Thursday, November 21, 2019

"... Dad?"

Look, I know the answer is NO.

But today I have been distracted from the American impeachment inquiry testimony today ...

Seriously, is Sting David Holmes's father? Uncle? Older brother?

Image: NBC News

Image: Huffpost

Collection

I have been in this room, but we were with Cicero, not Spock. An elegiac, good read. "The logic of mercy" ... yes ...

It's not news to me that the fashion industry produces a massive amount of the garbage we create, but ten percent is still an eye opening figure. Also, just a bit more for my TBR pile; thanks, Nature!

Speaking of fashion ... it's been some time since I linked an American Duchess piece, but how about - oh, sixteen pieces? Looking at the capsule wardrobe. Love the "just one black frock" image!

History which, not only did they fail to teach this in my schools, I literally have never even heard of these HUNDREDS of takeovers, or the IAT, before now. It seems like that's burial. It seems like that is colonial power and prejudice, still alive and well.

(T)rans joy is real

What a beautiful essay. Go click and be blessed

Monday, November 4, 2019

Collection

Synesthesia, misphonia, repetitive motion, ASMR - all threads in the skein of my family, and each one fascinating. For the record, 7 and L (lower case as well) are yellow and sometimes paler. Never bright. 4 is more a buff. And at least one person in my family has misphonia badly and copes with it, and another one has it intermittently and just doesn't. (None of us into ASMR that I know of: we are a deaf lot!)

Adventures in Teh Intarwebs, People Have Time On Their Hands edition: someone took the trouble for this. *SMH* Honestly, it's just bewildering.

Happy birthday to Nature, turning 150 this week! A few great links from the past couple of daily emails from them - one, on an astonishingly promising therapy for cystic fibrosis, a disease very closely related to the pulmonary fibrosis which had a hand in the deaths of four people I have loved very much. Another, pointing to the immune damage measles can cause, exposing victims to risk from diseases to which they were formerly immune. Thanks again, anti-vaxxers.

When I was a kid, it may have been anywhere from when I was eight to twelve or so, my aunts and maybe even my grandma were visiting. Mom had a bushel, perhaps even more, of tomatoes to can, and she was manning the pot on the stove. My memory is that I was at the back side of the table next to my aunt V, and mom gave me the bright chrome knife. A small knife, it's a heavy one, gleaming, and that day it was freshly sharp, and my job was to slit and skin the cooked tomato bodies, crushing them with my hand and pulling off the skin, and take out any part of the flesh not good for preserving. The tomatoes were terribly hot, and the acid would burn if you had a cut on your finger. But my only memory is the cacophany, the steam, the sitting around a brown formica table with my family, mom running the show.

Why tell the story above? Because this makes so much sense to me. (Though, to be fair: I have a *peninsula* in my kitchen, and it is spiff.) 

As we come to the season of holidays, treats, great meals and small ... what are your kitchen table memories?



Edited to fret: I fear there is a new addiction in the offing. Science Daily has an article about dingoes, AND an article about Ötzi. Hooray for twin obsessions!