Category: Commentary

Houses With Books

A house without books

Is a heartless edifice

No stories, no soul

Build for me a shack

Every wall covered with shelves

Each shelf filled with books

No ivied mansion

With fixtures of finest gold

Could be more desired

I’ve been going to estate sales again. No real treasures this week, but I realized as I walked through houses, marveling at the objets d’art, some beautiful, some bizarre, that people have collected, and browsing through these museums of their lives, that I spend far less time in a house where there are no books. I suppose that makes me a bit judgmental, but a house with no books seems incomplete.

This is fairly hypocritical of me. Ninety percent of the books I buy now are for my e-reader. And I know a good many well read people who seldom buy a book, instead borrowing from libraries. I do still purchase print books, though, and I have a good many from which to choose. Still, when I die, and you visit an estate sale to pore over my worldly goods, look for my Kindle. There are thousands of books on there.

Peace, people!

Shhh, Alexa’s Listening

Those of you who are Amazon users might have taken advantage of a few deals during the site’s Prime Days on the 15th and 16th of this month. I’d made up my mind to forego any shopping on those days, even going so far as to post this on Facebook:

I was going to resist the urge, by golly!

Of course the second I hit post I thought, “It won’t hurt to just browse….” And there, right in plain sight on the Amazon feed was the product I didn’t know existed but desperately needed anyway:

Why did I NEED this, you ask? Some of my readers know that I struggle with insomnia, but that the Calm app I downloaded several months ago has helped immensely with my sleep problems. The only downside to the app is that I feared it would interfere with Studly Doright’s rest.

So several nights ago as we were preparing to sleep I told Studly I wished I had a special Bluetooth speaker that I could somehow wear comfortably to bed. I dislike earbuds, and regular headphones were out of the question since I sleep on my side. He assured me that my sleep stories on the Calm app didn’t bother him, and I promptly forgot about it. Until Prime Day, that is, when a product fitting my exact needs popped up magically in the “Look What We Found Just For You” section on Amazon.

Like the earnest consumer I am, I quickly read the reviews and ordered the headphones/mask. It arrived two days ago, and I got to familiarize myself with the mask while Studly was out of town. I’m not great at this newfangled technology like some of you young whippersnappers out there, but with just a little fumfering about I soon had one of my favorite sleep stories playing just for me, in a concert for one.

Now, this sleep mask was the very first thing that popped up on my Amazon feed on Tuesday. How did they know it’s what I wanted/needed? I have my suspicions:

Remember that bedtime conversation Studly and I had a few nights back? My Amazon Echo sits on the bookshelf right next to my side of the bed. Is it too outrageous to think Alexa might’ve listened in? I have some strong words for her in that case:

“Alexa, stop eavesdropping! Unless, of course, you happen to have additional recommendations that will make my life better. In that case, carry on.”

Peace, people!

Snake It Off

Since my close encounter with a cottonmouth snake (below) I’ve been hyper aware of anything serpent related.

News stories about invasive snake species in south Florida interest me:

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/environment/2019/04/13/florida-invasive-animal-species-wrecking-native-ecosystems-non-native/3456294002/

And I look for opportunities to learn more about snakes just in case there’s a next time.

This past weekend the Tallahassee Museum held an informative session for folks like me. Well, mainly for folks 12 and younger, but I didn’t let that stop me.

I listened earnestly and watched carefully. The most important thing I learned was to let snakes be. Leave them alone. Give them space. Don’t crowd them. If it’s a snake like my cottonmouth (aka water moccasin), don’t get between it and a body of water. Even if you’re positive the snake isn’t venomous, don’t pick it up. Non-venomous snakes can have nasty bites that might take months to heal.

If you’re bitten by a snake, stay calm. Try to snap a photo of it for identification purposes and then get to an emergency room. Don’t apply a tourniquet! That just exacerbates the injury.

Most of this wasn’t new information to me, but it never hurts to have a reminder. And, oh, the snakes were cool.

Look at these Banded Water Snakes

Note that the one on the right is digesting a big meal.

That’s an Eastern Indigo Snake above. These guys are endangered and non-venomous. I’m fairly certain that this is the type of snake we have living in our front garden area. Sure glad I saved him from the guys repairing our driveway!

Watch this guy, an Eastern Diamondback, who seemed as interested in us as we were in him.

This pretty guy below is a Gray Rat Snake. These are non-venomous and fairly common. They blend in perfectly with the bark of oak trees, so there’s no telling how many I pass right by every day.

So, I’m still no snake expert, but I did know the answer to one of the instructor’s questions when none of the other kids, I mean, participants did. She said that some snakes move in a concertina style and asked if anyone knew what a concertina was.

I played it cool,

But soon it was obvious no one else knew the answer, so it fell to me.

I didn’t get a gold star or anything, but that’s okay. Just knowing I was right was reward enough.

Peace, people!

A Sacrificial Offering

Studly Doright was out of town last night, and I didn’t sleep more than an hour or so. This morning I enjoyed a shower then puttered around the house before going out on the back porch to read. Soon, I found myself dozing off, so I retired to the sofa where I planned to close my eyes for just a couple of minutes.

Two hours later (!) I was awakened by my watch buzzing indicating a call. I was completely disoriented at first, even flummoxed, having no idea of the time of day or even my surroundings. I managed to carry on a fairly rational conversation, I think, with the caller, though, and after saying goodbye I took stock of my situation.

There I was with my Kindle on my chest, my hair dried and sticking out all over, and a spindle of drool clinging to the corner of my mouth. Thank goodness it hadn’t been a FaceTime call!

I think the cats thought I’d died. One left a sacrificial mouse in my shoe:

Maybe their feline deity accepted the sacrifice and brought me back for another day. I’ll try to be worthy.

Peace, people.

Intellectual Arithmetic

At least once a month I spend my Saturday in search of estate sales. Very seldom do I buy anything, but this week I found a couple of new-to-me treasures.

First is this lovely wildlife print by Nancy Z. Guinn (or Gwinn).

The photograph doesn’t do it justice. I keep expecting one of the birds to fly out to light on my finger.

This, though, was my favorite find:

I know, this copy of Ray’s Intellectual Arithmetic is in awful condition, but I’m sure I won’t look all that great when I’m 142 years old either.

After perusing the pages of this pocket sized publication, I realized that by “Intellectual Arithmetic” the author was referring to what we call mental math.

Perhaps this find doesn’t excite you, but I’m a retired teacher who often was assigned to teach math (or maths, for my British friends) and science to elementary students.

I can well imagine the reactions from modern day children were they to be handed a plain Jane copy of Ray’s Intellectual Arithmetic when they’ve become accustomed to this:

Studly Doright was impressed with my little book, but for a different reason. He thinks it might be worth more than the few dollars I paid for it. Given the book’s condition I doubt it’d be valuable. Except, that is, to me.

Peace, people!

Beauty is in the Eye(brow) of the Beholder

Found this on Facebook. It seemed appropriate for me to post considering the title of my blog.

I almost hit the publish button after attaching the meme above, but before doing so I thought, “Are there other memes about eyebrows anywhere on the internet?”

Well, yes. Yes, there are.

Just for the record, my right eyebrow is the best behaved of the two. It’s fuller and shapelier and gets asked out on way more dates.

Do you think men have a favorite eyebrow? Unless they’re drag queens, no. And even then, no, because they’re fabulous at creating glorious eyebrows.

Contrary to public opinion, I’m really not obsessed with eyebrows. I have far more important beauty issues to consider, such as my definite lack of meaningful cheekbones. But “Praying for Cheekbones” didn’t come to me in a mystical experience like “Praying for Eyebrowz did.”

And I don’t paint in my eyebrows. I do give them a little pep talk every morning, urging them to work together for the greater good and to watch their respective postures. Right eyebrow is much more receptive to my entreaties.

I could’ve posted a hundred eyebrow memes and still not have emptied the meme mine. But I think my point has been made.

(By the way, that’s not me pictured above. Thanks to Pinterest for the creative eyebrow picture.)

Peace, people!

Not His Type

Yesterday my cat, Scout, and I watched a hawk fly all around our backyard here at Doright Manor, lighting briefly on a lamppost before flying dramatically to the ground. He poked around in the grass for a minute or two before doing this:

I told Scout it looked like he was initiating a mating ritual. Every now and again he’d stop his dance and look directly at me, as if to say, “Hey, good looking….”

Scout yawned and said, “I’m almost certain that hawks perform an elaborate aerial mating ritual in place of a dance. And, honestly, you’re not his type.”

Cheeky cat.

Peace, people!

Two Tidbits About John Keats that I Learned from Reading Science Fiction

John Keats, the 19th century English Romantic poet, loved a woman named Fanny. That’s tidbit one. Fast forward to the last sentence if you want to skip the middle stuff and go directly to tidbit two.

Oddly enough, Keats, or at least his “cybrid” analog in the Hegemony, is a major character in the far future science fiction adventure, Hyperion and its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, written by Dan Simmons.*

Googling Keats brought up a link to his works from which Simmons borrowed the titles for his books.

Hyperion is an abandoned epic poem by 19th-century English Romantic poet John Keats. It is based on the Titanomachia, and tells of the despair of the Titans after their fall to the Olympians. Keats wrote the poem from late 1818 until the spring of 1819, when he gave it up as having “too many Miltonic inversions.” He was also nursing his younger brother Tom, who died on 1 December 1818 of tuberculosis. 

The themes and ideas were picked up again in Keats’s The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, when he attempted to recast the epic by framing it with a personal quest to find truth and understanding.

Dan Simmons’s novels pull off the amazing feat of combining old world sense and sensibilities with the ethics and challenges of a far reaching human presence in an infinite future universe.

I’m going to be honest and tell you, dear reader, that there were some small passages of Simmons’s books that I just did not comprehend. I often had to go back and reread and even read aloud certain passages, and still the technology was over my head. But the stories were so compelling that I was able to allow myself to be carried through those sections. Avid readers of science fiction will understand what I mean.

One thing’s for certain. I will be pondering Hyperion Cantos for a long time. Oh, tidbit two–I learned that John Keats was only five feet tall.

Peace, people!

*Hyperion Cantos is a four novel series. I just started book 3, Endymion.

Now This Storm

All the night things were fooled by the glowering skies. In the hushed anticipation,

Frogs began their nightly chorus as crickets laid down a steady beat, echoing into

this false dusk, punctuated suddenly by stabs of frantic lightning, bombarded by the

rolling of a timpani, mallets on skin, presaging the arrival of a downpour, the

outpouring, the deluge. We hunker down, my cats and I, after a sharp crackle and

concussive reverberation. Too close for comfort. The lake creatures have gone mute,

given up on their futile choruses, now that the storm has come.

We had a lightning strike a couple of minutes ago that might have topped anything I’ve ever experienced. It was close, the thunder immediate, and my heart is racing. Wish I’d still had the camera going, but the audio would have needed censoring.

See that bare spot on my lawn? That’s still fallout from last year’s Hurricane Michael. And we’ve got a potential hurricane heading this way as I write this. I’m not ready for another storm season.

Peace, people.

Raising a Glass

Last night I poured myself a Guinness and toasted the memory of my dear friend, Julie.

Smart, funny, caring Julie. She embodied love and laughter, and she lived a beautiful, yet all too brief, life, leaving this world on Saturday morning at the age of 63.

Not long after Studly Doright and I moved to Tallahassee, I went to work part time for an educational research group at Florida State University. My job was to implement lessons designed by educational researchers and at the end of the year, administer diagnostic tests to children at several local elementary schools.

At one of these schools I was working in a room with this woman who just had a way about her. She wore flowy dresses and always had a smile. The children in her groups adored her, and she never had to raise her voice. They just wanted to make Miss Julie happy. Heck, after awhile we ALL just wanted to make Miss Julie happy.

Julie and I became friends. Occasionally she’d come out to Doright Manor, and we’d walk and talk. Her stories were fascinating. She and her very British mum had once lived in Alaska and owned a tea room there. She knew all sorts of interesting people and cultivated great friendships with folks from all walks of life.

After I stopped working for the research group, Julie and I saw each other less often, but we kept in touch via Facebook and text. She invited me along to movies and concerts and we had lunch together several times. I always knew she was “right there” if I needed a friend, and I hope she knew that about me, too.

Julie was the kind of person who’d drop everything and take off cross country to care for an ailing friend. The kind of person who’d show up to listen to a friend (me) tell one of my silly stories in a public venue, and laugh louder than anyone. And oh, what a lovely laugh!

Julie was the kind of person whose door was always open and whose heart was filled with love for people and the planet. I’d never really known a true earth mother until I met Julie, and I’m so much richer for having had her in my life.

Our very last conversation was on Facebook on Friday evening, the night before she died. We’d both gone to see “Yesterday,” at different theaters and discussed it briefly. I wish I’d kept the conversation going into the night and through the next day. Maybe we could’ve made it past the episode that claimed her life.

And the last thing of mine she shared on Facebook? I cried fresh tears when I read it.

Let me assure you, even though she didn’t make it to 65, Julie didn’t take anything for granted. She lived with her entire heart and soul. And I know that all who knew her were enriched by the relationship.

So Julie, this is for you. May your spirit rest in beauty and peace.

Love,

Leslie