Junk Drawer

Rummaging around...

I read the actor in the Allstate mayhem ads makes more than $4000 an airing. Or he could teach in a US public school for around 20 days or so.

Dr. Becky is my go-to astrophysicist on YouTube.

Surely Cocaine Armadillo is in production.

This week while surfing through sports channels I have heard the words plethora and mercurial a dozen times each. At least. 

Just imagine: Senator Tim Scott publicly asks Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to endorse him as the Republican presidential nominee for 2024. So, okay, I kid.

Curious--to me at least--that one can make a career out of confessing the future is unknowable in the financial markets and then sit around discussing what is going to happen with two or three other folks for an hour. 

Flash! Nearly all news organizations are driven by a profit motive. Duh.

Yes, each morning I am checking the Duluth Harbor Canal Cam, mostly to revel in a cold, icy scene while my flowering trees are blooming. No chat, no ships, just the potential for miserable weather. 

I'm thinking no asteroid is truly terrifying as headline writers will often suggest. Except for The One. Duh.

Research suggests afternoon exercise sessions may be better for longevity. Morning exercise to lose weight more quickly. Low impact exercise to help with sleep. Arrrrrrrgh!

You want to know what something is worth--car, house, set of baseball cards, gold ring, etc.--try selling it.

No, I don't have an iPhone yet. I'm waiting for iPhone 25 or so, you know, so maybe the bugs will be worked out.

An Index (17)

"...kisses are a better fate than wisdom...." e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back." Plato (427-347 BCE)

"Your hand touching mine. This is how galaxies collide." Sanober Khan 

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

"If you do not love me I shall not be loved. If I do not love you I shall not love." Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

"You can't blame gravity for falling in love." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"You're never alone on Valentine's Day if you're near a lake and have bread." Mike Primavera (1972--)

"If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets." Haruki Murakami (1949--)

"The most significant person is precisely the one sitting across from you right now." Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate doesn't hurt." Charles M. Schultz (1922-2000)

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." Lao Tzu (5th Century BCE)

"When love is not madness it is not love." Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681)

"Love, having no geography, knows no boundaries." Truman Capote (1924-1984)

"I have tried so many times to think of a new way to say it, and it's still I love you." Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-1948) 

"Ah, love, let us be true to one another." Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

"Some people are worth melting for." Olaf, from Frozen

"The early possession you obtained [in my heart], and the absolute power over it, leaves not the smallest space unoccupied." Abigail Adams (1744-1818)

"Love looks not with eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

"Love doesn't sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new." Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)

"To love at all is to be vulnerable." C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) 

Dumbledore: "Lily? After all this time?" Snape: "Always." J.K. Rowling (1965--)

Fe-blue-ary

The shortest month, the one that--here I reach across The Pond--the one that really gets up my nose.

I don't want another winter-sounding month. Don't want the gray skies, the cold, the fog, the rain--none of it. And hell no to ice.

Sure, I've lived where no one in their right mind thinks April means spring. But I don't live there. And won't, ever again.

What about the dozens of robins hopping about in the back yard 3 days ago? Their GIS needs recalibrating. What about the bluebirds nest building in their condo? Good on them. It's February. What about the daffodils sprouting out back? Stop, it's February.

Highlight could be shivering under the starry sky while searching for the Green Comet. One shot this go- round. The ice-blur is back after a 50,000-year-hiatus. Uh, 50,000 years. See you later.

Here is where I gratuitously mention how I saw Haley's Comet in '86 a handful of times.  While on a ship headed to the Amazon after departing from Port-au-Prince.

Maybe I could get excited about Hallmark's Loveuary Saturday night premieres. Cue howls of laughter, tears streaming down cheeks.

Maybe I could reread Crime and Punishment.

Might as well schedule a visit to the dentist. Or put an eye out.

Sic transit gloria mundi. Too much?

Shortest month, cruelest month.