Men Shout

Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889
by
James Ensor

Men Shout

Men shout

People turn their feet to listen

And truth is trampled in the rush to judgement.

A man shouts:

Fire!

And there, beneath the wall of stone

With blindfold askew

Justice is executed.

                                                                  ~ Nib of Nib's End ~

     This poem is a result of my frustration with what I hear in the news. And whatever the artist's intent may have been, his painting reflects my view of the State of our Union.

     I, to say the least, am unhappy with my choices for the upcoming election. But I am not blaming the candidates; I believe they both represent a symptom of a much deeper problem...a problem that cannot be fixed by any political decision. So, despite my frustration, I am at peace. My hope is not in a candidate. My faith has never been in Democracy. I have put my confidence in a King of kings whose government is secure and whose reign is eternal despite how the mob may choose to represent it. 

Psalm 2

The Passenger's Photo Album - Sulawesi

Hardboiled eggs for lunch in Sulewesi.

Funny People

     My husband is funny. It is just one of the things I love about him. He makes me laugh and laugh. Many years ago, on our anniversary, I gave him this greeting card photographed by George Daniell because it reminded me of his continual cheerfulness and good humor. He is a clever punster and even though my daughters have often referred to his steady flow of wit as punishment, we would all miss it if the fount went dry. Wouldn't we, girls?

     My live-in daughter is funny too. She has a dry wit, and her one-liners keep both my husband and me in stitches.

     I think I am funny, it's just that, more often than not, I am the only one who thinks so. I can laugh myself to tears over one of my own quips while my family looks on, baffled. On rare occasions when they join in, I feel quite pleased with myself.

     Some people are just born with the ability to see the humor in things and the skill to bring others in on the joke. So it is, with the current political climate tempting us to despair, it seems we rely more and more on the funny people, the talk show hosts and wags of social media to assuage our distress. It doesn't really change anything except our own ability to bear the vicissitudes of life with a lighter heart.

     "I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-concious smile, like the Mona Lisa." 

                                                                    ~ Alan Bradley ~

     "It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humor." 

                                                                    ~ Charles Dickens ~

Sunroof Snapshot

Connected

     We bought a car with a sunroof and are enjoying another perspective as we travel through this world.

Connected 2

     And while we truly appreciate the technology that brings us together when my husband is abroad, when he is home, we stay connected the old-fashioned way.

Rain Rain Go Away...

     It has been a hot, dry summer. I have lost patience with hand watering the shrubbery and flower beds. I have let the parsley frizzle in the herb plot and the rootbound mint wither in its terracotta pot. Only the basil receives the care it deserves. I find work to do in the shade of air conditioning. A volunteer cherry tomato vine flourishes between unkempt cracks of flagstones on the hillside beside the house, defying brassy skies and gifting my neglect with small globes of sweet red fruit. Every now and then, I give it a splash of water from the hose in gratitude.

     The tail-end of August brings us a respite of showers, and despite the tropic weight of air that can make even a mosquito sweat, I am glad. The grass is green. The young birch in the back garden has ceased scattering handfuls of yellow leaves on the lawn. The delicate impatiens spilling artfully from its broken pot no longer swoons in the late afternoon sun.

Fungus grows in unexpected places.

Rain diamonds collect on gossamer strands of web.

     Hence, I am not in accord with the weathermongers who, after only a handful of days of intermittent rainfall are already singing the tune they suppose we all wish to hear: rain, rain go away, come again some other day...

     I and my tree fairy are quite content with gray skies and raindrops on the windows.

Behemoth

     As many times as I have flown on an airplane, I have never lost the wonder of takeoffs and landings. I may snooze through the instructions from the crew on how to buckle my seatbelt or locate emergency exits, but I am always alert and looking out the window as the plane hurtles down the runway and leaps into the sky. I don't want to miss it. I still find the physics of flight incredible, and I don't ever want to take it for granted.

     When my husband and I were in Seattle this summer, we booked a tour of the Boeing facility in Everett. My husband has been enamored with airplanes since he was a boy and knows all of their names as though they have been personally introduced. Even though I am not an airplane aficionado, I also enjoyed the tour.

     We were thrilled to see a Dreamlifter unloading as we ended our tour. The Dreamlifter is currently the largest air cargo plane in the world, and the plane that transports sections of the Dreamliner from Japan and Italy to South Carolina and from there to the factory in Everett. Like a rare bird, there are only four of its kind. We watched as the entire mid-section of a Dreamliner fuselage was unloaded from the belly of the plane and stored in a  nearby hanger beside its cockpit. I was reminded of the Bible story of Jonah inside the whale.

     Then we watched as this behemoth of a plane lumbered down the runway for takeoff. It seemed too large and slow and heavy to fly...

But, of course, it did.

Blah Blah Blogging - Russian Bots

     From time to time, I check the statistics for the number of pageviews I have received on my blog. I want to know if there is anybody out there in the blogoshpere listening to me, or if I am sitting alone at my kitchen table talking to myself. Either way, it doesn’t change how often I post or what I write about. But it is fascinating for me to see that anybody in the whole wide world with a computer can drop by my place for a visit.

     I realize, of course, that many of the numbers I see in my stats represent robots; so when I checked my statistics recently and saw a huge spike in pageviews coming from Russia, I knew that the robots were swarming. What I don’t know is why. Are they monitoring my shopping preferences? Is there a conspiracy to find a chink in my armor and hack my computer or infiltrate those who visit me? With all of the international travel that he does, do they suppose that my husband works for the CIA? There is a normal amount of paranoia that follows these thoughts, and I am wondering if just using the initials CIA (twice) in my post will attract even more traffic from the bots.

     With the online presence of virulent viruses lurking nearby waiting to sneeze on me, invisible spiders crawling across my posts, cyber thieves crouching at my backdoor, and phishermen trolling for data, one feels vulnerable.

     At times such as this I create my own unreality. I blame it on having grown up in the cold war era and watching too many Dr. Who episodes with salt-and-pepper-shaker shaped robots gurgling: Ex-ter-min-ate! So it is that, each day, as the attack of the Russian cyberbot hordes on my statistic pages subsides and the number of American pageviews increases, I feel more at ease.

     Surely, none of the American bots could wish to harm a little gray-haired old lady such as myself….right?