Words to Live By

 

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

Peace.

And Then Along Came Mary

The fundamentalist conservatives (hereafter Fundacons - I do so love coining words) were right! We do have activist judges! And on the Supreme Court, no less!

For those judges who are protecting us from the very dregs of society, those violent, degenerate pot smokers among the general populace, here's a blast from the past.

Perhaps we should give the Supremes the benefit of the doubt - maybe they are simply, by their ruling, attempting to goad Congress into performing their Constitutional duty and giving states the right to decide issues such as this. Maybe?

Peace.

Fun for the Whole Family

When I need to feel better, I play with the Microsoft Paint program (I know you think it's primitive, Albert, but it works for me.) Here's my latest effort:

I hope you enjoy it.

Peace.

Old Friends

It was only a coffee cup.

On one of my infrequent forays into the outside world, I found myself, one night, having to make a terrible decision. Exiting our car, I placed the foot of my cane on the driveway and draped the straps of my laptop bag over the longer extension of the cane's handle. I slipped the handle of my empty coffee cup onto the index finger of my right hand, the one grasping the cane. This was an operation I had successfully hazarded hundreds of times, stretching back four years to when I could still walk easily and needed the cane mainly for balance. This night, however, the laptop bag began to slide off the cane handle as I was halfway to my feet. My left hand was engaged in bracing myself against the car door, so my only option was to allow the cup to slip from my finger as I reached frantically to catch the bag strap. The cup fell to the driveway and shattered. It was only a coffee cup.

I can't even remember the year that Bonnie bought that cup for me; it had to have been sometime in the early '70s. We were in some specialty housewares store, perhaps Lechter's, we saw a revolving rack filled with cups bearing various male and female names. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that both of our names were represented. We couldn't resist, and each of us bought the other a cup bearing our respective names.

That cup had been close to me since then; it had been my constant companion through so many glorious times, so many crises; it never, through all the years, occurred to me that someday it might not be there. Goodbye, old friend.

I have a multitude of stories of old friends lost; people, pets, and objects that held emotional resonance for me. Of such losses, much of life is composed. Goodbye, old friends.

When the Creator comes to me and informs me that there are new things to be created in some other place, I suspect that I shall look behind at the life I have led and say "Goodbye, old friend."

Peace. 

If I Leave Here Tomorrow

Today was banding day at Kodak. The eyases were removed from the nest box and taken to the banding area at roughly 10:15 am (I was sound asleep, dammit!) The chicks were sexed and banded; here are their names and sexes:

Esperanza (Spanish - Hope) - Female Silver

Ihteram {EH -t'ram} (Arabic - Respect) - Female Yellow

Fulmine {FUL-meen-ay} (Italian - Lightning) - Male Blue

Skye - Female Green

Aconcagua {ah-cone-CAH-oo-ah} (Andes Mt.) - Male Red

Aconcagua was the last chick to hatch. (All colored bands are on the chicks' right legs; there are black/red and black/green bands on the left legs; these are DEC bands denoting females and males.)

I'm not going to comment on this, I just wanted to put it out there. It's a post from the Discussion Board.

Sharon from California - "Call me jingoistic, but once again, all of the eyas names are foreign and 4/5 very difficult to spell and pronounce. These are American birds -- are there no American names available to give them??

(Note - the names were given by various members of the banding audience - including schoolchildren.)

If you'd like to view a gallery of today's occurrences, here's the link:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?collid=679890614205 

The eyases are all sleeping in a pile right now, exhausted after a long and draining day.

Peace.

 

Summer Reading

A while ago now, Bonnie began to methodically haunt our (really decent) local library for reading material, and she devoured every author she could find. We encountered many such, but one of her most enjoyable discoveries was an author named Donald Westlake. He is awesomely prolific, and has penned many styles within the mystery genre, but some of his best are what are termed 'comic crime capers'. If you have never had the pleasure of reading any of his work, please give it a try. Many movies have been based on his books; you may even have seen one or two.

My particular favorites are these:

'Dancing Aztecs' - 'Trust Me on This' - All the Dortmunder novels - and 'The Busy Body'

Movies have been made from 'The Busy Body' and four of the Dortmunder novels.

We hope you will enjoy.

Peace.

Huh?

Hey! We've been lied to all these years!

Peter Piper couldn't have picked a peck of pickled peppers! To pickle them, they must first be picked! What a scam artist he was!

I know I'm being picky, but . . .

Peace.