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.
from the comments
Joel Bernstein (quoting):
I’m a fucking nice person. I can cook like a motherfucker, make some fucking straight-up fucking grub, fucking chicken fried steak, fucking collard greens, fucking mashed potatoes, all that fucking good-ass sausage gravy biscuits, fucking everything man, I cook like a motherfucker.
I want to find a skinny-ass little bitch, and make her fat, and then we could lose weight together, and we’ll bond.
what I said
Or, what I planned to say when I officiated my little sister’s wedding on Saturday. There was a technical issue (broken Kindle which contained these words) and the inevitable mispoken phrase, but more or less, here it is:
Marwage…
Now, with my obligatory Princess Bride reference out of the way…
Welcome to the Tour de Wilson.
Cait and Brad have invited you all here today to witness their official union as a married couple and, because I’m an expert in both marriage and cycling, I’ve been asked, and granted the power to officiate the ceremony. On their behalf, I apologize.
One day, about 10 years ago, I needed someone’s help moving furniture for my mom. I don’t really remember much of the story, but I vaguely remember driving to Alameda from Sacramento with a lifeguard I worked with at Sac State.
Meg Hourihan on the passing of her cat, Bodhi
The semester before I got Bodhi, I took the best class I’ve ever taken. We studied Buddhism, Deconstruction, Emily Dickenson, and Walt Whitman. I read every word of “Leaves of Grass” again and again, and in times of great sorrow I always come back to it:
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death;
And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.All goes onward and outward–nothing collapses;
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Miss Lucy
is becoming Mrs. Lucy today. On Thursday, I helped her get her hen on, in a swanky hotel bar.
I’m immensely honored to be attending her and Ross’s wedding, and the succeeding reception-crawl. I will bring a real camera to that.
Read more
Love Can Always Find You
We met today for a celebration, to mark the marriage of a mutual friend. She was just back from the beach. ”Marry me,” he said. ”And I accepted,” she told us. She wore a white halter top and a white wrap skirt, a two-piece bathing suit of the same shade underneath, no shoes. The groom had on casual attire, with flip flops. They went for dinner at a bayside restaurant, then back to the beach.
They had gone the long way around to find each other. She was born and raised in New York City, to Greek parents in the restaurant business. She had several careers, ending up in the news business in D.C. When I met her decades ago, she talked about Latin music, about salsa. The groom, born in Puerto Rico, is a longtime civil servant. He’s also a musician. He owns four guitars.
But I had to wonder about this hasty marriage to a man she’d been seeing for five months. Then, he came into the room. He was a stunner. She was glowing. They talked about moving by the end of the year, maybe to Spain. Her dream is to be on a plane, on New Year’s Eve, flying to Madrid, her new husband at her side.
The thing is, these aren’t babes. They are at or near the age when they can draw retirement. As in Social Security.
You would never know it. They’re sleek and fit, all that dancing. And one thing was so obvious it filled the room with sweet certainty: My long-time friend is with the love of her life. And the feeling is mutual.
tweet of the day
Why I Garden
We’re still dealing with aftershocks and looking forward to this weekend’s hurricane. So I’m thinking about cats. Not really. More like green things. I thought maybe even non-gardeners might appreciate this little meditation on the growing game.
from the comments
My daddy was a character and a good man. But there were lots of times I secretly wished for his little brother as my father. Missy Kathy had that honor. He went on ahead not all that long ago. There’s a big space where that one used to be, I promise you.
Miss Nell in New Orleans
I’m not sure what I did to this photo to chop it up, but it is just a copy of the original. Anyway, Miss Nell is on the left, before she married and had children. She was in New Orleans with her friend Lois and her other friend Lois. I told her, “You looked right sultry in that picture.” She said, “Lois probably was driving me crazy.”
from the comments
This is fantastic. I’d like to add Miss Nell’s Skillet Flip Cornbread. I’ve talked about this. She bakes it in an iron skillet, takes it out midway, holds the skillet by the handle and FLIP!
She is 91. A piece of work. When I was driving her back from the lake over twisty country roads a couple of weeks ago, she tapped me on the knee and said, “Hey, how about speeding it up. I’ve got things to do.” I said, “I am not going over the speed limit. The law is always hiding back here.” She said, “Well, it is NOT 45, you can go faster.” We argued a while. Finally we saw a sign, 45. We got home. Brother-in-law got home later with sister and Mr. B. He had gotten pulled over for speeding.
quote out of context
And he just says, “Ellie, what are you doing? Come on, now. You can’t beat the Mother Superior right here in the middle of the church. Here. Sit down.”
Ida
I was just finishing my enchiladas when I saw her coming toward me. She appeared to be in her 70s. At first glance she was unimpressive–a small, ordinary woman. But when she approached me, I saw that she had a beautiful face. Dancing eyes. Black eyebrows, in contrast to her gray hair. She was alive.
Her name was Ida, she told me. She liked my smile, she told me. She said she could see that I was a good person. She wanted to tell me who she was. She wanted me to know that, when she was a very young woman, she was in love with Ignacio and he was in love with her. They wanted to be married. But Ida’s mother told her no, that marrying Ignacio was a bad choice. Ida’s mother told her that she needed to write Ignacio a letter and tell him that she didn’t love him. Ida told her mother no, that she didn’t want to do that, that she loved Ignacio with all that she was. But Ida’s mother said it was for the best, and Ida wrote the letter. I said, but that ruined your life. Ida said, yes. Ida said she decided to become a nun, and she entered a convent in California. But they kept telling her that she had no vocation, and they kicked her out. She entered another convent. They told her, after a year, that she had no vocation and should move on to a different life. She married and had children. But she never stopped loving Ignacio. After many years, she contacted Ignacio to apologize to him for lying to him and breaking his heart. She had carried the burden for as long as she could. Ignacio’s wife had just died. Ida’s husband was dead. Ignacio and Ida married last year, in their late 70s.
Ida and Ignacio are happy.
I thanked Ida for her story. I told her that it was my birthday, and that she had given me a gift. She thanked God for giving us that day. She kissed me and hugged me. She told me she loved me. She kissed me again and again.
