names. TREES. ALL the TREES and trees and trees.

On another site, I saw a comment by someone with surname "Bumgarner".

I'm familiar with the surname "Baumgartner" which comes from German and means something like "Tree Gardener". So I wondered if that was the person's real name, and he'd shortened it like that as a joke... bum-garner... gatherer of bums... I was thinking of the British definition of "bum", ie. "buttocks", though gatherer of tramps could be amusing too.

But no, according to the 2010 Census there were over 6000 people in the U.S. with the surname Bumgarner.

It truly is however, a "Respelling of German Baumgartner."

Bumgarner History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms - This page seems lip-curling to me. It shows the "Ancient Arms of Bumgarner" image with a tree and a small picket fence around it. It says "They are believed to have been of the order of the Teutonic Knights." Jeez Louize, the site is trying to sell stuff. It says the name means "Orchard" when it must have meant someone who worked in an orchard - the name comes from BaumgartNER, not BaumgarTEN. But anyway, the page also has some good stuff:
"Spelling variations of this family name include: Baumgarner, Baumgarten, Baumgart, Paumgarten, Baumgartel, Paumgartel, Paumgart, Bomgarten, Baumgarden, Pomgarten, Pomgarden, Baumgartner, Paumgartner, Baumgarden, Bamgardner, Bogart, Bogaard, Bogaart and many more."

So the name Bogart (from Dutch) (as in Humphrey Bogart) also comes from, or is related to Baumgartner! And actually, boomgaard is the Dutch word for "orchard", so ok then.

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Kudos to conuly, for letting me know about this online etymology dictionary!

This was another post intended to be quick and short on something that amused me, which while writing it morphed into umpteen more things of curiosity to me. It's now an hour and a half later. This is why I shouldn't...

It also took longer to write due to words being difficult to me this morning.

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Other items of curiosity:

Bummer - is related to the German verb "bummeln - to go slowly, waste time." In my experience, "bummeln" is used in a positive sense, as in "let's go have a good time, strolling around downtown looking at stores and things."

Bumptious - an adjective that means "offensively assertive".

trick or treat

I'm still uncertain what to do about Halloween.
I bought 2 bags of candy just in case, and a pair of tongs because that will be handy for other things too (salad!). Target still had a lot of candy and costumes available. But no orange holiday light strands.

It really wouldn't be much trouble to set up a portable table by the gate, with individual baggies of candy for kids to grab. Could even have one at Qiao's place, and one at mine, and even one at my mom's as it sounds like she's going to have a jack-o-lantern. (But we don't have that many portable tables...)

But I'm still not sure it's worth it with the uncertainty if there will be any trick-or-treaters at all this year. Although with an unmanned table out front, maybe random people with kids (or even without) driving by would be more likely to stop and get something than in normal years?

But then I'd need to go shopping again to get some small baggies. I didn't want to be wasteful yesterday, buying plastic baggies that I wasn't sure I'd use. I don't think people would be comfortable picking up paper bags where they couldn't see what was inside, and I don't think they make ones that small anyway. Are there any ecologically-friendly see-through baggies? Hum, something like these cute paper sandwich bags might work.

[ another idea: small paper cups would work too ]

It all wouldn't work well if it ended up raining or sprinkling that evening.
It would really be a great year not to do anything. But then my ghosties wouldn't even get to come out of the closet.

What to do, what to do?

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I love the title of this article: Pandemic means trick-or-treating will be trickier this Halloween

This link requires you to be logged into nextdoor.com, but the photos are worth it if you have an account:
Treat trend - "Halloween is only a week away, and some Nextdoor neighbors are getting inventive — using everything from cardboard tubes to PVC pipe to craft contactless candy chutes."


If you don't have an account, check out some of these photos:
https://www.google.com/search?q=trick+treat+chute&tbm=isch

oh dang!

I already broke the tongs!

They are the metal kind with a spring in the end, but they were closed up with no obvious way to open them*. So I pulled on the ends, applying force, and got them to open a small amount (which would have been good enough). But then I decided that having them open further would be better, so I pulled harder, and the rivet holding it together broke!

I don't know if the label had instructions, but I don't think so. When I got to the checkout counter yesterday (right before the store closing time), the tongs were missing the label with the bar code and price. It was just a small square of cardboard clipped on with a plastic thread, so it might have fallen off somewhere, or maybe it was missing to begin with. I walked back very quickly to get another tong for the cashier to scan, and told her she could give me the one without the label.

I specifically chose those tongs as they were the only ones without plastic or rubber on them. I don't want plastic as it could get scratched up, and wouldn't be good in case I wanted to use the tongs for pulling something out of flames. I don't want rubber as rubber things tend to get sticky as they age around here, due to the humidity.

(That's another thing I wanted to gripe about. Aloe gel-based hand sanitizers leave my hands sticky even after rubbing them a long time. Even after they start feeling dry, they become sticky again when I touch something like my car's steering wheel. And god forbid it rains and I touch something wet - the residue on my hands turns to slime.)

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It looks like it's about to rain too, and I haven't even showered yet. Not conducive for baggie-buying.
What to do, what to do?!


*Based on one of the online reviews, the tongs have a locking device on the end: "pull up for closing and push down for open"
Damn, so that is how it works. Would have been good to know. I should be able to fix them if I can find something to replace the rivet with, and if I can get the spring to stay in place while trying to re-assemble it.