About 6:00 it rained like hell here and there was a
magnificent rainbow that lasted for well over twenty
minutes, and at one point turned into a double rainbow!

 

JDRF

Today most of the Writes clan . . sisters, brother, mother, aunt, cousins are participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk in Indianapolis. I contributed money in my brother’s name and in my cyber friend Urban’s name (even though she’s a looong way away from being a juvenile) : )

You may remember my nutso religious sister who couldn’t cut it as a nun and the convent kicked her out with instructions to go and get psychiatric help. Well if you don’t then you’re not a loyal reader of Emmerica so go play with yourself. If you do remember “The Nun”, here’s the latest tidbit. For years she’s also participated in this fundraiser and walk, but this year she left a message on Lexus sister’s voicemail (we’re all meeting at Lexus’house.) Her message:

“I went online and researched the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and discovered that they give 5% of contributions to stem cell research! I cannot in good conscience participate in any way to an organization like that!”

She doesn't even know what a fucking stem cell is. This good Christian, moral person loves stem cells and zygotes and embryos and fetuses but shows distain for most living breathing people. She told a story once of two migrant workers coming to the backdoor of the Catholic Church office she works for. The church had had a luncheon that day and these workers had the temerity to ask for leftovers because they were hungry. Miss Christian told them to go away because “this wasn’t a soup kitchen.” I suppose if they had been two zygotes requesting assistance she would have welcomed them with open arms.

Anyway, I hope the rain holds off until after the Walk. Bye.

Making good music into crappy television commercials

In the eighties I was a fan of the music group Big Country. I saw them in concert once in St. Petersburg. Good stuff. Here are the lyrics of their big hit

“In a Big Country”

I've never seen you look like this without a reason,
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you.
I never took the smile away from anybody's face,
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child.

CHORUS:
In a big country, dreams stay with you,
Like a lover's voice, fires the mountainside..
Stay alive..

(I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered)


I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

CHORUS [x2]

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you.
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded.
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming.
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered.

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

CHORUS [x3]




The bio on their lead singer, Stuart Adamson:

Rock musician. Although born in Manchester, Adamson grew up in Crossgates (near Dunfermline). Initially a member of the punk-rock group The Skids in the late 1970s, Adamson went on to form the band Big Country (1981) with whom he made his most noted contribution through his distinctive style of guitar playing. Their albums include The Crossing (1983), Steeltown (1984), The Seer (1986), Peace In Our Time (1988), No Place like Home (1991), The Buffalo Skinners (1993), Why the Long Face (1995) and Driving to Damascus (1999).
Having suffered from alcohol-related depression, Adamson disappeared from his home in Nashville (USA), to be found dead some weeks later in a hotel in Hawaii.

What got me thinking of them is a commercial for Kohl’s department store that’s been on the past few weeks. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when popular songs get bastardized into commercials. I don’t like musicians selling out their music to be background music to sell soap, restaurants, tampons, computers, underwear, or whatever. Whether it’s Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Go-Gos, The Who, the Rolling Stones, or Big Country. It’s their right, I suppose. And it’s my right to bitch about it.

My morning walk

I took the camera on my morning walk
around the 'hood.

Don't do this. Some idiot planted spruce trees
on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the house.
Now they are so huge the house is hidden.

 

Park ballpark. Very deserted on a Wednesday

 

Cute house over by the park

 

Bridge in the park

 

The park a few blocks away from me.
I like the weeping willow

 

Cool pinecones 

Don't do this. This is a house a few blocks over.
The window boxes are filled with plastic flowers. 

BP's ugly van, parked in its makeshift space by the carport.
It hasn't been moved in six months. There's usually a squirrel
and/or bird poop on it. You saw it on a good day.

I have an Oowie

I’m taking a few days off of work. I replanted some sedum out back by the shed where the Messy Area used to be. I love this area now. The ornamental grasses have grown and filled in and it’s beautiful, especially when it’s windy. I pulled some weeds and mulched the area too. I cleaned and Cloroxed the bird bath and rinsed it well, filled up the yellow finch feeder, and hung out on the porch awhile with a magazine.

I made some hot Italian sausage and pasta for an early Linner (combo lunch and dinner). Onions, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, crushed tomatoes, oregano, S & P. It smelled heavenly and tasted just as good. I got a knife out of the drawer to slice the onion, and slammed the drawer shut . . . with my finger inside. You know when something hurts so badly that it just knocks the breath out of you? That’s what happened. I sat down. LP heard me yell and came and got some ice and put it in a baggie for me. That helped. He was very attentive and wanted to know if I wanted a Tylenol. I said, “No, but will you check to see if the dryer’s off and if it is will you take out the towels and fold them?” He said, “You’re stretching it, Mom.” But he did it anyway. LOL.

The ice helped and I’m glad my finger isn’t broken.

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Republican strategy

Typical Republican strategy: blame the Democrats. Or more specifically, Bill Clinton. Clinrton’s been out of office for years and years but the right wingers still blame him for “not getting bin Laden.” Sheesh. And evidently he got testy with Chris Wallace and his smirkiness on a Fox News interview. Bill said that he tried and failed in getting bin Laden. He admitted failure. When’s the last time Dubya admitted a mistake?
The Republicans are running scared with mid term elections looming. They’re practically crapping their collective pants, and still blaming Clinton.

Roses aren't my favorite, but my mother-in-law gave
me this miniature rose a few years ago. It's only about a
foot and a half high, but it's blooming like crazy.