Cable Cars and Thesauruses

Thesauras -  a book that lists words in groups of synonyms and related concepts. 

 synonyms: wordfinder, wordbook, synonym dictionary

          Of course, Jenna and I haven't been able to celebrate every "Every-day's-a-holiday" holiday.  We knew that before we had purchased the calendar.  Many holidays we won't be celebrating still.  Take "tempura day" for example.  I had to look it up as I didn't even know what that was.  Jenna was not all that happy to learn that seafood was involved.

          Monday was "hot and spicy day" and  I had jokingly asked my tomboy,  "How will you celebrate today?  Will you be posting a picture of yourself wearing something hot and spicy?"  That look of disgust on Jenna's face and her revolted reaction made me laugh.  How could I have even thought such a horrid thing?  Not a pretty picture. Not funny, MOM!

          Roland made a goulash that was perhaps a mild spicy.  It was definitely hot when he served it.  I thought it was good, but she refused to touch it - although her lack of desire to try the goulash did not give off the same reaction as wearing a hot & spicy outfit.  She is also grossed out when Roland and I kiss in front of her.

          Yesterday was cable car day.  I remember riding the cable car in San Francisco.  I'd ridden as a youth as well as an adult. 

The apartments in the background look similar to the ones where Grandma lived

 According to Wikipedia, the San Francisco cable car system is the world's last manually operated cable car system but this site lists Venice, Tampa, Las Vegas and Milan - which doesn't necessarily mean that they are the same type. 

          Cable car is known by other names such as trolley, tram and streetcar.  I don't know if I would have included tram except for the this video

 - cars hanging on a cable. 

          When Jenna returned home from school yesterday, I sat her down to watch this videos as well as the above

          She asked about the fares, which I was unable to answer yesterday, but did find this in my research this morning.  I also found this post from 2012;  and here's a fun one to watch dots on the map indicating the routes

          So we have at least two different types of cable cars.  I suspect the hanging cable is now the most popular though there was a time when the nation (or certain parts anyway) seemed lined with cable cars and trolleys.  I know they existed in downtown Salt Lake at the turn of the 20th century.  Salt Lake Tribune featured photo galleries (here and here ) on what used to be.  I had also expressed comments about the tracks in this post

no railroad ties, but some of downtown still has this snakey outlay of rails

          Here is just one shot of the tram seen in Portland. 

           I wanted to give credit to the photographer (as it wasn't me) but every time I clicked on the page or picture, I would get an error message.

          I have a VT companion who has ridden on one of the trams.  She was freaked.  I think it would be awesome to view Portland up from the air like that - but from my understanding, they are used for transportation from hospital and health centers - like extended elevators.  That was why she had ridden in it - to get from one building to another due to medical reasons.  I's called an aeriel tram (see here)  I don't think it's referred to as a cable car, but as you can see, it is on a cable.

          Today is Thesaurus Day - which "celebrates the birthday of Peter Mark Roget, author of the first modern Thesaurus.  He was born on 18 January 1799 in London, and studied medicine at Edinburgh University.  Roget retired from medicine in 1840, and spent the rest of his life on ‘Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases’, a dictionary of synonyms".  This helped him with his depression.  I found this article as I was searching the definition mentioned at the beginning of this post as I did not accept Jenna's imitation of a "grammar dinosaur"

          Jenna hasn't ever been all that fond of poetry except for Mirror Mirror (here and here) and song lyrics mostly.  She doesn't care for her English class and though she was an eager learner while we were living in Kearns, she somehow has become dulled with the idea of being educated, thus the last two holiday "celebration" have not been greeted with great enthusiasm.

         

          There was a nearly overflowing waste basket under the sink and thus I went around the house and collected from every other waste basket or trash can and went outside to roll our can to the curb as today is garbage day.  When I returned to the house I told Jenna that it is garbage day aka trash day, waste day, collecting junk day . . .  ha ha ha.  I told her that we can celebrate Thesaurus Day by listing synonyms to different words we say - though she didn't seem impressed. 

          I looked up some other words for garbage:  debris, rubbish, dust, litter, residue, fragments, filth, shavings, odds and ends  . . .    I also found more words for cable car:   grip car, gondola, city conveyances, cable railway

          I'm going to continue and will bug Jenna in a similar manner to what I'm sure she was hoping for on "static electricity day" but just couldn't seem to generate enough friction to make it work.  
         When she rolls her eyes at me for laying on the synonyms as thick as I'm hoping to, I will tell her it's a metaphor for the static electricity that she'd been yearning for.  

         I, for one, am very grateful for the Thesaurus.  I use them more often than the dictionary.  I expect today will be fun.