The Tangent Thread: "That reminds me of the time...."

[tree]

I think those are sometimes called "Touch Me Nots."
*time out to look it up*
Yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosa_pudica

 

[Flinty]

Touch me not is my mantra, only I have to shout it on occasion.

 

[zurb]

We used to have a lot of forget me nots in the garden.

 

[DoNotDisturb]

I used to have a lot of forget me nots too but I forgot about them.

 

[metalminx24]

We planted forget-me-nots above our hamster 'graves' when they died. Our first hamster was called Ran, partly after the explorer Ranulph Fiennes, and partly because the first thing he did when we brought him home was sprint right off the dining table.

 

[tree]

We had hamsters and gerbils for the class Animal Psychology.
At the end of the semester I gave my hamster to a woman
who majoring in Special Ed.

This is better than what typically happened to the rats from
Rat Lab [the informal name for the class in Learning]. They
got used as specimens. Meaning the lab assistant killed them
and sectioned their brains for people to look at under a
microscope.

I didn't take Rat Lab.

 

[Vinca]

That reminds me of when there was a dissection during a science lesson, I opted out of watching.
I can't remeber whether it was a frog or a pigs heart.

 

[tree]

That reminds me of when
we had to do live pithed frogs in high school.
A frog for every 2 students.

In jr. col. we had fetal pigs. One for each pair
of students. My partner grabbed the back legs
and tail, and pretended the butt was saying
"I want a Clark Bar."

In these classes I was the reader [directions/
procedures]. The partner did the cutting.

 

[AdamG]

That reminds me of the 10th grade in chemistry class, nobody wanted me as lab partner so I got the teacher. We talked about my family issues and she did all the work. I didn't have to study, she gave me test answers. I do not understand why she did that for me. I learned nothing at all in that class.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

That reminds me of the time I was showing 90s gangsta rap music videos to my teen daughter.

She looked up at me and asked "Why are the gangsters dressed like middle aged dads?"

So now, you have to watch any 90s music video, and see what she noticed. Our teen fashion became mom and dad fashion that we wear to our kids' scout award ceremonies.

 

[Kisa the tea]

This reminds me of when I was a teenage bunny and I went through a phase of only eating vegetables and fruits other than carrots because I thought carrots were too mainstream.

 

[AdamG]

That reminds me of the time I tried a macrobiotic diet. It lasted about 2 months. I felt great, balancing the yin/yang, and acid/alkaline of foods, and also balancing water/salt intake. But every single meal I had to cook from scratch, and they were not easy meals, which (while I love to cook) I need a break from complicated cooking. So it did not last.

 

[Kisa the tea]

This reminds me that for some reason humans cook their food. Like, what's up with that? The food is already edible? Why do you need it to be warm? Just bite into the potatoes like a normal animal.

 

[AdamG]

This reminds me of the time I met some human who was on a raw foods diet. She was always, and I mean always, eating. Mostly raw veggies, but she also had nuts and seeds and I'm sure other things. She was skinny as a rail, and always tired easily. I felt both in awe of, and sorry for, her.

 

[tree]

I was excited when I learned that oatmeal could be
eaten without cooking. Fun. Takes no time to fix.

Not fun.
I felt like I was starving after a bowl of uncooked oatmeal.
It just didn't work digestion-wise, the same as nice gooey
cooked oatmeal.

 

[AdamG]

This reminds me of when I worked on an organic farm. The reminder comes from oatmeal, I learned it can be eaten soaked in cold water and that it is very good with molasses and flax seed. I had never liked oatmeal before this. Anyway, on the farm, I learned how to raise chickens for eggs, goats for ... well just to have, and both annual and perennial gardens. I knew some before, but learned a lot about daily operations, and lots of new things. I was there for 8 months (hmm, the same amount of time as Earthaven, it must be some sort of limit for me) while separated from my wife. The wife and I made up and are married now over 9 years.

 

[tree]

My mother's mother used to have goats
before I was born. I asked her whether
she let their tails grow when she had the
goats or whether she had them docked.

I thought that goat tails were like sheep tails,
and that they'd get quite long unless they were
cut short.

She didn't bother answering.
Maybe she thought I was making a really dumb
joke.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Right in the center of my hometown, when I was little, there was a lovely meadow that rose up to a small hill, dotted with a grove of oaks and cottonwoods. There was a lonely shepherd's house at the top.

There was a hand-hewn oak wood fence all around the ten or so acres, inside which, a herd of sheep would graze. The scene was always the same, unless the collie was rounding them up, or the old shepherd was walking among his flock, surveying the day.

No matter what was happening in my little world, just passing by in the car, and watching the sheep would quiet my soul. It's still something I meditate on.

I came home to visit when I was about twenty-two. The town had become a city, and they had built a mall. There was an Edward's Cinemas and gigantic sprawling parking lot, where the sheep would graze. And the ugliest tract homes you ever could imagine, spiralling through endless cul-de-sacs up to, and beyond, where the shepherd's home once stood.

All the trees were gone. This was the desert. Trees were scarce. But, hey, they planted palm trees along the once-country-road.

Talking to everyone they were so excited that we had a Robinson's May, a Best Buy, and a Sears. No one gave a care about the environment, or the legacy of our little valley between the mountains.

My little town of 3000, where children rode horses to school, now is a Southern California wine country enclave that gets lampooned on SNL. The orange groves are being cut down to make room for subdivisions. Golf courses and wineries now suck from the aquifers to which the small, family ranchos of their neighbors have the water rights.

To this day, I think often about the little meadow with its sheep grazing quietly on the hillside. It is my place of calm in stormy days.

 

[tree]

When I think of sheep I remember our vet who had a flock of 200 sheep.
And the times she'd say "Well I better go out and make sure they haven't
done something really stupid."

 

[Kisa the tea]

Something really stupid the cat once did was trying to bite a plant with thorns on it for no reason. He then proceeded to lick the thorns briefly.