A big black and tan baby

This gorgeous creature is only 3 months old - lots more growing to do yet. Seen here outside the main market of Menton on a sunny Saturday in October - proudly held by his young owner. I say 'his' but I forgot to ask - somehow he looks like a 'he' to me, but I may be wrong.

Fun Friday with a New Toy!

China Cat and I entered
Dragonheart's Scavenger Hunt Contest
and guess what?
We were two of the winners.
Dragonheart sent us our prize in the mail and it's here! I really like envelopes
because they usually have some tape on them.
I am one of those cats that really like tape...
Anyway, I was so excited to see what was in the envelope. Wow, it's a Curly Lamb with catnip!
I went right for that catnip bag - yum!!!
My Food Lady had to take it away from me
so she could put it into Curly Lamb. I liked the cardboard that Curly Lamb came on.
I can certainly be a Cat With An Attitude! I was playing with Curly Lamb
but then I was momentarily distracted
by a bird flying by the screen. I really like Curly Lamb... Curly Lamb smells very catnippy... OK, let's play some more... Dragonheart, thank you so much for Curly Lamb!
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By the way, the note that came with Curly Lamb
said that he came from The Animal Rescue Site
and when he was purchased 14.0 bowls of food
were provided to animals in shelters.
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Isn't that terrific!!!

Our puppies 82 days old

Wordless Wednesday

Waiting for the bus?

I've listed this dog as an Old English Sheepdog although it's certainly only partly that - near enough tho for the purposes of this blog. I don't know if it's a he or a she but what a lovely dog - patiently waiting for the owner inside the Menton bus station, on a rather hot summer's day.

My Tummy, Toes & Tail Today...

This is my favorite rug to lay down on
and watch over what is going on outside.
~~~~~
You can see my reflection in the window
and, of course, tummy and toes...
nsm* tail because I am upon it!

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*not so much -- my new favorite achronym!

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Also, my name did come from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
as Willow was on that show.

I found this very interesting...

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But how do these phrases come into vogue? It helps, of course, to have a celebrity standard bearer. For the phrase "not so much," that would be Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "Daily Show." He famously gives the words an expert, drawn-out delivery, pausing to consider whether the subject at hand passes muster before nailing it with a "not so much."

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Though the phrase has become widely identified with Stewart, it appeared on several other television shows dating back to the early 1990s, including "Mad About You" and "Friends." But it didn't achieve widespread popularity until the beginning of the current decade, when it began to appear on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
~~~~~


It sneaked into the vernacular by becoming what linguists call a "camouflaged form" of speech, said Michael Adams, professor of English at Indiana University and author of "Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon."

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"It would be very easy for it to migrate, because it would change its meaning just a little bit every time it got used until suddenly it was that dismissive not so much.'

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Pinpointing exactly when that transition occurred is difficult, if not impossible.

Adams says that even a phrase as distinctive as "yada yada yada," which was hailed by many as a creation of the television show "Seinfeld," turned out to have been used by the comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1960s.

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While Buffy may not have coined "not so much," the show's language was unusually experimental and influential, including such neologisms as "afterness," "heart-of-darknessy" and "suckage."

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Before its writers tackled "not so much," they had already pushed "so" and "much" into novel roles.

"We so need to get out of here," a character would say at a precarious moment, or "Morbid much?" when another dwelt on gory details. Before long, "not so much" was a regular part of Buffy's linguistic arsenal.

~~~~~


"You've changed," Buffy once said to a character whose appearance had improved after he got his soul back. "Not so much with the crazy."

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And when another character said, "Willow's good at all that computer stuff, but me, not so much," a thousand punch lines, online quips and newspaper headlines followed.

Our puppies 11 weeks