All Purls. No Swine.
Well, there's the Wayne Newton original, which probably should come with a trigger warning, if only because of his execrable German pronunciation: https://youtu.be/0m_giioppT4 And then there's the karaoke music. You're welcome to sing along with my revised lyrics: https://youtu.be/DNL6I-NMhTw Schadenfreude, darling, schadenfreude I find myself feeling overjoyed. Blogging site, on the Internet Was the place… Continue reading The Joys of Schadenfreude
As some of you know, I’m currently owned by two dogs: Xena, an elderly Great Pyrenees, and Odo, a puppy of the same breed. My last experience with a puppy was in 1986 (Wulfie, the Old English Sheepdog), and I’d forgotten how exhausting, challenging, charming, and occasionally hilarious, such a thing can be. In the… Continue reading No Matter What: Contrarian Pets, and the Owner Who Loves Them
I just picked the first of this season's dandelions and brought them inside as a treat for Miss Bunny. Doing so reminded me of this post, from almost exactly a year ago, and of how much I love this season: Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging, As if no artifice of fashion,… Continue reading Harbinger
Lord. I am grateful to be where I am. Out here in God's country. With a house, a barn, a few dozen acres, and a generator. And a well. And an (expensive but extraordinarily useful) hand pump that will let me raise sweet water from 100 feet below ground level, should propane, or oil, or… Continue reading Surviving the Apocalypse–Or At Least, the Next Few Years of Joe Biden–Whichever Comes First
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral--Frank Lloyd Wright. I do like a man who has his priorities straight. Even if I’m not one of them. Frank Lloyd Wright was, while not exactly a Southwest Pennsylvanian, often claimed as one of ours on account of Fallingwater, a… Continue reading From the Chicken House to the Cathedral
I think this is (at least) the fifth post on this theme that I've written on this site. I take the original injunction (Hebrews 13:2) very seriously: Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. As usual, I'm quoting the KJV, mostly in memory of an elderly Canadian fisherman (deep… Continue reading Entertaining Angels: The Gift from God Edition
There. I said it. Granny Panties. LOL. I'm guessing I've lost most of the men who follow my blog. For this post, at least. But I mean it. The fact of the matter is that--almost half a century ago--even at this point in my life: my nether regions were--day to day--covered by modest, cheap and… Continue reading In Praise of Granny Panties
Trigger Warning (don’t say I didn’t warn you)–I am about to quote (and praise) Garrison Keillor. Some background: When (in the terms some like to put it) Mr. She’s and my “love was young,” we found ourselves living in the low-rent district in Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington (the high-rent district of which was populated by industrial… Continue reading In Praise of Small Talk
Yes, the pedantic me (or "I" as it should more properly be) knows that in his most famous quatrain, William Ernest Henley spells, and is using the word "strait" as it applies to a narrow body of water, often difficult to navigate and get through in one piece. And certainly, sometimes when you're undertaking a… Continue reading How Straight the Gate!
Well, TBPH, I didn’t sleep through it. I discovered, decades ago, that the reason I don’t get much sleep is not that I can’t get to sleep; it’s that I’m a very light sleeper, and everything wakes me up. So last night, I was unsurprised to be awoken at 2:30AM by a pack of yelping… Continue reading While I Was Sleeping: Death Comes to the Farm