Tango

A little pre-Thanksgiving fun to lighten the dread of a stop at the grocery store.

You know their mom was all about the dance lessons growing up.


-hat tip to friend Albena for this one.

Becoming a scoundrel

The latest meme on the interwebs is the redefinition of Going Rogue in response to Sarah Palin's latest foray into fiction writing. I find it hilarious, if it really does mean "unprotected anal sex," but the evidence is dubious. But nearly as good is the actual definition of rogue: "An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal."
Seems to fit.

Giving

I've posted before about the Alternative Holiday Market held at our local church, but it bears repeating. Especially now, when so many are cutting back, charities are feeling the pinch too. If you have enough money to spend on an internet connection and a decent dinner every night, you have enough money to give.

Friday Book Blogging

The week was another six book week. My favorite was Adriana Trigiani's newest Very Valentine. Trigiani does spend an extraordinary number of pages on what everyone is wearing, but Valentine Roncalli's struggle to find a place for herself in her extended Italian-American family and their idiosyncratic shoe factory is heartfelt and not at all contrived.
The story follows Valentine in her quest to save the factory with predictable results, but not all of this book is the fairy tale ending, which saves it from becoming too trite. It also includes an ingenious little ode to Lucia, Lucia, a previous novel of Trigiani's. Very Valentine is decidedly "chick lit" but of a noteworthy caliber.

It's the cheekbones

I'm usually not too much into the whole scruffy look, but for the Sexiest Man Alive, I might make an exception.

Snake trick

Yet another example of the perfidious nature of squirrels has come to my attention due to my vigilance and googling abilities.
In order to trick rattlesnakes, research shows that squirrels will "fight back by eating, rubbing and even bathing themselves with pieces of discarded snake skin." This re-scenting masks the evil-minded squirrels from predatory snakes.
As one of the scientist who authored the study says, "It's a nice example of the opportunism of animals."

As if we needed more examples of squirrel opportunism.

Row, row, row your boat

Yesterday, we met Katie Spotz who is attempting to be the youngest person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
In addition to the (in my opinion) absolutely insane challenge of rowing across an ocean, she is raising money for Blue Planet Run which funds safe drinking water projects around the world.
She may be crazy, but it's for a good cause. If you have $5 you can sponsor a mile.

Awwwwww

OMG! I just totally read the cutest article in Vanity Fair!

How "cute" is killing us:

For generations, kids couldn’t wait until they reached adulthood so they could smoke, drink, eat four-course meals, make money, drive cars, have sex, and, if they were the type to join the military, legally kill other human beings. Now we would rather log on and tune out, preferably in the womb-like comfort of a Snuggie, which is the perfect thing to wear as we gaze at photos of kittens while gnawing on delicious cupcakes.
Nom-nom-nom

I will personally guarantee, there will never be a link to I Can Has Cheezburger? from this blog. (But it is cute.)

Friday Book Blogging

This week I read seven (and a half) books, two of which (the half included) were crap. My pick of the week is Barbara Michaels' Witch. I had originally borrowed this book for Halloween, but didn't pick it up until last week.
The book is a Gothic tale of greed and insanity, but told in Michaels' inimitable lighthearted manner. Ellen March buys an old house. The house comes with the ubiquitous ghost. The legend of a 200-year-old witch haunts the little Virginia town almost more than it does the house. The twist at the end was entirely too predictable, but the story is still deftly woven.

Communion

"[T]he Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life... ."

"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom." ~Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes

That's what God did on the 7th day. He got all wacky with his creativity on Planet X.
Personally, the Catholic Church searching for intelligent life outside our solar system strikes me as a really desperate membership drive.

Remember

Tumbling down

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, last night, attended by leaders of Germany, Russia, France, England and the U.S. Secretary of State culminated in "a chain of 1,000 giant foam dominoes - painted with messages of freedom by young people - [that] was toppled along where the wall once stood." Cool.

References

I like Wikipedia. I don't use it for medical diagnosis or doctoral dissertations. I use it for entertainment (with a little education thrown in). So I was happy to see LiveScience.com say,

"A 2005 study by the journal Nature found Wikipedia roughly as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica, and a 2008 study in the journal Reference Services Review pegged Wikipedia's accuracy rate at 80 percent compared to 95-96 percent among other sources — not bad for a free, crowd-sourced encyclopedia."

So keep in mind, on the posts in which I cite wikipedia, I'm 80% accurate.

Friday Book Blogging

Of the seven books I read this week, I'm recommending the latest Mary Russell novel by Laurie R. King, but with reservations. I love everything about The Language of Bees except the ending. It has those atrocious words, "to be continued..."
Nothing frustrates a devourer (is that a word?) of books more than those words followed by a seemingly interminable wait for the author to actually pen the continuation.
However, the introduction of Sherlock Holmes' illegitimate son by The Woman is a wonderful twist in a series that has faithfully upheld the integrity of Sherlock Holmes while humanizing him at the same time. The story dips into fundamentalist religious charlatans and bizarre ritual. It is suitably Holmsian, but not without excitement. And, if I haven't mentioned it, I'm dying to know how it ends!!
Perhaps I should recommend holding off until the second part rolls off the presses... .


p.s. Yay! for post #1111

Scratch

Don't you hate it when you have an itch right in the middle of your back?

Speculations on pea-green and runcible

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

Wrapped up in a five pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

II
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?

'They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

I have had, for the past three days, twirling wickedly in my head, the above quoted Edward Lear rhyme "The Owl and the Pussycat." Surprisingly (to me), most of my acquaintances have never heard it. And it's not because I'm old! Many of them are older than I.
In any case, I am wondering:

1. What was Lear's obsession with pea-green? And how can anyone define it as beautiful?
2. Runcible? I suppose if you're making up words, runcible is as good as any, but it doesn't seem to have caught on the way, say, google has.
3. Did pussy have the same double entendre back in 1871 as it does now?

Still, even if you cannot answer a single question, I can take satisfaction in knowing that at least some of you are humming the damn thing now.

Election Day

Chances are you're registered to vote. Just because it's not for President, doesn't mean it's not worth your time. Do it. A democracy only works if you allow your voice to be heard. (Or tallied.)

Trick or Treat

A disappointing slew of gobblins this year. And fewer than eight bags of candy distributed.
The mailman came by with his son dressed as a mailman. And a very tipsy parent with a glass of wine asked for "adult treats."
Remember when Halloween was exciting?

Friday Book Blogging

A six book week this time. My pick of the week is C.J. Sansom's Dark Fire.
Hunchback attorney Matthew Shardlake practices property law in king Henry the Eighth's England. He's coerced into searching for the formula for Greek Fire in order for Thomas Cromwell to get back into Henry's good graces.
The tale twists and turns through the medieval streets of London and the treacheries of the recently divided church and country. Shardlake is a medieval version of Sherlock Holmes' axiom of rational thought and thorough observation.
This historical novel radiates a sense of the ramshackle vibrancy and filthy survival of London in the 1500s, and delivers two mysteries and the obligatory near-death escape with aplomb.
If this appeals, try the first Matthew Shardlake novel, Dissolution also.

Wolfman

lupus est homo homini

More than 2000 years ago, when Plautus first posited man's inhumanity to man he could have had no idea how brutally true it would continue to be.