Random 5 for March 20, 2022 – Words, kids, bikes, masks, mice

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Manufacturing words – I’m fascinated when people use words in a creative way. When I was working, we had a contractor who would talk about managers getting bogged down in the weeds. What he meant was that they were micromanaging; doing work below their pay grade but he had a new way of saying it. I recently realized that people are using “marry” differently too. It no longer means a marriage of two people but a combining of things. It could be ingredients that you “marry” in a sauce or pulling together two different design ideas. Hard to keep up with language these days.

Spring brings them out of the woodwork – I live next to a development of large homes. They are family homes with lots of kids. My community is mostly downsizers like the beloved husband and me. We rarely see any kids in our area. I took a different path for my walk and came across kids, lots of kids. They were in the six to eight age group. What was unique (at least to me) was that they were riding some sort of automatic (battery powered?) bicycle. They were riding up and down the street, but the pedals weren’t moving and no legs were pumping. They were outfitted with helmets, but I wasn’t comfortable about the whole thing. One girl was yelling to another and not looking where she was going which was right into a tree. She swerved at the last minute but she was going too fast for her attention span. I had to use pedal power until I was old enough to drive a car. No wonder they need organized sports to get exercise.

My happy place!

Then again – On another day I did my usual happy place loop around the stream.  There is a steep hill on either side of the stream part. As I was going down I saw about twenty kids biking. These were older (maybe around 12-ish) and using the old-fashioned pedal power. I smiled to myself. I was pretty sure the hill was going to hit them hard and it did. By the time I had crossed the bridge and was walking streamside, they were off their bikes and pushing. I smiled. I remember many a hill I had to push through. Now that’s real childhood.

It must be better – This past weekend Starbucks, the last bastion of employee-required masks locally, lifted its requirement. I could hear what they were saying. Let’s hope that the worst is over. There may be more waves but with vaccines, it should be less severe.

Oh no! – Two cats were missing at breakfast this morning. We have a walk-out basement with big glass sliding doors so it’s very light down there. Both cats were intently staring under the treadmill (more commonly known as a place to store boxes!). That’s a bad sign. We may have mice.

So how was your week?

 

54 thoughts on “Random 5 for March 20, 2022 – Words, kids, bikes, masks, mice”

  1. That is definitely a nice walk and that would be my happy place too. Very peaceful. I thought you left your mice issue behind – the cats don’t go out to bring one home for a present, so oh-oh. I see kids on motorized skateboards and the bikes too and wonder about that as far as exercise goes. I spent a lot of time pedaling around on my bike growing up and until I got my first car, same as you.

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    • Mice and me are inevitable! As for kids, it’s really different these days. All the things they do at home don’t require exercise but they do organized sports for that. In my day there was no organized sports especially for girls. It’s the biking, badminton and tennis that kept me physically active. I read a lot as a child but mostly in the morning before I went outside where I stayed until dinnertime (at least in good weather).

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      • We were lucky to have kids all around my age in the neighborhood in Canada and when we moved here, all Summer the two parks that are near me (each are two blocks away) had organized activities for kids which were tennis lessons, arts and crafts lessons, even art lessons where we hopped onto a bus and went and did sketching. And always riding bikes to one another’s homes. Same for me – come home for dinner, then riding bikes more. We never got fat as we got so much exercise.

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  2. Luanne’s story gives me the heebie-jeebies! That’s one thing about living up here in Canada — we may have 30-below weather, but snakes don’t come into our houses. And roof-rats! What are those? Are they like pack rats? We don’t have roof-rats either, or pack rats — at least, not in my province. Now I have to go a-googlin’.

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  3. Whenever I see kids outside in general I’m astonished. Mostly I think they are plopped down in front of any variation of an electronic screen. That stream site you visited looks so appealing. No wonder you visit it. I would too…if for no other reason than to imbibe some form of nature in your soul. Enjoy!

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    • I should have been astonished too. Maybe the electric bike was a bribe to get them out. The back yard had a huge jungle gym with all sorts of things. Maybe they are a different kind of family or maybe they don’t use it at all.

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  4. Your description of young children on some kind of “motorized” bike sounds terrifying to me. I wouldn’t be able to watch, I don’t think! But then I’m also freaked out at the idea of mice. I wouldn’t be able to stand there and watch the cats possibly find a victim. EEWWWW!

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    • The mice I could rescue. Not so with the kids. Hoping that none of them hit a tree or each other. At the age they were, they were still struggling to ride in a straight line. At least when you peddle, you can’t go too fast (unless it’s downhill!).

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  5. You have a beautiful place to walk! As for motorized things for kids…seems dumb to me. But I don’t have kids, so what do I know? The cats are doing what cats do. Good to know they are on the job.

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  6. Alternatively, it would be a ghost. Cats are notorious for watching ghosts. They can see them even when we can’t.
    Or. My guys were intent on a corner of my house years ago. That was when the king snake lived in our attic. He would crawl down to the first floor inside the wall and the cats could smell and/or hear him.
    Those motorized things sound horrible.

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      • It was definitely weird. We could hear when he made a kill up there as he would thrash around and bang the floor of the attic (ceiling of 2nd floor where the bedrooms were). He probably drank water from the AC lines and we had roof rats. He was all set. He left his skins lying around up there. But then one day he was just gone.

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    • We did have a mouse. I’ll post a pic on Friday of all 4 cats staring at the treadmill under which a mouse was hiding. I didn’t have time on Sunday but first thing this morning, I caught him and took him outside. Not sure he was grateful. There are neighborhood cats and hawks out there. He may have preferred to take his chances with some old cantankerous cats.

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  10. I recently learned Italian Wedding soup is not for weddings, but called that because it is a marriage of flavors of the soup and meatballs in it. That does sound like a mouse hunt- I am sure they will win.

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  12. Those e-bikes are ER visits just waiting to happen. I do not know what some parents are thinking–I’ve spent every day since my kid was 6 months old working to tire him out. Why would you give your kids electric ANYTHING?!

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  13. You are right about out of the woodwork and onto the motorized devices: even little kids in Barbie” cars/ATVs” or older ones on motorized skateboard. Not clear on who decided to get powered ones…as parents we always wanted to wear the kid out with pedaling or walking …do parents now have an “OFF” switch for night that we didn’t have? HAHA
    It is nice to see those actually pedaling – even family groups – the lockdown times brought out more bikes that we’d ever seen. We get a grin of the tiny boy a couple of houses down with new tiny bike…huge helmet that makes him look top heavy – mom on bike trying to go slow and dad running ahead trying to get that VIDEO/Facetime of kid on bike.
    Hope your cats were just teasing about that intent watching….
    Have a great week in any case

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    • I don’t know why you would get your kids electric things when they are so young. On the same road I saw a kid (teenager) on a skateboard going fairly fast. I couldn’t figure out how he was doing it because he wasn’t using his feet. I didn’t know they come motorized too. Now I don’t think he was so skilled.

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  15. Bike riding used to be so fun. One milestone for me was when I was maybe 7 yrs. old and finally able to ride both up and down the little hill near our house. When I was 10, we moved to a more rural street where we rode past the houses and farms and down to the river, a ride that added a little excitement to a pleasant activity. Motorized bikes should be only for senior citizens who need a little extra help. This morning I saw a clip on the news of Biden on a bike ride–no motor.

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  17. Your happy place would make me happy too. No masks here anywhere… masks are a rare sight. We still wear a mask to the grocery store because they are all crazy busy. Soon the busy will die down and the snowbirds will fly North. We had a nice week with a little bit of company and some beach time. It was very soothing. Hope you don’t have mousies but the Sassy Cats have got the radar!

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  18. We had a good week ~ did a short overnight trip to the East Coast of Florida, played some Bridge, attended Pizza and Game Night, enjoyed a Pot Luck St. Patty’s Day party, had happy hour with a friend, good ZOOM call with the family, watched a couple of decent movies, made some yummy soup, etc. And the weather? PERFECT!

    Good luck eradicating the mice.

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  19. The battery powered toys kids have these days are truly dangerous in my dinosaur opinion. We were at a four way stop one evening just as it was turning dark, when a teenager shot out into the road across four lanes of traffic on a powered skateboard. We’ve never come so close to hitting a human being, and I avoided that intersection for a while. I think of it every time I’m at at spot in the road. Glad your Starbucks is giving you a better vibe these days along with your daily mocha.

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    • The road they were on turns into a dead end so the traffic is local but the trees are always there. Seems to me that the speed on those things should be much slower than the kids were going. Maybe we’re both dinosaurs. We can’t expect 6 to 8 year olds to understand the risks.

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  22. Today at the grocery none of the employees were wearing masks for the FIRST TIME…..must have been an “ode to Spring”…..but they were all smiling which I have missed seeing. Our lawn is greening up nicely, the Bradford pear trees have started blooming – I do believe we have SPRING at long last. Good luck with the “under the treadmill” squatter(s). The cats will probably take care of that situation for you!

    Hugs, Pam

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