The Baboon Congress, Words

The Mystery of S.A.L.T.

141 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbindsale.

A couple of weeks ago in mid-August, I noticed something on our kitchen wall calendar penciled in on Wednesday morning, “SALT.” It is in my writing, and is apparently an acronym for something I wanted to attend. On checking further, it also appears in mid-September, mid-October, November, and December. I have been racking my brain, and I have NO IDEA WHAT THIS IS. I’ve hunted through the various little “rat-piles” that lie around the house for leaflets announcing various events. I’ve looked through old emails and through my list of “Favorites”.  And I finally entered S.A.L.T. into my search engine to see if something rang a bell. Here’s most of what showed up:

  • Salina
  • Speech Application Language Tags
  • State and Local Taxation
  • Strategic Arms Limitation(s) Talks/Treaty
  • Short and Long Term
  • spending a lot of time
  • Serum Alanine Aminotransferase
  • Salt and Light Television
  • Southern African Large Telescope
  • Supporting Arms Liaison Team
  • Sloping Agricultural Land Technology
  • Special Altimeter
  • Society for Applied Learning Technology
  • Subscriber Access Line Terminal
  • Save A Life Today
  • Skin-Associated Lymphoid Tissue
  • Same As Last Time
  • Seminars About Long-term Thinking
  • Seminars About Long Term
  • Society of American Law Teachers
  • Sloping Agriculture Land Technology
  • Student Action Leadership Team
  • Scottish Association for Language Teaching
  • Society for Accelerative Learning and Teaching
  • Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts
  • Subscriber’s Apparatus Line Tester

Although some are interesting, none of these seems be what I was thinking of attending, but it’s kind of refreshing to know they exist.

I’m pretty sure it’s nothing urgent, or I would have remembered it!

What’s been the most crucial thing you completely forgot?

141 thoughts on “The Mystery of S.A.L.T.”

  3. Rise and SALT Baboons!

    BiR, are you certain that it wasn’t just a reminder to fill the saltshakers?

    In the past several years my life is filled with stuff I completely forget until it is too late. And I really don’t like it when I actually get to the point of writing down a reminder, then forget the acronym I scribbled.

    Today I must remember to go to work after 5 days off for the long weekend. Then when I arrive there, I have to remember my work routine, my name, my …. It seemed like such a long weekend.

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  4. Last June, on a 400 mile trip to bring our son and dil the pots of Thai peppers, Thai basil, and lemongrass we had started for them, we were 200 miles down the road and realized we had forgot all the plants back home. I always forget passwords for various computer accounts we have.

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    2. There are several password managers “out there” that do a good job of managing the plethora of passwords a person needs nowadays. I use Last Pass and have been happy with it. It helps me create passwords that are hard for hackers to figure out plus it eliminates the problem of forgetting passwords, even to sites that are visited infrequently. You just have to remember the password for the password manager site and it takes care of the rest (once you’ve set up all the info).

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  5. Oh acronyms! I find them irritating, so I pedantically refuse to use them at work, We have a lot of them at work-QMRP, IEP, MDCC, ROAP, ISLA, ICF, IRRF. I think they lead to exclusivity and distance from the people with whom we work. Bah!

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      1. Almost every day I am disgusted by errors in newspaper copy (missing words, misspelled words, grammatical booboos). What plagues me is not knowing if standards have truly slipped in public journalism (which I believe is true) or if this is just another example of Old Fartism (the universal tendency of the aged to find fault with the present).

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  8. Good morning. I tend to forget things that are unpleasant. I do recall that I failed to close the freezer door on our refrigerator not too long ago. Several items in the freezer had to be discarded. That was probably not the most important thing that I have failed to remember to do. But, as I have said, I have no doubt conveniently managed to fail to recall many other times when I forgot to do something that very much needed to be done.

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    2. I left a leg of lamb out of the basement freezer once, (for several days)and the cats dragged it back and forth on a light colored carpet and it looked like someone had committed murder.

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  9. My most embarrassing was about 10 years back. We had Children’s Theatre tickets with friends on a Sunday afternoon and I completely spaced it off – we went to Target for a few things that afternoon. When we got home our friends were sitting in their car in the front of the house. Luckily they had only been there a bit and I could blame traffic. Not sure if my friend really believed me, but we did make the theatre just in the nick of time. And this was the lucky part – we had never changed out of our Sunday school clothes, so we didn’t have to change before leaving!

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  12. A friend and I were with a bunch of people at her family’s cabin. We were on dish duty and had just finished up by washing the cast iron pan. We had it on the stove burner at low heat to dry, as one is wont to do. I mentioned that whenever I do that, I have to set a timer or I go off to do some other task and forget about it. I think I may have set the timer on the microwave that was there.
    We continued this discussion and then went downstairs to join the group to watch a movie. Suddenly, the smoke alarm went off. AS WE WERE DISCUSSING FORGETTING TO TAKE THE PAN OFF THE STOVE, we did just that!

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    1. I have forgotten this very thing so many times, Lisa (although not usually while talking about the fact that I forget it). I usually catch it when it starts smelling hot (sniff, sniff – is something cooking?). I’m thinking I need to start drying the cast iron stuff a different way.

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      1. Why not just turn the burner on high and stand there for the minute or two it takes for the pan to get reasonably hot, then turn the burner off and let it cool down before you put it away? That’s what I do and I don’t think the minute or two of high heat does the pan any harm…

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        1. I should just stand there and stare at the pan while it dries. If I do anything else, even in close proximity such as wipe down stuff around the sink area, I will forget about it and walk away. The sink is two short steps from the stove and yet I can’t remember it. Sometimes I set the timer to help me remember, but that doesn’t help if I’ve left the room…

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        3. That’s it! I heard on Wait Wait about how women can multi-task but men can’t (generally, I’m sure). If women transition to become men, they lose that skill. If Bill is mono-tasking, he can watch the pan. If LJB, BiR or I are multi-tasking, we have to do something else at the same time.

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        4. The way I heard it, women believe they can multi task and they are more likely to multi task, but in the long run they just end up with the smoke alarm ringing.

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  13. I don’t forget crucial things, only because there are no longer crucial things in my life. But small stuff? I forget small stuff almost daily. I spent 40 years learning how to use special places in my home to remind me of what needed to be remembered. Needless to say, Moving half a continent away presents challenges, since all the places I formerly put things to keep from forgetting them no longer exist. Nor, in this small apartment, are there any comparables. Each day now brings fresh proof of all the ways I used to use habit to keep from screwing up.

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  14. back in the old days i never double booked never forgot
    today it happens all the time
    i am tempted to follow linda and have the color coded calendar to help
    googlr calendar isnt doing it

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      1. Oh yes indeedy. I love mine.
        S&h has his shared to mine and a client has an order schedule that links in too.

        That and the “alarm” feature on the phone are all that stands betweene and temporal catastrophe.

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  15. i walk into a room and hope something will trigger a response as to why i hot up from my chair , walked across the house and entered this space. about the time i give up go back and see what i was doing it comes back to me as to why i had to go there. sevond time i ususlly rember…not always

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  16. OT: yesterday’s discussion raised questions for me about WordPress. I’ve been looking at it today. I am frequently intimidated by technical stuff, and it happened again. WordPress turns out to be bigger and more complicated than I knew. I was jolted to read that its filters have screened out over 75,000 spam comments that our discussions have attracted. (Thanks, WP!) My best guess now is that different Baboons are working with different iterations of WP, which is why some of us see some things on our screens that others do not see. I’d like to update my version, but reading about it intimidates me again. I’ll settle for “good enough” right now, not changing anything.

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    2. OT/ For a few weeks now, very interesting articles, sayings and videos appear all in a row on my Facebook wall. I love these summaries and headlines of current political events, especially since they lean left.

      Today, and went to read an article, and up popped, “Subscribe today if you want a free 6-week subscription”, so I filled in my email address. I’m now getting “congratulations” from a dozen separate sources which contribute to this array of stories, each one asking for payments or donations. UGH. Clearly, they’re all trolling, getting me hooked, then when I’m thoroughly entrenched in what they offer, make me pay if I want more.

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  17. Can’t even remember how many times I have forgotten the time or the date or the place. The worst I can recall right now is missing a book club meeting on a lake at a friend’s place…was visiting nearby and drove right past the location and didn’t remember why there were so many cars there…all this and in spite of having the host call in the morning to tell me to bring warm clothes because the wind was high on the lake. Couldn’t figure out why he was calling a week ahead…and thinking how did he know what the weather was going to be like the next Sunday. Uff Da.

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  19. Thanks BiR.

    I shall spend the rest of the day fretting about what I am forgetting.

    Just like the nightmare about the final for the class I forgot I registered for…

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      1. Same class. Heaven knows why it is being taught in the old junior high attended (which is recalled in stunning detail in that dream. I could walk you to every classroom I was in, tell you the class and the name of the teacher).

        What day is it again?

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  20. I currently have a 70-year old male client. At least three times during any give session, he OR I will forget what we’d started to say. Then, acknowledging this as a “senior moment”, we both laugh.

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        3. littlejailbird – I guess there was a lag time before it showed up! I’m chucking right now remembering back when I was new on here and thought that your user name meant that you were trapped in an unhappy marriage! Sorry ’bout that

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  21. While I’m sure I’ve forgotten many things, there are a few instances that stand out for me. When I was in theater in college doing a scene for a play — onstage with audience and I believe they were making a video as well — I completely forgot my line. That had never happened to me. I was very studious about memorizing my lines and everyone else’s lines. But here it was in the middle of the intense final scene of Chekov’s “A Doll’s House” and I totally blanked. I looked across at my fellow actor, and the fear quickly passed between us as we could see it in each other eyes. My mind was racing through the scene, going ahead and then backtracking to the point we were at. I picked up at the exact place, but there was a very, very long pause. It may have been 5-10 seconds, tops, but it felt like minutes.

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        1. July. That’s apparently when I resolved to get a better system – Husband was at least writing down when we put it in. It was on August’s calendar too, but I was too busy to think about it till now. 😐

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  23. My ophohomo . . . Eye dr. Retired, so I had to choose from 5 other doctors in the practice. So being blind about my options, I chose one whose name I will not forget. I figure when I cannot remember her name it is time to old fools home me. Dr. Birkholz.
    These visits are very painful for me. Bright lights in my eyes, people touching my face (I cannot keep my eyes open for some things), dilated pupils. So she asked if a new resident could also do the precedures, to which I had to agree.

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  27. Evening.
    I believe in the Hereafter. I often walk into a room and wonder what I’m here after.

    Heck, I can lose count between 3 and 4.

    …mind like a steel sieve I tell you.

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  28. OK, for those who don’t want to wade through all the replies, Bill guessed, and I now recall, that it’s to remind us to put salt in the water softener. This is a tad embarrassing, but it sounds like I’m not the only one… And I had a hunch a baboon would figure it out.

    Dale chose the Southern African Large Telescope photo cuz it looked like a giant salt shaker…

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  30. Rise and Shine Baboons

    So SALT was really SALT. I love it.

    I think there are two possibilities about a blog–there is one, and Dale is now so busy with his new job there is not time to manage the blog, OR there is not a post available.

    I have several started, but not completed. This weekend will bring several writing assignments for the blog and for a work training assignment.

    Meanwhile we can just keep on talkin’!

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  31. Good morning, friends. I have a question. When I was a kid in grade school we were taught two ways to write. I believe we learned letters as block letters, then a little later we were taught cursive writing. I remember this too well, for my worst grades in grad school were the low marks I got for erratic, asymmetrical cursive writing. But I soldiered on while feeling ashamed of my shaky, ugly cursive writing.

    When I entered the world of work I did all my work on a typewriter (an IBM Selectric with a ball that danced over the page). Then I wrote on computers. So slowly I didn’t see it, my cursive handwriting ability atrophied until I could barely write my name. I have lost the muscle memory needed to write a readable cursive sentence. When I write the letter “m” cursively, for example, it might have one hump or three, not two. I have written things in cursive that later seem totally opaque to me; I can’t even guess, after extended study with a magnifying glass, what I was trying to say.

    My question: do schools even try to teach cursive now? I have accepted keyboards so much I now do my grocery lists with them. When I jot notes, I use block letters (as my dad did). The only time I write in cursive now is when signing documents.

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    1. There’s a hefty debate going on about this right now. I think some schools are letting it go. I have the same experience as you, Steve, when writing an “m”, but it’s because mine is turning into my grandma’s handwriting – almost as opaque as yours sounds. I’ve never had good handwriting, was my lowest grade in school, too.

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      1. Young Adult got almost no cursive instruction and this was 13 years ago. And I although I love her dearly, that her handwriting is atrocious. To be fair, I don’t see her handwriting that often… everything is text and computer.

        They have kids using computers from the get-go now, although I remember having to fight with the middle school principal about making sure that Child got into a typing class, since they didn’t offer it to every child.

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    2. Yes, big debate. I guess I think give it up because, as you say, we who learned it gave it up. Except me. Because I never learned touch typing and have slowly developed ataxia issues, I have always done much hand writing, my own mix of block and cursive, which I developed because of ataxia. I watched what I could not read back in cursive, such as ing, m, and th and others. So these things I print out. Sometimes without meaning to I write in block printing.
      This is what my typing looks like if I do not gob akc and correctr it.
      For my novel second novedl I write a chapter or part of on by hND AND then ehtered it by keyboard then handwrirtew some more, entered etc. After I hD A CHANTOER DONE , I’d pritne it out, rewrite sone by hand, edit it make changes and go write some more by hand. Then come back and redited it beoifre haviong Snandy check it ofr me .

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      1. It saddens me to think that when – and I do think it’s a matter of time – they give up teaching cursive writing, we’ll also be losing the ability to read many old documents. Seems to me, that’s an important loss.

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    4. S&h was taught cursive in 2-3 grade, but as a profoundly left-handed boy, it never took. His upper elementary teachers tried to tell me that if his lower grade teachers did not teach him, it was too late now.

      This annoyed me no end and I tried working with him on it during summers.

      On the other hand, he could keyboard like a wiz in kindergarten, before he could even read. Learned from a Lion King computer game. It has served him well.

      He can read cursive just fine.

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      1. Just thinking, as far as being able to read old documents, German fraktur is no longer used, but those of us who choose to can figure it out without special training.

        Not that I am against teaching cursive writing, I think in general there is a lack of manual skills training that is a loss in our society.

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    1. Unfortunately my work calendar has too many things popping today, including a client visit that really isn’t needed, although I do actually like this client.

      The other thing on the calendar today is reminder to take the trash out; we’re a day late this week due to Labor Day and for some reason I can remember to take the trash out on the regular day, but whenever they switch up the days, I have to make a note to self.

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    2. Today – hair cut (yay – I always know I’m due when my bangs get stuck in my eyelids), Zumba, and Techno Contra Dance at Tapestry. I’m not sure I’ll have the energy to do both Zumba and dancing but choosing between them is difficult, too.
      Having moved papers upon piles of papers from my den/computer room to the dining room, I have slightly fewer excuses for not going through the piles. The computer room looks better anyway.

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  33. What you reading now, anyone?
    I’m reading “Tomlinson Hill,” the history of two lines of descent in Texas, a white line leading to Chris Tomlinson, the author, a successful war correspondent who covered the genocides and wars in Africa for many years, the black line leading to Ladanien Tomlinson, a former NFL star. Only 80 pages in but has an account of slave life and slave treatment like I have not seen before. 150 years of real stories and real people, m y kind of book.

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    1. Farewell to the Starlight in Whiskey – poetry. Under the Same Sky: From Starvation in Korea to Salvation in America by Joseph Kim. Just finished a HUGE tome: Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (long story about why I slogged through this). Crimes of Charlotte Bronte (this is a silly read that suggests that Charlotte poisoned all her siblings, except that someone will eventually take it seriously, like the whole “somebody else wrote Shakespeare” goofiness). And The One and Only Ivan – one of the Newbury winners about a gorilla in a quasi zoo – a little sad so far.

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    2. Solomon Northup’s “Twelve Years a Slave” is also a gripping and authentic slave narrative. I read the book after I saw the movie and I have to say that the movie represented the book well. A fictional slave account I appreciated was James McBride’s “Song Yet Sung”. One of the compelling elements for me was McBride’s use of the slave “code” whereby the slaves communicated between plantations by means of prearranged signals. I understand that some of the modes of communication,such as the “hidden in plain sight” quilt block patterns have been disputed, but as a dramatic element they were engaging.

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    3. This book is not about cruelty per SE, more history than memoir in the slavery part. It is the day to day life with simple inhumanity that strikes me as so terrible, as it does the author in reference to his ancestors.

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  34. My day is work until 8:00pm, then do something with the tomatoes I am going to pick today at lunch. It is too dark by the time I get home on these late nights to see well enough to pick tomatoes after work. Husband is up on the rez until tomorrow evening. Then we go to the United Tribes Pow Wow on Saturday. I feel a guest post in the making!

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  35. My current book is quite demanding. Leslie Jamison has a book out called The Empathy Exams. It’s a collection of essays that shows Jamison to be exceptionally thoughtful and candid. It comes close to philosophy, I suppose. It isn’t an easy book to sum up. I’ll just say this much and let those of you who might read a book of essays look this up on Google.

    Yesterday I finished Son of the Morning Star, a poetic discussion of the battle of the Little Bighorn by a novelist named Evan Connell. It is careful history that reads compellingly like an epic tragedy. Loved it.

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  38. I started reading Anne of Green Gables, My Daughter, and Me last night. I found the writing muddy, too detailed, and scattered. I also didn’t realize that it had a religious viewpoint when I started it and that didn’t help its case, IMO. This is why libraries are so great – not only did I not spend any money on this book, but I was able to quit reading it, guilt-free. And since it was an e-book, I could return it at 11:30 last night wthout getting out of bed.

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      1. No, the title of the book is ⁿanne of green gables, my daughter, and me.” I guess that wasn’t very clear from the first comment.

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        1. I rather liked it on the whole. It is scattered and muddy. I liked the travel part, but I chose it as a travel book. It is religious? I don’t remember that, but the book has not stuck with me. I did not read it long ago.

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        2. It’s about orphans and adoption; the author was drawing parallels between Anne of Green Gables (an orphan who was adopted) and her life (she was adopted) and her adopted daughter’s life. The author is a Christian and she had bible verses scattered here and there.

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  39. I’ve been slogging through a biography of Thoreau by Robert Richardson. I’m not sure why I’m finding it such a slow read- I read his “Emerson- The Mind on Fire” and quite enjoyed it. Some of the other books on my nightstand are looking increasingly inviting: “The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature” by Ben Tarnoff and Henry Beston’s “The Outermost House”.

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  40. I was 1/2 way through re-reading ‘Fosse’ and then got sidetracked re-reading ‘WLT; A radio Romance’ because I was trying to remember the section about how to fire someone.
    (I didn’t do the firing in this situation)

    I made a reference to daughter about The Odyssey the other night and I thought maybe I’d read the version to her.
    Anyone got a good kids version to suggest? The one by Gillian Cross and Neil Packer looks pretty good.

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    1. Not for your dear daughter maybe, but we adored The Pig Scrolls. You kind of have to know the Odyssey and have an odd sense of humor to enjoy it.

      Told from the point of view of one Gryllus, one of the sailors who decided being a pig was actually preferable to continuing as a lowly sailor on that Greek ship with the nut-case captain who took very poor care of his crew 🙂

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      1. Not really BiR. The book is a biography of Fosse. The show is about his dancing… the book tells you more about the man. I found the book interesting… but watching ‘All That Jazz’ would be the book equivalent perhaps.

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  41. Richard Flanagan – Gould’s Book of Fish – a difficult to describe but fascinatingly written novel inspired by paintings of fish by a real convict after he was sent to Tasmania
    Slumdog Millionaire – saw the movie some years ago and really enjoyed it but only remembered a couple of scenes. I described to a friend what I thought was the superiority of the book and she told me that the movie included the same things. Guess I’d better see the movie again.
    About to start The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny. A friend told me of this Canadian author who has written a mystery series with a beloved detective and a beloved imaginary town. Apparently someone has started tours for fans of towns that are similar to those described in the book. (this is the third book. It was recommended that I read them in order though it’s not essential)

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    2. I am also on book six of the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. And while I suppose you can read them out of order, I would STRONGLY suggest reading them in order. The characters grow a little bit more in each book and I think it would be hard to go back and read earlier books.

      I adore this series…. every one I have read has gotten five stars on my spreadsheet.

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  42. My impression of Pioneer Girl is that it’s about 40 percent manuscript and 60 percent footnotes on the manuscript, which makes it a somewhat disjointed read. Going back and forth between the manuscript and the footnotes means you don’t get the same flow as a unified narrative. Having been a fan of the Little House books, I found it engrossing. Some things were unexpected – I hadn’t realized the extent to which Laura wrote the manuscript for her daughter. There is a part, for example, where she describes the black cashmere dress that became her wedding dress, and comments, “You remember that dress, I still had it when we moved to Missouri”, and once when she writes something about roses, she adds, “your namesake, my dear.”

    There is quite a bit of discussion about which parts were historically accurate and which were fictionalized. The book’s author, Pamela Smith Hill, points out that in 1938, when Laura was trying to do research for her books, the records from the 1870 census were not publicly available. She had to rely on vague memories and best guesses, whereas now, all that information can be instantly accessed online. Frequently Laura’s memory was inaccurate, but she had little else to rely on.

    The author/annotator of Pioneer Girl includes a chapter near the end, which she’s titled “I Don’t Suppose Anyone Will Bother”, in which she discusses a disagreement between Laura and Rose about a mention of Laura’s mother’s brother, Tom Quiner, who visited the family on the way to seeking gold in the Black Hills with the Gordon Party. Rose wants Laura to change the identity of the uncle to George Ingalls, for convenience, since George Ingalls appeared in an earlier book, and it would be simpler and cleaner to use an already-familiar character than to introduce a new one. Laura objects, since the Gordon Party was a historical first – the first white men to explore the Black Hills – and no George Ingalls was a member of the party. Eventually, though, she relents, writing to Rose, “I don’t suppose anyone will bother to look it up.” The irony was not lost on the author who wrote all those exhaustive footnotes on every aspect of the stories.

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  43. My apologies, Baboons, for leaving you without a new post today. But I see you have made excellent use of the site regardless. Barbara in Robbinsdale has offered something fresh for tomorrow (Friday),and it will post at 5am. Tim has something in the hopper. Those who figured I am simply too busy to keep up with the blog are correct. The days are full to overflowing with details, chores and tasks. I will write when able but I don’t see much chance that I can do six fresh pieces each week, as I did for five years. Thanks to everyone who writes for, and reads, the Trail. I will assist and contribute as we find a way to continue on!

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  44. Perhaps we could have a goal of three fresh posts a week with the writers who want to contribute continuing to do so, including you Dale. Is there anyway for us to track if the is a post ready so that we can write something when we know there is a need? We are certainly able to continue our conversations between posts. You could also repost some old, popular posts from the past.

    I appreciate your ability to maintain is all these years.

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