As seen from Amtrak headed toward New Orleans.
December 2019
Progress.
We are making progress on our Amtrak ride to New Orleans. According to Apple Maps we have about 185 miles to go.
We both had a decent night’s sleep and feel pretty good. Sharlene in the dining car has been very nice and we enjoyed a very good breakfast sandwich this morning. I also had “coffee, black”.
As we were in Memphis at sunrise and now we’re keeping it low key as we make our way down through Mississippi. I’ve never been the length of Mississippi before, the scenery and small towns are giving me a better perspective of the state. I’m happy for the experience.
Ride.
Earl and I are on our way to New Orleans for an extended weekend. About an hour ago our Amtrak train, appropriately named “City of New Orleans” left Union Station Chicago. We are in an upper level Roomette on a sleeper car. We just enjoyed dinner in the Dining Car.
The roomette is quite quaint. It’s like having two first class seats on a B777 facing each other with the option of popping up a table between the seats or dropping a bed from the ceiling. I’ll be sleeping on the top bunk tonight.
The train ride in just shy of 20 hours long. I’m enjoying watching the scenery go by at 70-80 MPH, even if it’s currently 9:00 PM at night. I’m comfortable and content.
This Amtrak ride is a test to see if we’ll enjoy riding across 2/3 of the country in a similar configuration, either to or from Los Angeles from or to Chicago. I look forward to that trek across the desert.
This will be our third trip to New Orleans in 23 years; and my fourth time total. It should be a fun little vacation.
The Horror’s.
You don’t know how much it pained me to abuse the apostrophe in the title of this blog post. If you’re unaware of what I’m talking about, this blog post is for you.
First of all, in common parlance the title should read “the horror”. Because I was trying to make a point, I pluralized “horror” to “horror’s” which should have been “horrors”. The horror doesn’t own anything. In this instance the apostrophe is trying to show possession. The horror doesn’t possess anything.
Apostrophes are used to show what the word has (possessive use) or what the word is missing (a contraction). Apostrophes are _never_ used to denote plural. Ever.
I recently read something at work where a distant co-worker basically referred to “The Jone’s”. Luckily, I work remotely, hundreds of miles from my closest co-worker, but there’s a chance they could still hear my screams.
First of all, we never use an apostrophe for the plural. Secondly, the last name in question was not “Jone”, it was “Jones”. If a house belonged to the Jones, it would be “the Jones’ house”, or possibly, “the Jones’s house” (though that makes me cringe a bit). If we are talking about the folks in the family, we’d be talking about the Joneses. Because when we want to use the plural form of a word ending in “s”, we add an “es”. Not an apostrophe, and we certainly don’t change the spelling of a name to something it’s not just to wedge an apostrophe into inappropriate places.
While I’m on a rant, use the loops of your pants to keep your trousers up because you’re losing weight and subsequently your pants have a looser fit. That’s because you didn’t eat two desserts in the desert after you deserted the rest of the group. And honestly, I couldN’T care less how much weight you’ve gained or lost. If I could care less I probably would.
Please take notes.
I mention all of this because today I read a story about “The Apostrophe Protection Society” closing up shop, basically because the efforts of the society have become a lost cause. The founder of “The Apostrophe Protection Society”, John Richards, age 96, has decided to abandon the effort, citing society has become too stupid and lazy to use apostrophes properly.
I feel his pain.
Cautious.
Truman is adjusting to the relocation of his cat tree to accommodate one of three Christmas trees in our home this year. He has batted at the bottom row of branches and has climbed up as far as the second from the bottom row of branches. So far he has not bothered any of the ornaments. The styrofoam and other less fragile ornaments are along the bottom of the tree.
Since this is Truman’s first holiday season living with us we’re not sure how he’s going to be around all the extra merriment. We have a couple of long weekends away coming up, so the big Christmas tree won’t go up for another two weeks. The smaller trees will help us gauge how he’s going to react.
It’s good to ease him into the change. Actually, it’s good to ease us into the change. We all know he runs the roost.
