From Wiki:The Nebra sky disc is a bronze disc of around 12 in diameter, having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols. These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster of seven stars, axiomatically interpreted as the Pleiades or simply as a symbol for star clusters. Two golden arcs along the sides, interpreted to mark the angle between the solstices,
were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom with
internal parallel lines, which is usually interpreted as a solar boat with numerous oars, though some authors have also suggested that it may represent a rainbow,the Aurora Borealis or a comet.
The disc was found buried on the Mittelberg hill near Nebra in Germany. It is dated by to c. 1800–1600 BCE and attributed to the Early Bronze Age Unetice culture.
The Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of astronomical phenomena known from anywhere in the world.In June 2013, it was included in the UNESCO Memory of World Register and termed "one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century."
"Baby" from 1954, a short by D.A. Pennebaker who filmed his daughter Stacy visiting the zoo in New York City. This is one of his earliest pieces and would go on to make many documentaries notably "Don't Look Back" (1967) featuring Bob Dylan on tour and "Monterey Pop" (1969), introducing the world to rock and pop stars such as The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and many others.
"The Red Balloon" from 1956, written, produced and directed by Albert Lamorisse features his son Pascal who rescues a big red balloon that was snagged on a light pole. In response it seems, the balloon follows him through his days. This nearly wordless short film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Palme d'or short films at Cannes.
We happened across "Baby" on the Criterion Channel and enjoyed following this curly top with a balloon through the land of giant adults. It reminded C of "The Red Balloon" which she had seen perhaps as a grad student. This is a charming, moving film and C remarked part of the appeal for Americans is the post-war urban scenery of the northern Parisian suburb where it was shot.
Paris Street; Rainy Day-1877 Gustave Caillebotte
Both can be found on YT and the two clocking in together for a total of 40 minutes, well worth the time spent.
From Wiki: Written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kohn. Written for the film version of the musical comedy Whoopee(1930), the song became a signature tune for Eddie Cantor who sang it in the movie. This is the 1957 version by Nina Simone. The beginning seems quite reminiscent of songs by Louis Prima and at first, with Simone's deep voice, I thought it was him! And-nevermind the gender of the lyrics-one can adapt as I do for my watergirl.
For two days this past week, a pair of Sandhill Cranes were hanging out in the mowed field just north of our house and behind the Farm Bureau complex. This is the third year in a row that we have seen Cranes in this field at times that would indicate they are either heading to their Winter home in Florida or returning to their breeding grounds here in Michigan or farther north. It seems a bit early for them to be heading south although I wonder if our cooler temps (for August) may have inspired them.
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Good grief, it was 49° when I got up at 7 this morning (August 19). The weather has been Septemberish with temps mainly in the 70's-low 80's most of August. We're supposed to get a heat wave due to a dome of high pressure meandering Eastward this upcoming week.
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Turkey Bros are more active. I've been seeing them over in the Farm Bureau solar array, Benny's Diner and along the berm (pictured here).
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The Little Hosta is ailing.
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In the East Garden:
Tithonia beginning to bloom-a butterfly fav
Cup plants blooming
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Big tomatoes coming in
I pulled the zucchini. They weren't looking good and the last 2 small fruit withered before maturing. Next year, I'll put them into one of the raised beds.
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DHS visiting the rabbit burrow
A couple of evenings ago, we were having supper on the deck when we saw a young rabbit running between us and the pool with DHS hot on his trail. They disappeared behind the honeysuckle. After 5 minutes, a visibly agitated Buddy reappeared: the bun had outrun him and his Lordship was quite put out. He ran around half-crazed to burn off his predator adrenaline and frustrated disappointment: he failed to make his kill. He remained amped up for a good hour until he finally came in, ate, came into the great room where we were watching a movie and snuggled his back up next to Mum's thigh.
For days since, I have seen him over at the rabbit's burrow located in the large brush pile behind the shed. I am sure the rabbit's scent is strong around there and coming across this, reminds Bud of his failing and perhaps thoughts of revenge.
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At the Diner:
Mr. Redbird and the glowy hydrangeas.
Lil' Woody (Downy woodpecker)
It was closing time and I had gone out to bring in the feeder. We do this every evening otherwise we are guaranteed that the coons will smash it down overnight. Woody was staying put and ignoring me. I kept approaching and he was adamant about finishing his meal, his eye glaring at me. Finally, within a foot and moving my right arm, he flew off. Customers...
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Unknown 60's comic whose patented catch phrase was: "Is it not great when problems disappear?" leading to inevitable tales of wives, kids, in-laws, bosses, co-workers, neighbors, pets, machines, houses-on and on. Life, in general.
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I came across this while surfing YT-"Positive and uplifting music to relax and pray. Well, I had to investigate this: will it be "Bringing in the Sheaves" or "Onward Christian Soldiers" to a cheesy reggae beat or generic reggae with a Christian marketing label slapped on. Alas, it is the latter. There is a play list but nothing I recognized. To be fair, my knowledge of such music is quite limited.
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Also found on YT:
That's right, 3.10:47 of Euopean Forest scenery with tasteful Eurosynth music. Caveats:
*Can cause drowsiness especially when watching after imbibing alcohol, cannabis or hallucinogens or...
*You may decide to stay up all night.
*You may not go into work. Why destroy your bliss?
*Divorce papers may be in your future depending on your partner's tolerance.
Be advised that you cannot sue the filmmakers. Parents tried after their teenager began watching incessantly, failed in school and parents blamed them for turning the kid into a drug user as he wanted to enhance his experience. The judge threw out the case but forced the filmmakers to put the words "Relaxation Film" on every scene. You've been warned.
Recommendations:
The perfect thing to have on while serving hash brownies to your faculty pals. -Faculty Lifeline
Great background muzak when forced to entertain your asshole father-in-law just to piss him off. As well as serving Old Milwaukee beer to this beer snob who usually drinks stuff that costs $120/6 pak. -anonymous, soon to be divorced
Creative use in the dorms after a tough week. Get together with friends, get stoned and see who makes it through all 3.10:43 and stays awake. The contest goes the entire term and the grand prize is $100 and free license for bragging rights.-Dorm Times
It pairs well with David Lynch.-High Days Magazine
This is not entirely satire-C has told me that she has watched "relaxation" vids that come with warnings not to listen to while driving, operating machinery or tools etc.
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Dictator, Admiral-General Haffaz Aladeen, who risked his life to ensure that democracy
would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.
Our own El Hefe's excuse for not doing the presidential candidate debates is that the host, Fox News, always (in his opinion) uses unflattering photos of him. Poor baby.
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cutebuddypix
It's a hot Sunday afternoon and Bud is chillin' under the ceiling fan.
DHS checking out the bath. Because of this, we've had to post a sign at the Diner "Attention valued patrons, be advised that a feline predator may be present on the premises. We apologize for any discomfort or inconvenience caused".
Mr. Black squirrel stopped by for a snack.
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August 9-our annual first ripe tomato meal: BLTs! Yum!!
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In their ads on YT, they claim that their chewables have a "delicious beef flavor". How do they know this?
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A curious thing about living on Earth: there are those who live by water and those who don't. Their lives have distinctly different sets of experiences than landlubbers.
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Jupiter's Giant Red Spot is a hurricane-like storm spinning counter clockwise at 268 mph. This storm was first sighted about 358 years ago. To give an idea of the size of the storm as well as that of Jupiter, the Red Spot is 1.3 times larger than Earth's diameter!
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In Japan, the term for forest bathing or shinrin-yoku, began in the 1980's. More than simply a walk in the woods, the practice of
being in nature, especially an area with trees, as an act of sensory
immersion undertaken for physiological and psychological health benefits.
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From 1975-Joni Mitchell "Edith and the Kingpin"
Melancholic, jazzy, with sharp lyrics regarding the plight of women encountering powerful men, whether it be show biz, the professions or Mafia.
The big man arrives
Disco dancers greet him
Plainclothes cops greet him
Small town, big man, fresh lipstick glistening
Sophomore jive
From victims of typewriters
The band sounds like typewriters
The big man he's not listening
His eyes hold Edith
His left hand holds his right
What does that hand desire
That he grips it so tight
Edith in the ring
The passed over girls are conferring
The man with the diamond ring is purring
All claws for now withdrawn
One by one they bring
His renegade stories to her
His crimes and his glories to her
In challenge they look on
Women he has taken grow old too soon
He tilts their tired faces
Gently to the spoon
Edith in his bed
A plane in the rain is humming
The wires in the walls are humming
Some song some mysterious song
Bars in her head
Beating frantic and snowblind
Romantic and snowblind
She says his crime belongs
Edith and the Kingpin
Each with charm to sway
Are staring eye to eye
They dare not look away
You know they dare not look away
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Confirmed!We have a pair of eastern giant swallowtail butterflies! They were eating and dancing around the butterfly bush.
Two cup plants in bloom-lots of pollinators!
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Seen while out and about: Monarch lover bumper sticker
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August 11 dramatic clouds:
About this time, a F-1 tornado packing winds up to 95 mph hit the northern edge of Perry, MI about 25 miles from here.
Bill Bouwman
A glowy dusk:
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Time passes: I do not remember offhand the precise dates of my parent's death. I know the months-June and August. I checked and Mom's was August 11.
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August 13-saw first Monarch butterfly!!
From 2021, monarch on tithonia
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Our portal training with Buddy has hit a snag. Early this morning, C awoke hearing a kerfuffle in the house. She went out to the kitchen figuring Buddy was being rambunctious only to discover the floor covered with kibble and Buddy cornering a raccoon who was under the microwave stand. Evidently, Mr. Raccoon had come in via the portal! Well, she scooped up Bud in her arms to sequester him in her bedroom while she dealt with the intruder. Buddy, over her shoulder, gave the Coon a long hiss. She successfully shepherded the masked one out the side door. Buddy was remarkably calm-not puffed up as cats often are in such cases and will often bite out of fury.
Well, this complicates things. At first we wondered how we went 13 years without such an incident until C realized that we had installed a larger portal to accommodate the Buddy's size. This is just a shame as we were making strides to giving Bud 24/7 access to the house and his Mum uninterrupted sleep. At present, our strategy is that the portal will remain open during the day and lock at night for a period of time. Hopefully, this Coon will encounter a locked portal and will move along. Stay tuned!
PS Early morning August 15-the raccoon returned and tried to open the locked portal door. Buddy was in the library keeping an eye on things.
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Evening of August 14, the clouds were flying East to West which is unusual as most of our weather is the opposite. The rain maker was a Low which swirls in a counter-clockwise direction. My rain gauge this morning showed 2.5" had fallen since last night.
This morning around 6 am, C woke hearing Buddy's mews. She got up to let him in and discovered him waiting in the kitchen. He had used the portal without assistance!!! Well done, sir!
We have been working patiently with him for months to use the portal. Bud seemed to have some sort of issue using his head against the plastic door to enter. We tried turning this into a fun, circus act starring The Great Bertini, the leaping tiger cat. Bud enjoyed racing to the portal just as we opened it a wee bit with varying results. We held many lectures exhorting the positives of using the portal: 24/7 access! Especially during the Winter! No waiting! But between his head issues, his strategy of waking Mum in the middle of the night for food and scritches and his lordship's attitude of servant services, it was slow going. But we persisted and moving forward, will continue to reinforce and reward this behavior.
Located in the very south of Bavaria just north of Austria, Neuschwanstein was commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria as an escape from the constraints he saw himself exposed to in the Bavarian capital of Munich. He grew up in a castle nearby and absolutely fell in love with the environment. The castle is an estimated 65,000 square feet and was built for one resident: Ludwig. He believed it represented a Romanticist interpretation of the Middle Ages, as well as the musical mythology of his friend Wagner, whose operas had made a lasting impression on him.
Some interior views:
Walt Disney was enchanted by Neuschwanstein and used it as a basis for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty's castle.
Bavaria
Disneyland
For more about the castle and King Ludwig II, this is a nice vid on YT.
We experimented with enlarging Buddy's wet food preferences and like our previous crew, he's a fishy cat. We tried chicken with gravy. Meh. So I put out the can in the Back 40 for the critters. I figured that MamaChuck would snarfle it but instead, it was the Stampies. An adult and a youngun came out of the apartments with the adult immediately going for the cat food. They are well-known as lovers of cat food, it is often used as bait to trap them. The adult was really going at it when another adult came out of the apartments and wanted some, too. A brawl ensued.
I believe the first adult prevailed. The can is nowhere to be seen.
Unlike his American cousin Freddie the Freeloader, whose name is a pejorative, our Freddie is vaguely Cockney. He and I have a routine:
F: 'ullo guv, got yur nuts?
J: I do, thank you for asking. And you?
F: You bet guv!
And I toss the peanuts.
For the first time in our 247 years as a nation, we have a former president running for the position again with obvious ideas, in my opinion, of being a tyrannical dictator.
How is this going to end? Toxic traits of a narcissist get worse with age-bitterness, vengeful, lack of empathy, self-absorbed, reclusive, entitled, full of perceived enemies-all become more pronounced. If it's an ordinary person, often they drive people away and die alone. If they're wealthy, they can always buy companions although it becomes a whirling turnstile because the narcissist is batshit crazy and impossible to endure.
Such behavior turns up as cautionary tales in Shakespeare, Classical myths, and the Bible. A modern fantasy version:
Having failed to be elected again despite all the threats and legal machinations, Roach is convicted of multiple felonies. But his mental and physical health are deteriorating. Son-in-law Jared Kushner steps in and offers a deal: voluntary exportation but, (and this is not revealed) it is a one way ticket with no hope of return. Jared has made arrangements with his friends running Dubai and in a ploy to appeal to Roach's still enormous ego, he is offered a reality show to MC. And a fabulous home and personal staff. Roach is delighted when told that his legal troubles are over and that he has this new show and eagerly sells off all his properties in the US and moves. Yet, Roach is so out of it that he does not realize that the show makes him look like a clown. He rants and raves, goes off script and minders walk right onto the stage to prod him into functioning as MC. He thinks this is a tribute. But it is not. It is Jared's revenge.
Jared has hated the old man nearly from the start when he began to date Ivanka. That sick fuck who lusted for his own daughter. You see, Jared dearly loved Ivanka. Never in his wildest dreams would a schlub like him ever have a wealthy, tall, doe-eyed blonde agree to marry him. That old man hurt her. Jared made sure that no matter where he was on the planet, his calendar would always be clear on show night so he could watch the old man humiliate himself in front of millions of viewers. He would settle down with his favorite food and drink, get a nice buzz, watch and smile.
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I've been watching the newest "Justified" which is set in Detroit. The show will ID locations at various parts of the episode and I was startled to see one labeled as "Grosse Point". WTF!!! Does no one keep track of this stuff? Sloppy and it makes FX look like smucks. They will probably wave it all off like C's freshmen students who often respond to a spelling or use correction such as there, they're, their: "well, people know what I mean."
PS-I gave up on the show-it doesn't hold a candle to the first season. The writing is dull and clichéd, the supporting characters and the bad guys are meh. Olyphant seems listless.
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Yesterday evening, MamaChuck chowing down on a half-eaten green tomato she left on the deck which was relocated to the diner.
This morning, I woke to find this. Now, this is circumstantial and it could very well have been the coons but I put my money on Mama. The girl seems to have acquired a taste for tomatoes. Or vengeful.
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I'm getting my normal summer tan-a red brown sugar man.
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In a house with cats, after several years, throws do well on the tops and cushions of sofas and loveseats. Buy them wide enough to fold a couple of times. One side is for everyday
where claws are sure to pull up threads. The flip sides are used when company comes over.
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A couple of species at the communal bath
The hydrangeas looking rosy
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Timo Oksanen
One very early warm morning in August, we drove to a field across from where I grew up to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower. We parked on the side of the gravel road near the farmer's entrance to the field and walked down a rolling incline. The field was tall grass and we lay on a blanket looking north. We had timed it right as we saw a good number of of shooting stars. She had never witnessed a shower, just a single one now and again by happenstance.
After an hour or so, we heard a car on the road above us. It stopped for 10 seconds, drove off, then quickly went into reverse and pulled into the field entrance. A beam of light turned on and swung over our heads and shone on the grass 30 yards in front of us. It was a county cop.
She began to rise, being a daughter of a State Police Colonel, to give herself up. I grabbed her and pulled her down close to me, shaking my head "no". After a few minutes, the light shut off and the car backed up and drove away. From our vantage point, we watched the cop's headlights turn north on the paved road we drove in on. We settled back to the Perseid's, chuckling.
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The only butterfly I have seen this season in the garden aside from the cabbage butterflies is a black and yellow one whose constant motion defies my ability to identify. Tail or no tail is the salient question.
All this lead to a memory of a song "The Elusive Butterfly of Love" which I never cared for. A bit too sappy for my taste. I thought the artist was either Jimmy Webb (the strings) or some soft rock group akin to Bread. Nope, it is from 1965 written and sang by folkie Bob Lind. The song was his only major hit.
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Crazy weather: August 6-63°, rainy, chilly. I'm in my sweats, no fan, the windows are closed down to about an inch. Feels like late September.
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Mcdonald's is adding a personal message when you order via the drive-thru: "Yum! Great order". Are people so needy or guilt-ridden about eating fast food that they need effin' validation to enjoy their Big Mac and fries?
Burger King countered with "You Rule!!" which is on the menu, employees are instructed to tell this when you order and because "You Rule!!", you receive a cardboard crown with your meal. So special.
