Shakespear!?!?!?!?!

SIDDOWN!  SHADUP!  SHADUP SHUTTIN' UP!!

My very first encounter with Shakespear was in high school.  As par of either a speech class or an English class one of the tortures was to read aloud a Shakespeare play in class.  As you may imagine, the reading was deadly dull delivered in at worst a monotone and at best clear diction but much hesitation over the unusual word usage and the convoluted sentence structure. It sure wasn't as much fun as "Little Women".  As fortune would have it, we were not expected to produce any of the play.  Eesh.

My next encounter, one of many, was attending Shakespear In The Park with my very good friend, Barbara Whelan.  One very memorable occasion was "Twelfth Night".   It was the fashion in the 80's to stage the play in different genre's, such as the 20's and the tennis set.  There was also a tart wench and of course, we wished to partake.  

I took mom to see "Troilis and Cressida" which is a play all about Helen of Troy, and Athens and Troy.  Trojans were dressed as rock stars and the Athenians were dressed as Bikers.  Or the other way around. There was even partial nudity.  There is a scene where Helen is  being admired by one or another of the group.  Helen was wearing a leather mini skirt with a front zipper. One of the guys knelt in front of her and pulled down the zipper with his teeth, snatched the skirt and stood up. Helen turned away and revealed that she was wearing a thong.  I wished I had a bottom that nice.

Yesterday morning I was listening to NPR.  The narrator was reporting that in 1667 all of his plays were published posthumously.  That collection is known as the First Folio.

The play Hamlet was being discussed in particular the death of Hamlet is considered the most beautiful death scene of all.  (I must digress for a moment. I and Barbara attended a celebration of Shakespear In The Park held at BSU.  There was a compilation of all the death scenes from all of the plays and there lot of them.  Each actor would come out to give the last line and fall to the floor.  This went of for quite a while until there were about 30 bodies piled up onstage.  We found it hilarious.

Which brings me to this point; Hamlet's last line in his death scene which "All is silence".  The folio actually has and additional line: "O, O, O, O."  There is argument that this is not spoken because "all is silence".  Then thev actor played it perfectly flat.

O (heh!) C'mon!!!  Give it a little interpretation.  Such as:

First O  "uh oh"
Second O "Oh no!"
Third O "uh uh"
Fourth O "oooh"

Mo bettah.

12-7-2019

Scott Simon of NPR fame interviewed the oldest living survivor from the sinking of the Arizona.  He is 98, Mr. Potts, living in Utah with his wife of 85. He was asked how he had survived.  He had been on shore and headed immediatly back to the ship. He could see the Oklahoma had already rolled over.  He was almost there when the last big bomb exploded.  There were only300 some survivors of the Arizona.  He was asked what he wanted to remember and he replied "Nothing, I wish it hadn't ever happened, I want to forget it."   He also said that he was amazed at how quickly the Navy recovered to get most of the battleship ready to go.  That was first hand from the Greatest Generation.

One of my long time friends,May Clarke, was just a kid living on the base at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 12-7-41.  It was Sunday morning, everyone was up having breakfast.  They say the planes and stayed in the house.  The did not get sent to the mainland for a few months.  They came back on a ship.

Lastly and most silly, I have a joke that is in highly questionable taste.  

Have you hear about the half black/ half Japanese man who goes out ever December 7th and attacks Pearl Bailey.  

If you do not find this amusing you may have to Google such cultural references as Pearl Bailey, December 7tht as well as the Art of the Pun and the appropriate groan response. 

I'm really really sorry.  Apologies.

Medicine and statistics

I was watching one of the network news programs and they were reporting about a guy who was a paraplegic.  He had been in some sort of accident, had a very high vertebral fracture which severed his spinal cord.  He had been confined to a bed or wheelchair.  He was considering killing himself.  

His Neurologist did some research and found a trial of stem cell injections in animals which had some good results.  FDA had allowed a human trial.  

Short explanation about T-cells.  Early research was done on fetal cells  Due to the public outcry and government regulations, the scientists discovered that fat carried T-cells.  It was also discovered that the fat T-cells worked better than the fetal cells.   The best thing about T-cells is that they can become all sorts of cells; the T-cells injected into the spinal lesion settle in and develop into neural cells which turn into nerves and all that lovely useful stuff.

The gentleman was recommended for the trial.  He had his own fat cells harvested from which the T-cells were processed.  He was then given a direct injection of T-cells at his spinal cord lesion. He had some promising results immediately.  He suddenly had sensation in his toes.  He had not been able to move or feel anything since his injury.  It got better, the sensations came back and then some partial muscle control in his arms.  The report showed him getting up from his wheelchair and taking a few steps. The really cool part of the report, the investigator is the son of Christopher Reeve, paralyzed in a horse riding accident. 

While the patients recovery is miraculous, the doctor cautioned that he was a fast responder.  Not all patients will have such a good response.  

Almost the same day and program there was disturbing report from a statistician taking a look at the census.  He discovered that the numbers were pointing out that generally more Americans were not living to retirement age.  They were not living as long or longer than their parents.  (Before he went any further I was going to say it was bad diet) But what he said was that for the first time ever in America deaths outnumbered births.  What!?  

The study was from 1995 (I think) to 2017.  The deaths were mostly attributed to four states; Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee. There were also high spikes in the Appalachian states.  The most deaths were low income white people, equally distributed between men and women.  The man further revealed that most of these deaths were due to the opioid plague.  

Stop and think about this for  a minute.  With big Pharma in so much trouble already, that trouble could  possibly get worse.  The drugs must be better monitored and controlled. But that does not help with the drug cartels providing product.  

Some of the other implications of those numbers would eventually lead to accelerated increase of non-white voters.  Those folks in charge (old white men?) will want to prevent that happening.  Therefore it is important to keep voting registration regulations just as strong and fair as possible.

In summary I talked about T-cells, the opioid problem and the plications which I probably got all ass-backwards.  

Have a nice day....

FAMILY GET TOGETHERS

Set the way back machine (if you do not know this cultural reference you could always Google it) for circa mid 20th century.

I come from a relatively large family.  Nearly all of my aunties and uncles married either during or right after WWII.  This resulted in the glorious presence of COUSINS. Occasionally we would have to ride to some house  for the folks to visit.  We would ask plaintively if there were any kids to play with?  If the answer was no we knew the chances were 5050 that we could even be allowed to some inside the house depending on how well behaved we were.  Behaving well was pretty much chancy as well.

However if we drove to Boise we got to play with the Boise cousins. If we drove to either the Cow camp or Prairie City we got to play with the Oregon cousins.  We had Mormon cousins in other Southern Idaho homes but visits to those homes were where we had to behave and pretend we were well schooled little Christians, and there was always a bit of a social strain.  But we sucked what fun we could out of every occasion. One time it was decided that we would drive to Brush, Colorado to visit with the Kast cousins.  They lived on farm and the sun came up in the summer at 4 am.  They had pigs.  Some of the better times was when out of town cousins came to visit.  

Some of the better gatherings were for the big seasonal events; Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We had two sets of grandparents in the Emmett valley so would visit them either the day before, the evening of or the day after Christmas.   This ensured guarantee of more presents.  This was so much fun.  Some of my most treasured presents were books. I received a greatmany Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twin books. 

The other occasions were funerals.  This involved people coming to visit.  There would be a huge dinner, a big table for the adults and a smaller table for the cousins. It was unbelievably noisy.  After wards the table got cleaned off and a large puzzle might get put together or even better we begin playing endless game of Monopoly, it went on all day.  Like some people we changed the rules a little bit.  Everytime someone landed in jail that fine was placed on Go.  The next person to land on Go would collect that money.  I do not remember exactly if that was the modification made but I have siblings who may remember better than I.

The adults did not watch the football games. There would be huge gab fest and a couple card tables would go up and they would play Pinocle.  I swore I would never play that game, but 30 year later I did so and learned to appreciate a good partner.  Dad taught me to play five card and at one times I played Double Pinochle with some folks in California.  I hate double, too many cards and outrageous bidding.

I remembe a huge discussion about whether or not wine should be served at a Thanksgiving dinner.  The wine being considered was Mogen David.  Pleae remember that this was way WAY before anyone ever planted a vine in Idaho.

Now the gatherings are for the next generation as far as I can tell the fun still continues.  God bless cousins.

CATALOGS!!!

It's catalog season.  From Harry and David.  The last time I blithely ordered goods from them the prices were in the 50 to 100 dollar range.  Spendy but worth every delicious bite.

When we lived in Barrow, the onslaught of catalogs began in January and arrived steadily from thence forward.  The most important one was the barge order  catalog.  

The goods were all shipped from Seattle and it took several months for the barge to arrive sometime in August.  I shared an order with Judy Coltrin the first year and got mostly canned goods.  The next year when I was feeling a bit braver.,.. I discovered that one should NOT order cereal of any kind.  BECAUSE what ever critter was living inside the box would hatch and fly up into your face upon opening the box.  OK, I will buy my cereal at Stuakpaq from now on.

To get back to the most recent Harry and David their most expensive deluxe package costs an eye watering 500 bucks!!!  It does include meat, cheese, fruit, nuts, cookies, jam, jelly, candies, with your choice of cabernet and pinot noir. Pretty sure it is Oregon wine.   Phew!  No caviar or truffles, but maybe they will get to that at some point.  They sell the ham, turkey and steaks separately.

One of my favorite catalogs is Gumps.  This establishment is located in San Francisco and my most favorite item was a nativity scene made of Limoges images of each figure at about $150 each.  Each figure was made to open.  Last time I checked they were going for about $300 each.  It comes with Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, camels, sheep, donkey, the three Wise Men and as many angels at you may wish. It was exquisite.  I should probably Google whether they are still in business and if they have added a manger, a stable and a Star of Bethlehem.  

Remember this was well before the internet and Cyber Monday, which I resisted this year. 

Happy shopping be careful out there.

FALL BACK ONE HOUR! or Time Travel as Albert never saw it.

As usual we got a late start setting all the clocks back one hour.  For some reason the TV station announcements failed to impress the urgency with which this matter must be dealt.  I scrawled a note on the white board where all the doctors appointments get scribbled along with the grocery list and other sundry items. 

Husband made the appointed rounds to the analog clocks, the digital clocks.  Fortunately the computers, radios and TV's do all of that automatically.  However, the time on the telephone is still unchanged...weird.

All of which brings me to this little item.  Earlier this year all of us registered voters in Oregon agreed that daylight savings time was to be discarded. Hooray!  Hooray!  Then I promptly forgot about it.

Until yesterday evening.  The local news announced the upcoming time change on Saturday at 2 a.m.  and then added that the Oregon vote was CONTINGENT on Washington and California agreeing to do the same thing.  

Washington is on board.  However, the law in California is stuck either in the House or in Committee.  I forget which.  Well, crap, with that California is dealing with right how, FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!!!  I think maybe the daylight savings time thing will be a tad delayed.  Gah!!!

Given that southern California seems to be geographically within Mountain Standard Time that Nevada and Idaho should just jump on the bandwagon and bring in Arizona which already eschews DST in some parts of the state.  Could Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico be far behind?

Come on all you conservatives,  here is your chance to beat the liberals on something.  Get rid of that Socialist Notion of saving time for the farmers to complete the Summer Harvest.  Or the Farm Bill or something awreddy.

Book Recommendation by Scott Simon and a dream

Last weekend on Saturday morning Scott Simon interviewed John Kenney.  He wrote a small book of poetry entitled : Love Poems (For People with Children).

Mr. Kenney read Baby Wipes.

If you had told me
in my twenties
that I would do this,
I wouldn't believe you.

But this morning,
the baby's poop
shot out like a cannonball
and some of it landed in my hair.

Well, I was pretty tired
and too lazy 
to shower.
And I was late to work.

So what I did was
take a baby wipe
and clean it out of my hair.
Most of it, anyway.

Then I went on with my day.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I also woke from a decidedly odd dream.  In that dream, Mom (Yes Virginia B.) and I were strolling through a small mountain town.  We walked down a pathway that dead ended in a fenced back yard.  We turned back to get back on the roadway.

Eventually we ended up at a building that looked like a medical office.  I seemed to have some lab tests that needed to be delivered.  I was sorting the papers by name.  Them Mom told me about one time she was getting a pelvic examination and she got aroused by the doctor.  WHAT!?  I thought about it for a minute and thought to myself that THAT explained the seven kids.  Obviously in another timeline and universe.

 Dream interpretation site says as near as I could find:

To see your parents having sex (or talking about sex??) in your dream indicate that you are seeing similar aspects between their relationship and your current relationship. Most cringe at the thought of your parents having sex, so this dream imagery is really trying to get your attention. Consider your parents' real life relationship together and what you can learn from it.  Hmmmm.  Not sure WHAT to think...

As a complete aside, I grew up changing CLOTH diapers on the little sisters.  I also learned how to prefold the cloth into a kite shape so that there was extra padding in front.  This added to the wash load immensely.   Also sturdy diaper pins were used very carefully.