Day 118: Igloo for all seasons

To be fair, the one we made in the winter was much more appropriate for that season. In fact, this one is really a one-season igloo and only a fair-weather one at that. Does it even matter? Well in this land of extreme weather, the answer is a resounding "Maybe". One of the features of houses here are two-, three- and even four-season rooms. I would love to describe for the UK readers the differences between these but I really have no idea. They all look like wood/glass/screen additions to wood/glass/screen houses to me. I suppose they bear a passing resemblance to the ubiquitous conservatory. It would appear that a four-season room, alone amongst these has the benefit of counting towards the square footage of the house - a statistic of considerable importance. Take it from me.

Of course houses-for-sale probably have their own language all over the world. We saw a listing with the descriptive phrase, "Ready to be loved." It is possible that they meant that when you walked in you would fall in love with it just as it is, but Exile #2 and myself both read it as "Has been neglected and needs someone to start loving it." So cynical.

Other things here are also still a collection of unfamiliar terms. We ordered some bedding soon after we arrived and have been getting catalogues ever since. We have only now started to come to terms with what shams (with or without flanges), inverse-box-pleated bed-skirts and dust-ruffles are.

My voice has partially returned today thanks in part to some expectorant (or was it just the placebo effect). That medicine tastes the same here as in the UK, despite being a different brand etc. Exile #2 reminded me that it tastes like root beer - and it got me thinking (uh-oh here he goes!) What if the medicine was made (here in the US) to taste like root beer so that people would like it, and then the medicine flavor was exported to the UK, but not the soft drink, so we think that root beer tastes like medicine when it's really the other way round?