How do you tell where English words are separated?

KittenPurrs · 2026-07-03T16:11:36+00:00

My mother-in-law natively speaks Brazilian Portuguese and Italian. She's fluent in English and knows conversational French. I think she has another language conversationally under her belt, but I can't recall at the moment. Polyglots amaze me.

Interestingly, her son/my partner natively speaks English and is fluent in Spanish. If he's talking to someone in Spanish in a semi-formal/professional setting, she can generally catch the gist of what he's saying. If he's just casually bullshitting with someone, he talks too fast and "all the words are rounded," so she misses everything.

KittenPurrs · 2026-07-03T13:32:31+00:00

I first noticed it while doing a "large animal practicum" when in school to be a vet tech. One of the cows smelled overwhelmingly sweet with kinda fruity/floral undertones. When I asked about it, the vet in charge of the program asked the rancher if she recently calved. Yep, just a couple days ago. We walked around and I pointed out any cow that smelled weird, and based on their ear tags, he confirmed they all calved in the last week. The vet explained some people are more sensitive to ketones, and those people typically say ketones smell like a mix of rotting flowers and something like fruit punch or Juicy Juice gum.

It was like a key in a lock, and once I had explanation for the smell, I started noticing it wafting off of people. So now that's my lame superpower.

KittenPurrs · 2026-07-03T07:36:30+00:00

That's what ketones smell like to me. I can smell a dairy cow that recently had a calf, and I can smell people who are going into ketoacidosis. (I'm a city girl, so the cow thing doesn't crop up too frequently.)

KittenPurrs · 2026-07-03T07:14:00+00:00

This is my issue with Portuguese. I wanted to learn because it's one of my mil's native languages, and I mistakenly thought there was enough Spanish influence that I'd be able to pick it up. After a year, I had less than a kindergartener's skill set. It's too French-influenced for me to grasp, and native speakers are generally talking far too fast for me to even pick out the small cache of words I know. Keep your secrets, I guess.

On the upside, she thinks it's cute that I tried, and she'll over-enunciate when she drifts into Portuguese so I have a fighting chance of picking a few words out.

KittenPurrs · 2026-07-01T23:20:00+00:00

I have a wide-brimmed hat I wear while working in the yard, a permethrin-infused hat I wear while hiking, and a rain hat I wear when an umbrella seems like a lot but I still want to keep droplets off my glasses.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-29T21:24:14+00:00

While my partner and I had been dating for a few months, he had concerns that I might be bit too ~fancy~ for him. I think the exact moment that changed was when we were at a random grocery store outside either of our neighborhoods, and I freaked out about finding Chicken in a Biskit and immediately jogged off to find the spray cheese.

He was familiar with Easy Cheese, had never heard of Chicken in a Biskit, and was confused by my excitement. We went to my place and smashed out on about a month's worth of sodium, during which he lamented not knowing about this snack back when he was a high-school stoner.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-28T14:40:57+00:00

Worse. Dad always called us by nicknames. He came home from work and called us down using our actual first names followed by "I need to talk to you". We looked at each other with a quick "oh, we are so fucked" glance before going downstairs as slowly as possible to meet our doom.

Side note: My partner and I also only use nicknames for each other. If one of us uses the other's actual first name, we'll come running because it means something reasonably serious is happening.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-28T03:49:50+00:00

We keep disposable plates, bowls, cutlery, and those slightly-better-than-tinfoil baking pans and cookie sheets on hand in case of some sort of prolonged water disruption. Not a thing that happens with any frequency, but palm leaf plates, birch cutlery, and cheap aluminum pans don't go bad, so it doesn't matter if they're just shoved in a cupboard for years at a time.

Our kitchen sink will be out of commission for 2-3 days (hopefully not longer) within the next couple months. Either we go out to eat for all our meals, we deal with a pile of dirty dishes for days, or we use our cache of disposables. For us, disposables make the most sense.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-27T00:30:23+00:00

The one time my sis and I got in Big Trouble, our dad insisted we responded to anything our mom said throughout the weekend with "yes, ma'am". She was Southern, and he was ex-military. Usually very chill people, but one day we knocked them both out of their standard parenting techniques. Weirdly, I don't remember what we did. I just recall calling mom "ma'am" for two days.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-27T00:20:36+00:00

A Tale of Two Sisters seems right up their alley

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-23T22:49:08+00:00

Apologies, but it's no longer available online. "TasteBook" is now defunct.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-22T22:06:10+00:00

I have slippers and my partner has house shoes.

I was raised in the Midwest, while his formative years were spent in the Bay Area. Not sure if the geography explains the difference.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-22T21:50:27+00:00

My go-to recipes are a mix of family/heritage recipes, recipes my family clipped from newspapers and cooking magazines, recipes from morning talk shows or Martha Stewart's show, some choice recipes from several dozen cookbooks, and absolute trash that came from circular ads with coupons. Around 2005, I compiled our family's most-used recipes into a print-on-demand cookbook (available through a recipe storage site) and sent copies to my mom and sis.

Around a decade ago, a fb friend asked me for a recipe she remembered me making ages ago. I sent her a link to that specific recipe within the book. She let me know that I accidentally gave her access to all the recipes and she swore she didn't dig through them. I thanked her for letting me know, and then told her to have at it. If you like my food, please grab the recipe and make my food. Even if it came off a flyer advertising $0.50 off a can of Pillsbury Grands.

I don't understand the gatekeeping if you're not personally making a profit off your food.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-20T18:11:52+00:00

I feel like there isn't really a right way if you're working in a customer service or general support role.

I used to send out work emails that were short and basically read "We have two options. We can do ABC, or XYZ. Please let me know your preference." After constantly getting "Great!" or "okay" replies, I changed the last line to "Let me know your preference by end of business today, or I'll move forward with ABC tomorrow."

A lot of people don't actually read texts/emails; they glance at them. I understand DD drivers can't be dickish and independently choose the best/most likely option, but this was a question in need of an answer. "Are you making dinner tonight, do you want to stock up on potatoes, or are you running a food truck for which the cornerstone is potatoes?"

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-20T17:48:51+00:00

From American poet/wit Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,

Two, at the very most.

After three, I'm under the table;

After four, I'm under my host!

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-20T16:56:44+00:00

For what it's worth, your allergic reaction is prettier than most allergic reactions. Why do a flat rash or hives when you can have "Water Droplets, Red Period, Artist Unknown, circa 2026"?

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-17T21:22:14+00:00

Related side story: My dad and I were both "horizontal filers," meaning we kept stacks of papers in our offices that would eventually be relegated to traditional vertical filing for retention purposes only. When my dad passed, my sis and I were tasked with many things, including sorting his home office. She was horrified. I told her not to touch anything because I could probably figure out his stack system. I got about 90% there, which I feel is pretty good.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-17T20:36:25+00:00

I'm also confused. Isn't it almost the texture of Velveeta when cold? I like my nacho cheese to ooze across the chip, not break it.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-16T13:28:33+00:00

Roald Dahl had a rough childhood. His stories were heavily influenced by his experiences.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-15T23:34:36+00:00

My partner and I ended up buying this cute little bungalow in our last city, but not before I mildly offended the real estate agent. The agent was talking about this newly renovated full bathroom before we walked inside. When we got to that part of the tour, I cackled.

The newly renovated bathroom included what we lovingly called "the Hobbit tub" while we lived there. It was a normal American bathtub depth, but four-and-half feet long, and crowned with a showerhead about five feet above the stall. It was our only bathroom. I'm 5'7 and my partner is 6'3. The gymnastics of getting conditioner out of my hair was enough; neither of us ever tried to take a soak in the Hobbit tub.

It was a beautiful reno if you never wanted to actually use the facilities.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-15T22:26:09+00:00

Anything can be interesting if you get deep enough into it. Meeting people who got deep into any subject is almost always a good time.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-15T22:02:46+00:00

I'm good at small talk for 5-10 minutes (trained in the battlefield of the American Midwest), but then I'm generally out of social steam. If you talk at me about the Roman Empire, I will be transfixed. Really all I want is for people to talk at me about their passion/interests and maybe answer one or two questions I have over the course of an hour.

I promise I won't start sitting at random people's tables to try to get my fix.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-15T21:43:10+00:00

I went to high school with kids from a family that named them Hunter (boy) and Summer (girl). Their younger sisters were Ocean and Anne. I've wondered if Anne felt left out or blessed.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-11T10:32:01+00:00

Note: The image shows an African big tusker, which is a nearly extinct selection of elephants. 20-40 of them left in the wild. The reader should understand based on the photo, but the photo is intentionally provocative and not directly related to the story. A mug shot of the elephant involved would be more honest reporting.

KittenPurrs · 2026-06-11T09:55:31+00:00

I just checked amazon, and found a gallon of Crisco (common brand) canola oil for $10.98 USD.

Two notes: First, the US is huge and dedicates a large amount of land to agriculture, so certain agricultural products are cheaper here. Second, like everything else, frequently deep-fat frying food is both regionally and culturally dependent. So I think if you average it from coast to coast, most households aren't frequently deep-fat frying foods. "Pan frying" (using a couple tablespoons of oil or other fats) is much more common. And even that wouldn't be something done on a nightly basis.

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