Our friend Bluebird of Bitterness has posted a beautiful musical offering today, one that I have loved for a very long time. I would like to share that piece with you this evening as we celebrate Christmas Eve. Peace and love be with you all. Merry Christmas!
December Illuminations at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park posted by our friend Gary. Check out these gorgeous holiday displays. It’s a no-brainer; just sit back and enjoy the show! Thanks for the excellent pix, Gary!
Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the US. Bill and I will celebrate this beautiful holiday by spending the day with our family, sharing our love and a delicious meal. We are fortunate to have so many blessings for which we are eternally grateful.
Among my many blessings I count you, my dear WordPress friends. I wish you all the best life has to offer and endless reasons to be thankful in the coming years.
Written for Kymber Hawke’s Get To Know You #36. Here are her three questions and my answers.
What type of food would you NEVER eat?
Capozzelli di Angnelli, an Italian delicacy which translated into English means “Head of theSheep”. This is a dish of baked sheep’s head that is considered a macho ritual. It is made by lopping the sheep’s head in half, topping with tomato sauce and sprinkling with breadcrumbs seasoned with rosemary, salt, garlic and oregano, and then baking it in a slow oven for four or five hours. I’m sure brains and other parts of an animal’s head are eaten by other nationalities besides Italian but that doesn’t make it any less disgusting to me. There were certain Italian treats which my father liked to eat such as tripe (the first or second stomach of a cow), and eels. I’ve had eels and thought they were very tasty but I could never bring myself to try tripe. Thank goodness, my mother never made Capozzelli di Angnelli nor did any of my relatives. All I can think of is that scene from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom where the people sat around eating monkey brains!
2. What is your go-to movie?
Easy …. well, sort of. If I’m channel surfing and land on any of the Godfather movies, I will always stop and watch. I’m one of those people who insists on watching a movie from the very beginning. Even if we put a movie on five minutes after it started, I won’t watch. Hey, a lot can happen in those first five minutes! The Godfather is one movie I will watch regardless of where the action is when I put the movie on.
Another all-time favorite is The Wizard of Oz. That classic holds a lot of sentimental meaning for me. It’s also a great film for its cinematography and musical numbers.
Also, let’s not forget Mel Brooks .… the last of the comedic geniuses. I adore Mel and all his work and will watch any of his movies anytime. My favorite Mel Brooks film is “Young Frankenstein” with “History of the World” a close second.
What’s the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Not a thing but a who … and that would be our 4 ½ year old granddaughter Colette. That child makes me laugh a lot … especially during my recuperation; she has a finely developed sense of humor and she cracks me up with her facial expressions and many of the things she says and does. The other day was my husband’s birthday and he asked for (and received) the Duck Vacuum … a mini personal vacuum cleaner. The day it arrived happened to be one of the days we watch Colette. She was excited about a package being delivered and when we opened the box, she wanted to use the vacuum immediately. This kid loves to clean! Of course, she also happened to be wearing every piece of jewelry from her collection that day! I took a video of her vacuuming our bedroom; it’s hilarious. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to post videos here so I settled for a couple of still photos. I had a great laugh watching her that day! 💜
Well, this was fun! Hope you all enjoyed getting to know me just a little bit. Thanks to Kymber Hawke for a very enjoyable prompt.
For as long as I can remember, music has been in my life in one form or another. There was never a time when I was not singing in a choir or choral group, either in church or school. My family was musical and the house was always alive with radio music, records playing, someone practicing the piano, someone else playing the mandolin, someone tinkering with the guitar, recorder, squeezebox, drums, and everyone singing, singing, singing.
I will always remember my Christmas present when I was 12 years old … a portable record player which my parents repeatedly made very clear was not ‘a toy’. I knew that! The toy phonographs came with Howdy Doody decals or Mickey Mouse ears and were made out of cardboard painted to look like leather or plastic. I had those toy record players which didn’t last very long; this was the real deal. To me, my teal blue General Electric Solid State record player was ‘the Holy Grail’! My parents spent “good money on that thing” and expected me to treat it with respect. What they didn’t predict was how I would worship that suitcase phonograph every day of my life.
This baby had built-in speakers that really blew! And a real diamond tip needle. My older cousin Joseph taught me the proper way to raise and lower the arm and how to safely get the dust off my records. My parents gave me and my sister a weekly allowance and I used most of my money to buy records.
The first 45 to grace my record player was “Da Doo Ron Ron” by the Crystals (which was prophetic because “his name was Bill”!). The early girl groups were my idols; I loved their sound and their lyrics were perfect for young girls with hormones working overtime. Then the Beatles invaded the US and my life was changed forever.
That GE teal blue record player became my best friend and I took very good care of it. After I was married, we had a hi-tech stereo system in the living room but I still kept my phonograph upstairs in the bedroom where we’d listen to romantic tunes like “A Million To One”, “Daddy’s Home”, “I Only Have Eyes For You” and “Ooh Baby Baby”. When our sons were old enough, I handed down my record player to them and now our 15 year old granddaughter has it in her bedroom. Her latest purchase was the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy which is pretty damn cool.
Thanks to Keith Allen for the invitation to write a little something on his new blog. I hope you enjoyed what I had to share today.
Written for The Daily Spur Writing Exercise where the challenge is to describe an object using only the sense of hearing. This is my description. The accompanying video will reveal what I am listening to.
Listening to this apparatus I hear what sounds like gentle cascading waterfalls similar to a bevy of swans as it glides onto and across a lake.
If I could hear fairies’ wings fluttering or hummingbirds hovering at their feeders, I believe they would sound like this.
There’s a regal quality, as well, like that of stately Baroque dancers performing a minuet.
Closing my eyes and listening intently, I see images of mushrooms sprouting through the earth, flowers opening, plants unfolding and trees shooting up to skies.
I can hear an arrow quivering through the air and insects buzzing by my ear.
The sun rises, slowly spreading glorious light from ocean to ocean and the silhouette of a ballerina pirouettes across the horizon.
I hear sand dunes shifting and snowflakes collecting on holly branches.
The heavens open as an albatross soars higher and higher to the tone a finely tuned Steinway.
This is J.S. Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”, usually played on a pipe organ. Here is Amy Turk … harpist, arranger, composer and session artist from the UK … playing Bach’s iconic piece which has been transcribed for the harp, the item I was describing.
You may recall back on May 1 I shared a couple of photos with you of my houseplant, a philodendron called Prince of Orange. At that time I promised to share its growth progress with you; today I have a couple more pix.
Houseplants don’t usually shoot-up overnight like Jack and the Beanstalk so the progress is slow; I think I’ll notice considerably more growth than you will see in these pix but maybe not. It’s impossible for me to know how things look through your eyes so please tell me what you see.
I also have another houseplant which my sister-in-law gave me a few months ago. That one goes by several different names including Swiss Cheese Plant and MexicanBreadfruit but its most common name is Split-leaf philodendron. Its leaves grow similarly to the Prince of Orange philodendron – tightly coiled, slowly unfurling – but the Split-leaf has one strange feature the Prince of Orange does not …. hairy branches! Talk about an interesting houseplant, this one’s it!
This coming week I will repot the Split-leaf into a little bigger pot. When repotting a houseplant, you don’t want to move it into a new pot that’s too much larger than its existing one. That’s a difficult temptation to resist and a common mistake people make when repotting. We want fast results but a too-big pot will not achieve that. If there’s too much room for the roots in the pot, the plant could go into ‘shock’ and become dormant; sometimes a re-potted plant will die. When repotting houseplants, size definitely matters.
In truth, most houseplants are pretty hardy and can tolerate whatever comes their way. One of the things to remember is to never overwater your houseplants, even the ones that prefer a moist soil. Cacti and succulents react poorly to overwatering. A houseplant that is dried out – even shriveled up – will quickly perk up with a little water but an overwatered plant is very prone to root rot, which is difficult if not impossible to treat. My husband calls me the “plant rescuer” because I find nearly dead houseplants in supermarkets or CVS or even nurseries, take them home and give them some TLC. They bounce back fairly quickly and that really makes me happy.
OK, I’ve talked enough about these two plants; let’s do an unveiling, shall we? If you’d like to read the entire post from May 1 about my Prince of Orange (which also has a slew of funnies from the Bluebird of Bitterness, here’s the link:
But if you’d rather not, here are the two photos from May 1 of my Prince of Orange, followed by photos I took today:
Brand new at home
Photo from May 1
Now today’s shots:
Photo from today, May 18, 2024
Photo from today, May 18, 2024
Can you see the folds starting to open, unfurling the leaves? That waxy cluster of red/orange “shoots” in the center of the plant will open into a new green leaf. It’s pretty cool to watch but we can’t hurry nature.
Now here are a couple of pix of my Split-leaf philodendron …. the one with the hairy branches. When I took this photo, I put the plant on my roll top desk in the corner of my sunroom for better light but I forgot to remove the table runner on top of the desk; that may be a distraction but I think you’ll be able to spot the hairy legs!
Split-leaf philodendron, May 15, 2024
Looking down into Split-leaf, May 15, 2024 Check out those hairy legs!
It’s fascinating to me how these two philodendrons unfurl and almost “shed” their casing to allow for new leaf growth. As far as I know neither of these plants will bear flowers but anything can happen with some sun, water and TLC.
Thanks for visiting my sunroom and checking out my phabulousphilodendrons! I will post again when something cool develops!
My friend Clive at Take it Easy reminds us about Mental Health Awareness Week. We’re in the midst of it here in The States and it’s coming up next week in the UK. But really … there’s no timeline for mental health awareness and it doesn’t take a huge time commitment or expensive exercise equipment. A doctor friend of mine likes to say “When you wake up, get up. And when you get up, do something.” Simple enough, even for this old bird! Stay healthy, my friends!
Have you ever roller skated? As a child I had the type of roller skates that attached to my shoes and tightened with a key. I would skate in my neighborhood with my friends; since the number of cars on the road back then was much less than now, it was safe for us to take over the whole street and skate for hours. I never had a pair of professional-type skates with the beautiful wood wheels, the ones that laced up like ice skates, nor did I ever go to a roller skating rink. My experience was limited to street skating in strap-on skates with my friends … and lots of skinned knees!
2. Have you ever ridden a horse (or donkey) Yes, I’ve actually ridden both. When I was a young girl in The Bronx, I remember there was a truck that would travel around the area making stops along the way. It was not a very large truck, similar to the vehicles belonging to private landscapers you see today. The truck traveled around and played music like an ice cream truck but instead of ice cream, it carried two ponies and offered rides to children whose parents were lucky enough to have an extra 5¢ to spend. The rides didn’t last long, just up and down our street with the truck driver/pony handler holding the rein and leading us around. For city kids such as myself, this was an exciting and memorable event! One summer my sister-in-law and I took our young children horseback riding while on vacation in Montauk. It started out nice but as the day progressed, the weather became increasingly hot and humid and we were all extremely uncomfortable. Since it was a half day tour for beginners, we weren’t exactly galloping bareback down the beach on wild horses which would have provided a cooling breeze. At the end of the day, we were all sweaty, sunburned and covered with mosquito bites … not to mention that we walked like John Wayne for the next two days! There are quite a few horse stables where I currently live and it’s not unusual to see people on horseback crossing the local streets going from one trail to another. It’s a lovely way to spend a few hours but horseback riding isn’t anything I see myself doing again. While in Sicily I rode donkeys fairly often. Many of the streets in my father’s home town are so narrow, the only way to go from one place to another is by foot or on a donkey. Riding a donkey is nothing like riding a horse. Donkeys are much slower than horses; they are approachable and lovable, overall non-reactive and less likely to go into a flight response. Even though I rode horses several times, I did not grow up around them so it was natural for me to feel safer being around a donkey than a horse. You’re also much closer to the ground should you take a tumble! Our donkeys were always saddled, a much more comfortable and safer way to ride.
3. What was your favourite ride at a fun fair? The rollercoaster, without a doubt. I love rollercoasters – the good old-fashioned ones with lots of steep climbs and drops – none of this crazy upside down nonsense you see these days. Just give me an old rollercoaster and I’m a happy camper. All the rides that spin and twist and twirl and go upside down make me terribly nauseous and I steer clear of them. Also I will never go on any ride that involves a free fall; to me that is just insanity. I also used to love water parks and riding the huge twisty-turny slides into the giant pools. They were great fun and an instant way to cool off but these days I can’t walk around theme parks for hours on end because of my arthritis. As my husband always says, “I’m too old for this crap!”
4. Choice of fun fair prizes: coconut, cuddly toy, £10/$10 cash prize. Well, money is always nice but I’d say a cuddly toy to give my granddaughter (unless it’s an elephant which I’d keep for myself! 🐘). We don’t have coconut as a prize here which is too bad because I love coconut. But we do have cotton candy and what’s a day at the fair without the sweet fluffy clouds of pink cotton candy? The legendary Coney Island is an hour’s drive from my house and Palisades Park (made famous by the video below) is only 30 minutes away in New Jersey across the Hudson River. We went to both places often when we were younger. For my UK friends, our Coney Island in Brooklyn was inspired by your seaside resort of New Brighton. We now live about 10 minutes away from Playland Park in Rye, NY, an old and very well-known amusement park/beach. I’m a fan of the Dragon Coaster and the arcade but we spend most of our time (at least for now) in Kiddie-Land where our little 4 year old granddaughter can have fun on the kid rides and play mini-golf, which is the only type of golfing I’m into! And let’s not forget the Tunnel of Love for me and my mister!
An old man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig up his garden and plant vegetables, but the ground was too hard. He sat down and wrote a letter to his son, who was in the state penitentiary.
Dear Fred,
It looks like I won’t be able to plant my garden this year. I’m too old to be digging up a garden plot. If only you were here, I know you’d dig the plot for me and all my troubles would be over.
Love, Dad
A few days later he received a letter from his son.
Dear Dad,
Whatever you do, don’t dig up that garden — that’s where I buried the bodies!
Love, Fred
Early the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.
The following day the old man received another letter from his son.
Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant your garden now. That was the best I could do under the circumstances.
And this is what it looks like now after a few weeks of water and sun; I just repotted into a larger pot; now I’m going to stand back and watch what happens. I’ve been thinking I should name it Audrey III!
It looks a bit prehistoric, doesn’t it? All that new reddish growth will unfurl into giant-sized leaves; if you look closely you can see some are already beginning to unfurl. This is one of the largest plants I have. Stay tuned for Audrey III’s growth over the next few weeks.
Sincere thanks to all my dear WordPress friends for stopping by to read my April 2 post about the death of my brother-in-law, Jim …. my husband Bill’s twin brother. Thank you especially to those who took a moment to leave words of comfort; that simple act on your part has truly touched me and helped both Bill and me to cope with this tremendous loss. I see how many of you care and my heart is full of gratitude and love. I’m sure you realize why I have been absent from WordPress until now and I know you understand why I have not commented on any of your sites in recent days. It all feels so strangely surreal to us. Things here at home are beginning to settle down and we are now trying to adjust to the new normal in our lives …. a world without Jim. Bill is also grateful to you all for taking the time to share our grief. I will return to posting tomorrow. Thank you, my friends. 🩶 🕊️
~ Nancy
This is “The Art Of Dying” by George Harrison
“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” – Kahlil Gibran
The Elephant's Trunk 