Not having kids, or rumors of kids, I guess my perspective is kinda meaningless. But I can definitely see why you'd be ambivalent about this. We got some great neighbors last year, and I've gotten to be pretty friendly with them, but it's nice having the option to be somewhat arms-length at the same time. Not that different that picking housemates, really, except less hassle about who's not washing their dishes.
When our kids were under 5 and we lived in Canton the shared parenting we did with some good friends was a real life-saver. Talk to Molly for more details on that one.
Now that our kids are five and over, the whole street is becomming their backyard. They form little packs with the neighbor kids and run around, moving from the supervision of one family to another. This sort of thing will happen with bigger kids no matter what, as long as there are other kids in walking distance of their house. One minor problem, though, is that the families in our neighborhood very different values than ours. One family are tea-partying Christains. One grandmother makes absurdly racist remarks about immigrants. We talk to the kids about these things, and it is better generally to be expose to things and talk about them than to be shelterd from them. But still, it can get awkward. (Although debates on the existence of God in the 5 to 7 set are quite interesting)
I suggest moving next to the people you like on the assumption that you are going to be sharing a lot of parenting with any other family in your neighborhood, no matter who they are.
This post brought to mind: "Binka has three houses: one, two, three..."
Jammies grew up in neighborhoods where packs of kids roamed the streets; I didn't. We lived on the fringe of student housing and I had very few friends houses that I could walk to unsupervised. (Like, one friend across the street for one year, another friend four streets over when I was older, etc.) So it's an unfamiliar factor for me to consider.
Great idea, but you will need to sign a contract with them whereby they agree not to move from their houses for the next ten years.
No exceptions for divorce, death of one spouse, or ob change/loss.
You will need to see their life insurance policies to make sure that they can afford to stay in the house in the event that one income-earner dies.
clarification: ob changes dont matter. Just job changes.
Before Mara came into the picture when we were expecting a teen, we had the option to move in next to friends of ours (two consecutive houses beside the one we were looking at) and decided against it mostly for cost reasons, which were legit. Now, though, I kind of wish it had worked because they already have the semi-shared back yard and a system that seems to work well. Theirs grew just from being neighbors and having kids at similar times, though, and maybe that's easier.
re: 4
Man, that's sad. It probably seems very old-fashioned but kids just _should_ be out roaming in packs, semi-feral.
We live in the city and spend a lot of front porch time with our neighbors. One of our beloved neighbors has their house up for sale and we are very nervous about who might buy the house.
8: Kids were rare enough that at Halloween, more than half the houses had their lights off or forgot to buy candy. The walking:candy ratio kind of sucked.
Heebie: Dont you have an awesome, swimmable river right behind your house? The feral pack of kids should come to your house!
9: It's a lovely house and we're good people. We practice all the time, so you know we don't cause trouble.
12:
We arent worried about their noise. We are concerned that they will be some kind of crazy, anti-noise people.
11: We do! The other big argument against this move is that the other two live on the edge of town in a suburban neighborhood, and we live in the center of town, on the park with the spring-fed, clear blue river that everyone swims and tubes in, walkable to downtown, the activity center, the library, the grocery store, and the giant playground. I love our location very very much.
Although debates on the existence of God in the 5 to 7 set are quite interesting
I have a distinct memory of an argument I had at this age with two children of my religious neighbors. They were arguing for accepting Pascal's wager, whereas I felt that any deity who would set up such a situation or be appeased by belief based on that logic was unworthy of worship.
At summer camp when I was 12 I had a boyfriend. On the last weekend of camp, his girlfriend from the previous summer showed up with her parents to pick up her sibling, and he had to decide whether he wanted to be with me or get back together with her. (Don't think about this too hard - it makes no sense. No one was considering long-distance relationships. He just meant which of us he ought to be with for the very last day of camp.)
He sat me down and had written out a long letter explaining why I ultimately lost. Most of the letter was an elaborate pros and cons list. We stacked up evenly in every category, except for religion: I did not believe that people had souls. So he picked Agnes, who did.
15: God should have created more smart people?
14: Given your situation, you are wise not to do it.
Maybe I'll just keep going with that one all day. I had to check the spelling of Mariachi and everything.
16: So he was a Soul Man rather than an Ass Man
Counter offer from heebie/Jammies: have them throw in, and really do an addition to your house. Then: river commune!
The kids don't have to be as feral as all that. You can walk over to the neighbor's house with your kids, say "the kids want to play over here, is that ok? Send them back to our house if they are causing trouble." This might require some annoying small talk, but it is still a secure hand off of responsibility.
15: For a while Joey was saying "Why I don't believe in God is because who created God," which is an argument which essentially occurs 2/3 of the way into Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
16: After this traumatic incident, do you ever feign religiousity just to get a boy?
24: Not exactly, but I had one ludicrous relationship with a guy who was raised Southern Baptist. When the religion issue came to a head, I told him I'd be open to the possibility that God would try to speak to me, or something. I really tried very sincerely to squelch my interior monologue and stay open to the possibility that God might try to speak to me, until one day (after probably 2-3 months?) my monologue reasserted itself with the force of twelve angry gods, and that was that.
You can feign agnosticism and large breasts at the same time with the Wonder Bra.
23: I worried about that kind of first cause argument too. I remember wondering, as I lay in bed, essentially, "What is everything, anyhow?".
re: 23
My brother, from almost the first moment he was introduced to the concept of God [4 or 5, probably] used to always retort with a basic 'argument from Evil'.
"Eh,* if there was a God there wouldn't be all the bad things happening?"
* the Scots colloquial sound that means, "Isn't it true that....?"
I think the actual wording I used to mean "Why is there something rather than nothing?" was "Where is everything?". I worried that each time this question came to my mind there was a risk that the universe would disappear, Wile E. Coyote-style.
Whatever happened to innocence and faith? Not even in little kids?
These must be the End Times!
28: The usual argument there is that bad things come because people have free will and if God didn't give us free will, people would basically be creepy things like those real dolls.
If everyone exists in the uncanny valley, is it still uncanny?
my monologue reasserted itself with the force of twelve angry gods, and that was that.
Yes, I guess a Southern Baptist might even be less tolerant of a poytheist than an atheist.
Anyway, the point is that there is a world of wonder inside the mind of each child, and so Heebie-Geebie shouldn't feel bad about depriving her offspring of friends.
the uncanny valley
Is that the one with all the ranch dressing?
re: 31
Yeah, I'm familiar with that counter-argument [what with the philosophy degrees, etc]. But I don't think it had occurred to any of L's 5-year old class-mates, though.
37: I think the assumption is that in philosophy you just learn the anti-religion arguments.
(just like in church you only learn the pro-religion arguments)
37: Probably shouldn't be teaching them about real dolls anyway.
re: 38
Heh, I studied philosophy of religion - albeit only as an undergraduate. Also, I went to school in Scotland. None of that separation of church and state stuff for us. A good solid dose of Presbyterianism for all (but the Tims) under the guise of non-denominational education.
40: I thought you had a real job and one that was related to your education?
re: 41
[Can't quite tell if you are kidding, but ...]
I have a doctorate in philosophy, but I no longer work as an academic. I did adjunct style teaching for a while, but I'm in academic computing now. I still work on some humanities related projects, so my degree isn't entirely irrelevant, but it's not central to what I do.
I was mostly kidding, but I didn't know about the philosophy background. I'd only remembered you talking about technology issues once or twice.
Ah, OK, well I do techie stuff to do with manuscript imaging, image archiving, bibliographic metadata, that sort of thing.
||
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11929034
WTF. If you are some murdering fucking dictator you can bank with impunity.
>
14: I don't have kids so I can't really weigh the communal parenting aspect, but I would be loathe to give up such a great location. Now that I live in the city and have access to great restaurants, grocery stores, parks, etc. I don't ever want to go back to living in the suburbs.
Hijacking a tiny bit, please reassure me that it's okay to be stressed and frustrated with my partner because taking care of a three-year-old (especially after only 10 days of prep time or whatever we had) is absolutely fantastic but also has me completely exhausted and in Feminine Mystique-style emotional meltdown about how being Mommy is keeping me from being a person or having a minute to myself ever. (I've written this comment in four separate tries. Argh.)
47: I do not have the resources to stay home alone with Hawaiian Punch without losing my mind. How long are you guys on maternity leave?
Or just you, on second reading.
It's okay, Thorn. In these situations strong family communication is best, so talk it out. Make sure Mara understands that she is the cause of the strife between her parents.
Since I have no actual experience on this subject, I feel mean-spirited jokes are my best contribution.
47: Yes, everybody gets tired and cranky, especially if the kid keeps waking-up or otherwise stops uninterrupted sleep. I'd guess that adjustment is harder when it is sudden.
I was once roused in the middle of the night by a screaming three year-old who wanted, for reasons that were never made clear, to remind me that Diego rescues animals.
please reassure me that it's okay to be stressed and frustrated with my partner
It's 100% normal. Little kids do that to people very nearly without exception. I do not have it in me to stay home with my two youngest kids more than two or three days at a time. Roberta and I have been intermittently (but frequently) snappish and crabby with each other for about four years now. Being able to apologize (and, possibly more important, able to accept apologies) during calmer moments is vital. Grudge-holding and parenting do not mix.
47: good grief, yes, of course it is. Society, in its infinite polycephalous wisdom, generally cuts parents of three-year-olds a lot of slack for precisely that reason.
Also, the people who work at Cassidy's day care all day long and then go home to their own kids are incomprehensible superheroes as far as I'm concerned. I would so be leaving a trail of abused children in my wake.
Abused children and fast food wrappers.
|| No opportunity for communal parenting here, but shouldn't it really be bought by some sort of anarchist cabal? |>
Heebie, I'll go back to work at the start of the new year. I think that having this time here with her has been incredibly valuable in helping her attach and be comfortable and happy, but my gawd it's work. I cook three meals a day and clean up after them and have to provide the snacks in between, plus books and toys and toileting and clothes changes and laundry and then eventually she falls asleep, but I have to be ready for when she comes to find me in the night and needs to be held and then needs to get up at 7-something, rinse and repeat. On that last note, being able to tell her for the past few weeks that I'm going to take a shower and she can get me if she needs me gives me 5 of the most relaxing minutes of my days.
One minor problem, though, is that the families in our neighborhood very different values than ours.
I recall a bunch of hand-wringing a couple of years ago about people living in politically homogeneous neighborhoods, with sage pundits saying that we should try to live among people who don't share our values. And I thought, why in heaven's name would I want to do that?
Make sure Mara understands that she is the cause of the strife between her parents.
Something like this.
And apo, I'm working on being willing to accept apologies though I'm still plenty prickly. She responded to last night's argument by saying that she thinks she can't function without daily naps, so she needs to find a way to get those back. She might be right that her mood etc. get worse if she's not napping and I'm willing to try, but that was not what I wanted to hear as a response to how I need more help and support and sleep.
I'm going out to dinner with a friend tonight, which will be a rare child-free event and should help greatly. Being able to eat bibimbap and talk narratology soothes many ills.
I cook three meals a day
Depending on how you use "cook," I see a potential for making things easier what with sandwiches and leftovers and take-out.
59: Even with the price reduction, isn't that still a huge amount of money for a plot with no utilities? At least, it would be around here.
Have I ever explained how much work one of my cats makes for me? I feel certain you'll be able to relate, Thorn.
Jammies grew up in neighborhoods where packs of kids roamed the streets; I didn't. We lived on the fringe of student housing and I had very few friends houses that I could walk to unsupervised. (Like, one friend across the street for one year, another friend four streets over when I was older, etc.) So it's an unfamiliar factor for me to consider.
I still find that strange. From as early as I can remember, I was allowed to roam all over my neighbourhood, and starting at age nine I was allowed to bike for miles around. Soon after that we moved to Geneva where going to school meant going from one edge of the city to the other, and I routinely wandered all over the downtown area where I changed buses (or trolleybus to tram to be precise). Except for the bike anywhere part, the same was true of all my classmates. We were all fine. Has the US really gotten so dangerous over the past thirty years that this isn't a realistic option?
64 -- Overpriced as a place for a hunting camp, absolutely. But as a place to launch a revolution . . . who can put a price on that?
Has the US really gotten so dangerous over the past thirty years that this isn't a realistic option?
I've been murdered twice this week.
Has the US really gotten so dangerous over the past thirty years that this isn't a realistic option?
Not for most people, but perceptions of danger have increased among the UMC. We've talked about it before, but I haven't got the time right now to search TFA.
66 -- We were always going against the tide letting our kids out of sight in a major metro area. And now a normal fall is out with friends with guns. Or 'hey, a couple of us are going camping in the backcountry this afternoon.' Which is what my teen years were like.
63: That's kind of what the snacks are, and they're not all elaborate meals, but do all generate dishes. I think Mara's finally in the part of the growth spurt where she's stretching rather than eating all the time, but there's still a lot of eating. Anyway, this is normal and I'm mostly just whining.
Has the US really gotten so dangerous over the past thirty years that this isn't a realistic option?
I think part of it is increased risk aversion due to the trend toward smaller families. My parents had six kids, so if something happened to me, they would still have had five to spare. I have one kid - so if something were to happen to him, that would make me a genetic dead-end.
66: I was allowed all over the place on my own - I biked to the library, played in some nearby creeks a lot, etc. There just weren't other kids who lived close enough to visit without first calling them up.
75: We're your parents worried you'd be eaten by a gator?
You know, in the creek. Probably not the library.
I think it's more determined by geography than anything else. A big pack of kids makes sense in a smaller town or a tight-knit neighborhood; it wasn't really an option for me growing up b/c it was a big city and people just didn't act that way, and one had to drive to get to many of my friend's homes. Some of it is clearly paranoia; I know we've discussed some NYT article about letting one's kid ride the subway alone at age 10 and the shock and horror that produced in UMC parents. Anyhow, by the time one gets to junior high everyone's in a pack anyway.
No, those lakes are well-marked.
It's surprising that gators respect the signs.
"Alligator Crossing: You must be this tall to avoid fitting the jaws."
Anyhow, by the time one gets to junior high everyone's in a pack anyway
Not true! But I guess nobody even knew I existed anyway!
There's been a ton of research and it's totally changed over the past couple of decades. Especially among the middle-classes. Working class kids are still more free to wander.
There's that famous graphic of the geographic changes in childhood territories in and around, I think Sheffield. I can't bloody find it right now, though, which is a failure of google-skillz.
In my ghetto neighborhood, one sees kids playing on the street all the time, setting up soccer goals, wandering around, etc., but that's pretty unusual in the richer sections of the city. Seeing younger kids wandering around a genuinely pretty dangerous big city provokes (even in me, tbh) an "OMG neglectful parents" response. I'm pretty sure that if my six year old got injured dodging a car while playing street soccer with the neighbors, the family court judge wouldn't be too sympathetic to my argument about childhood freedom.
Has the US really gotten so dangerous over the past thirty years that this isn't a realistic option?
Taking that as two questions: no and yes, respectively.
I mean, it's not like "Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won't drown" is actually taken seriously these days.
We were allowed to roam freely up and down the street, but we couldn't go into the woods at the bottom of the hill. I still remember the time spent in those woods fondly.
We also were not allowed to crawl up the storm drain that emptied into the creek at the bottom of the hill. And we certainly weren't allowed to crawl all the way up the drain to where our house was and then make howling noises from underneath the curbside drain. Which was completely unreasonable. It was a storm drain. Its not like there was sewage in it.
I mean, it's not like "Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won't drown" is actually taken seriously these days.
Or the Ransome If Not Duffers Doctrine, as it is more commonly known.
Has anyone worked out whether UMC people in the far suburbs/actual country have become cautious as fast as urban/periurban ones? That would be some check of the 'fewer kids' theory.
Have I ever explained how much work one of my cats makes for me?
Surely, you jest. I'm cat-sitting for someone this week, and the only unsettling thing is how much waste the two buggers produce. Having done the work on both the input- and output-side of the cats, I'm beginning to suspect they're violating the law of conservation of mass.
We used to, and I kid not, play in the grounds of the mental hospital near where we lived. That said, we had to stay within a few hundred metres of the house until we were about 6 or 7, and within half a mile or so until we were about 8 or 9. After that, anywhere practical was fair game. Aged about 11 or 12 we'd cycle 3 or 4 miles, and then climb through the woods to here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qr-Ry5DtiU
http://www.ntgraphics.co.uk/walksandwoodlands/torwood.html
or climb in the ruins here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szmytke/7912864/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szmytke/7912865/
90: Maybe they steal food while you sleep.
Alternate theory -- today's kids mostlly prefer the virtual experience of danger and violence(video games) to actual danger and violence.
I spent half my childhood wandering around unsupervised with friends in the nearby forest and creek. That's why I took a bit of satisfaction from the collapse of real estate market, as it caused the orcs who built McMansions on my stomping grounds to go bankrupt. Fuckers.
I am completely jealous of preteen ttaM: I always wanted some ruins to play in.
Has anyone worked out whether UMC people in the far suburbs/actual country have become cautious as fast as urban/periurban ones?
In my old neighborhood, judging by number of kids waiting for the school bus at the bottom of their driveways with their parents in parked SUVs, the answer is that country parents are just as paranoid as urban parents.
45: But his activities were "verging on the criminal"! So, you know, not actually criminal, but pretty close!
95: If you supply a local zip code, I'm sure ttaM can round up some Scots who are willing to come ruin some shit there.
90: Well, I did jest, but (don't call me Shirley) this particular cat is rather needy. If he hears me putting on my shoes to leave he jumps up on my knees and begins nuzzling and kneading. If he hears me leave the shower he whines until I let him on my shoulders, where he begins nuzzling and kneading. Etc.
So, you know, totally like Thorn's situation with Mara.
My son received his street-crossing license at the beginning of second grade. He rides his bicycle in a radius that includes to several friends' homes and a park. Unfortunately, none of the other kids parents have extended comparable privileges so it gets awkward sometimes.
What really sucks: below third grade kids can't ride bicycles to school, and must be accompanied by an adult if they walk. This year he's stuck on the bus.
We live in a middle-middle class suburb but our street is a tanker truck route without sidewalks in spots, so there's a safety issue for kids who don't stay on the edge, or conceivably for a kid who falls off a bicycle at a very bad luck moment.
The typical kid among my childhood friends had one sibling, with a fair number of only children and three kid families. More than three was very rare. So about the same as now, right?
I know we've discussed some NYT article about letting one's kid ride the subway alone at age 10 and the shock and horror that produced in UMC parents.
Yes, and I probably mentioned my school commute. Even seven or eight year olds in my school tended to come to school by public transit without any parental supervision. The school operated one small bus for those who lived in exurban villas far from bus stops or commuter rail stations, and that's it. Nor were kids ferried around to activities or friends by car unless the destination was inaccessible by bus. When we moved to Geneva my parents went with me the first few days to make sure I knew the way, and then I was fine. They had also made sure I knew all the proper bike routes and bike safety before they let me go from town to town in our suburban Boston area back in the US (along moderately trafficked roads with no bike paths, well before cell phones). I sometimes wonder if in this day and age their approach would have gotten CPS called on them. What do UMC NYC parents of post elementary school kids do? Are they really ferrying them all over the place? That seems like a horrible and unnecessary hassle.
In conclusion: We were all raised great, now everyone but our kids are raised for shit. Can we move on to posting our SAT scores.
In fairness, though, Geneva is a ludicrously safe place.
What do UMC NYC parents of post elementary school kids do? Are they really ferrying them all over the place?
Not in NY, but I believe they are, yes. Or their nannies are.
103: We're just the messengers, Stormcrow. Your parenting failures are your own.
Stormcrow, I hate to break it to you, but you weren't raised all that well.
I don't remember ever being given rules on where I could or couldn't go on my own. I guess my parents were just happy if I was going anywhere, hoping that maybe, someday, I would have a friend.
I sometimes wonder if in this day and age their approach would have gotten CPS called on them.
Yes.
103 I think this is more 'get off my lawn'. You need to get your genres straight.
107: peep, I would have been your friend! We could have roamed in a pack and everything.
Lieberman: Let's Stay In D.C. Until DADT Is Repealed
I would applaud this as a principled stand, but I know that he's just jealous because there's no eggnog at Hanukkah.
My parents were pretty cool with the wandering around, until my friends and I were falsely arrested at age 13 for an assault and robbery we didn't commit and nearly shot to death by the LAPD when we tried to run. Then we escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground needed to lie to our parents and hitch a ride in some older kid's car to do anything.
111: I'm so excited! Can I move in next door?
I remember very specifically that I wasn't allowed to cross the street without an adult when I was five, because other kids my age were allowed to, and they'd taunt me about it.
My kids are never anywhere without adult supervision.
113: I have to give him credit for this. Even breaking with his best buddy, McCain!
117: My son keeps explaining to me that he is faster than cars. That scares me shitless.
Sally's eleven, and is lobbying hard for the right to commute by subway without an adult (it's about forty minutes). I'm ready, Buck isn't. Some kids her age do (her best friend the piano prodigy. If they went to the same school, I think Buck would be fine with letting them go together.) but no one much younger. As it is, she and three friends get driven to school by a neighborhood woman with a minivan who charges us for it.
Newt walks home ten blocks from elementary school, with two friends but occasionally alone. He has a broad network of small businesses at which he can wander in and chat or get any assistance necessary (Bobby the butcher, Ray the barber, Johnny Doo-wop at the deli...)
We're a little on the lax end for UMC parents, but not that far off the norm. Some poorer families are a little more relaxed than we are, but again not all that much.
Also remember a very pleasant and wasted mid-summer morning watching the sun rise after all night boozing, from the toP of here:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/1663/hills_of_dunipace.html
105, 106: Somehow I want to apply the great Rocky Bridges' quote, "I managed good but boy did they play bad" to both of these.
109: I think this is more 'get off my lawn'. You need to get your genres straight.
Sort of, but apparently it would be, "you kids and your adult supervisor(s) get off my lawn" which is not sufficiently snappy.
125: The finest ethnic slur based hair stylist.
125: Yep. It's a colorful ethnic neighborhood.
(Actually, it's Johnny's Doo-Wop Deli. I'm not sure than anyone actually refers to Johnny as Johnny Doo-Wop, but it's a natural way to differentiate him from other possible Johnnies.)
120: Bobby the butcher
Would that be the butcher at the Broadyke Meat Market?
Johnny Doo-wop is so called on account of the time he "sang" to the cops, necessitating an unpleasant visit from Bobby the Butcher.
116: Sure! (Where do you live, anyway, peep? If said info doesn't unduly compromise your anonymity.)
132: The heart of the heart of it all. It begins with nothing and ends with nothing and has a big "hi" in the middle.
I love you, Ben. Don't ever change.
134: How 'bout them Blue Jackets?
I used to take the bus right by where the arena is. I bet that an abandoned prison makes for easier commuting than a hockey game.
136, 137: I work right accross from the arena.
That's a few blocks away, I guess. I used to work the state office tower. The old, uglier one.
141: You sound like you're saying that's a bad thing!
But, no, I don't work for White Castle. I would say your 142 is underestimating the distance to the nearest White Castle.
34: There's where I and a few others hereabouts went to college. Our yearbook had the same name, except with the syllables flipped around so that there was nothing in the middle and "hi" on either end. If I think of it as '20's lingo, it doesn't annoy me. (I'm not sure how far the name goes back, but it's at least to the '20's.) And then I found 5 clams, daddy-o.
143: White Castle Corporate was (is?) right there off Neil Ave. by the freeway.
144: Oh! My best friend from high school and my niece went there!
146: Oh! I guess it is still there. I thought you meant a White Castle restaurant.
144: Looks like it goes even further back:
http://www.amazon.com/Hi-O-Hi-1905-Oberlin-College-Yearbook/dp/B003EDAFBO
It's like somebody looked into the future and saw, through a haze, LOL Cats.
150: Yes, looks like to at least 1889. From When DFH College was king of the gridiron: the Heisman years (they were duking it out with Chicago).
...the students, gathered on the steps of the library, took it upon themselves to make official a college yell, "Hi-O-Hi" ... The graduating class of 1889 bragged that it was "the first one to make the campus ring" with the yell
152: Maybe by reverse logic, that shows there still may be hope for the Blue Jackets.
I can report that as an athlete there (not football, though) for four years in the 1970s I never once heard a "Hi-o-Hi" yell and only am only now learning its history.
I went to a large land grant university nearby. They did, as you probably know, "O-Hi-O" at football games. I wonder if one is in reaction to the other.
To the tune of Hang on Sloopy, like at the Native Americans' games?
The band does Hang on Sloopy, but that's a different thing.
|| Those of you pining for one of those neat anti-zombie swords they make here will be pleased to learn that we have a new worker owned collective clothing store downtown, so you can wear a stylish shirt while standing guard against mythical creatures. One of the designs is very nearly the streetscape from my window, so you can go with that. Maybe I ought to have shirts printed up . . . |>
Maybe the Natives chant O H I O.
There won't be employees, only independent contractors. The ethics of all things business are important, too…
These statements seem at odds, but whaddo I know?
160: As do 26% of the states in the union.
All numbers in my hometown had the same prefix, so I only had to learn four numbers.
I mean, I only had to learn four numbers to call somebody after I'd learned the initial three numbers. In school, they made me learn a whole bunch of numbers.
I recall vaguely that we had four-digit dialing when I was a kid. And my middle-school girlfriend's family had a party line. Try telling that to kids these days, they won't believe you. Also, when Oregon got a second area code a while back, for years I couldn't keep the last two digits straight, and kept calling Quebec. "Allo?"
Cousins of ours still have a Flushing phone number that begins FL-then five numbers, which has been in their family since the 40s or 50s.
I visited a village once that had one-digit phone numbers. It didn't mean you could ring someone up by just dialling one number, though, because there was only one phone in the village (its phone number was "1").
Where did all of this area-code-as-a-source-of-civic-pride stuff originate?
The first time it came to my attention was a picture from the 2003 or 2004 Coachella, where an Atmoshpere fan was holding up a handmade cardboard-and-marker sign that read, simply: "612 BITCH!" And then within a year or two everybody had 612 or 651 baseball caps.
168: Did you have to pass through a phantom tollbooth to get to the village?
Where did all of this area-code-as-a-source-of-civic-pride stuff originate?
I think of it as an L.A. thing; certain area codes are held to be declasse (I think Sandra Tsing Loh based a whole article on that once).
Okay, it was the 2004 Coachella, and the cow-orker I go to for determinations on what is hip confirmed that you didn't really start seeing it on clothes until then.
Where did all of this area-code-as-a-source-of-civic-pride stuff originate?
Don't know where, but I think it happened when so many people had several phones (landlines, cells, faxes, etc) that new area codes had to be introduced. At least, friends who had to get something outside 212 got Very Twitchy.
The [406] thing would be independent of that. It distinguishes locals from tourists, I guess.
I think of it as an L.A. thing; certain area codes are held to be declasse (I think Sandra Tsing Loh based a whole article on that once).
There was the scene in Swingers where Jon Favreau's character gets a girl's number and his friends ask him which area code it's from, too.
And this store (not in L.A.) has been around for at least a decade.
Well there was always a hierarchy, with coastal elites getting the "easy-to-dial" ones (212, 213 etc.) while the bob mcmanuses in the middle were burdened with longer spins (on ye olde rotary phones). Judging from articles that come up in searches, NY & LA unsurprisingly seem to lead in current area code status concerns, Tech entrepreneurs are especially hungry for the coveted area code [212 - JPS], saying it connotes authority and legitimacy, something valuable for start-up companies. "I don't pick up 917, 646, and definitely not 347. I think it's not business-related," Ashley Granata, chief marketing officer at a fashion advice site, told WSJ.
By 2001, Ludacris had established, if not a hierarchy of area codes, then at least a criterion for variation.
176: I think it is partly Bell Labs created. It was agreed beforehand (don't know how or with whom) that 0-200 were off limits. That left 201 as the very first area code that could be assigned -- and Bell Labs gave it to itself. Go NJ! Our nations capital got the second.
I have this fantasy of all my best friends living in a very large apartment building, or at least in the same neighborhood. Most people I tell this to find it absolutely horrifying. I can't help it. I miss people when they leave the room almost.
Also, the The Untuned Mariachi Band Institute comment cheered me almost fully out of the mood one would be in on a bus driving through light snow to the city jail.
Henry Winkler is selling reverse mortgages, in case anybody is wondering what happened today to make me feel old.
181: Man, his career really jumped the shark, didn't it?
You can tell the old school area codes from the new ones by the middle digit. It used to have to be 0 or 1 to allow area code dialing to be optional.
Virginia had straight-edge "gangs" with area-code-based names (H804 and 7-fight-7, for instance) in the late 1990s, but that seemed to be less about civic pride and more about punching kids who smoked cigarettes at punk shows.
You couldn't start an area code with 0 because that dialed the operator. And you couldn't start an area code with 1 because that indicated a long distance call.
I visited a village once that had one-digit phone numbers. It didn't mean you could ring someone up by just dialling one number, though, because there was only one phone in the village (its phone number was "1").
Who is Number One?
You are Number Six.
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Stanley and other coldish weather people: running home tonight I was sure snot running from my nose was freezing in my hypothetical future beard. Balaclavas may be useful for later in the winter.
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184: You couldn't smoke, but punching was "straight?"
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Stanley and other coldish weather people: running home tonight I was sure snot running from my nose was freezing in my hypothetical future beard. Balaclavas may be useful for later in the winter.
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So cold I had to post it twice.
187: At close to zero (F), snot will freeze in your nose.
"Jacobia" is evidently the plural, hence multiple posts.
178: Go NJ! Our nations capital got the second.
201 was "special", but since the "0" actually was the furthest around the dial (Bell not having seen the wisdom of zero-based indexing--maybe the experience of all those long zero dials spurred the thought) 212 was the quickest under the rules at the time.
I once had 43210 as a zip code. It made me feel special.
Where did all of this area-code-as-a-source-of-civic-pride stuff originate?
Leaving aside where it originated, there certainly was a bit of a hullabaloo in Mass. when certain areas to the west of Boston were taken out of the 617 area code and given some new completely ridiculous made-up number (978 in the case of my home town -- like who has an area code like that?? So provincial.)
Seriously, though, I think people's feeling was that, with 617, you were part of the Boston area, and being switched out of it meant that now you no longer counted as a greater Bostonian. I beg your pardon! Sniff.
194: In fact area code 321 was assigned to Brevard County, Florida in 1999 in honor of Cape Canaveral. 54321 is not a real zip code.
you no longer counted as a greater Bostonian
It's cool. You can still drive like an asshole.
Oh, that only happens in Boston. They're kind of weird there. Not to mention the accents.
198: As well as weighing in on the pop/soda debate with tonic (I'm guessing this is dying out these days?).
In Boston, you can rate highway tunnels on the internet. The one selected by the most people becomes the Big Digg.
"Tonic" is dying out. Since that is the term in my native dialect, I am saddened. But, we'll always have Moxie.
Oh, what-if the Walker children had been duffers? Search for missing children ends.
Dear lord, my father loved Moxie. Gross stuff, I always thought, but he also liked to say a person had to have Moxie/i>. I haven't thought about that in ages.
Oh - assume that tag close is done correctly there.
Neti pot users: "come on then if you think you're hard enough," would be an appropriate title for this video.
Moxie's awesome. Makes for good cocktails, too.
Moxie's awesome for like two sips, but drinking a whole can is totally sick-making.
I can barely remember it, and actually thought it wasn't made any more. I have a vague recollection of it as peppery and very sweet, almost burn-your-tongue peppery (sharp - acidic?), but this is coming from my memory from age 13 or so. The memory of sweet syrupyness may be from Moxie that wasn't cold enough. I think you wanted it to be pretty cold.
Anyway, huh.
We had a discussion about Moxie before. Further to the earlier thread, Hotlips pear soda is the best thing in the world. Hotlips boysenberry is maybe second best.
We don't need area codes to tell eachother apart: our license plates are coded. 13 means Right Wing Wacko. 15 means Native (Flathead). 38 means Native (Blackfeet). 22 means Native (Crow). 5 means state employee. 6 means student or recent grad from the Udder University. 1 means either miner looking for a fistfight, or offspring of a miner, looking for a fistfight. 7 means displaced Californian. 3 means money. 51 means no money. 4 is presumptively hippie.
Chinotto tastes like less sweet Moxie. I like it with gin.
The other big Maine beverage is Allen's coffee brandy, a truly vile substance, also known as "Maine Champagne". If you mix it with Moxie, the drink is called a "Burnt Trailer". Don't do this.
I think I'll have one right now.
Well, that was an interesting detour to the MT DMV website. Billings is really known as a place with money?
4 is presumptively hippie.
This is making me laugh.
My dad used to say that Moxie puts hair on your chest. He said that about a variety of things, though. Okay, Dad.
And my middle-school girlfriend's family had a party line. Try telling that to kids these days, they won't believe you.
We had a party line until I was well into high school. We lived just on the edge of a different phone exchange than anyone else in my school, a very rural one. When friends came over they would always think we were ignoring phone calls when we got the little half rings to let us know someone else was on the line.
212: Is that by county? Nebraska does that and I used to know a huge number of them.
195: 413 for life!
I won't presume to comment on parenting, but if it makes anybody feel better, my father, my uncle, my brother and I have all, at various times, been called or called ourselves "feral." Nowhere to go from there but up, folks.
31: My current theory on why bad things happen is that stuff happens and it is only our limited perspective that makes it "bad." My friend who has just finished her final treatment for breast cancer (except for the forthcoming reconstruction) describes her experience with cancer as a blessing and sincerely means it. She survived and has a newfound clarity about what she wants from life.
She survived and has a newfound clarity about what she wants from life.
BACON!
She survived and has a newfound clarity about what she wants from life.
She's going to marry a doctor and move to a Navajo reservation?
She survived and has a newfound clarity about what she wants from life.
Probably, she doesn't want breast cancer.
"Eh,* if there was a God there wouldn't be all the bad things happening?"
"The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over...."*
* Bonhoeffer, from prison.
224: Careful or that kind if thinking will get you made into an economist.
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My friend in the workhouse was gay-bashed in the last couple of days. Thankfully, they moved him to a different wing, and he only has a week to go. Fucking jailers.
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Living in the 420 area code is probably good for giggles if you're a pot smoker in Wisconsin. Apropos: this is the most awesome dialogue I've ever come across on Yahoo answers.
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While house-sitting, I keep having to resist the urge to make my preferences known to the homeowner's Pandora stations (which I was welcomed and encouraged to listen to). I keep almost clicking and then realizing that would be untoward.
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229: Fill the TiVo with General Hospital and public access's city council meetings.
AutoCorrect will insist on the corporate capitalization of TiVo, but won't spell Pittsburgh with the 'h'.
Not only is there no TiVo, but she doesn't even own a TV—for reals.
222-24:
It's nice when we're offered a selesction of jokes. It's like a dessert tray.
It's by county, yes. But the numbers are based on the number of vehicles in the late 20s, or sometime. So Butte is still 1, although if you did it today, it might be 6 or 7 I think. Except they somehow got 9 and 49 mixed up. (Maybe this was intentional, because the county that should have been 9 is adjacent to the one that is 6.)
Chances are that someone driving around here from Billings is either a student, or a business person of some kind. In a nice car, it's an alum coming to a basketball game or something. Billings is 350 miles away.
It's handy for stereotyping while cursing another driver. Idaho codes too, but with letters, so it's not as fun.
186: weirdly, this village was also very difficult to get out of (no roads).
Just in the middle of a Prisoner rewatch now. Christopher Nolan totally stole the plot of one episode for "Inception".
Postcodes play a similar role to area codes in the UK; for years, a noisy campaign in the Windsor and Maidenhead area whined about being in the SL- prefix (short for Slough) because there are poor people in Slough and some of them are the wrong colour (I paraphrase, but not much). Some of them even went so far as to actually use an unofficial postcode - presumably, the Royal Mail just treated them as having no postcode. Time after bleeding time the Mail explained to them that the postcode system was designed to route the post and not to express snobbery.
In big cities there is sometimes gang violence between postcodes.
Supposedly the NANPA NXX numbering scheme works on the principle that the highest traffic prefixes should have the shortest pulse train, as the old style phone switch waited on the line to receive the whole pulse train of the area code before it processed anything. Multiplied by all the calls coming into a tandem for the 212 area code, you can see that the additional waiting time per call would be a significant performance issue. Hence 202 for Washington DC, 212 for NY, 213 for LA.
Since SS-7 and out of band signalling, there's no routing content in an area code and this isn't an issue any more. However, I've met quite a few European C-level telco people whose office numbers take the form IDD country code-capital city area code-telco's PBX-0001, which can't be coincidence. It's usually the CTO.
Bostonians should feel totally dissed by this thing.
From Wikipedia: At first, the codes were used only by long-distance operators; the first customer-dialed calls using area codes did not occur until November 10, 1951, when the first directly-dialed call was made from Englewood, New Jersey to Alameda, California.
Hmm, pretty damn close to a reverse of the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel.
My mom says I'm the smartest guy around but, of course, she never met any of you guys. Still, she's the best!
When I was a small child our phone number was "village name" + 2 digit number. The phone was the type where you wind the side handle to alert the operator who will put the call through manually. At this time the phone and postal system were all run by the same government department. My granddad was the postmaster and the post office and manual exchange were in part of our house. The exchange was a bit similar to this. We were fascinated by the whole operation of call connection. The operator in her bakelite headset would get the attention of the main exchange by calling out the name of ours over and over like a mantra until she heard them call out theirs in response. Eventually with plugging out and plugging in of the various connectors the parties would be connected.
People who made calls after 3am would have to be put through by my grandad who would have to get out of bed to do so. Inconsiderate persons ringing from abroad would get a few acid comments if they did not seem to realise there was a time difference.
A few years later we got a digital exchange and rotary phones. I notice children's toy phones still look like this, not resembling any phone that any child has ever actually seen.
