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shadowkatQuestion a Day Meme - May:
1. Have you ever contributed to something being crowdfunded? Was there an incentive to do so?
No. Although I did contribute to an acquaintance's Go Fund Me for cancer treatment once or twice. (She died, so it's not like it necessarily worked? But I guess it helped keep her alive a bit longer...)
2. Have you heard of the ‘Language of Flowers’, published in 1884? Victorian Britain and America were caught up in the concept in the 19th Century. Do you know the secret meaning of any flowers?
Yes, I've heard of it. I don't remember any of it.
3. Have you ever traced any of your family tree?
Yes, I fell down the genealogy rabbit hole a few years ago - traced it back to the 1600s in the Americas and Britain. Got bored. And forgot most of it. That of course didn't prevent various extended family members from doing it? The most famous person I'm related to - appears to be Eisenhower - 9th cousin nine times removed. (See? That's genealogy.)
I'm not sure how accurate most of it is? There's a couple of countries that were good at preserving records of well, just about everybody, and the records weren't destroyed in bombings. Also they weren't in danger of people tracking them down to kill them or enslave them.
Britain, Ireland, and their descendants in the US. Also the Mormons. So if you are British, Irish, British-Canadian, Scottish, or Mormon - you can probably trace it back fairly easily. Germany? Not so much, it was brutally bombed during the first and second World Wars, as was France and a good portion of Western Europe. We also had a lot of records changed or destroyed because of the Holocaust and the Nazis. Scandinavia didn't tend to keep records of anyone who was well not of a certain class.
And good luck hunting accurate records of ancestry if you are Black or Native American descent - those records were destroyed on purpose in the US or altered to protect people from being found and enslaved or killed by armed militias.
****
It's a beautiful but chilly day for spring. In the 40s, looks like the 60s.
Comfortable indoors for a change - in the low 70s. Lots of green outside my window. And blue sky, with streaks of cloud cover. I'm battling a headache and irritability. Have two scheduled doctor's visits next week - PT (vestibular) and lab work, then a doctor's appointment (virtual) the next week and somewhere in there - I have to plug in X-rays. I'm tired of doctor's appointments - I don't think I've had a week off from any of them in a while. I need a vacation from waiting for doctors and going to work.
Making my way slowly through This Kingdom will Not Kill Me - which isn't the book's fault. I can only read it in snatches at home. I can't cart it around with me - it's a hard cover book. It's interesting because it is employing the unreliable narrator tactic. The narrator thinks they know everything about the world they are in and the people in it - because they read the book it's based on? But alas, they don't and get quite a few things wrong. The writer's are slyly commenting on how fans misinterpret the stories they love and read over and over again. Thinking they know everything about it. Or that their interpretation is the correct one. Or their memory of it is right. (It's not, people are human and fallible.)
I may have to re-read the book when I finish it and stuff is revealed.
My reading slump has more to do with system overload than anything else.
But it is what it is.
**
I'm up to date now on From - ie, I can't be spoiled any longer. It's an interesting set-up, but I'm not sure I trust the writers not to go for the shiny/creepy Twilight Zone ending in S5. (ie. Everyone dies and a whole new batch of people enter the town to struggle. I've seen this trope done a few times before. Usually that's how it ends. No one gets out and it just keeps rinsing and repeating itself in an endless frustrating loop.) Maybe I should stop now?
On the other hand, I'm curious. So will probably keep watching until the end. I want to see how quickly they figure out the latest plot development?
1. Have you ever contributed to something being crowdfunded? Was there an incentive to do so?
No. Although I did contribute to an acquaintance's Go Fund Me for cancer treatment once or twice. (She died, so it's not like it necessarily worked? But I guess it helped keep her alive a bit longer...)
2. Have you heard of the ‘Language of Flowers’, published in 1884? Victorian Britain and America were caught up in the concept in the 19th Century. Do you know the secret meaning of any flowers?
Yes, I've heard of it. I don't remember any of it.
3. Have you ever traced any of your family tree?
Yes, I fell down the genealogy rabbit hole a few years ago - traced it back to the 1600s in the Americas and Britain. Got bored. And forgot most of it. That of course didn't prevent various extended family members from doing it? The most famous person I'm related to - appears to be Eisenhower - 9th cousin nine times removed. (See? That's genealogy.)
I'm not sure how accurate most of it is? There's a couple of countries that were good at preserving records of well, just about everybody, and the records weren't destroyed in bombings. Also they weren't in danger of people tracking them down to kill them or enslave them.
Britain, Ireland, and their descendants in the US. Also the Mormons. So if you are British, Irish, British-Canadian, Scottish, or Mormon - you can probably trace it back fairly easily. Germany? Not so much, it was brutally bombed during the first and second World Wars, as was France and a good portion of Western Europe. We also had a lot of records changed or destroyed because of the Holocaust and the Nazis. Scandinavia didn't tend to keep records of anyone who was well not of a certain class.
And good luck hunting accurate records of ancestry if you are Black or Native American descent - those records were destroyed on purpose in the US or altered to protect people from being found and enslaved or killed by armed militias.
****
It's a beautiful but chilly day for spring. In the 40s, looks like the 60s.
Comfortable indoors for a change - in the low 70s. Lots of green outside my window. And blue sky, with streaks of cloud cover. I'm battling a headache and irritability. Have two scheduled doctor's visits next week - PT (vestibular) and lab work, then a doctor's appointment (virtual) the next week and somewhere in there - I have to plug in X-rays. I'm tired of doctor's appointments - I don't think I've had a week off from any of them in a while. I need a vacation from waiting for doctors and going to work.
Making my way slowly through This Kingdom will Not Kill Me - which isn't the book's fault. I can only read it in snatches at home. I can't cart it around with me - it's a hard cover book. It's interesting because it is employing the unreliable narrator tactic. The narrator thinks they know everything about the world they are in and the people in it - because they read the book it's based on? But alas, they don't and get quite a few things wrong. The writer's are slyly commenting on how fans misinterpret the stories they love and read over and over again. Thinking they know everything about it. Or that their interpretation is the correct one. Or their memory of it is right. (It's not, people are human and fallible.)
I may have to re-read the book when I finish it and stuff is revealed.
My reading slump has more to do with system overload than anything else.
But it is what it is.
**
I'm up to date now on From - ie, I can't be spoiled any longer. It's an interesting set-up, but I'm not sure I trust the writers not to go for the shiny/creepy Twilight Zone ending in S5. (ie. Everyone dies and a whole new batch of people enter the town to struggle. I've seen this trope done a few times before. Usually that's how it ends. No one gets out and it just keeps rinsing and repeating itself in an endless frustrating loop.) Maybe I should stop now?
On the other hand, I'm curious. So will probably keep watching until the end. I want to see how quickly they figure out the latest plot development?
no subject
Date: 2026-05-03 10:26 pm (UTC)3. Yes, I have a long family tree extending back quite far. These days I don't really trust much of it beyond people coming to this country where it's easy to verify. It still goes back almost 400 years now. Yes, I'm a distant cousin of Commodore O. H. Perry of the War of 1812 fame, and he and I are both cousins of the Benedict Arnold of the War of Independence infamy. My mother's father was very proud of the former. If he knew about the latter he kept it to himself. 😉