Small Talk: The Polygamous Cul-de-Sac

[Yeah No]

Meri and her "mine and Kody's relationship". 🙄 It's like chalk on a blackboard every time I hear it. 

[CalicoKitty]

You can put the time in you message using a real clock.  Kids today can't read an analog clock.  Only digital.  A skill I used to teach to Kindergarteners.

[precious pupp]

My daughter had a Fischer Price teaching clock.  Of course, she is over 40.  She never did like to use cursive writing, though.  

[Absolom]

3 hours ago, CalicoKitty said:

You can put the time in you message using a real clock.  Kids today can't read an analog clock.  Only digital.  A skill I used to teach to Kindergarteners.

Beware the grandparents like me who made sure the kids could tell time on all clocks.  :)  

[Yeah No]

40 minutes ago, Absolom said:

Beware the grandparents like me who made sure the kids could tell time on all clocks.  :)  

It's ridiculous that you have to teach them. It's not like analog clocks are going away permanently that soon. They still exist, even on my smart watch. Like when heat sensitive buttons came out everyone thought manual buttons and turn knobs would go away. They haven't because (shock, surprise) many people prefer them. They are more intuitive and easier to use. Analog clock faces are iconic. If nothing else, they are a design choice. Go to any home store and you'll see many of them for sale. I just don't get a lot of things these days!

This reminds me of a segment I saw on my morning news the other day about how grade school kids now are fascinated by typewriters. When interviewed about why, they all said they loved how simple and easy they were to use, plus they didn't have any distractions built in like on computers. Gotta love that.

[Yeah No]

My husband and I were talking about this clock subject and he told me about a YouTube video he saw in which college students were asked how many minutes were in a quarter of an hour. Most of them said 25 minutes, probably because they were basing a quarter on being 25% of a whole. But as all of us know, an hour is not 100 minutes, it's 60 minutes, which is something harder to visualize if not looking at an analog clock. The fact that so many young people don't know this is frankly shocking and unacceptable.

I also remembered when digital clocks and watches first came on the scene in the early 1970s and everyone ran out and got them. P.S. That was 50 years ago and yet we still have analog clocks and watches.

[Absolom]

22 hours ago, Yeah No said:

It's ridiculous that you have to teach them. It's not like analog clocks are going away permanently that soon.

They teach it in school, but it's one or two lessons only.  It's maybe a grandma thing, but we have to have something to talk to the grandkids about and the clocks are as good a subject as any and we made a game out of telling time and discussing half hours, quarter hours.  We even got into lawyer billing hours.  Both parents are lawyers so that made sense with them.

Edited January 9 by Absolom

[Orcinus orca]

Good thing seniors know about analog clocks because it is now part of the annual health care check for Medicare.  They have you draw a clock and have the hands show a particular time like 1:55.

[Absolom]

My doctor doesn't do the mini-cog as long as I'm giving the proper medical name for procedures and can rattle off medications.

[Denize]

I had to do a cognitive test after falling & hitting my head. I like symmetry so I put in the 12,6,3,9 then the intervening numbers & the doc said she'd never seen anyone do it that way, but I passed!  Another test involved decoding a page of symbols - as fast as possible for one minute. The key showed each symbol representing a different number.  I felt like I was decoding one of the Zodiac Killer's letters. Since I like True Crime and puzzles like this, I have had lots of practice and the doc again was surprised how fast I could do it.  In the future, half the analog clock test time would be devoted to teaching the patient what a clock looks like.  One guy could get the numbers in the right places but then wrote the digital time in the middle of the clock.  

[Orcinus orca]

6 hours ago, Denize said:

had to do a cognitive test after falling & hitting my head. I like symmetry so I put in the 12,6,3,9 then the intervening numbers...

I did the same thing, gotta have those numbers evenly spaced!

[Gramto6]

17 hours ago, Denize said:

I had to do a cognitive test after falling & hitting my head. I like symmetry so I put in the 12,6,3,9 then the intervening numbers & the doc said she'd never seen anyone do it that way, but I passed!

 

10 hours ago, Orcinus orca said:

I did the same thing, gotta have those numbers evenly spaced!

I do it that way too! It helps get all the numbers even! I have fallen and hit my head before, but I have always been asked to do the clock, before fall and after the fall.

I was getting my appointment for this year's Medicare exam and they asked if I wanted in person or a phone appointment???? Never heard of that before. Doesn't seem a very thorough assessment if the dr doesn't actually see your actions and how you get to your responses. Isn't this exam supposed to be to see our mental and physical abilities or lack there of?  I opted for in person...

Edited January 9 by Gramto6

[CalicoKitty]

On 1/8/2025 at 2:29 PM, Orcinus orca said:

Good thing seniors know about analog clocks because it is now part of the annual health care check for Medicare.  They have you draw a clock and have the hands show a particular time like 1:55.

Just to be smart, I drew mine with Roman numerals.  Roman numerals are another thing that a lot of people don't know.  When I was taking an anatomy class in nursing school we had to name cranial nerves, which are designated by Roman numerals.  I was shocked that there were people that had no idea what they were, let alone know how to read them.  And this was over 40 years ago.

[Yeah No]

On 1/8/2025 at 1:10 PM, Absolom said:

They teach it in school, but it's one or two lessons only.  It's maybe a grandma thing, but we have to have something to talk to the grandkids about and the clocks are as good a subject as any and we made a game out of telling time and discussing half hours, quarter hours.  We even got into lawyer billing hours.  Both parents are lawyers so that made sense with them.

I wonder when they'll stop teaching it altogether.

Interestingly my husband and I went to our Verizon store today to discuss new phones/plans and we were helped by two young men, one a Millennial and one from Gen. Z. The Millennial was was wearing a classic analog diver's watch similar to the Rolex Submariner. My husband commented on how much he liked it and they engaged in a conversation about classic watches. As I sat there it wasn't lost on me that this young man was literally surrounded by digital smart watches, LOL. The Gen. Z young man, who wasn't wearing a watch looked at me and said, "My generation doesn't care about that stuff". That pretty much sums it up!

On 1/8/2025 at 5:29 PM, Orcinus orca said:

Good thing seniors know about analog clocks because it is now part of the annual health care check for Medicare.  They have you draw a clock and have the hands show a particular time like 1:55.

I just had my annual wellness check a few days ago but I wasn't asked to draw or remember anything. I was given an eye exam, a hearing test and even an EKG, though (which was probably because I asked to have my heart checked). I did well on all 3, thankfully, but I have more tests coming at a later date.

[Orcinus orca]

24 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

I just had my annual wellness check a few days ago but I wasn't asked to draw or remember anything.

I think it depends on how thoroughly each doctor follows the CMS recommendations.  Mine is a stickler for the whole package including questionnaires on hearing, living situation, and a depression screening.  Not only did I have to do the clock, she gave me three words to remember and asked me to repeat them at the end of the exam.  She was impressed that I remembered not only those from this visit but from last year as well.

[Yeah No]

4 hours ago, Orcinus orca said:

I think it depends on how thoroughly each doctor follows the CMS recommendations.  Mine is a stickler for the whole package including questionnaires on hearing, living situation, and a depression screening.  Not only did I have to do the clock, she gave me three words to remember and asked me to repeat them at the end of the exam.  She was impressed that I remembered not only those from this visit but from last year as well.

She did have a long questionnaire for me to answer. She was very focused on getting all the requirements out of the way. She even had an i-pad "listening" to our appointment and told me it was transcribing everything we said!

I just read that doctors are not required to make you draw a clock or test memory unless they have concerns about your cognitive status, but why anyone would have those concerns about you is beyond me! Maybe some doctors do it anyway just to be thorough.

[Orcinus orca]

Oh, goody, I guess the wedding is on the agenda for Sunday.  What wedding, you ask?  You heard that David and Christine are getting married, right?  Years ago, you say?  Already saw the wedding in full, you say?

TLC seems to think every viewer is a total imbecile to put up with this crap.

[LilyD]

The whole telling the time discussion actually amazed me…All the youngsters in my country learn reading the analog clock and then (maybe) a digital one. 

Telling the time in English is either taught in your final year of elementary school or the first year of middle school. Again: old fashioned analog clock reading.

 

[Absolom]

I think it was third grade here for grandchildren.

[Denize]

I got my Cinderella watch for my 6th birthday in 1960 and that is how we made it home for dinner in time after exploring the woods & fields nearby. 

When I babysat as a teenager and kids would try to stretch out the time before heads on pillows & lights off, I loved when I could get started early, but it stopped working when the oldest was ~4 and could already read analog clocks ... or at least knew what "bed time" looked like.

[Orcinus orca]

34 minutes ago, Denize said:

When I babysat as a teenager and kids would try to stretch out the time before heads on pillows & lights off, I loved when I could get started early, but it stopped working when the oldest was ~4 and could already read analog clocks ... or at least knew what "bed time" looked like.

I used to set my watch ahead and hide the house clocks.

[goofygirl]

22 hours ago, Orcinus orca said:

I used to set my watch ahead and hide the house clocks.

I never made them even get IN the bed until their parents drove up in the driveway!

Babysitting wasn't my teenaged job forte.  I was a better life guard and camp counselor.

Edited January 13 by goofygirl

[Pickleinthemiddle]

On 1/7/2025 at 7:48 PM, precious pupp said:

My daughter had a Fischer Price teaching clock.  Of course, she is over 40.  She never did like to use cursive writing, though.  

My daughter was on social media the other day and read that, I believe it was the Library of Congress was looking for people who can read cursive.  

[Gramto6]

11 hours ago, Pickleinthemiddle said:

My daughter was on social media the other day and read that, I believe it was the Library of Congress was looking for people who can read cursive.  

Wow!! Really?? 

[AZChristian]

7 minutes ago, Gramto6 said:

Wow!! Really?? 

Yep, they consider it a superpower. 

[Orcinus orca]

8 minutes ago, AZChristian said:

Yep, they consider it a superpower. 

I signed up to do that years ago.   You can pick categories but a lot of the stuff that needs translation is pretty dull.  You end up transcribing bills of lading or county records, for instance, not Lincoln's speeches for example.  Still, it's a way to help out with history although I never had anything remotely interesting.

[Gramto6]

23 hours ago, AZChristian said:

Yep, they consider it a superpower. 

Thanks for that link! Fascinating stuff. I didn't know there was actually a "job" doing these translations.

I spent a lot of time transcribing a zerox copy of a letter my Great-Grandfather wrote home to his wife May 7, 1865. He was an officer in the Army and had gone to the internment of President Lincoln in Springfield, IL with a group of 12 officers. He described everything about the ceremony and even sent her a sprig of evergreen that was taken out of the vault where Lincoln's remains were placed! I wonder whatever became of that!

It was a very moving letter to read as I have always had a soft spot for Lincoln. My Great -Grandfather described much of the surroundings which was fascinating. Of and the service he said: "Everything seemed to give an expression of perfect solemnity, and yet was sublimely grand."  It was a very moving experience for me to read of this through my Great-Grandfather's eyes!!

[precious pupp]

34 minutes ago, Gramto6 said:

Thanks for that link! Fascinating stuff. I didn't know there was actually a "job" doing these translations.

I spent a lot of time transcribing a zerox copy of a letter my Great-Grandfather wrote home to his wife May 7, 1865. He was an officer in the Army and had gone to the internment of President Lincoln in Springfield, IL with a group of 12 officers. He described everything about the ceremony and even sent her a sprig of evergreen that was taken out of the vault where Lincoln's remains were placed! I wonder whatever became of that!

It was a very moving letter to read as I have always had a soft spot for Lincoln. My Great -Grandfather described much of the surroundings which was fascinating. Of and the service he said: "Everything seemed to give an expression of perfect solemnity, and yet was sublimely grand."  It was a very moving experience for me to read of this through my Great-Grandfather's eyes!!

What a great piece of history!  

[Orcinus orca]

1 hour ago, Gramto6 said:

I spent a lot of time transcribing a zerox copy of a letter my Great-Grandfather wrote home to his wife May 7, 1865.

Oh, how wonderful!  They really knew how to write moving narratives back then. That sounds like a real treasure.

[RoxiP]

I can write and read cursive and drive a stick shift. I'm a dinosaur.

[Gramto6]

58 minutes ago, RoxiP said:

I can write and read cursive and drive a stick shift. I'm a dinosaur.

The cursive in some of these really old papers does take some deciphering skills.  It has lots of big circles and tails on letters and exaggerated forms, sometimes it is a guess, taking the context of the sentence, to make out a word. For this project which was 3 pages long, the further into it I got, I started to recognize patterns in letters and could then make out words somewhat easier. This was information dear to my heart, not sure doing bills of laden or other unrelated business documents from the 1800's or earlier would be as fun!

[lookeyloo]

I can read and write cursive and also drive a stick shift.  Mr lookeyloo had a truck with a stick and of course I had to learn.  Next truck also had a stick and I drove that too. Then he graduated to an SUV with automatic.  About letters, my father served in Italy in WWII. He wrote very beautiful long letters to my mother.  She wrote back whining about what she didn't have.  I have those letters.  Her handwriting is lovely.  His isn't.  Hard to decipher.  He wasn't the man in the letters when he came back.  War is hell.

[AZChristian]

Okay, I have to share this.  I'm a fan of the old show "The Vicar of Dibley."  Dawn French played a unique vicar, and Emma Chambers played her assistant, the less-than-bright Alice.

In one episode, a local TV station was going to air a service live.  The whole episode was really funny, but the funniest part was when Alice was going to read from the old Bible - the kind where certain letters didn't look as we would expect.  In this instance, each letter "s" looked like an "f."  An example:

And nobody told Alice in advance.  This will be 46 seconds that will make you laugh out loud, IMO.

 

[Orcinus orca]

Hilarious!  I have to see if that program is streaming somewhere.

[Gramto6]

1 hour ago, AZChristian said:

Okay, I have to share this.  I'm a fan of the old show "The Vicar of Dibley."  Dawn French played a unique vicar, and Emma Chambers played her assistant, the less-than-bright Alice.

In one episode, a local TV station was going to air a service live.  The whole episode was really funny, but the funniest part was when Alice was going to read from the old Bible - the kind where certain letters didn't look as we would expect.  In this instance, each letter "s" looked like an "f."  An example:

And nobody told Alice in advance.  This will be 46 seconds that will make you laugh out loud, IMO.

 

Yep! Laughed out loud!!  

 

[AZChristian]

1 hour ago, Orcinus orca said:

Hilarious!  I have to see if that program is streaming somewhere.

I think it's on BritBox.

If you liked that, you'll love this:  Alice "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

[Denize]

On 1/15/2025 at 11:21 PM, Pickleinthemiddle said:

My daughter was on social media the other day and read that, I believe it was the Library of Congress was looking for people who can read cursive.  

Even the Constitution is written in olde tyme cursive with some of the letters written different than the Palmer method I learned.

Doing genealogy I see a lot of cursive & bad handwriting, most of which I can read, but I'm 70 and have a vested interest in knowing what it says.   And my father was a doctor.

I haven't seen it but I can imagine Dawn French's face while saying Paradife Loft!

Edited Sunday at 03:26 AM by Denize

[Yeah No]

On 1/16/2025 at 1:09 PM, Orcinus orca said:

I signed up to do that years ago.   You can pick categories but a lot of the stuff that needs translation is pretty dull.  You end up transcribing bills of lading or county records, for instance, not Lincoln's speeches for example.  Still, it's a way to help out with history although I never had anything remotely interesting.

Years ago a friend of mine signed up to transcribe census records. Sometimes the handwriting was atrocious and she'd ask for my opinion. I seem to be good at deciphering bad handwriting, a skill I developed as an exec. assistant typing up documents written in longhand by bosses with notoriously bad handwriting. People used to come to me to "translate" notes the boss left on their desk, lol. I should sign up for that but after so many years doing tedious work behind a desk I have developed an aversion to stuff like that.

[Orcinus orca]

I am pretty good as well, 45 years of deciphering the handwriting of doctors from all over the world.

[Elodia]

53 minutes ago, Orcinus orca said:

45 years of deciphering the handwriting of doctors from all over the world.

Made me think of this:

[lookeyloo]

Funny topic.  Mr lookeyloo early on wrote me a love letter of sorts.  I couldn't read it!

[mrs ra]

Years ago I transcribed my grandmother’s diary. It was a five year diary that she could write about what she had done on that particular day. She kept it for age 13 to 17. This was in the 1920’s. It was so interesting! She went to a lot of movies, sometimes with friends but also her mother and grandmother. There was a lot of silly stuff about which boy she liked or which girlfriend she was having a disagreement with. In her later years she developed juvenile rheumatoid arthritis so the diary had many references to being sick and too stiff to get out bed. A sad foreshadowing of what was to come.