hashtag meme of the day
#healthpolicyvalentines
via Tim
from the comments
Miss Nell would start her cooking shows with, “Now as everyone knows I hate to cook so let’s get started and get out of this kitchen.”
Owlet Caterpillars of Eastern North America
My same friend Susan who brought us the critically acclaimed Omega Institute in Your Pants, 2010 edition today supplied the following list, from the book Owlet Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner, Dale F. Schweitzer, J. Bolling Sullivan, and Richard C. Reardon:
Sordid Snout
The Herald
Feeble Grass Moth
Dead-wood Borer
The Betrothed
The Little Wife
Serene Underwing
The Consort
Dejected Underwing
Inconsolable Underwing
Tearful Underwing
Sad Underwing
The Penitent
Sappho Underwing
Youthful Underwing
Darling Underwing
Read more
Repost of a Post Past
Going down the rabbit-hole of Cece’s post. Great rememberies here, following “flockers.”
The Mother Courage of Rock
She was skinny, quick-witted, disarmingly unprofessional, alternating between stand-up patter, bardic intonations, and the hypnotic emotional sway of a chanteuse, and she was sexy in an androgynous way I hadn’t encountered before. The elements cohered convincingly; she seemed both entirely new and somehow long-anticipated. For me at nineteen, the show was an epiphany.
Springtime 1976, I was living in the cinderblock building on the glorified median strip there where they split Highway 13, and one day I went over to this one girl’s apartment, she lived right by the guy who dealt me speed, and she said, “Hey, you know who you remind me of? You remind me of Patti Smith!”
Gave her a possum grin I’m still grinning.
Goodbye
by Kim Noble
(Did you spot the stormtrooper?)
posted by Pete
headline of the day
Fairies of Christmas Passed…Deconstructed
The Blue Fairies laid on the table from the tree en masse. These were created by a former greensman employee three or four years ago. I remember, as he made them, into a box-top in the backroom of the greensman offices, I entered the room he was working in. He said, as he shook the boxtop, “Look, they live! ” He giggled and grinned a grin somewhere between the grinch and the baby jesus. That vision will forever live in my heart.
The Cake That Makes Our Family
Read between the lines of an old family recipe and you’re liable to read the story of the family itself. The scrawled marginalia and cooking stains, the collective memory of shared feasts—they might as well be alleles in the genome. Maybe it’s the chicken soup your aunt makes by the gallon during flu season, or the roast your mother overcooks every Easter. Maybe, if you’re lucky, your dad has taught you the secret to a perfect Old Fashioned, which he learned from his uncle, who learned it from his bookie. For my family, the recipe that defines us as a tribe, and whose origins best reflect our idiosyncrasies, is my grandfather’s babka.
I was feeling all hurt
and helpless and hopeless, then I heard this on the radio, and my heart rose up in spite of me.
tweet of the day
Merry Christmas, cocksuckers.
— Al Swearengen (@SwearengenCD) December 25, 2011
from the comments
My sister made up bedtime stories when I was little she called “Fortunately, but unfortunately.” Essentially they started like this: There was a princess living in a castle. Fortunately, she had a cat. Unfortunately, the cat smelled like rotten eggs. Fortunately, she loved the cat. And so on.
I like to think the telling of the stories raised her IQ. I also hope she has learned new storytelling methods for my nephew.
headline of the day
2 women share 1st kiss at US Navy ship’s return
from the comments
As some have noted, it’s an interesting distinction as to which books we enjoyed as children and which as adults. Nowadays I think Owl Service, for example, is just about a perfect book, but the ending perplexed me when I was a teenager. And maybe there’s a difference too between what we read as “children” and what we read as teens. I loved Heinlein’s ’50s science fiction novels for boys (especially Tunnel in the Sky) in probably 6th and 7th grades. When I was younger than that I loved Phyllis Whitney’s mysteries. I too read Wrinkle in TIme, probably in 6th grade, but I’m not sure I read anything else by L’Engle for several years. I guess I started reading Arthur C Clarke and Ray Bradbury in 8th grade (or maybe 9th) and read a zillion science fiction books in high school. It was summer after 10th, I think, when I read Lord of the Rings; Gormenghast would have followed that in 11th; and maybe in 11th also came along Ballantine’s new “adult fantasy” series, playing off Tolkien’s popularity. It was probably 6th or 7th when I read Call of the Wild and loved it, and I guess it was about the same time when I read some of Kjelgaard’s animal books too. (Daryl’s Big Red may be a Kjelgaard — I can’t swear to it.) Probably before I went into science fiction, I went through a biography period, reading mostly from a series of highly fictionalized books about the childhoods of famous people, many by Augusta Stevenson. (I particularly enjoyed the Knute Rockne book.) I think I read Alice in Wonderland in high school, and loved it, and never read Winnie The Pooh until high school, when I read it because I played Christopher Robin in 11th grade: we did the short Pooh play for several elementary schools.
As an adult — as a retired librarian — what books have I loved? Well, gee whiz, even though I absolutely despise talking animals, I think Charlotte’s Web is one of the premier books of the 20th century, far superior to most “classics” for adults. It works because EB White is a superb writer — and yet its existence has never moved me to read Stuart Little or Trumpet of the Swan. The Book Thief, published within the past decade, I think, is a first-rate book for junior high-ish kids. Louis The Fish by Arthur Yorinks may be my favorite picture book. Where the Wild Things Are is classic of course. L’Engle’s Arm of the Starfish is a fine fine thriller. There are probably more good books for the under-18 crowd than for adults.
from the comments
I’m in my sweats, under the covers, in a frigidly cold loft located above the karaoke action of my friends’ wedding reception. Right now a muffled voice is singing that love song from the movie, Aladin. We’re all in the guest house on a farm in McDade, Texas. Let me save you the trouble and clarify that this place is about 40 miles outside of Austin. I wish I were wearing some socks, but they’re somewhere in my suitcase and it’s too dark to tell where.
Today was kind of amazing. Rain was forecasted for the outdoor wedding, but as the hours counted down a storm blew in early and fast. We set everything up in the morning, tables, chairs, cloths, settings, flowers, other decorations, and sound equipment. By the time of the ceremony, nearly an hour late due to the brides’ clear need for a last-minute nap, winds were ripping across the farm at speeds greater than 30 miles an hour. Temperatures had dropped below 60 degrees.
You plan for months, you wake up worrying about the location of those dessert spoons you intended to have on hand for the cake course, and then the entire wedding happens (happily!) in the small room intended just for the catering set-up.
What also amazes me is how I respected my socializing limit and stopped there. I wished my friends love and happiness and all the fun they could have in one night, and then I came up here to rest. Last night it nearly broke me being trapped out at a bar in downtown Austin with no hope of leaving the bachelorette party until everyone staying at the farm was ready to take the van back, including the brides.
I am not the unyielding, overtired extrovert I used to be. Now, where are my socks?
I said
Did you pee on my shower curtain, fucker? I’ll eat you. You will be Thanksgiving. You will be Thanksgiving!
How To
I tied a tie after consulting You Tube. My efforts were acceptable, even though I did not master the Full Windsor.
I said I needed a photo before he took off to the pre-party. He was grumpy. “But why? You got a picture before I went to last year’s winter formal.”
Afghanistan – touch down in flight
I have lived from 2006-2008 in Kabul doing my civil service for a humanitarian aid organization. This March I had the chance to go back with my fiancé to show her the place I love and to capture the beauty of this country with our cameras.
Unspeakably beautiful.
(via stellar)
42 S. Deacon St. #5
There are at least fifty things about her you cannot stand. Maybe a thousand:
She is soft and smells nice. Talks on the phone all day. Makes your favorite meals without being asked. Throws your Maxim magazines on the floor when she’s angry with you. Is sad when an animal gets hurt. Loses your car keys. Asks your opinion and listens to your response as if it matters. There’s more.
Magnetic Fields – The Book Of Love
from the comments
Our lead bird dog Tuffy would bring Miss Nell gifts of terrapins and turtles, try to drop them in her lap as she shooed him away. We always wondered why that? But now I’m remembering the people who walked by his pen after fishing the woods ponds and swamps. We’d stop them and examine their catches. They were big on turtle soup and often had a big one on a hook or rope. Did Tuffy “get” that? That the big terrapins he captured and ran with in his mouth back to the one person who resisted his love were considered great prizes by some? I mean, dogs, cats, owls, they just want to be friends.
I could only find one other instance where an owl befriended a cat, but I could nowhere find a picture or anything about an owl bringing a mouse or rat to a cat
An incredible story of a miraculous owl:
I am from South Africa and about 4 years ago made friends with a spotted eagle owl that showed up on our farm (most probably it was rehabilitated by someone). The owl got injured and I kept it inside for a couple of months until it was well again. During this time our one old cat found out that no other cats are allowed in my study where I kept the owl and she moved in. I allowed this because she has never in her life caught a bird or mouse and was not interested in the owl at all.
During this period the owl got used to her and they regularly ate steak out of my hand together. Once the owl was OK again I let it out, but it now comes and sleeps inside during the day, hunting freely at night.
The owl ends up taking care of other wounded animals.
(thanks, India)
Jason Molina – Don’t It Look Like Rain
The wolf outside my door don’t need
Anymore of my blood
Of my bood
She don’t wait for nothing
nothing anymore
She’s watching for nothing anymore
Moon above my light
Starts fading out
I live for nothing anymore
I live for nothing
headline of the day
Beetles Die During Sex With Beer Bottles
A man who had abused his ex-girlfriend and then plotted to kill her and make it look like she had been mauled by a bear was sentenced to prison for trying to hire someone to kill her in a staged car crash
Clyde Gardner gave up on his first idea: Kill a bear, skin it and wear the pelt while using its claws to kill the woman as she took out her garbage. The plan included him wearing the bear’s paws on his feet so no human footprints would be left behind.
And now, for the rest of the story.
