{"id":37467,"date":"2026-06-26T09:30:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37467"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:30:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:30:58","slug":"clickety-clack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37467","title":{"rendered":"Clickety Clack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donna’s on her way to Michigan. By train.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

Polly and I dropped her off at the Amtrak station early yesterday. By rail, it’s three days from Tucson to Toledo, then a couple of hours by car to Michigan. Donna’s traveling heavy, but the big roller case in the first photo holds a sewing machine she’s giving to her sister, so at least she won’t have to lug that one home later. She’s traveling with her BFF Millie, who lives in Queen Creek, outside Phoenix. They have adjoining first class\u00a0 cabins to Chicago, where they change trains for Toledo. Donna’s sister Georgie will meet them there and drive them the rest of the way. Millie has her own people to visit in Michigan; Donna’s staying with Georgie in Hamtramck and visiting two other sisters while she’s there. I hope the visit recharges her batteries … she’s been looking forward to it for months. Donna just sent the second photo, by the way, from somewhere in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Donna<\/a><\/td>\n\"IMG_5597\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Yesterday afternoon Donna sent me a grim iphone video of the US\/Mexico border fence in El Paso, which brought back memories of rolling through Potsdam on our way to Berlin<\/a><\/strong> on the Cold War troop train. I expect additional (and happier?) progress reports today and tomorrow. Taking the train seems like a great adventure, but everyone says that by the end of a two- or three-day trip you’re more than ready to get the hell off it. Anyway, the train journey is just one way … they’re flying home on the 9th of July.<\/p>\n

The dogs already miss their mom. They’re restless this morning, making the particular whines and barks they make when they hear a car crunching into our gravel driveway, and I’m willing to bet they think it’s Donna coming home. Gonna be a long two weeks for these two … and for me and Polly as well.<\/p>\n

This trip is Donna’s summer vacation and 80th birthday present. I’ll be turning 80 myself in October, and my birthday present will be the car trip we’re planning through New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. Of course I’m hoping to sneak in another watch purchase, but we’ll have to see what’s left of our mad money after our travels.<\/p>\n

Speaking of travel and vacations, our son Gregory and daughter in law Beth are in Jolly Olde, where so far they’ve visited London, the town of Woodford (with a side visit to Woodford Rugby Club), Wales, the Cotswolds, and Jeremy Clarkson’s pub. They’re presently in Edinburgh. Since they traveled from their home outside Las Vegas at the height of the summer, they’re not suffering from the historic heatwave nearly as much as the Brits and the Scots, but they did bail on one B&B for the comforts of an air-conditioned hotel.<\/p>\n

\n

Saw this on Reddit yesterday:<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes you hear people mispronounce words, usually foreign ones or the kind of high-falutin’ ones not heard in everyday speech. I never cast shade on those who do this, because it shows they learned the word by reading and were curious enough to look it up and brave enough to try using it themselves. Just their poor luck they never heard it spoken out loud and thus didn’t know how to pronounce it. I do this myself, especially with foreign words, and always cringe when I’m about to say something I know I’ll mangle. I only realized a month ago I’ve been saying “homage” wrong, giving it a French pronunciation when it doesn’t really have one.<\/p>\n

But gross spelling errors and eggcorns<\/a><\/strong>? Clearly Mister Rocket Signs has never willingly cracked a book, or even read a newspaper. Because if he’d ever seen “it’s not rocket science” in print he’d never make this kind of mistake. People who think reading’s an unpleasant chore and avoid it at all costs, unless they suffer from dyslexia or something, are eminently shade-worthy. And to write “anymore” when you mean “any more?” That’s downright contemptible.<\/p>\n

\n

Speaking of contemptible, the Supreme Court is going to undo the 14th Amendment and end birthright citizenship, isn’t it? I feel it coming. Hope I’m wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donna’s on her way to Michigan. By train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,10,555,2,21],"tags":[3745,2320,4908,820,4057],"class_list":["post-37467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-current-events","category-local-color","category-personal","category-words","tag-holidaytravel","tag-resist","tag-chattanoogachoochoo","tag-eggcorns","tag-fucktrump-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37467"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37478,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37467\/revisions\/37478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}