Question of the Day: Shop For Travel

[the_siobhan]

9 – Coming of Age Day: What does coming of age mean to you? What, if any, coming of age ceremonies or rituals are practiced where you live?

Is it weird that I don't know how to answer this? Catholics have coming of age ceremonies, but I noped out of Catholicism when I got to the "girls can't be Pope" revelation and never really went back.

Various pagan circles I've run in have their own version of this but I didn't really participate in those either. Honestly they all seem kind of arbitrary to me.

10 – Shop for Travel Day: First celebrated in 2018, Shop for Travel Day has continued annually on the second Tuesday of the year ever since. The reason for it being situated at this time on the calendar has to do with the fact that, in many cases, the early weeks of January are an especially advantageous time to shop for travel due to many companies offering special deals and discounts. When was the last time you travelled within your own country? How about outside of your own country? If money (and time) were no object, where would you love to travel to?

Last trip in-country was Montreal in November, last trip outside was Switzerland in March. I'm much more wary of travelling now that they've removed vaccine and testing requirements and masking for travel.

My sister is currently in Greece, and I'd love to visit while she's there, but that's going to depend on both money and how safe it feels to travel.

And if I do travel, I'm gong to need a new suitcase, because Air France mangled mine.

***

Got the heating & electric bills for January and hoooo boy. Having a) no back wall and b) the pumps running 24/7 and the spot-heaters blasting while they work means travel is probably not happening any time real soon.

Also food bills. I'm hoping I'll be able to get some plants in the ground this summer, but that will depend on how fast work progresses since my beds are currently buried under piles of mud and concrete shards. The contractors were onsite yesterday thumping and banging around. (And swearing. Lots of swearing.) So I guess work is progressing? I stuck my head outside while I was doing the laundry and they have this tent set-up going on, I guess to try and minimize the amount of snow and melt water they have to deal with.

 

Comments

[greylock]

Got the heating & electric bills for January and hoooo boy.

I can't even imagine what hell that would be.
(I am sitting in a 38 degree day trying to hold off using the aircon as long as possible).

Also food bills. I'm hoping I'll be able to get some plants in the ground this summer,

I think like that every year. On the plus side I did manage to harvest two capsicum today!

Can you start off growing things in tubs and pots while waiting for the workers to finish up?

[warriorsavant]

It seems like many words have the masculine beginning with P, and the feminine beginning with M, so the feminine of Pope is Mope (or is that Mome?). (Years ago told that to a female friend who was contemplating starting her own religion. She loved it. More to the point, her kids loved it and kept calling her Mope XXX.)

Anyhow, "coming of age" is a vague concept in modern times. Anciently, the ceremony (say bar mitzvah, or equivalent in many societies) was set to mark it; it generally coincided with puberty: you're old enough to reproduce, you are now an adult. In modern times, although we have an "age of majority," it only accords certain rights, and doesn't really make you feel, or be considered, and adult. It's a sort of stretched out process. In ancient times, you were either a child or an adult. Then we developed the concept of adolescence. Now we seem to have a stage of "young adulthood" which has even further different expectations.

Hmm, might make this part of one of my posts. Will duly give you credit.

[the_siobhan]

That is sort of the plan, but I want to make sure they'll actually be done in time to get them in the ground. I will probably start with the seeds in March or so if progress looks good.

[the_siobhan]

Yeah the Catholic confirmation ceremony holds a similar place to the bar mitzvah. I'm not sure if it has the same connotations of adulthood.

[elusis]

I'm trying to decide whether to give starting from seed a try again this year, or to just declare seed bankruptcy and admit that I'm mostly going to have to rely on buying starts. (Carrot tape proved sort of useful and I might do that again. But it was an exception.)