A Simon’s Cat double header, plus a dose of existential angst from Henri, the feline philosopher.
Author Archives: bluebird of bitterness
Democrats debate
For everyone missed the two-hour-long snoozefest last Tuesday, the gang at SNL have thoughtfully summed the whole thing up in just ten minutes.
Filed under Debates, Democrats, Funny Stuff
Farewell to summer
Autumn is here, and the flowers of summer are just a memory. But I wanted to let you all see what they were like when it was still summer.
These are the window boxes that surround the screen porch on the east side of my house. There are eight of them, and each one holds five flower pots, so it takes a lot of plants to fill them up. This year I filled them with browallia, marigolds, and globe amaranth.
The deck on the south side of the house is where I put things that like a lot of sunshine. The petunias certainly liked it there.
The morning glories grew quickly and formed nice thick vines, as you can see in picture above, but then they took forever to bloom. Usually if I plant them at the beginning of June (which is the earliest you can safely plant here), I can expect to see flowers by August, or late July if I’m lucky. For some reason this year they didn’t bloom until September. But as always, they were worth the wait.
Here’s a kind of artsy photograph my husband took of a couple of my morning glories.
He posted it on his Facebook wall, and my brother, who is an artist and an art teacher, thought it looked like a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe. He asked for a print of it, which he then framed and hung in his house.
It’s kind of nice to know that even though the morning glories are gone, their beauty still lives on.
Filed under How Does Your Garden Grow?
Heroic veteran from Oregon shooting just glad he’s not in VA hospital
From The Duffel Blog.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Real-life hero and Army veteran Chris Mintz, who took seven gunshot wounds while protecting classmates at an Oregon college last week, says he considers himself truly blessed to get treatment in a civilian hospital.
“As I got in the ambulance, I kept thinking to myself, ‘Dear God, please don’t let them take me to a VA hospital. I don’t want to die waiting for treatment,’” Mintz told reporters from his bedside at Mercy Medical Center, where nurses actually check on him periodically to ask whether he needs anything, such as a blanket or a snack from the cafeteria, and bring it back to him within minutes, despite him not filling out the proper DA-7022 Form, Meal Replenishment paperwork. “When I think about my brothers and sisters in arms that started waiting for Veterans Affairs service before I was shot, and will still be in the waiting room after I’m discharged, I have flashbacks of my week-long VA eye exam.”
In recognition of Mintz’s heroism, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter offered to transfer Mintz to any active military hospital of his choice for continued care, sources confirmed. “No thanks,” Mintz reportedly said, according to an unnamed physical therapist who started working with the Army veteran almost immediately after a doctor requested his services instead of waiting for paperwork to make it through the system over a period of five to seven months. “If I can’t stay in a civilian hospital, just go ahead and drop me off at my car and I’ll drive home.”
While many have speculated about the VA’s response to Mintz’s statements, the department has so far remained silent. When reporters attempted to reach the VA for comment, they were put on hold, then after a seven-hour wait, the line was cut off.
Mintz, who has shown never-ending selflessness, says that he hopes to recover soon.
“The faster I’m out of here, the faster I can start repaying them for my GI Bill,” Mintz said. “After getting dropped from my classes because I have not attended over the past few days, the VA wants its money back.”
Filed under Funny Stuff
Happy Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day
Filed under Funny Stuff
Cat theater
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
DIRTY HARRY
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
HARVEY
DAMN YANKEES
THE SECRET GARDEN
OTHELLO
SHINE
HORSEFEATHERS
INTO THE WOODS
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
SWEENY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
THE WIZARD OF OZ
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
FIGHT CLUB
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
LES MISERABLES
DOWNFALL
WEST SIDE STORY
YOU’VE GOT MAIL
WAITING FOR GODOT
ROMEO AND JULIET
Filed under Funny Stuff
Happy birthday, Sir Nicholas
It’s the 106th birthday of Sir Nicholas Winton, a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War, in an operation known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain.
After the war was over, Winton told no one about his humanitarian exploits for many years, and might never have done so had his wife not discovered an old scrapbook of his in their attic in 1988. It contained lists of the children he had saved, along with their parents’ names and the names and addresses of the British families that had taken them in. By sending letters to these addresses, eighty of “Winton’s children” were found in Britain.
The world found out about Winton’s work during an episode of the BBC television program That’s Life, when Winton was invited to be a member of the audience. The program’s host showed Winton’s scrapbook and explained to the audience what he had done; she then asked whether any members of the audience owed their lives to Winton, and, if so, to stand. More than two dozen people surrounding Winton rose to their feet and applauded.
Memorial to Sir Nicholas Winton at Prague main railway station, installed in 2009.
In 2002 Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in recognition of his work on the Czech Kindertransport, and in 2014 he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion, by Czech President Miloš Zeman.
Filed under History, World War II
Long live the queen!
Today is Queen Elizabeth’s 89th birthday. In the years since her coronation in 1952, there have been twelve presidents of the United States, and the queen has met all of them except for Lyndon Johnson. Here are some pictures of her with the others:
With Harry Truman in 1951 (Elizabeth was still a princess at the time)
With Dwight Eisenhower in 1957
With John Kennedy in 1961
With Richard Nixon in 1969
With Gerald Ford in 1976
With Jimmy Carter in 1977
With Ronald Reagan in 1982
With George H. W. Bush in 1991
With Bill Clinton in 1994
With George W. Bush in 2007
With Barack Obama in 2011
Filed under Queen Elizabeth
polination.blog 