnily enough, these are the people I want Elon Musk to colonize Mars with, too."

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And then there were two...

With the closure of the last Kmart store in New Jersey, there are only two remaining locations in the continental USA: one in Miami and one in Long Island.

"Remember that you will end up like Kmart."

RX: "There are only two Kmarts left?"

Me: "In the continental US. There's one in Guam and another few in the US Virgin Islands. Six, total."

RX: "How does a business like that survive with only six stores?"

Me: "I think the question contains the answer."

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Overheard in the Office...

TV [down the hall]: 🎶🎵Merry Merry Merry Christmas🎵🎶 

RX: "Harry Harry Harry Krishna... His brother is Ted Krishna." 

Me: "Their dad is Joe Krishna." 

RX: "He sells used cars."

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Truly an Age of Wonders

RX: "...and the box even had a picture of a clown on the front."

Me: "Yeah, I remember that box. It was a lot of kids first introduction to c... clownophobia."

RX: "There's actually a word for that: 'coulrophobia'."

Me: "Oh, I know the word, but I suddenly realized I had no idea how to pronounce it."

Before the internet, I would have had to go to the bookshelf with the big dictionary, look this up, and decipher what the the good people of Oxford meant by "kälrəˈfōbēə".

Now I can turn to Google...

...or just say out loud "Alexa, how do you pronounce the word for a fear of clowns?"

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Overheard in Front of the Television...

Watching Batman on MeTV last night... the episode from the second season with Otto Preminger* as Mr. Freeze ...I mused aloud:

"When I was a kid, if you’d asked me “Who’s freakier, Colonel Hogan or Bruce Wayne?”, I’d have been all “Oh, Bruce Wayne for sure. I mean, he runs around with a teenager in tights and booty shorts” which just goes to show that you never can tell."

*Three different actors played Mr. Freeze in the TV series. George Sanders played the role in the first season, but was unavailable in the second, so Otto Preminger got the part. According to Wikipedia, "Due to tensions and difficulties on set in Preminger's two-part storyline, Eli Wallach replaced Preminger in the role of Mr. Freeze for the final two-part storyline of season 2." That sounds like an interesting story, which I'm fixing to look into. Preminger was a controversial dude, but his Mr. Freeze is the most memorable of the trio, and probably why heavily-accented Schwarzenegger got the part in the execrable Schumacher flop, Batman & Robin.
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Overheard in the Living Room...

Bobbi and I were watching S:2, E:9 of Bosch: Legacy over dinner last night. Right at the end of the episode a heretofore-suspected baddie turns out to in fact be a baddie.

RX: "I knew it! Didn’t I call it?"

Me: "Well, she was Chekov's floozy. There wasn’t much other reason for her to be in the story. But yes, you did call it out right when she first showed up on screen."

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Overheard in the Kitchen...

[Scene: Kitchen, interior. TAMARA is rooting around in the fridge and glances over her shoulder toward the microwave. ROBERTA enters.]

RX: "What are you doing?"

Me: "Nuking the biscuits."

RX: "That better not be a euphemi..."

Me: "Ah'm just over here, nukin' mah biscuits, if you know what I mean."

RX: "Ew!"

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Overheard in the Office...

[TAMARA enters the room holding a plate with two Tennessee Pride sausage biscuits]

Me: "Yay! When you remember to put a packet of these in the fridge to thaw the day before, they only take 25 seconds to nuke instead of 45 seconds."

RX: "So you save twenty seconds. And they taste better?"

Me: "Oh, they taste better, too. At least they say they taste better."

RX: "So you don't know they taste better."

Me: "Well, I seem to remember they taste better. But I also remembered that Spaghetti-O's tasted good, so..."

RX: "Children don't taste sugar the same way."

FWIW, they do in fact taste better.

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Overheard in the Office...

RX: "They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. They also say that revenge is sweet. Therefore revenge is ice cream."

Me: "Maybe revenge is jello?"

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Overheard in the Office...

Friday mornings are trash pickup days here at Roseholme Cottage. This morning there was a low rumbling boom...

RX: "Was that thunder or the garbage truck?"

Me: "Oh, the garbage truck, for sure."

*slightly louder booming rumble*

RX: "I think that was thunder."

Me: "I think you're right."

We both go to check the radar on our respective computer screens.

That was definitely not the trash truck.

Overheard in the Hallway...

RX: "'Didn't have a grandfather'? If they didn't have a grandfather, how'd they even get here?"

Me: "Yeah! Everybody had two grandfathers... Well, we hope, at least."

Overheard in the Office...

So I'm pretty addicted to the Spelling Bee game at the NYT, and I was playing this morning...

Me: "What do you mean it doesn't know 'wadi'?"

RX: (from down the hall): "'W-A-D-D-Y' or 'W-A-D-I'?"

Me: "The latter. I know it's a foreign word, but it knows 'tatami'."

RX: "The Times like Japanese better than Arabs."

Me: "They sell tatamis at Ikea, but not wadis."

RX: "They sell wadis in California."

ZCQOTD

ZCQOTD: "That's the kind of shit that sticks to everybody's fur."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) March 12, 2023

Overheard in the Kitchen...

Me: "I'm going to go downstairs and put the dryer on 'Wrinkle Release' so I can fold my laundry while you're in the tub."

RX: "Folding wrinklies..."

Me: "What's that? Senior citizens jiu jitsu?"

Overheard in Front of the TV...

During Saturday morning cartoon time, great attention is paid here at Roseholme Cottage to the copyright date in the opening credits, as something of an augur or portent for the quality of the cartoon to follow. As an example, this morning...

TV: MCMLXVII

RX: "'67..."

Me: "A time filled with hippies. And communism."

Overheard in the Hallway...

Me: "Oh, I think you know the first rule of Passive-Aggressive club..."

Overheard in Front of the TV...

The Today show is on the televisor...

Craig Melvin: "...and today is the last day of service for the classic Blackberry phone." 

Savannah Guthrie: "Oh, I loved mine like a child." 

Me (yelling): "No, hell, you didn't! You abandoned it the minute the shiny new iPhone came along. If you loved it like a child you'd still be using it and they'd still be viable."

Overheard in the Hallway...

Roberta Ecks: "'...carrying a large leather suitcase entirely full of lard.' That's the sort of phrase that lets you know you're reading @neilhimself."

Me: "Or listening to @NightValeRadio."@RobertaEcks: "Gaiman was there first."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 10, 2021

Overheard in the Kitchen...

RX: "The Hoppin' John tonight had three kinds of meat: ham, hot Italian sausage, and an Irish banger..."

Me: "An Irish banger? Like Seamus 'Ice Dog' McGillicuddy?"