Conspiracy or Inattention?

The kids got pyjamas for Christmas. An unnecessarily large tag had to be removed from the inside of the top so the kids could wear their new outfits comfortably. I don't normally pay much attention to tags, but as I tore these out, I noticed the instructions to wash in English, French, & Spanish:


wash warm


à l'eau chaude = in hot water


en agua fría = in cold water

All the other instructions were the same, just the water temperature varied - and varied greatly! So, is it that people of different languages wash clothes differently? Is it that Joe clothing brand hired some lazy translators? Is it that someone thought it would be funny or cruel? Is it that it really doesn't matter?

Jigsaw Puzzles

My father bought me this M C Escher puzzle back in October. So, a couple weekends ago when Blaise said "let's do a puzzle!!!" I thought of this 1000 piece one in the basement that I was saving for Christmas holidays and brought it upstairs. That Friday night, Blaise helped me sort the edge pieces and even got a couple out in himself before getting bored out of his skull. I persisted late into the evening and then again the next day I worked on the monochrome problem for about 8 hours late into the following morning.

Seeing that I might never come out of this alive, Amber started to pitch in and Sunday night my mom who came for a visit added her two hands to the task. I finally finished the puzzle off on Tuesday night after what I figure to be close to 20 hours of work. I'm going to mount it and frame it.

Blaise got a puzzle at the Salvation Army Store in High River this past weekend. We assembled it together with Blaise doing most of it. He's studying geography this month, so it even tied into his formal learning.

I remember my Mémère (grandma) doing puzzles when I was young and I've always enjoyed working on them.

In French they are called casse-tête which means head-breaker. I like that.

CrossWord Puzzle for Canucks

This is my first complete 15 x 15 crossword puzzle. I'm enjoying the process of creating them after having solved them for a couple decades.

Click for larger puzzle grid

ACROSS

DOWN

1. Scot family 5. Infants 10. Right away 14. 40 phons 15. Title character in The Hobbit 16. Chaney and Chaney Jr. 17. Choir voice 18. To sing a la Tony Bennett 19. Sword 20. Harsh 22. Facing opposite of WbS 23. Indian leader 24. ___ Haw 26. Locality 28. Similarity suffix 29. North Africans 33. Smoke 34. Farm sound 35. Horn noise 36. Kind of blue 38. Meli ___ 40. Soviet leader Stalin 42. French river 44. Contagious 47. Actress Fisher 49. Born 51. ___ & Otis 52. Database language 54. Wedding vow 56. In reality 58. OS X or Windows 59. Fruit 61. Golden or black 62. What a clock does 64. A little lie 66. Noble gas 70. Jean Charest & Pauline Marois 71. Really Upset 73. Steak Sauce 74. A law in Honduras 75. City in Japan 76. NBA star "___ the Great"Thurmond 77. PM Chretien 78. Actress Sevigny 79. Fit a horse with shoes

1. Russian Emperor 2. Kinks Song 3. Queens of the colony 4. Rookies 5. Television and radio across the pond 6. River in Geneva 7. Puts spots of paint 8. Relating to African American language 9. Jr. to sr. 10. Sheltered side 11. Juvenile 12. Composer Felice 13. Sham 21. Positive vote 23. Israeli desert 25. Sub-Lt. 27. Hockey player Horton 29. Followed JFK 30. '69 Peace Prize winner 31. Southern Region of Italy 32. Fast forerunner of reggae 37. Yang's counterpart 39. Legumes 41. Cooks pancakes 43. Homer's neighbour 45. CTRL's neighbour 46. Toilet 48. Citrus Juice 50. Electric or moray 52. RCMP rank 53. Fifteen to Eduardo 55. Uncultured 57. Scanned doc 60. Foe 63. Historical village on Skeena and Bulkley Rivers 65. South African Steve 67. Shem and Ham's dad 68. Following the scent 69. Lack 71. Singer Tone ___ 72. Korean conglomerate ___woo (part.)

My Favourite Part of the Newspaper

We've been getting promotional deals on the Calgary Herald and then with the National Post off and on for the last 6 months. I enjoy reading a selection of articles, but my real fancy comes when I get to the puzzle section. The Post has a terrific Canadian crossword puzzle, and while I enjoy Will Shortz NYT puzzles, they are very American and I can't get many of the clues.



They could improve the Sudokus though by only ever including diabolical ones.

Summer holidays are great too because I actually have time to finish them at breakfast.

In the winter, I tried writing my own crossword puzzles and came close to finishing one before I had to go back to school after a break. I should revisit that and post it here. I could charge $1 per answer. Any takers?

Oklahoma Citizen's Test

(thanks to Ty for this one)

MR Ducks

MR Not Ducks

OSAR CM Wangs

O MR Ducks

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Points for the
Person who
Pegs what is in this
Picture.

Will Salomé get two in a row?

Any crackers out there to crack this one?

Puzzle Solved by Tenacious Girl in Sweatpants

Good job Salomé.

Those who are curious can see the answer here.

Some Blog Updates

For those faithful readers, I thought I would go back a few posts and provide an up-to-date report on some recent events (rather than post comments on 2-month-old posts):

Frutas Extranjeras: Found out that the jocote is also known as the spondias mombin, the gully plum, the Spanish plum, the hog plum, the Ashanti plum, the true yellow mombin, the golden apple or the Java plum. Still nothing on the others.

Goat Milk Man: Bought more milk this morning. It was yummy. Rene visited me this morning and among the topics of conversation, we talked about goats. We're going to try and get a couple goats together for milking. It means a trip to Salamá (about 75 minutes) and knocking off life goal #94

Zaak Watches Movies: Five entries so far. I'll watch another movie tonight: The Illusionist.
Q/kWh: Not one person gave me the price of electricity per kWh. I'm still in the dark.

Shackles: Well, I still don't feel absolutely free to share all that was burdening me, BUT... I was able to clear up a few things and so the burden is lighter. I was under a lot of stress, so things seemed more intense.

Backyardigans: Those white birds were snowy egrets - thanks Sirdar and Carole.

A little puzzle for you: No one has even tried. I guess this one will just have to go to the grave with me!

Baby's Name: We did come up with a beautiful boy's name in the end. In the end we also didn't need it - yet. Acadia's name on her birth certificate ended up being Robichaud Reding as Guatemalan law prevented me from giving her just one last name. On her Canadian documents it will be just Robichaud.

Switzerland invades Liechtenstein: In case you didn't read the article, the errant Swiss soldiers retreated to Switzerland. Liechtenstein remains a free and sovereign state (unlike many out there).

Pee in the Potty: Blaise is officially NOT potty trained exactly 2 months after the exciting beginning. My mom said I was well beyond 2 when I learned to use a pot. She says I would spend hours with poop in my pants and not care. This doesn't bode well for Blaise.

If the coughing fits: I spent 3 full weeks sleeping on a foam in my office. The cough lasted a little over 4 weeks and finally quit me mid-March. There was a time during the cough that I couldn't remember what it was like not to cough. The cough was viral in nature. I developed a minor sore throat and a doctor said it was a bacterial infection - I'm sure it wasn't in afterthought - and had me on antibiotics for 5 days.

Interweb Woes: I phoned AppleCare 3 times and got nearly nowhere. My ISP came by several times and I got nearly nowhere. I had to rely on my own computing sense... The internet connection would usually work for the first 5 minutes the computer was on and then lose recognition of the wireless access point and therefore produce an erroneous IP address. A fixed IP address didn't help either. What I finally figured out about 3 days ago was to add my router between the access point and the computer. The internet has virtually been uninterrupted since then. I even uploaded a 50MB file yesterday. I'm so happy.

Microtrials: 6. My paperwork arrived after 6 days (5 days later than expected). I paid the guy with nickels and dimes. 7. The rest of my 18 songs finally downloaded five days later. 8. The fax got through. Twice. I managed to contribute to my RRSPs before the end of March. Actually it got contributed twice by accident. Then fixed.

Frutas Extranjeras

I've been meaning to share some of the curious fruits I've found in the market. As usual, there are bananas, papayas, mangos, oranges, limes, lemons, pineapples, apples, berries, coconuts, apricots, melons, etc... all of which were recognizable to me, coming from Canada Then there are the alien fruits that for some reason are not marketed so much in Canada. I wonder why?



The ladies in the market called these nanzis. I don't know if that is Spanish or Poqomchí. All I do know is that these miniature apple things are not very tasty. Think mealy, semi-rotten, but not slimy rotten, apple. I think they cook them.



I present you with the zapote! This fruit has a brilliant pit in the middle and is very easy to eat. The peel comes off easily and the meat is soft. It tastes like cooked yams.



Caña de azúcar or sugar cane. Everybody has heard of it, but I tried it for the first time in Guatemala. It's actually pretty refreshing, juicy and sweet, naturally. The problem is that it's quite fibrous, so you can spend a great deal of time chomping on one bit of cane and then spend even more time with the dental floss.



This is by far my favorite of the bunch: jocote (pronounced ho-co-tay). This fruit is very juicy, slightly tart, and very sweet. The skin is edible. The pit however is rather large (most of the fruit) and you end up sucking on it to get the last bit of meat off it. Blaise is a master at this. The green jocotes can be boiled and are very tasty too.



The tasty tamarindo, or tamarind in English, is usually boiled, strained, sweetened and drank. You can buy syrups or powdered juice mixes of it. I prefer to suck the sweet and sour fruit off the amber-coloured pit. When you get this in the market, most of them are crushed and very messy - these ones are intact.



Today was the first time I've seen the ijerto (I'm guessing at the spelling). It looks a little like a shriveled orange, but is nothing like one. The meat is bright orange and tastes quite a bit like the zapote, but fruitier. There is a familiar taste to it that is familiar to me. I quite enjoyed it.

There are a few others that I'd like to introduce you to, but they aren't in season right now. Another time.

Aside from the tamarind and sugar cane, can anyone tell me what these are in English?

A little puzzle for you

I feel like this sometimes:



What does it mean?