Mother Nature?/Spring in Santa Barbara
Posted by anonymouse on:
"The same polarity of the male and female principle exists in nature: "(duh)
Posted by anonymouse on:
"The same polarity of the male and female principle exists in nature: "(duh)
Posted by anonymouse on:
I have been watching, from the door of my Santa Barbara mouse-house, my sister the Dove. She comes every year and in past years has made her nest in a Dacena Draco (also called Dragon Tree). Her feathers match the trunk of the tree beautifully, but I can always see her. This year some careless humans were looking at her and I think they scared her away. She moved her nest to another prickly cactus-like tree, this time a Euphorbia across the way.
Yesterday, when I went out foraging for food, I saw feathers on the ground. There have been some rampaging Crows in the neighborhood who attack other birds and sometimes rob the nests of eggs. I looked anxiously up into the Euphorbia and there was my little sister, still on her nest. Sometimes life is good....
"Little sister-doves, you are simple, and good, and pure." St. Francis of Assisi
Posted by anonymouse on:
Today I want to write about something that is Very Dear to my mouse- heart.....CHEESE!
This is about Provolone, "a usually firm pliant often smoked cheese of Italian origin "(heaven).
Living in Santa Barbara we use a lot of words that are essentially Spanish. We say Carillo as Car-ee-yo, not Car-ill-o. We say for queso keh-so, not kwe-so.
I know that in Los Robles (Los Rob-les) they say Rob-els, and are curiously adamant about it, but I want to suggest that the music in the language be preserved, and that we honor the origin of the word by pronouncing it as close as we can to what it was in Spanish.
Now, as to CHEESE! Provolone in particular. I want to suggest we celebrate it's sublime taste and origin and call it by it's real name, in Italian! That is, "Pro-veh-loni". Alla Vita!
Thank you to rick48180 for the Mission Impossible photo.
Posted by anonymouse on:
"If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another."
Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama
"Kindness is a like a flowering plant."
Anonymouse
Posted by anonymouse on:
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Check out the collection of ethnic masks at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in the Fleischmann Auditorium. These masks are part of the Anthropology Collection from many cultures in the Americas.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is at 2559 Puesta del Sol, Santa Barbara Ca. 93105, call 682-4711 for information and check out their website.
http://www.sbnature.org/about/68.html
Their hours are, daily 10 a.m - 5 p.m.
Posted by anonymouse on:
Hearing a lot of questionable use of scratch and itch. I could be wrong but I though you scratched what itched. Some folks are itching their itches, or itching their scratches (hard to believe, but possible). I think if it itches, you must scratch it. If you have a scratch, it does occasionally itch but then again, you MUST SCRATCH IT! As far as itching your itch goes, if you must, go ahead, but I can't imagine any good coming of it!
Posted by anonymouse on:
To my Mother and Mothers everywhere.
"There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."
Posted by anonymouse on:
I do a lot of reading, for a mouse, and I am often challenged by how someone has chosen to communicate something specific. You might say how they have 'homed' or 'honed' in on their topic
Reading the April 25, New Yorker article 'The Possibilian', I encountered the sentence, "If you're hiking through a jungle and a tiger growls in the underbrush, your brain will instantly home in on the sound...."
That cannot be right, my mouse brain tells me. To be sure, the correct word is 'honed'. But does the New Yorker allow mistakes of that sort? I doubt it.
Checking in with Merriam Webster online, I read that hone is an intransitive verb meaning, "to move toward or focus attention on an objective."
Home-in, in the same dictionary directs me to a number of 'better' choices, one of which is hone-in.
About.com's section, About Grammar, reports that 'home in', not 'hone in' is the correct phrase" having to do with the activities 19th century homing pigeons. It says that in the 20th century some writers began to mistake hone for home, that is, to 'sharpen' for what pigeons do, which is 'go home'.
George Bush is credited for having brought 'hone' into more common usage, which for this mouse, does a lot to discredit the idea.
William Safire has called 'hone' a confused variant for 'home.
For now I think I will switch back to 'home'.
Thanks to Cavin for the great pigeon shot!
