13: Count Your Chickens
1. I don’t like to live anywhere where I can watch people come and go from my window, but I don’t seem to mind watching the birds at the bird feeder do the same.
2. I was a little thrown last week when so many of my Facebook friends posted a red square – with what I first thought were two pink band-aids but turned out to be equal signs – as their profile picture. I soon found out the symbol was being widely posted in support of same sex marriage, which the Supreme Court is currently debating. I may not have known what the symbol meant, but I knew my friend Mara had the best take on it (see below).
3. Last week I got a call from a local birder who wanted to identify a bird that was pictured in a photo I took and was printed in the local paper (see below). It was a red breasted nuthatch, which it turns out 
is a far-north bird that doesn’t usually come this far south. In researching this phenomenon, I discovered that a record cold spring and global warming is not an oxymoron. See HERE.
4. The collective noun of nuthatch is a “jar.”
5. I always thought Eddie Bauer was Edie Bauer. Now I’m having a hard time visualizing the person the company was named after being a man rather than a women.
6. Imagine being a poet whose last name is Wordsworth?
7. An aptronym is when a person’s surname matches what they do. In Massachusetts there is a reporter of the weather named Gail Huff and here in Virginia we have a congressman named Hurt. A one time head of the Catholic Church in the Philippines was named Cardinal Sin and there’s a race car driver name Scott Speed.
8. It’s really not so strange that people’s surnames match what they do, considering that many old English names were given because of occupations, like Miller, Baker, Potter, Mason, Weaver, Goldsmith and more. At first I thought the name Tiger Woods had nothing to do with golf, and so didn’t apply as an aptronym, until someone reminded me that some golf clubs are called woods.
9. “Gay people who want to marry have no desire to redefine marriage in any way. When women got the right to vote, they did not redefine voting. When African-Americans got the right to sit at a lunch counter, alongside white people, they did not redefine eating out. They were simply invited to the table.” Cynthia Nixon.
10. Troubled actress Linsay Lohan can fool everyone with an April Fools tweet saying she is pregnant, and google can freak everyone out on April 1st by announcing it’s taking down youtube, but I haven’t got the heart to mess with people like that.
11. At the end of the day on April Fools (after enjoying THIS) I said to Joe, “Did you know it was April Fools Day today?” He didn’t. “Did anyone trick you?” I asked. “No, only treats,” he answered.
12. Is jonquil to daffodil what violin is to fiddle?
13. HERE is my grandson Bryce counting his chickens.
– More 13 Thursday bloggers HERE.
April 3rd, 2013 7:58 pm
Wonderful T13 Coleen….LOVE Bryce and his Chickens….
Maybe it was the year of ‘The Tiger’ when Tiger Woods was born….?
It took me a while to get used to people naming their kids BROOKLYN and BRONX….those were boroughs in NY where I grew up.
It is beyond me how people don’t get that there is such a thing as Global Warming!
I LOVE Mara’s wonderful heart made out of equal signs—-It is Brilliant!
April 3rd, 2013 8:16 pm
#9 says it all, doesn’t it?
April 3rd, 2013 8:57 pm
Tiger Woods plays golf with what are called “woods” the golf clubs. I like #9 very much, is Cynthia a relative of President Nixon? A daffodil is only one type of jonquil, there are other types of jonquil besides daffodils. The difference between a fiddle and a violin is what type of music is being played, no difference really.
April 3rd, 2013 9:16 pm
OMG! A wood is a type of golf club, right!
Cynthia Nixon is an actress, best known as one of the Carrie Bradshaw’s friends in Sex in the City. She has a same sex partner.
Here’s what I read on jonquils vs daffodils.http://www.todayshomeowner.com/whats-the-difference-between-daffodils-jonquils-and-buttercups/ They are a type of daffodil, but in some parts of the country the name jonquil is used more generally to mean daffodil. But you’re right, Chris, more of a difference than fiddle or violin. I once asked A’Court what the was the difference between a fiddle and a violin and he answered “intention.”
April 4th, 2013 2:04 am
1 so true I still see Bryce jumping in my mind- love the daffodills
April 4th, 2013 2:08 am
I would add that the whole violin/fiddle dichotomy is blurred when you have music like the Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor album Appalachian Journey.
(But then, I’m a cellist who sings folk music around her house, so I might not be unbiased about these things.)
Lovely collection of thoughts, as always.
April 4th, 2013 3:46 am
About Greer Garson….She did work in her later years and, in fact, was nominated for her 7th Oscar for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in “SUNRISE AT CAMPABELLO”….she last appeared on film in 1982 I believe….she was very happily married for almost 40 years to a gentleman named Buddy Fogelson….She developed heart problems which curtailed her ability to work in film or on stage, but was very active in Environmental issues and supported many charity’s, and was responsible for helping to fund a Theatre named after her in New Mexico…I’ve known a couple of people who have worked there in years past!.
She was 91 when she died. One would have to say that those first 10 or so years of her film career at MGM where quite extraordinary….!
Rent “RANDOM HARVEST” and “MRS MINIVER” if you can, Colleen….Her work in both these films was Stellar!!!!
April 4th, 2013 3:56 am
I didn’t realize it was April fool’s day either. I’m not big on playing tricks on people anyway. 😉
Loved the snippet on surnames.
April 4th, 2013 7:05 am
I thought I was the only person who didn’t know what the red equals sign was. Thank you! I feel better now nowing I wasn’t alone in my puzzlement.
In Roanoke there was a doctor whose last name is whizznot; he saw my husband for a urinary infection. And I once saw a GYN whose last name was Clapp.
April 4th, 2013 8:18 am
What an adorable picture of your grandson. I bet it’s fun gathering eggs with him.
http://www.miaceleste.com/?p=274
April 4th, 2013 10:03 am
Great TT! I want to comment on each and everyone like facebook, but I forgot the numbers!!
April 4th, 2013 10:19 am
re: #7 – not QUITE the same, but when I worked at Hanscom AFB, there was a General Mills 🙂
I haven’t got the heart anymore either, altho I did used to switch out the sugar on the table with salt and vice versa.
April 4th, 2013 11:54 am
Number nine is my favorite this week. I don’t know why so many people have trouble with this concept.
April 4th, 2013 4:13 pm
That’s a beautiful nuthatch. I wouldn’t mind a visit from one but it’s sad to learn that it’s all because of a cold spring. When I began understanding global warming it seemed upside down to me at first. I thought that spring and the other seasons would be warmer all the time, but as the article you highlighted says, “Melting sea ice, exposing huge parts of the ocean to the atmosphere, explains extreme weather both hot and cold.” Articles like that are good for I don’t think I was alone in my erroneous view.
It’s no April Fools that Gail Huff is just a WCVB-TV reporter not a meteorologist, or she was that before her husband, Scott Brown, ran for the U.S. Senate. When she was a broadcast journalist she did stand on the beach many a time during a storm giving her take on the situation. She’d end her bit with, “This is Gail Huff, reporting from Boston” as the wind whipped through her hair. I used to laugh at that one.
I still laugh at the name of a woman from a book site I used to frequent, Page Turner.
April 4th, 2013 5:19 pm
I thought she was a meteorologist. I’ll change the wording. I was trying to think of some last name aptronyms and she is one that always sticks in my mind. Dylan had a doctor who set his broken let who had bone in his name, which I forget the rest of.
April 4th, 2013 5:38 pm
I found this one in my saved files:
A celebrated would-be clone-maker named Richard Seed. Would you take your infertility problems to someone named Dr. Seed?”
April 4th, 2013 6:03 pm
Good quote in number 9, and regarding number 3… As a birder, you would probably appreciate the Great Gray Owl currently visiting our area. They are not usually found in Wisconsin, so to see one so far south has caused quite a stir around here.
April 4th, 2013 9:39 pm
I love your TT so much…your clever way of looking at life is always such a treat! Another fun name: a dentist in middle GA named Dr. Toof Boone!
#1 describes me perfectly….a neighbor even made that observation about me recently.
April 5th, 2013 10:42 am
that’s a fabulous quote.
April 27th, 2021 4:40 am
your grandson, Bryce looks really happy counting chickens… Thanks for sharing!