What surprised you recently?

Ben & Jerry removes the Heath Bar; http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-16/ben-and-jerry-s-takes-the-heath-out-of-coffee-crunch-in-gmo-shakeup

Browsing fluther and I came across a thread with religious question and it was pretty tame and mature for the most part. I’m surprised at how much Fluther seems to have changed from 1 and a half to 2 years ago when I had taken a break from this site.

@Winter_Pariah Is that a good surprise or a bad one?

@chyna Pleasant. Though I’ll admit I am totally down for the occasional flame war. lol

I was surprised when I received the bill for breakfast at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago and it was $30 less than I thought it would be. It was our last day of our stay and we had little money left. I was counting every dollar spent for that breakfast. $4 for orange juice. $4 for coffee. $14 for biscuits and gravy. It was adding up quickly. I finally realized that our daughter was eating for free.

I’m totally diggin’ the peacefulness of Fluther these days. I don’t miss the flamers.

I love healthy food! Lunch today was boneless skinless chicken breast and broccoli. I enjoyed it, god help me.

@jonsblond: Next time you stay someplace like that, look into deals where breakfast is included, or just ask the front desk. You’ll be surprised what you may get just for asking.

I’m surprised that although the summer has been relatively mild here in southern NY, it’s now early September and it’s the hottest it’s been yet. Hot and muggy, which is what summers should be but we were lucky so far.

That some hospitals send patients home with medication. I was under the impression patients need to fill any drugs they need at a pharmacy after being discharged. I have always had to.

I learned that many years ago schools around where I live were “strawberry schools” and had their long break in the winter during strawberry picking season, rather than in the summer like most of the US.

I was surprised Publix has 5 brands of maple syrup and all are dark amber. I thought for sure Publix would have a medium amber on the shelf. I was disappointed. The manager at the supermarket did not even know what medium amber was. She probably uses that corn syrup, pancake syrup, wanna be stuff.

How little time there is between crowning and birth. How easy it is to change a diaper. How quickly a simple thought about someone’s future can bring you to tears.

The rattlesnake on the trail in Big Bend. Kinda got my attention REAL quick.

fortunately he was polite enough to tell me he was there, for which I am grateful

A pack of cigarettes just went up to 20 dollars a pack in Australia. Kinda fucked up but I would have never started at 20 a pack. So maybe for the best.

@SavoirFaire: Have you got some interesting news you forgot to tell us about? Details, please.

@johnpowell, if it stops people smoking I don’t have a problem with it. I couldn’t afford to smoke at that cost if I wanted to. Makes you wonder what’s not being paid for while people are trying to fund their smoking habit. Also, because of our plain packaging laws, apparently some manufacturers have brought out ‘cheap’ versions that don’t cost $20 a pack. I’ve not checked this out myself but I was given this info the other day.

I would hope that the extra tax would go towards patches or pills for smokers wishing to quit. But Tony Abbott, probably headed to Gina Rinehart.

I won’t hold my breath on any of the additional revenue ending up paying for anything to do with health, but smokers can access patches and the like through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. That means the cost is subsidised. For now anyway. Who knows what the Abbott government will try to implement tomorrow.

At least some smokers might be able to breath more easily, well except for the young ones who are worrying about the debt they’re accruing for their degree or how they’ll survive if they lose their part-time job. They won’t be eligible for any dole at all for six months if the Abbott government gets that legislation through the Senate.

I’m a little surprised that Magnus Carlsen hasn’t dominated this year’s Sinquefield Cup.

I just watched Obama giving a speech, on the Russisn/Ukraine conflict & he still whistles his esse’s, sounds more & more like the beaver in Lady and the Tramp.
I don’t know why it surprises me still, but there you go.

i just received this lovely note from Cap.One (but no cash or gifts):

It’s been 13 years since you opened your account. And for that, we wanted to say thanks. We’re so happy you chose us!

We’re here if you need us.

Uh…the cookie dough flavor is worth buying I think.

Still, the last big surprise was Robin William’s death. : (

@gailcalled Yes! My wife and I had our baby on Sunday morning!

^ congrats!

@SavoirFaire; Well, that’s exciting news, O thee of few words. How about just a few more details? Sex, name, degree of gorgeousness, state of Mme SavoirFaire?

@hominid Thanks!

@gailcalled Well, I don’t want to make this question all about me, but we had an adorable little boy. My wife opted for natural birth (no pain medications), and did an amazing job. She needed a couple of stitches; but overall, she is in excellent shape.

Thanks for the update @SavoirFaire!

This video of a remake of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun caught me off-guard. It generates a different spin on the lyrics by how it is performed.

Some people in Hawaii hate white people. Last week I was vacationing in Hawaii and simply walking on the side walk in down town Kona when a guy in a car started cussing me out in Samoan language while the woman he was with laughed loudly and hysterically. He kept pointing at me yelling “kefe” over and over. I just waved at him and he drove off. The hatred in his voice was quite strong. But perhaps he was just a freaky crazy guy.

@gondwanalon It surprised you some people in Hawaii spading like white people? Or, it surprised you how he acted?

I had to look up what ‘spading’ and ‘kefe’ meant. I’m still unsure I have the right translation of ‘spading’. Can you explain it to me @JLeslie.

@Earthbound_Misfit Not spading; it’s my iPad. It should be don’t like white people. How the word don’t turned into spading I have no idea. I don’t know where I wrote kefe, but I am sure it must be a typo. Just assume I don’t speak English well. LOL. Ever since I switched from a proper table computer my writing has been a mess.

Obviously, I was paraphrasing what @gondwanalon said, or I would think it is obvious.

That’s funny @JLeslie. The word spading, according the Urban Dictionary, means to flirt or to try to acquire sexual favours from someone. That didn’t seem to fit the context. Also from the Urban Dictionary, Kefe means ‘fuck you’. I know @gondwanalon wrote they yelled kefe at him in Samoan. I didn’t think you wrote that. I had to look that up too. Technology is such fun. I thought you were really up with colloquial language in Hawaii for a sec there @JLeslie :D

@JLeslie Well I can only speculate his motives. I was definitely surprised with sudden hatred directed at me. I was perhaps an unusual character in Hawaii as I was walking very quickly with a broad hat long sleeve shirt, long pants and orange sun glasses (I suffer from skin problems and must protect against the Sun’s harmful rays). I’m also old, very thin and pretty ugly. Such a weak target for a crazy sick SOB to take advantage of I suppose.

I also had googled “kefe”. What the kefe is going on I thought?

@gondwanalon I’m just thinking let’s not turn the Q into a reverse racism conversation, but I would guess if we think about the history of Hawaii, it’s probably no surprise some of the natives whose families have been there for generations might have handed down some negativity about white people. Possibly, he just perceived you as a tourist or outsider more than anything and it had nothing to do with being white you just happen to be white. Were you doing something that got in his way?

(^^ Let’s not. Please).

I had forgotten that, once again, I had ordered 100 daffodil bulbs from White Flower Farm. They arrived yesterday, heavy and fraught with the reminder that someone with a large shovel and a strong arm needs to plant them. When is enough really enough?

Another thing that has surprised me multiple times recently is how much my husband and I have miscommunicated lately. Specifically, it has been about measurements and decor in our new house. He approaches the math so differently than me that it has caused some conflict and it is getting ridiculous. I’m trying to figure out how to avoid the frustration; how I can word things differently.

@gailcalled You can send some bulbs to me. I’ll take plenty of pictures of them in the spring and I’ll make sure to have my insect handler ready for that perfect insect pose.

@jonsblond: Daffs are among the very few members of the biota ignored by insects, rodents and birds…some kind of toxic daff juice in the bulb. Thanks for the offer, though, but I’ll pull myself together and cope.

OMG it just happened again! We were talking about the length of the pool at our apartment complex and the possibility of a pool at our house. I did better this time. I stifled once I saw he was calculating different things and let him go through it until he reached the end where we both got the answers we wanted.

@JLeslie Well I wouldn’t blame anyone for making fun of me. Take a look at this picture of me taken on the day of the incident in question here on my Flickr page I look like a clown. I can handle laughter OK. The thick burning hatred is what surprised me. Continental American indians have been brutalized and slaughtered by Spanish and other white Europeans far more than the native Hawaiians and I’ve never been treated poorly by continental native Americans. In fact just the opposite is true.
I don’t think that any kind of prejudice is involved here. What we have here is a pure crazy ingorant fool.

@gondwanalon I certainly wasn’t trying to defend the guy. Obviously, he is an ass.

That a fellow flutherite was bitten by a bat!

As much caving as I did when younger and as much interaction with bats as I had and nothing but you go to sleep in your own bed, in you own bedroom, in your own house and WHAM! the little buggers get you.

Today on my way down a sleepy country lane to get Milo’s cat food at the vet’s, I passed “Pigasso Farms; pasture raised meats.”

Try as I might, I was not able to see any “meats” grazing.

@gailcalled I guess no one told them that the animal’s name only changes upon its preparation for consumption!

@dappled_leaves: Specialty of the house; roast leg of meat.

“They would start on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast-beast”