Incoming College Freshmen Have Seance To Ask Spirits If They Should Even Bother This Year
Category: Photography
Delta Tests New Space-Age Coffee Holder
What’s going on here? Sideburns and Leisure Suit are actually showing astronaut Story Musgrave (yes, Story!) a fancy new shuttle vehicle at the Johnson Space Center in 1976. Chemist Robert Clarke and physiologist Charles Sawin assess Story’s reaction, hoping he doesn’t spill his morning coffee. Story will turn 85 next month, still the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees.
I’ll Top Myself Off, Thanks
A patron of a Viennese wine garden refills his glass from a weinheber. A fat cigar, fine wine, a plate of cured meats, perhaps some friendly company. What else could one want? The article from which this came declares this image as an example of the German word, gemutlichkeit, which we’re all going to learn today.
Behance.net defines it as, “A feeling of friendliness and coziness that comes from drinking in a beer garden.” They created this next poster, which you might find helpful, should you choose to add more words to your vocabulary. Perhaps a little humpen and hopfen is in order.
September Come She Will
How I Feel When I Drive Into South Austin
Actually, this isn’t Austin at all. It was in downtown Cincinnati at something called D’aug Days back in the 70s. I used to be more tolerant of weirdness in my youth. Perhaps this is just interpretative dance. But as I age, I understand all the feelings of that family of four. The moon goddess doesn’t need your shaken tambourine, hippies. Go stretch your hip flexors back at the commune. This ground is filthy, and you’re going to get hepatitis–and you probably don’t have insurance, even though that’s the law, so my tax dollars will be paying for your antibiotics. This is clearly not the safety dance.
At Least Somebody’s Enjoying Them
Truth be told, I’m all figged out, my friends. If I skip a day of figpicking, the birds and bees will devour them.
This is what I see when I get up under the tree.
And this is what I see when I come out from under the tree, looking up through the cottonweed tree.
Some of the leaves appear to have been chomped on by caterpillars. But no matter.
Cottonwood leaves still make the BEST swishing sound when the wind blows through them.
The Downlow “Love It Or List It” Plant Shot
If y’all are big HGTV “Love It Or List It” watchers like we are, you’re familiar with this shot, the sneaky “eavesdropping on the couple as they chat” shot, taken either behind a kitchen plant or a neighborhood tree. As for this couple, I’m pretty sure they’ll love it.
Well, At Least You Don’t Live Here
Let Me Soothe You With My Chorded Zither
It’s WWII. An injured soldier tolerates appreciates the twang of a skilled Red Cross Gray Lady, plucking the strings of an autoharp. Why Gray Lady, you ask? Because she has gray hair? No. Gray Ladies were volunteers who performed non-medical services to sick, injured, or disabled patients. They were not nurses, but they could read to patients, write letters home for them, or in this case, perform talents worthy of an appearance on Star Search. My question is: why isn’t he donning an open-backed hospital gown? Instead, he sports a Chinese stand collar, frog button jacket, as though he is dressed for his shift at The Golden Tiger. I don’t get it.
Pillsbury Unveils New Eel Crescent Roll
Masks Are In, Gloves Are Out
Mrs. James Caufield (because magazines didn’t care about married women’s first names) shapes cotton gloves at the Prairie Glove plant in Carlinville, Illinois on what appears to be a giant fork. At this point in 1967, the firm employed 170 townspeople and churned out 10,000 pairs a week. Is it me, or do they look Goliath-sized?
Personally, we’ve stopped our usage of gloves and simply wear masks and use sanitizer as of late–some wonderfully smelling ones from Bath & Body that we procured yesterday in a clean, manly scent, as well as a Sunshiney lemon one. It is a bit disconcerting to watch a waitress wearing the same gloves at an outdoor restaurant, bring your drinks (touching the rims, which was a HUGE server no-no back in my day), then touch your neighbor’s plates, etc, throughout the entire meal. I would have rathered she just washed her hands repeatedly. Such is our new learning curve.
I’m still surprised how hard it is for folks to figure out how to use gloves, that as soon as they are covered in germs, you toss them, instead of climbing into your car and grabbing your wheel and touching your radio and yanking the emergency breaks. Now you’ve just transferred all the nasty germs all over your car. Folks are stupid. Guess we should stick to the OG gloves when this pandemic is over.
Folks Should Call Me Miss Figgy At This Point
As some of you know, our fig tree (a cutting from my husband’s grandfather’s tree many moons ago) flaunts her fecundity each June, and then promptly closes shop within the month. This year, she held on to her small green figs until the very end of June, when they plumped up all purple and big as softballs, in some cases.
As soon as you twist one off a branch, a sticky milk spurts out, and it’s quite itchy. Even three rounds of vigorous Soft Soap won’t make it go entirely away. Nature’s weapon.
This was Thursday morning’s haul.
I’m always surprised by how few people have ever eaten a ripe fig, but it makes sense, since you never see them in the stores. They die after 48 hours, so you have to eat them quickly. As neither my son nor my spouse are fans, I have had to force myself to eat 3-5 figs daily, just to fulfill the chintzy gal inside me, who cannot pass up free food. Plus, it’s healthy!
Sometimes I have to add them to a salad, so I don’t get so bored.
I gave a bushel to a Facebook friend, who sees me post them daily, and tried to offer some to the new Asian family across the street, but he thought I was asking him to come trim my tree. Eventually, I spoke with the wife, who was happy to try some, and I packed a dozen in a to-go box for them. Another 10 were given next door to our Indian neighbors, who thought at first we were offering “pigs” last year. They said they didn’t eat meat and politely declined. But once we got past the consonant confusion, they were down with a pile of figs.
Lastly, the neighbors behind us actually can see the purple orbs as they hover on branches above our fence. We told them to snag whatever they like, since the abundance is overwhelming, and I packed up another box for them and passed it over. It will be 107 today, and zero chance of rain, as usual, so I don’t know how long this tree will keep pumping them out. But until then, I’ll keep reaching for the figs (except the top branches; those are for the birds and squirrels).
I Don't Get It 