Trouser Mouse

click to enlarge

The Trouser Mouse in Blue Springs, Missouri.
Ocean City, Maryland is the home of the Bearded Clam. They should partner and do vigorous and interesting activities together.

Arrrrr kay, so you'll give my pegleg back and I'm free to go?

the good news : “French commandos went in with guns blazing and captured a gang of pirates who days earlier had hijacked a luxury cruise ship”

the bad news :  “the British Foreign Office issued a directive to the once vaunted Royal Navy not to detain any pirates, because doing so could violate their human rights. ...captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain”
link

I'm tempted to pen a letter to No. 10 Downing Street and remind them that Britannia is an island.

an old photo

While I am probably related to someone in the picture, I have no idea who. I thought I would put this up so google can find it and perhaps someone somewhere will have an interest in it.


click for much larger image (about 600KB)

U.S. Army 131st Field Artillery, Camp Stuart, VA
March 17, 1919

inscribed :
"131st Reg. F.A. A.E.F., Mch 17th '19
Photo by Holladay Newport News, VA #3356"
(F.A.A.E.F. is the Field Artillery, American Expeditionary Force)

The sensual saint

Saint Francis et His Four Ladies by Joan Mowat Erikson

An interesting little book that I bought at a book sale a few years ago. It includes this quote from Archivum Historicum, vol.13, trans. Nesta de Robeck, Quaracchi, 1920 concerning a dream/vision had by Lady Clare about Saint Francis of Assisi. Erikson prefaced the quote with "(Clare saw Francis as having the attributes) of a nourishing mother, being a source of both spiritual and sensual sustenance." Personally, I think the sensual aspects overwhelms the motherly aspects.

"The Lady Clare also told that once she had seen St. Francis in a vision and she was bringing him a jug of hot water and with this she was ascending a long stairway, but so easily that it was as though she walked on the level earth. When she reached Saint Francis, he bared his breast saying: "Come, take and drink." And having sucked the Saint exhorted her to do so again: which doing what she sucked was so sweet and delightful that she could in no way describe it. And having sucked, that roundness, or the mouth of the pap from which the milk flowed remained in the mouth of blessed Clare; and if taken in the hand what had remained in her mouth seemed something bright and shining in which all could be seen as in a mirror, in which she saw her own reflection."

(I also can't help but wonder if there may have been a translation error somewhere)

random thoughts about wildlife

random thoughts and observations about beaver...
1) Many beavers are industrious and work hard causing them to perspire - consequently those are sweaty beavers.
2) While building dams, beavers spend a lot of time in the water and become wet and slippery.
3) Nothing seems to makes a beaver happier than having a big piece of wood between its lips.

Ex libris

I've always wanted a bookplate. They seem cool. Classy. Something everyone should have. Then I realized :
1) I don't like defiling books. Sticking a bookplate does seem like book abuse
2) marking books to say "this is mine" seems pointless. I know it is mine. Does anyone else care. I doubt anyone will walk up to my book shelves and bewilderedly ask whose books are these? Perhaps if I lent my books to a wider group of people...
3) If I don't have a reason for a bookplate then having one would be vain
4) I have quite a few books and I don't want to go to the trouble of adding a bookplate to each

However, I kept doodling even as I thought of the above.