Missing: Wed May 19, 2021. Reward!
Greetings once again from the wilds of the District of North Vancouver, where the bears roam free but the humans are supposed to stay inside for at least a few more days thanks to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Yes, I am staying away from my fellow humans, more or less. I will continue doing that even after the current “circuit breaker” restrictions lift next week. It’s the only sane thing to do.
About the title: it was a weird week, and I suspect next week will be similar. I had big plans. I hoped to get to some local stores and buy supplies for various projects, and maybe even get moving on them. I knew I had a haircut appointment and an eye exam scheduled on the same day, but I thought I’d have time during the rest of the week, and could make some progress.
Sadly, the universe enjoys derailing whatever I have in mind.
At some point it was decided that Wednesday would be the day we launched the new local business directory on the community association website. As a result, the entire day vanished. Gone. *Poof*
It’s not like the work I had to do on Wednesday took that much time. It really didn’t, but somehow the entire day disappeared. In fact it disappeared so completely that I actually thought launch day was Tuesday, not Wednesday, despite my having spent Tuesday at the stylist and the optometrist. I was so convinced that Wednesday was actually Tuesday that when Anne and I got in bed that night, I claimed that the next day was going to be Wednesday. Anne argued for it being Thursday, but I was sure I was right. We had clearly just finished Tuesday, so the only possible day that could follow is Wednesday. QED.
And of course the next morning reality — and the calendar — revealed it was Thursday.
So, as per the title, if anyone can find and return last Wednesday to me, I would appreciate it. I will pay handsomely for its safe return. I have a lot I still need to get done… back then.
To make matters worse, I have two appointments scheduled for next week already, and I there may be another on the way. The odds of getting anything significant done in the near future keep dropping.
Given the way the week went it’s hard to know what to write about. The list of accomplishments is disturbingly slim. But I can touch on two points that have come up before.
An aside for the curious: here’s a link to the new local business directory I’ve been working on: https://blueridgeca.org/blueridge_businesses/. In my own defence, please note:
The rest of the site still needs a lot of work, and is not my creation.
WordPress and the plug-ins we have limit what I can accomplish in terms of page design and layout. I’m not an expert, and I’d do things differently if I had other options. This isn’t terrible, but I’d make changes if I could. Oh, and the three column header images will be replaced. New images are coming at some point.
Some time back I mentioned the weird headlines I was seeing about Doug Ford (the Premier of Ontario) and his press conferences. A headline like “Doug Ford to Make An Announcement” would show up in my feed. Then, after the press conference, both the headline and the article’s contents would be replaced with new text describing whatever it was he’d discussed. I’ve never seen similar things for press conferences for the Premiers of the other provinces, nor for the Prime Minister. It’s only Doug Ford who got such treatment.
But things have changed. It seems he’s in a lot of political trouble since Ontario’s Covid situation got bad, and he’s not in the headlines nearly as often of late. More specifically, I haven’t seen any of those weird place holder articles (and headlines) in quite some time.
I don’t have the political chops to understand the change, but it’s definitely a thing, at least in my news feed. I need to hear from my Canadian readers on that. What’s up with Doug Ford, the Ontario press, and his political future?
The other thing worth talking about comes from last week’s post. In passing I brought up the question of whether or not the word “American” means someone who is a resident of the USA, or someone who is a resident of one of the American continents. I specifically asked to hear from my Canadian readers on that topic. Are you included in the term “American” or not?
I received three responses to that question, all — as you would expect — from readers who live in the USA. No Canadians.
In the first, the person who caused me to ask this question by claiming that “American” refers to residents of the continent(s) and not the country, wondered if she was the only one who had prompted my query. She was the only one, alas. And that’s as far as the conversation went. She didn’t add to her point of view on the topic.
A second response came in a comment here in Medium, where Lori asked “What is wrong with US readers”? I interpreted that to be asking what is wrong with the phrase “US readers” rather than what might actually be wrong mentally or physically with my readers who reside in the USA. I responded that the phrase feels off to me, mostly because it’s a shortening from “USA readers” which definitely sounds wrong. In addition, I think there is a chance that “US readers” might be read as “us readers” — particularly by those for whom English is not their native language — and I didn’t like that either. Mostly, though, “US readers” just sounds wrong in a way that “American readers” doesn’t. The latter flows when you read it while the former stumbles. She went on to suggest I could use the AP style recommendations, but I don’t think that addressed the question of whether or not the phrase includes or excludes residents of countries other than the USA.
The third response came in email from a friend who works in marketing. He opened with this gem:
Though a U.S. view of how others view themselves is both inappropriate and typically American, I offer you, below, two American views of your dilemma.
I love it. So accurate. He went on to quote two different sources (AP and Webster’s) which basically state that the term can mean either residents of the continent(s) or residents of the USA depending on context.
Those are interesting points, but they don’t help me understand how those who are not residents of the USA feel about the term “American.” And that is what I really want to know.
Speaking personally, I find it hard to believe that the word “American” would be interpreted to include Canadians or Mexicans or Peruvians. Without context specifically indicating the intended meaning is different — “residents of the North American continent” for example — why would anyone from some country other than the USA think the term “American” applies to them?
That’s what I was hoping to hear from my Canadian readers, but my hopes have been dashed so far. Not one Canadian has replied to my query, so I will ask again, and broaden it a bit:
If you live somewhere in either North or South America but are not a resident of the USA, does the term “American” include or exclude you? And if you’re willing, please explain why or why not.
So now I want to hear from my Canadian readers on two points: Doug Ford’s situation and the question of their Americanness. (I Googled that. It’s not clear it’s a real word, but it has been used by others. I’m using it deliberately, though, so no complaints, please.)
Canadians: chime in, please. Use email or comment here or send me a note via carrier pigeon. Whatever. Just tell me what you think on these two topics!
And with that we come to the end. I said there wasn’t much to share this time. Sorry.
I will close with a photo of a Tinkerbelle sleeping under my desk, because a post without a photo doesn’t feel right, and a sleeping dog is a good thing.
