oily rags and spontaneous combustion

[Artista]

Thanks, Artista :-)

English is my first language - sorta. My mother is American, but has lived in Norway since she was 18. I guess my father's English was better than her Norwegian, for whatever reason I spoke only English until age 7. We lived in various places, but moved here for good then. I remember struggling to learn Norwegian before I became truly bilingual.

Now I read a lot of English and often "think in English", but I almost only speak Norwegian, so for many purposes I feel more fluent in Norwegian than English. My English may well be a bit dated at times, since I don't get the everyday feedback.

That's an even better story than I was hoping for! I've never noticed that your English is dated, although now that you mention it, you could substitute "whole enchilada" for "entire shebang"

Bummer about your BIL. Thanks for the testimonial that spontaneous combustion isn't just an urban legend. We always wet our oily paper towels but I worry that they'll dry out before the garbage gets picked up. We're going to start sealing the wet, oily, paper towels in those ultra-lightweight, produce bags that we bring home from the grocery store.