All Purls. No Swine.
OK, let's acknowledge first of all that I might be--as the lawyers say--making an "admission against interest"--but I'd like to recognize the fact that Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner, was born 245 years ago today, on August 1, 1779. (Check the math, please; it's never my strongest point.)… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Francis Scott Key!
God only knows what he had to do with the kitchen staple memorializing his name. Beef bouillon. Chicken bouillon. Even (heaven forfend) vegetable bouillon, mushroom bouillon, or--even--worse. (Don't tempt me.) Godfrey of Bouillon was a leader of the First Crusade, and a significant figure in the subsequent Crusader wars. While I've not been able to… Continue reading In Praise of Godfrey of Bouillon
Sigh. https://youtu.be/Kz6pV4uRSc8 Nurse Nellie and not-long-for-this-world US Marine Joe Cable. I have to confess, although I’m really not interested in tying myself too much into knots over it, that it was a bit jarring yesterday to wake up and discover that the young person who’d attempted to assassinate Donald Trump and I share a common… Continue reading How Far Away: Bethel Park SWPA
The "David" mentioned in the post title is the patron saint of Wales. He is believed to have been born somewhere in the last half of the fifth century in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and he lived most of his early religious life as a teacher and preacher. He rose quickly through the ranks as a result… Continue reading Send it Down, David! (Please)
The detail is from a History Channel recap of important events on July 10 throughout history. Obviously, some are more recent than others. Some are so recent that I was an absurdly small "extra"--merely a unrecognized bystander--in their resolution. As fate and fortune would have it, I was in Chiang Rai, Thailand, the week that… Continue reading On This Day, Six Years Ago, “Mission Possible for Team Thailand”
Those are the last words spoken by Shakespeare's villainous King Richard III, as he desperately dashed about Bosworth Field, just before being hacked to smithereens by by the opposition--the soldiers of Henry Tudor--after which (IRL, now) Richard's naked body was thrown across a horse (presumably not his own) and taken to Leicester, where he was… Continue reading King Richard III
More than seven years ago, just before the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States sent the world into perpetual "tilt" mode , I wrote this post on Ricochet. I'm reprising it here on the day my mother would have turned 96. November 6, 2016: I spent several hours this morning doing… Continue reading The Simple Things–On the 96th Anniversary of My Mother’s Birth
Dateline June 20, 2024: Happy Summer Solstice! I’m always reminded, on this “longest day,” of the trip that Mr. She and I made to England, and the day we spent at Stonehenge and (just down the road a bit) Avebury. Avebury is another Neolithic Henge, but in this case, the stones surround the village. Once… Continue reading The Summer Solstice, 2024
She was one of those Dad always referred to as a "poppet," an anachronism if ever there was one, and which would probably get him hauled into court--and maybe locked up--today. But considering the pantheon of women he referred to as such--youthful, elderly, married, single, personally known to him and not, I'm inclined to view… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Virginia McKenna!
From my own point of view, it's expansive. And I hope that's actually the real point of its intentions.. I add a link to each post here on my Twitter account. And my dozens of Twitter followers open it. Thank you! (I do wish such a thing was automatic, as it used to be. But… Continue reading What–Exactly–Is the Purpose of Twitter/X?