For I have lived today

1) Set off your smoke alarm or play the sound on your phone (if your home has no smoke alarms, pease get some!)

2) stand BY THE FRONT DOOR to hand out treats

Do this a couple times and then keep it up NO EXCEPTIONS. Accidentally set the alarm off cooking? Treats by the door. Smoke alarm sound on TV? Treats by the door. Changing your smoke alarm batteries twice a year like you’re supposed to? Give them a test run and your pets get treats by the door.

Most dogs and cats will clue in VERY quickly that hearing that specific sound means go to the front door and wait for treats.

If there’s an emergency and even if you leave by another way, you will still know the most likely place your pet(s) is and can direct first responders to help.

In 1995, 44-year-old McArthur Wheeler became the unintentional face of a major psychological breakthrough after attempting one of history’s most bizarre bank robberies.

On January 6, 1995, Wheeler and an accomplice robbed two banks in Pittsburgh. What made the crime legendary wasn’t the loot, but Wheeler’s “disguise.” He walked into the banks without a mask, looking directly into the security cameras and even smiling. When police arrested him later that night after his face appeared on the local news, he was reportedly stunned, muttering: “But I wore the juice.”

Wheeler’s “brilliant” plan was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of chemistry. He knew that lemon juice can be used as invisible ink (which becomes visible when heated). He concluded that if he smeared lemon juice all over his face, he would become invisible to security cameras. To “test” his theory, he reportedly took a selfie with a Polaroid camera. Because he was likely sweating and the juice stung his eyes, he aimed the camera poorly and captured a shot of the ceiling. In his mind, the blank photo was proof: the juice worked.

ingredience:

lemons/limes (this needs to make up the bulk of the fruit being used, like at least 80%)

whatever other fruits or fruit scraps you want, plus any herbs/other flavorings you want to try. by fruit scraps I mean things like cherry pits, apple peels, pineapple cores, strawberry ends, things like that.

granulated white sugar, the coarser the better, 50% by weight of total citrus rinds + 100% by weight of any additional fruit. you'll measure this after you prep the fruit.

water as needed

equipment:

a few nonmetallic mixing bowls

a mesh strainer

a chinoise, ricer or some cheesecloth

a kitchen scale

a citrus juicer or reamer (manual or electric)

a potato masher

juice the citrus through a strainer - saving all rinds -  and refrigerate the juice for the time being. dice the rinds and other fruits if any, keeping the rinds separate. make note of weights, and measure your sugar.

 Place sugar in a large nonmetallic bowl. If using non-citrus fruits and/or any other flavorings, mix them in with the sugar and mash with potato masher. add diced citrus rinds, mix thoroughly, and mash again. cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours. this allows the sugar to draw out flavors that would otherwise get discarded with the rinds, and the rinds' acids should be enough to dissolve the sugar into a syrup.

Afterward, mash one last time, then collect the syrup by pressing the macerated mixture through a strainer/chinoise or ricer, or squeeze it through cheesecloth. if you want, this can be saved as a standalone syrup at this point, for use in cocktails or desserts. if not, slowly pour the reserved juice through the solids to to help get the remaining syrup out, and squeeze/press again. do the same thing one more time with warm water (roughly the same amount of water as juice). discard solids (or try making sangria with them!).

taste the mixture and add more water if necessary. a stronger mix is totally fine if you anticipate serving over ice on a hot day, or adding booze, or if there was a lot of non-sour fruit. keep in mind that it will taste a bit less sweet once it's chilled. pour into a pitcher and refrigerate.

citrus oils will float to the top, so stir/shake before serving. love you. enjoy.

some tried and true flavor combos:

straight lemon or lime, or any combination of the two, is of course an untouchable classic

lemon & strawberries (that's pussy babe!)

lemon & orange with a hint of vanilla (creamsiclemonade...?)

lemon & apples or apple peels with cinnamon/ginger/allspice (for late summer)

some cocktail type combos, booze optional:

lemon or lime & berries with basil + gin

lime & mint + white rum

lime & ginger + dark rum

lime & cucumber + gin

lime & orange (berries optional) + tequila

ya got

gochujang butter noodles

peanut butter noodles

chili crisp fettuccine alfredo

miso butter noodles

"The simultaneous borrowing of French and Latin words led to a highly distinctive feature of modern English vocabulary: sets of three items, all expressing the same fundamental notion but differing slightly in meaning or style, e.g., kingly, royal, regal; rise, mount, ascend; ask, question, interrogate; fast, firm, secure; holy, sacred, consecrated. The Old English word (the first in each triplet) is the most colloquial, the French (the second) is more literary, and the Latin word (the last) more learned." (Howard Jackson and Etienne Zé Amvela, "Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology." Continuum, 2000)

via ThoughtCo

Though I like how John McWhorter phrases it better:

But language tends not to do what we want it to. The die was cast: English had thousands of new words competing with native English words for the same things. One result was triplets allowing us to express ideas with varying degrees of formality. Help is English, aid is French, assist is Latin. Or, kingly is English, royal is French, regal is Latin – note how one imagines posture improving with each level: kingly sounds almost mocking, regal is straight-backed like a throne, royal is somewhere in the middle, a worthy but fallible monarch.

I value the fact that English has two parallel vocabularies ‒ the Germanic vocabulary and the Latinate vocabulary. For example, we have the word 'undersea', and then we have 'submarine'. Or 'underground' and 'subterranean', 'all-powerful' and 'omnipotent'. So we can shift registers. We can say something in a very plain, blunt, Anglo-Saxon way, like "I will not do that" ‒ all Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. Or we can say it in a fancier, more distant, abstract, Latinate way, like "I prefer not to permit myself to approach such a notion." Or, in a passage of plain Anglo-Saxon, you can throw in one Latinate word, unexpectedly, to great effect.

End ID.]

I do love this aspect of language! But, unlike what the title of that last quote states, English is actually very normal! Languages absorbing the prestige language of the area happens ALL THE TIME.

Close to 60% of English vocabulary is Latin and French. That's similar to, or slightly lower than, many languages with a Chinese influence (Japanese is the same, Korean and Vietnamese might have more or less, depending on how you measure. Casual spoken forms of languages often have less borrowings, and obscure technical vocabulary will have more.)

We don't know what the spoken language was like, but Old Nubian writing can have so many Greek loanwords it can be difficult to tell if a text is Greek with a few Nubian words, or Old Nubian but mostly loanwords! Ottoman Turkish borrowed so much Arabic and Persian that it was mostly unintelligible to normal Turkish speakers. Only a 1/3 of Yaghnobi words are actually Eastern Iranian, and it's ancestor, Sogdian, was similar - Persian, Turkic, Russian, Chinese, Sanskrit, Aramaic, Greek - it seems harder to find languages that DIDN'T leave their mark!

And borrowing from Latin, and then French, its descendent, is just as normal. Khmer contains a large number of borrowings from Sanskrit and its descendants, especially Pali. Japanese borrowed from multiple Chinese dynasties, and now some Kanji have several similar pronunciations, each based on a different reborrowing.

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And there are languages that go much farther than us!

25% of English is Germanic, including a (possibly) surprising amount of Old Norse and Dutch. That includes most of the core vocabulary and grammar.

Mixed languages don't have a 'core'. They combine multiple languages in more complex ways.

Michif - which developed in central Canada as Cree and French voyageurs (fur traders) worked together and created their own culture (the Métis) - combines elements of Plains Cree, French, and other languages like Ojibwe, Assiniboine, and English. It developed among people who were fully bilingual, retaining complex elements of both main languages. There's more French words than Cree, but it's impossible to say that they're 'loanwords' or 'host language words'.

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His raincoat was never packed, because obviously he wouldn't need it in space—I wonder sometimes if Stratt held onto it for any amount of time.