Wishing You a Happy Ending to 2009

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

~ Orson Welles ~




Photo by greekadman

Poor Mae Was Delusional

You're never too old to become younger.

~ Mae West ~

Well, Duh!

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

~ Albert Einstein ~


Photo by Kamera.Obskura

She Should Know, She Had Nine of Them

I don't dislike babies, though I think very young ones rather disgusting.

~ Queen Victoria ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Since each of us is blessed with only one life, why not live it with a cat?

~ Robert Stearns ~

Get Out of the Way!

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

The Dayton Peace Museum is a start.

A Merry Christmas and Happy Poetry Friday!

Heap on more wood!--the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

~ Sir Walter Scott from
"Marmion: a Christmas Poem" ~

Clumsier?

I do like Christmas on the whole....In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year.

~ E.M. Forster ~





Image from TIAS

Good Advice for Any Gift-Giving Occasion

Do give books--religious or otherwise--for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.

~ Lenore Hershey ~

Photo courtesy Swem Library

So Who Is NORAD Tracking?

When I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real, I wasn't upset; rather, I was relieved that there was a much simpler phenomenon to explain how so many children all over the world got presents on the same night! The story had been getting pretty complicated -- it was getting out of hand.

~ Richard P. Feynman ~




~ Image by riptheskull ~

I've Felt Like This for the Past Month or So

Can we take a direct flight back to reality, or do we have to change planes in Denver?

~ Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) in the film, The Santa Clause ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Before a cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed--like a dish of cream.

~ T.S. Eliot ~

Photo by Invisible Monsters

Enjoy This Last Saturday Before Christmas

From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.

~ Katharine Whitehorn ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

~ Leonard Cohen ~






Photo by Man in a bowler hat (Epzibah)

Remember This...

If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.

~ Norman Borlaug ~


Photo by Sistak

There's More Than One Way to See

Museums and art stores are also sources of pleasure and inspiration. Doubtless it will seem strange to many that the hand unaided by sight can feel action, sentiment, beauty in the cold marble; and yet it is true that I derive genuine pleasure from touching great works of art. As my finger tips trace line and curve, they discover the thought and emotion which the artist has portrayed.

~ Helen Keller ~

Me! Me! Me!

Blogs give the small person a voice.
~ Dave Miller ~

Random factoid: 133,000,000--number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002

Cheerfulness Is All Up to You!

Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.

~ Charlotte Bronte ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet they are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.

~ P. J. O'Rourke ~

Escape!

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality--the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

~ Arthur Christopher Benson ~

Poetry Friday

Photo by StrudelMonkey
The most beautiful videos
come from reading poetry.
And they're in your head.

~ Ruth Stone from "Entering the Student's Poem" ~

The Four Food Groups

We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.

~ "Buddy" (played by Will Ferrell) from Elf ~

The Frog's Very Punny

That's pretty dangerous building a road in the middle of the street. I mean, if frogs couldn't hop, I'd be gone with the Schwinn.

~ Kermit the Frog ~

First Snow

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?

~ J. B. Priestley ~



Photo by Kristof Borkowski

Some Things Never Change

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.

~ William Tecumseh Sherman ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference.

~ Charlotte Gray ~

Photo courtesy Lucinda McQueen

Money

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

~ P.T. Barnum ~







Photo by Steve Wampler

Poetry Friday

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

~ Rita Dove ~

Photo by JonathanCohen

And I Don't Think He's Talking about the Wrappings

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.

~ Pierre Corneille ~

Ouch!

Cider was, next to water, the most abundant and the cheapest fluid to be had in New Hampshire, while i lived there,--often selling for a dollar per barrel. In many a family of six or eight persons, a barrel tapped on Saturday barely lasted a full week...The transition from cider to warmer and more potent stimulants was easy and natural; so that whole families died drunkards and vagabond paupers from the impetus first given by cider-swilling in their rural homes...

~ Horace Greeley ~

Details

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

~ Alfred North Whitehead ~

You Can't Build a House Without a Foundation!

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~

Photo by [martin]

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Some people say man is the most dangerous animal on the planet. Obviously those people have never met an angry cat.

~ Lillian Johnson ~

Photo by haxed

Good Books Make Good Neighbors

A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early.

~ Rupert Brooke ~

Poetry Friday

One flower is beautiful, a surfeit of flowers is vulgar.

~ Albert Einstein ~

Photo by thebestbradley

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness: for the crops carried in from the fields and the grapes from the vineyard.

~ J. Robert Moskin ~

Fortunate, Indeed!

Fortunately there is no one who actually has only feeling or only thinking properties. They intermingle like the colors of the rainbow and cannot be sharply divided.

~ M.C. Escher ~

High-Wire Poet

If I have to make a self-portrait, I would put poetry and rebellion on the list. To be able to walk on a wire, to be able to juggle six hoops, you need focus, another word for tenacity, which is passion. When I talk about my life, I use the word "fighting" very often. There is my intention to create and the world is against it.

~ Philippe Petit ~


Cover illustration from The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordecai Gerstein

Does That Include Pumpkin Whoopie Pies?

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.

~ Jim Davis ~

Pumpkin Whoopie Pie photos from Delicious Dishings (recipe included).

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The phrase "domestic cat" is an oxymoron.

~ George Will ~

The Dawn Has Come

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

~ Rabindranath Tagore ~

In loving memory of Francis J. Dengler, 1925-2009

Photo by James Jordan

Poetry Friday

From religious ceremonies to children's games, poetry holds a central place in human communities, though some may take it for granted.

~ Bill Moyers ~

Gifts

Photo by Jen Chan

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.

~ Ruth Ann Schabacker ~

The Mantis

The mantis seizes the locust but does not see the yellow bird behind him.

~ Chinese proverb ~


Photo by Y.K.Tarabagani

Football Players

Football players, like prostitutes, are in the business of ruining their bodies for the pleasure of strangers.

~ Merle Kessler ~

Do-It-Yourself

Photo by House of Sims
It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

~ Napoleon Hill ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by.

~ Stephen Baker ~

Photo by (michelle)

The Moon and the Sea

The moon is distant from the sea,
And yet with amber hands
She leads him, docile as a boy.
Along appointed sands.

~ Emily Dickinson ~


Photo by garden beth

Poetry Friday

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

~ Abraham Maslow ~

Congratulations Taylor Swift

People haven't always been there for me but music always has.

~ Taylor Swift ~

Swift won four Country Music Awards last night and at 19 is the youngest-ever musician to win "Entertainer of the Year."

On Veteran's Day

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy ~

Photo by wallyg

Fine Advice!

Image courtesy CafePress

In Other Words, Don't Over Think It

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Photo by shutupyourface
There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens...

~ George Eliot from Adam Bede ~