Up the trail, Benji tires out and the guys take a break

 

Benji: "Ugh... Kingston you are trying to kill me, I haven't worked out in too long"

 

Kingston: "Seriously bro that was the warm up, why quit now, keep going!"

 

Porter: "Kingston, man chill, he needs a break, so we will take one. You can go ahead if you want, we will catch up"

 

Kingston: "Sorry... I guess I just am really irritable, truth is, I have been bending over backwards to impress Lollie and show her I am not just some rich snobby player kid"

 

Benji: Out of breath "Well... I hate to break the bad news but you have a girlfriend, a gorgeous model ...and yet your not satisfied with that.. your acting like a player.."

 

Porter: " Well... your acting a little bit like she expects, you do have a girlfriend.. you shouldn't care about what Lollie thinks.."

 

Kingston: "Shit, you think I don't know that? Eva and I are over, we just haven't officially broken it off.. she is always talking about Chaz, I mean, yeah he is my best friend and around a lot but that doesn't mean she needs to talk about him twenty four seven."

 

Porter: "I am sorry man.. We all know how that feels, but you and Eva are gonna have a talk tomorrow though aren't you? I mean you two can finally properly end it and hopefully stay friends."

 

Kingston: "Yeah, I think we are on the same page, we haven't spent a whole lot of time together or even talked a lot lately.. "

  

Benji: "Ok guys, I am ready, lets go"

 

The guys take off running again into the park.

 

"Pick of the Day" by "Flower Lovers"

Love is patient and kind;

It is not jealous or conceited or proud;

Love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable;

Love does not keep a record of wrongs;

Love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth;

Love never gives up;

And its faith, hope and patience never fail.

~1 Corinthians 13 v.4-7~

New Hampshire. Joe Biden looks very frail. I never knew that depression can manifest itself as anger and irritability.

 

Government should fear "the people", however, everything has been backwards and upside down for 35+ years, so, "the people" fear government.

 

Packaging sizes have been decreasing for years...……….all while the price of the item in the package, has either remained the same, or increased.

 

Up is down. Black is white.

8:00 AM wake-up

 

The first photo about the spoon theory. I am making a series of this, so expect more photos soon.

 

If you have never heard about the spoon theory, I suggest that you read this article: here.

 

The spoon theory describes how people with chronic illnesses live.

 

Each day, I start with this jar. I never know how many spoons are in there. Did I sleep well, what did I do yesterday, am I getting the flu, what's the weather like? All these things and a lot more influence how much spoons I have to spend.

 

I always hope I have a lot of spoons, but the last couple of weeks my number of spoons has been steadily decaying, leaving me bed-bound for most of the day.

 

My photos about being ill

  

Very serious Grizzly Bear encountered near Kluane Lake last week. He seemed a bit irritable, probably, like me, just a bit grumpy at the incessant rain. I love seeing Grizzlies in Autumn, when the tundra is changing to reddish brown.

(more pix of this Bear later ....)

Wren,

 

One of Europe's smallest birds, the big-voiced Wren uses a remarkable variety of habitats.

It is found from sea level to high up in mountain areas, from forest to almost open spaces; subspecies exist in remote island groups.

It spends most of the time low down, on or near the ground, often in deep thickets of bramble or bracken or in ornamental shrubberies.

Cold winters cause dramatic declines but Wren populations can recover quite quickly.

Voice, - Dry, hard calls with irritable, rattling quality.

, chit, chiti, tzerrr, song loud, full-throated, warbling outburst with characteristic low, hard trill and fast, ringing notes.

Nesting, - Small, loose ball of leaves and grass, tucked in bank, under overhang; 5 or 6 eggs; 2 broods; April - July.

Feeding - Forges in dark, damp places under hedges, around buildings, shrubberies, in ditchers, and in patches of dead bracken and similar low, thick cover; finds insects and spiders and feeds on scraps scattered under bushers,

 

Order - Passeriformes,

Family - Troglodytidae,

Species - Troglodytes troglodytes

Length, - 9 -10cm,

Wingspan, - 13 - 17cm,

Weight, - 8 - 13g,

Lifespan - 2 - 5 years,

Status - Secure,

by lexderbs ift.tt/1pZ3VOY

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however, we have travelled a short distance west from Cavendish Mews, skirting Hyde Park, around Hyde Park Corner, through Knightsbridge past the Brompton Road and Harrods with its ornate terracotta façade, past the great round Roman amphitheatre inspired Royal Albert Hall that was built in honour of Queen Victoria’s late husband prince Albert in 1861, past Kensington Palace, to Holland Park. It is here, in a cream painted stucco three storey Nineteenth Century townhouse with a wrought and cast iron glazed canopy over the steps and front door, flanked by two storey canted bay windows to each side with Corinthian pilasters, that we find ourselves. Lettice has come to the elegant and gracious home of her widowed future sister-in-law, Clementine (known preferably now by the more cosmopolitan Clemance) Pontefract.

 

Lettice is engaged to Clemance’s elder brother, Sir John Nettleford Hughes. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John, according to London society gossip enjoys dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Although she did not become engaged to him then, Lettice did reacquaint herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by mutual friends Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate in 1924. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again later that year at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. When Lettice’s understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, fell apart, Lettice agreed to Sir John’s proposal.

 

Even though Lettice is twenty-four now, as an unmarried young lady, she still must be discreet as to how often she sees her future husband unaccompanied, so as not to sully her reputation. Therefore, Clemance has arranged an afternoon tea for Lettice and Sir John at her elegant Holland Park home where she can be seen, for societal purposes, as a chaperone for Lettice. Clemance’s drawing room is elegantly appointed with the comfortable Edwardian clutter of her continual and conspicuous acquisition that is the hallmark of a lady of her age and social standing. Clusters of floral chintz chairs and sofas are placed around the room in small conversational clutches, whilst elegant French antiques, collected by her and her late husband Harrison during their years living in France, stand around the walls. The room is papered in pale pink Georgian style wallpaper and hung with Eighteenth Century pastoral scenes in gilded frames, whilst the floor is parquet. The room smells of freshly arranged hothouse flowers, and a canary twitters in a cage.

 

The trio are discussing over a tea of chocolate sponge served with cream and strawberries, Lettice’s recent acceptance of world famous British concert pianist, Sylvia Fordyce’s commission to create a feature wall in the drawing room of ‘The Nest’, Sylvia’s discreet country retreat in Essex, which Lettice visited last week. Sylvia is the long-time friend of Sir John and Clemance, and the pair introduced Lettice to Sylvia at a private audience after a Schumann and Brahms piano concert. After a brief chat with Sir John and Clemance, Sylvia had her personal secretary show them out so that she could discuss “business” with Lettice. Anxious that like so many others, Sylvia would try to talk Lettice out of marrying Sir John, Lettice was surprised when Sylvia admitted that when she said that she wanted to discuss business, that was what she genuinely meant. Sylvia invited Lettice to motor up to Essex with her for an overnight stay at ‘The Nest’ upon the conclusion of her concert series to see the room for herself, and perhaps get some ideas as to what and how she might paint it.

 

“So,” Sir John says as he sips his tea from one of Clemance’s gilded Art Nouveau patterned Royal Doulton cups. “You’re taking Sylvia’s commission on then, Lettice my dear.”

 

“I am, John.” Lettice agrees, sitting alongside her fiancée on the low backed and comfortable flounced floral chintz sofa.

 

“Oh hoorah!” Clemance exclaims from her own matching armchair opposite, clapping her hands in delight, the action startling the little canary in its cane cage on the pedestal table next to her, causing it to flutter from its perch and twitter loudly in fright. “Oh!” Clemance puts her hands to her mouth as she turns and looks at her little pet. “Oh I’m sorry Josette!” she says in an apologetic tone to the bird, who flutters back to its perch and utters a sharp and shrill cheep at her. “Poor dear creature.”

 

“Who?” Sir John asks. “Sylvia?”

 

“No, Nettie!” Clemance replies using Sir John’s pet name used only by Clemance and his closest friends from his younger days, picking up her own delicate teacup and turning her attentions back to her brother and his fiancée. “Not Sylvia. And don’t be obtuse.” She gives John a peevish look. “There’s nothing poor about Sylvia. No, I was referring to poor Josette.” She indicates with her bejewelled hand in a sweeping gesture to her bird. “I don’t think the poor little creature coped very well with the travel from Paris to London, and she is still trying to adjust to life in Holland Park. I’ve consulted my book of canaries and caged birds,” She pats a blue tooled leather volume with the image of three gilded canaries and the title pressed into the cover atop a stack of books next to the cage. “But all their suggestions on settling birds into new homes seem not to work. The only thing that does seem to work is when I play the piano: Chopin mostly. But for the most part since our arrival in London, Josette sounds so disgruntled.”

 

As if she knows she is being spoken of, the canary utters another angry tweet, causing Lettice and Sir John to glance at one another and share a conspiratorial smile.

 

“Perhaps you should play something for Josette now, Clemmie.” Sir John chuckles, his smile broadening, nodding to Clemance’s beautiful maple grand piano with its lid held open filling a corner of her spacious drawing room.

 

“We might enjoy that too, Clemance.” Lettice adds cheekily, her shoulders quivering with her own laughter.

 

“Oh you two!” Clemance says, flapping her hand at the pair on the sofa opposite her. “You’re as bad as each other, thinking I’m a mad old woman, fussing after my little bird!”

 

“Well, you must confess, Clemmie darling,” Sir John opines to his sister. “It is a little odd, fretting so much over a little thing like that.” He now nods to the chirping bird in the cage.

 

“The only thing odd is your lack of affection for animals, Nettie.” Clemance replies, groaning as she places her hands on the round arms of her chair and pushes herself up and out of the comfortable seat that over the years of owning it, has moulded to her shape. “But then again, you’ve never been an animal lover, have you Nettie darling?”

 

“I call that jolly unfair, Clemmie!” Sir John protests. “I loved the dogs we had when we were growing up.”

 

“Not as much as I did.” Clemance retorts, grasping the single strand of pearls draped down the front of her wisteria patterned crêpe de chine day frock. “You and Mother were always kicking them out of the way.”

 

“John!” Lettice exclaims, depositing her own teacup onto the low maple occasional table in front of her with a clatter and turning in her seat to look at her fiancée with startled eyes. “You didn’t?”

 

“Well, they got in the way.” Sir John defends himself. “They were always under foot. And to correct dear Clemmie’s memory of our childhood, which has become clouded and skewed with the passing decades, I didn’t kick them. Mother did, but I didn’t.”

 

“What would you call it then?” Clemance asks.

 

“I nudged them with my foot, and encouraged them to move, which they always did.”

 

“Well,” Lettice adds with determination. “I certainly hope you won’t be encouraging our dogs to move that way when we’re married.”

 

“Are we getting dogs, Lettice darling?” Sir John asks with arched eyebrows.

 

“Indeed we are!” Lettice replies with a steeliness in her voice. “A house is not a home without dogs.”

 

“Then why don’t you have a dog now, if you love them so slavishly?” Sir John queries, taking another slice of chocolate sponge from the cake plate on the table and depositing it onto his own plate. He looks to his fiancée. “More cake?”

 

“Err, no thank you, John darling.” Lettice shakes her head at the offer. “Anyway, Cavendish Mews is hardly the place for a dog, really, unless it was a small dog.” Lettice explains. “It’s too small, and dogs, even little ones, need space to run around,” She looks at Sir John pointedly. “So that they don’t get under foot. They need nature, and London is in short supply of that.”

 

“There are plenty of parks, Lettice,” Clemance says with an expansive wave that causes her draped sleeve to flutter prettily through the air before settling again. “You could take your dog to one of them.”

 

“Or one of the squares around Mayfair.” Sir John adds.

 

“No.” Lettice disagrees. “Those places are for dogs on leashes. No dog can roam around freely when at the end of a leash.”

 

“Rather like a bird in a cage.” Sir John looks at Clemance.

 

Josette tweets loudly again.

 

“I’ll have you know that Josette was free to fly throughout Harrison’s and my Paris apartment.” Clemance defends herself again.

 

“No doubt making a mess wherever it flew.” Sir John shudders at the thought of bird droppings being discovered around the room.

 

“She,” Clemance says pointedly. “Didn’t make a great deal of mess, any more than she does now.” She folds her arms akimbo in defiance and determination. “And once Josette is settled here, I will allow her out of her cage for a few hours each day, but not yet. She’s too flighty at the moment. She’s as likely to fly out of the nearest open window at present, given half the chance.” She looks indulgently at her canary, who chirps and twitters before pecking lightly at a little silver bell attached to one of the bars of the cage.

 

“You know larks don’t sing when in cages, don’t you Clemmie darling?” Sir John asks his sister, smiling cheekily.

 

Placing her hands on her hips and leaning forward over the table towards her elder brother, Clemance goes on, “My we are full of trivia today, Nettie darling.” She smiles, showing that she is not angry with her brother, and that the lively banter between the two of them is quite normal. “As it happens, I do know that little gem of a fact. Luckily, Josette isn’t a lark. She’s a canary.”

 

“Oh enough of that, you two.” Lettice interrupts. “Please play us something on the piano, Clemance.”

 

“Very well my dear Lettice,” Clemance agrees, moving around the embroidered footstool in front of her chair and gliding between the pedestal table used for Josette’s cage and the rounded arm of the sofa. “But I must warn you that I am no Sylvia Fordyce.”

 

“I’m not expecting such perfection from any mere mortal, dear Clemance.” Lettice assures her with a laugh.

 

Taking a seat on the stool at the piano, Clemance turns to her twittering canary and asks, “So, what shall it be, Josette: a Chopin Polonaise, Mazurka or Nocturn?” When the bird utters a louder chirp when she says the word Mazurka, Clemance continues. “Very good, Josette. A Mazurka it is.

 

As Clemance noisily ruffles through her well-worn sheet music on the piano’s music rack whilst Josette seems to chirp orders at her, Sir John turns back to Lettice. Depositing his plate of half-eaten slice of cake back onto the table he takes her delicate hands in his, enfolding them gently in his own smooth ones. The intimacy of the act still comes as a surprise to Lettice who jumps a little. When Sir John reacts by retracting a little, Lettice apologises to her fiancée for her jumpiness, claiming that she is still trying to get used to the idea of them being engaged. This seems to appease Sir John, and he smiles at Lettice with his blue eyes.

 

“You’ll get used to it soon enough, my dear.” Sir John assures Lettice.

 

“Will I?” Lettice asks, unable to keep an edge of anxiousness out of her voice.

 

“Of course you will, Lettice darling,” he replies. His smile develops a remorseful tinge. “In time.” He squeezes her hands. “You’ll see.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice agrees with a dismissive snort and a beaming smile. “Of course I will.”

 

“We are going to make a good partnership, Lettice: you and I.”

 

“Is that all, John?” Lettice asks, looking earnestly at Sir John.

 

“I’m a successful businessman, Lettice,” Sir John replies with a quizzical look. “And you a budding businesswoman in a world of men. What more do we need?”

 

Lettice remains silent for a moment, contemplating her fiancée’s statement before swallowing the lump in her throat and uttering awkwardly. “Love?”

 

“Now Lettice,” Sir John says seriously in a lowered tone, making sure that Clemance cannot overhear them as she scrambles through her sheets of music. “Love can be quite overrated.”

 

“But I…” Lettice begins.

 

Sir John releases Lettice’s hand and raises his right hand, placing a finger to her lightly painted lips as he shushes her. “I blame the obsession the general populace have with moving pictures now for the focus on love matches nowadays. Love can make things complicated. You saw this with how things ended with your young Spencely.”

 

“Or it can make you happy.” She falls silent for a moment before murmuring almost inaudibly, “I was happy with Selwyn.”

 

“My parents did well enough without it, your grandparents too, didn’t they Lettice? I warned you from the start that my… ahem.” Sir John clears his throat before continuing. “My desires in that regard are complex. You know this. Rest assured Lettice my dear, that I have the greatest of respect for you as a human being, and fondness too.”

 

“Is that all, John?” Lettice whispers.

 

“Perhaps love may come in time, but you cannot, and must not, expect it,” Sir John replies remorsefully. “For I cannot promise it you, Lettice. At the moment, that is reserved for the West End actress Paula Young, until some other little slip of a thing usurps her, and that will happen. Already she is getting cloying and tiresome, so I think it is time to jump ship. You won’t want to be like Paula, full of expectations that are unrealistic which get dashed along with her heart. You know what a broken heart feels like, don’t you? Settle for deep respect and fondness.”

 

“But I…” Lettice begins, but is silenced by her future sister-in-law.

 

“Here we are, Josette.” Clemance says from the piano. “You like this one, so I hope our guests do too.”

 

Clemance begins playing the opening bars of Chopin’s Mazurka, Op 17. No. 4.* The soft, gentle notes of the classical piece echoing from beneath the soundboard seem to echo Lettice’s feelings deep within her chest: a mixture of nervousness and a certain amount of sadness. Clemance’s fingers of both hands move gracefully across the keyboard, bringing the music to life, the tune evidently pleasing Josette as she trills happily from her cage, eyeing her mistress though dark beady eyes.

 

“So tell me, Lettice darling,” Sir John says brightly, adeptly changing the subject as he snatches his plate of half-eaten cake off the table again and settles back into the cosy comfort of the overstuffed Edwardian sofa. “What exactly is Sylvia’s commission?”

 

Lettice is surprised by how easily Sir John can change, from doting fiancée to cool businessman, from serious and intense to exuding good humour and bonhomie as he is now as he lounges back on the sofa eating chocolate sponge cake with cream and strawberries, exuding every confidence, and it makes her wonder who she is really marrying. Perhaps Sir John is right. Love can complicate things, but it seems that her fiancée is intricate and impenetrable enough as it is.

 

“Oh yes!” calls Clemance from the piano as she keeps playing. “Do tell us, Lettice darling. Knowing Sylvia, it’s sure to be something dynamic.”

 

Lettice clears her throat awkwardly as she retrieves her cup of tea from the table and cradles it in her hands. “Well,” she begins, adding a false, bright joviality to her voice as she speaks. “It’s really to undo some work by Syrie Maugham**.”

 

“Oh!” chortles Sir John. “That will set the cat amongst the pigeons***!”

 

“So typically Sylvia,” Clemance agrees with a laugh of her own.

 

“Sylvia always enjoyed being controversial, didn’t she Clemmie, even when you first met as young ladies?”

 

“For as long as I’ve known her, Nettie.”

 

“What is she having you do, Lettice darling?” Sir John asks, intrigued, his empty fork paused midway between his mouth and his lap.

 

“Well, she had Syrie Maugham decorate her drawing room at ‘The Nest’.” Lettice begins.

 

“Oh, that’s her little country retreat, isn’t it?” Clemance asks.

 

“Yes, it is.” Lettice concurs. “It’s in Essex, just outside of Belchamp St Paul****. I went to stay there so I could see the room for myself.”

 

“Lucky you, Lettice darling.” Clemance remarks. “I haven’t been invited yet.”

 

“Be fair, Clemmie darling, you’ve not been back in the country all that long,” Sir John defends Sylvia. “And it has only been a few weeks since Sylvia saw you. She said she’d invite you when she came back from her tour of the provinces that her agent has arranged for her.”

 

Clemance stops playing the piano and turns around on her stool to catch the eye of her brother. “That’s so typically you, Nettie darling!” She shakes her head, smiling indulgently.

 

“What have I said now?” Sir John asks, pleading innocence.

 

“You hear what you want to hear, not necessarily what is said, a trait you also picked up from Mother.” Clemance replies. “Sylvia said she’d look me up in the book*****, not invite me to ‘The Nest’! Truthfully, I don’t know anyone, other than you Lettice, who has been there and can vouch for its existence.” She turns back around and picks up where she left off playing, causing Josette to chirp happily in appreciation.

 

“So, what doesn’t Sylvia like about Mrs. Maugham’s designs, Lettice?” Sir John asks. “She would have paid a pretty penny****** for her services, and no doubt she will be doing the same with yours, or at least I hope she will.”

 

“She doesn’t appreciate Syrie Maugham’s over reliance on white, and,” Lettice sighs. “I must confess I understand why. The drawing room doesn’t seem to reflect Sylvia at all.”

 

“And what does she want you to do, Lettice?” Sir John asks again.

 

“To paint a feature wall for her, reflecting more of her personality and passion.”

 

“Oh hoorah!” Clemance says as the music comes to a gentle end which is softly applauded by both Lettice and Sir John. “I’m sure that will look wonderful!”

 

Clemance stands and steps away from the piano. Josette twitters cheerfully in her cage now and seems far more content. Clemance smiles at her pet. “That’s cheered you up, hasn’t it, Josette?” she asks. As if replying, the canary utters a peal of happy twittering notes. Turning to Sir John and Lettice, she goes on, “See, I told you my piano playing would make her less irritable.”

 

“Indeed you did!” her brother replies in mild surprise. “Proof that music hath charms to soothe the savage beast*******.”

 

“I’d hardly call a canary a ‘savage beast’, John.” Lettice opines.

 

“That’s because you’ve never been bitten by her sharp beak,” Sir John wags his fork at Lettice. ‘Like I have.”

 

“What are you going to paint on Sylvia’s walls, Lettice?” Clemance asks, resuming her seat in her comfortable floral armchair.

 

“I thought I might take inspiration from some wonderful pieces of blue and white china she has in the drawing room of ‘The Nest’.”

 

“I’m sensing a pattern here, Lettice darling.” Sir John remarks from his corner of the sofa. “After what you did for dear Adelinda.” He references the ‘Pagoda Room’, a small room in ‘Arkwright Bury’, the Wiltshire home of his and Clemance’s nephew, Alisdair Gifford and his Australian wife Adelinda. Sir John encouraged Lettice to take up the commission of his nephew and redecorate the room in Eighteenth century chinoiserie style to act as a backdrop for Adelinda’s collection of fine blue and white china: a commission that gained Lettice a favourable review in Country Life******** by Henry Tipping*********.

 

“Not at all, John.” Lettice replies with certainty. This is something very new and different. For Mr. Gifford…”

 

“Oh Alisdair, please!” Sir John retorts. “After all, you will be family once we are married.”

 

“Very well John, Alisdair’s redecoration, it was mimicking what had once hung on the walls. What Sylvia wants is something truly unique to her, and her alone. I thought I would take inspiration from some of Sylvia’s blue and white porcelain and paint a pattern of white on blue perhaps, rather than blue on white, with a gilded element.”

 

“That sounds rather exciting, and daring!” Clemance enthuses, sitting forward in her seat.

 

“That’s what Sylvia said.” Lettice agrees.

 

“What do you think you might paint for her then?” Sir John asks.

 

“At first I was going to paint something from the garden: flowers, or leaves perhaps,” Lettice explains. “Then I thought of feathers, which she really liked the idea of. I became more convinced after we had dinner that night that feathers are the right choice.”

 

“And why is that, Lettice darling?” Clemance asks.

 

“Well you see, Sylvia told me her story over dinner.” Lettice glances seriously, first at Sir John and then at Clemance. “Her whole story, which she says really only you two know.”

 

“So, she told you about her father and mother?” Clemance asks.

 

Lettice nods. “Yes, that her father died young, and that her mother couldn’t cope and needed to reach out to her brother, Ninian**********.”

 

“And what did she tell you about her time with her Uncle Ninian?” Clemance asks, her eyes wary as she looks at Lettice.

 

“She told me that he recognised in her what her mother also did, that she had the talent to be an accomplished pianist, but in order to do that, her mother needed Ninian’s money and connections.”

 

“Quite right, my dear.” Clemance nods. “It is through her Uncle Ninian that Sylvia and I met.”

 

“She told me the same story you did, that you were both staying at the von Nyssens, in Charlottenburg: you to be finished and she to attend the Universität der Künste***********.”

 

“And what did she tell you about when she came back to England after her period at the Universität der Künste came to an end?” Sir John asks quietly from his seat, his plate now discarded and all his attention upon his fiancée.

 

“Everything I think.” Lettice replies matter-of-factly. “That her Uncle Ninian basically held her captive, trying to recoup the money he invested in her by marrying her off to one of his wealthy friends. She told me that he was controlling of everything in her life, and that she wasn’t even allowed to see her mother again, except one last time on Primrose Hill************. That was one of the reasons why I decided that I would paint feathers for her on her wall.” Lettice’s voice lowers and saddens as she opines, “It seems to me that Sylvia was rather like a bird in a cage during that period of her life: on display and never granted her freedom, yet unlike a lark, she did have to sing, or rather perform and play the piano for all her would-be suitors.”

 

“That’s a very apt summation.” Clemance says sadly. “That was a hard time for Sylvia, and of course being sequestered as she was by her uncle, I had no idea what had happened to her.”

 

“But then she broke free, and managed to forge a life of her own,” Lettice adds more cheerfully. “And that is also why I want to paint feathers for her, as a symbol of the freedom she has now, and the heights to which she has risen in her career.”

 

“So, Sylvia told you about the Brigadier then.” Clemance says.

 

“Oh, she told me about Brigadier Piggott the night we met at the Royal Albert Hall*************, but whilst I was staying with her in Essex, she also told me about her first husband, Mr. Pembroke, the impresario, who turned out to be a wastrel and…” She pauses as she thinks how best to coin the fact that Sylvia disclosed her first husband’s homosexuality to her. “And other things.” she finally concludes. “And how he was a victim of foul play.”

 

“I see.” Sir John says dourly.

 

“So, she has told you everything, then.” Clemance concludes.

 

“I only think she entrusted me and took me into her confidence because I am marrying you, John.”

 

“Oh, I shouldn’t imagine that would be the only reason, Lettice darling,” Sir John replies, clearing his throat and sitting up in his seat, all the comfort and languor in his stance gone as he is reminded of the serious and sad business of Sylvia Fordyce’s life. “But it probably helped.”

 

“Sylvia is very good at keeping her own counsel, Lettice.” Clemance adds. “After those terrible few years with her Uncle Ninian, I think Sylvia is apt at managing everything about her life by herself. She neither needs to seek advice, nor share anything about her life with anyone else if she chooses not to. She is fiercely independent.”

 

“Thus, why I want to paint feathers for her, Clemance.”

 

“I think that Ninian also has a great deal to answer for Sylvia’s poor choice in men. I think being thrust in front of much older men as a jeune fille à marrier************** whom she didn’t love created a perverse sense of what a marriage was like for her, certainly if the Brigadier was anything to go by. We never met her first husband. He never came to any of Gladys’ parties where we reacquainted ourselves.”

 

“Oh!” Clemance gasps. “Oh thinking of marriages, and perhaps to not too subtly turn our attention and conversation away from the sad early life of Sylvia Fordyce, I have some magazines I’d like to give you to peruse, Lettice.” She gets up again with another groan. “It will help give you some ideas about what your trousseau*************** might look like: not that I don’t think you wouldn’t know, being the fashionable Bright Young Thing**************** you are, with friends like Gerald Bruton to dress you.” She sighs. “But food for thought. Have you spoken to your mother yet, about me helping you pick your trousseau, my dear?”

 

“Not yet, Clemance, but I doubt there will be any issues with her handing the reigns entirely over to you.” Lettice replies breezily. “Sadie hates London and only comes up here when she absolutely has to.”

 

Clemance takes the few steps across from her seat to Lettice. She places a hand lightly on Lettice’s shoulder. “Well, she might feel differently helping her youngest daughter to choose her trousseau. I know I would.” Her blue eyes suddenly become a little cloudy and lose their brightness as she speaks. “Best you ask her before you agree.”

 

Lettice sighs heavily. “Yes Clemance, I will, I promise, when I next go home to Glynes*****************.”

 

“Good girl.” Clemance squeezes Lettice’s shoulder and then wends her way between the furnishings of the drawing room and walks out the door.

 

In her cage, Josette flits about in desultory fashion, clinging first to one of the bars of her cage and then landing on the perch and winging, before flying up to peck at the silver bell. As she does, a single pale yellow feather falls from her tail. Blown by the wind created by Josette’s flight, the feather glides soundlessly out of the cage between the bars and lands on the tabletop, next to a round sterling silver box with a raised lid that Clemance uses for birdseed. As Josette lands on the floor of the cage, the feather is blown off the table and it drifts down, landing on the parquet floor of the drawing room.

 

Noticing it fall, Lettice puts her teacup aside and stands up before talking over to the table and dropping down to pick the feather up off the floor. She envelops it in her left hand as she stands up. She pauses before the cage’s bars and looks at Josette. The little canary seems to look back at her with her alert black eyes. She twitters and sings. “Hullo Josette.” Lettice says quietly. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you.”

 

Josette continues to fly about her cage, twittering and singing, whilst Lettice watches her antics, momentarily mesmerised.

 

“I do hope you don’t feel like her.” Sir John’s voice drifts into her consciousness.

 

“What?” Lettice asks distractedly, spinning around to face her fiancée, who has returned to his languorous stance, leaning back into the soft upholstery and nest of cushions of the sofa. His arms are draped over the left arm of the sofa and across its back. Once again, he exudes the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows with every languid breath, wearing it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut Jermyn Street****************** tweed suit he is dressed in.

 

“Like a bird in a cage.” Sir John replies with a confident smile. “I hope you don’t feel like a bird in a cage, like you feel that Sylvia did when she got married to Josiah Pembroke. This fine marriage of ours is going to benefit us both, albeit in different ways. I will still be able to enjoy my dalliances with Paula and her like, and you, my dear Lettice, will be afforded the luxury of independence that few women of our class can enjoy.”

 

*Mazurkas, Op. 17. is a set of four mazurkas for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin, composed in 1832–1833 and published in 1834.

 

**Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.

 

***If you put the cat among the pigeons or set the cat among the pigeons, you cause fierce argument or discussion by doing or saying something. The idiom comes from colonial India, where a popular pastime was to put a wild cat in a pen with pigeons. Bets would be made on how many birds the cat would bring down with one paw-swipe. The period of the British colonisation of India may have introduced this concept, and hence the phrase to the English language.

 

****Belchamp St Paul is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. The village is five miles west of Sudbury, Suffolk, and 23 miles northeast of the county town, Chelmsford.

 

*****In the 1920s, being listed in “the book” meant being listed in the telephone directory.

 

******The origin of the idiom “a pretty penny” dates back to the Sixteenth Century. The word “pretty” in this context does not refer to beauty but rather to a considerable or substantial amount. This phrase is used to describe something that is expensive or costs a significant amount of money.

 

*******“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” is the famous line uttered by a character in William Congreve's 1697 play “The Mourning Bride”. The meaning for “Music soothe the savage breast” quote can be interpreted as chest or heart. That is likely what William was referring to when he wrote his playwright. Still, as time went by, people began to incorrectly use the quote in numerous instances. As it is today, the phrase is misquoted wrongly in many places. The literal meaning of the incorrect quote is in reference to the power of music. Whoever began to misquote the phrase, wanted to say that music has the power to soothe even the most savage beast in the world. In a way, even though the quote is incorrect, it does make some sense. That’s because breast – as it was used back then – referred to feelings, emotions and heart.

 

******** Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.

 

*********Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.

 

**********Ninian is a Christian saint, first mentioned in the 8th century as being an early missionary among the Pictish peoples of what is now Scotland. Whilst the meaning of Ninian is uncertain, it may have links to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic word naomh, meaning “saint,” “holy,” or “sacred.”

 

***********The Universität der Künste, Berlin (Berlin College of Music) ranks as one of the largest educational music institutes in Europe, rich in content and quality. It dates back to the Royal (later State) Academy of Music, founded under the aegis of the violinist Joseph Joachim, a friend of Brahms, in 1869. From the date of its foundation under directors Joseph Joachim, Hermann Kretzschmar, Franz Schreker and Georg Schünemann, it has been one of the leading academies of music in the German-speaking countries. Composers such as Max Bruch, Engelbert Humperdinck and Paul Hindemith, performers such as Artur Schnabel, Wanda Landowska, Carl Flesch and Emanuel Feuermann, and academics such as Philipp Spitta, Curt Sachs, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Kurt Singer taught there. Prominent teachers later included the two directors Boris Blacher and Helmut Roloff, and the composer Dieter Schnebel.

 

************Like Regent's Park, the park area of Primrose Hill was once part of a great chase, appropriated by Henry VIII. Primrose Hill, with its clear rounded skyline, was purchased from Eton College in 1841 to extend the parkland available to the poor people of north London for open air recreation. At one time Primrose Hill was a place where duels were fought and prize-fights took place. The hill has always had a somewhat lively reputation, with Mother Shipton making threatening prophesies about what would happen if the city sprawl was allowed to encroach on its boundaries. At the top of the hill is one of the six protected viewpoints in London. The summit is almost sixty-three metres above sea level and the trees are kept low so as not to obscure the view. In winter, Hampstead can be seen to the north east. The summit features a York stone edging with a William Blake inscription, it reads: “I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill.”

 

*************The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington in London, built in the style of an ancient amphitheatre. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for the BBC Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941.

 

**************A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.

 

***************A trousseau refers to the wardrobe and belongings of a bride, including her wedding dress or similar clothing such as day and evening dresses.

 

****************The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

*****************Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella.

 

******************Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for high end gentlemen's clothing retailers and bespoke tailors in the West End.

 

This upper-class drawing room may appear real to you, but it is in fact made up of 1:12 miniature pieces from my extensive collection, including items from my old childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The copy of the “Book of Canaries and Caged Birds” on display here is a 1:12 size miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. In this case, although the book’s interiors are beautiful, so too is the cover, and I couldn’t resist displaying it for you to see. What might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. In this case, the “Book of Canaries and Caged Birds”, written by W.A. Blackston, W. Swayland and A.F. Wiener was published by Cassel in London in the 1880s with 56 full colour chromolithographs, which are replicated inside this volume in 1:12 scale. To produce something in such detail makes this a true artisan piece. The books directly behind the “Book of Canaries and Caged Birds” are also Ken Blythe’s work, but are of the type that are not designed to be opened. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The gilt Art Nouveau teacup in front of the book, featuring a copy of a Royal Doulton leaves pattern, comes from a larger tea set which has been hand decorated by beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

 

The tiny silver container with its removable lid was made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

The wicker cage with the bird on its perch I acquired through an online stockist on E-Bay.

 

The wooden pedestal table is made from beautiful golden walnut and is an unsigned artisan piece that I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

In the background you can see Clemance’s grand piano which I have had since I was about ten years of age. It is made from walnut. The footstool has several sheets of music on it which were made by Ken Blythe. The sofa in the background to the left of the photo is part of a Marie Antionette suite with pretty floral upholstery which has been made by the high-end miniatures manufacturer, Creal.

 

All the paintings around Clemance’s drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of late Victorian paper from the 1880s.

 

The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia.

Another photo from my 'spoon theory' series.

 

After studying I usually get tired and need to take a nap or rest. Sometimes I'll read a book or do something else. Naps seem to be something for elderly people, but a lot of people with a chronic illness need to take naps too. I only sleep for 15-20 minutes, but it helps me regain one or two spoons, or at least gain back some focus.

Autumn in North East Florida. Grateful that we do get some color. Can't hold a candle to those flaming Red Maples and the yellows that look like they are lit from within, but we do have some very nice soft Fall hues.

 

Greg and I are hoping that we are worried for nothing, but Jules hasn't been eating well this weekend. He is also just kinda off. I dread calling the Dr. tomorrow.

Chrom is a royal guard to the human capitol, Arcadia, ruled by the Leitner descendants. He is extremely loyal to Arcadia's princess, Vienna, whom he has share his entire life with.

 

Chrom grew up as a stable boy within the Leitner castle walls until he could earn his way into becoming a squire. After years of hard work and devotion, he became one of the best royal guards in the kingdom and was gifted a griffin hatchling whom he named Hyperion. He now devoted his life to Vienna and would protect her until his heart stopped beating.

 

However, on a usual hunting trip with the Leitners, Vienna's horse was frightened suddenly and breaks away from the others and into the dark forest nearby. Chrom and Hyperion rush after her, following her screams. Chrom dismounts Hyperion and tells him to fly above to search for her while he searched the grounds. He passes the frightened mare that Vienna was riding, drenched in a pool of her own blood. Chrom hears a whimper nearby and sees Vienna immediately, she was being approached by a massive white wolf with red eyes. As the wolf leapt for her, Chrom jumped in front of Vienna and shielded her with his armor and shield. The wolf's jaw clamps onto the armor on Chrom's arm and rips it off, exposing his bare skin. The wolf lunges again, wrapping it's teeth around Chrom's arm, but he was ready for the wolf that time and positioned his sword to stab the wolf, straight into the heart. Hyperion screeches from above, not knowing where to locate Chrom. Chrom whistles to his steed and Hyperion appears almost immediately. Chrom wraps his uninjured arm around Vienna and helps her onto Hyperion and he mounts afterwards.

 

Even though Vienna knew Chrom her entire life, this was the first time she finally realized that he would do anything for her. It was then she knew, she loved him.

 

Chrom was able to get his arm doctored and it healed rather quickly, which was peculiar to the healers of the kingdom, but they thought nothing of it. However, a bite-mark scar would forever be imprinted on his skin, a battle wound, so-to-speak.

 

As the night of the full moon creeped closer and closer, Chrom could sense that he wasn't feeling like his usual self. His usual stoic persona had been overridden with irritability and he was quickly angered. The full moon arrived and so did the beast within him. Chrom ran as far away from the humans as he could before the beast fully took control. He could not let Vienna see him this way...

SN/NC: Ophiopogon Japonicus, Asparagaceae Family

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (dwarf lilyturf, mondograss, fountainplant, monkeygrass; Japanese: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("dragon's beard") or ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("snake's beard") is a species of Ophiopogon native to China, India, Japan, and Vietnam.

It is an evergreen, sod-forming perennial plant. The leaves are linear, 20–40 cm long. The flowers are white through pale lilac, borne in a short raceme on a 5- to 1-cm stem. The fruit is a blue berry, 5 mm in diameter. Underground, this species has large stolons with tuberous roots. The fruit is attractive and looks just like a blue pearl, calling up anyone’s attention.

In traditional Chinese medicine, both O. japonicus plants and tubers are known as mai men dong (Chinese: 麥門冬). Tubers are used as the cardinal herb for yin deficiency. According to the "Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica", the herb is sweet, slightly bitter, and slightly cold; enters the heart, lung, and stomach channels; nourishes the yin of the stomach, spleen, heart, and lungs; and clears heat and quiets irritability. Liriope spicata is used as a substitute

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (anão lilyturf, mondograss, fontanário, monkeygrass; Japonês: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("barba de dragão") ou ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("barba de cobra") é uma espécie de Ophiopogon nativa da China , Índia, Japão e Vietnã.

É uma planta perene, formadora de grama. As folhas são lineares, com 20–40 cm de comprimento. As flores são brancas a lilás pálido, carregadas em um racimo curto em uma haste de 5 a 1 cm, sendo atraente e parece uma pérola azul, com 5 mm de diâmetro chamando a atenção de qualquer um. No subsolo, esta espécie apresenta grandes estolões com raízes tuberosas.

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (lilyturf enano, mondograss, planta fuente, hierba mono; japonés: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("barba de dragón") o ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("barba de serpiente") es una especie de Ophiopogon nativa de China, India, Japón y Vietnam.

Es una planta perenne de hoja perenne que forma césped. Las hojas son lineales, de 20 a 40 cm de largo. Las flores son de color blanco a lila pálido, nacidas en un racimo corto en un tallo de 5 a 1 cm. El fruto es una baya azul de 5 mm de diámetro. Bajo tierra, esta especie tiene grandes estolones con raíces tuberosas. La fruta es atractiva y se ve como una perla azul, llamando la atención de cualquiera.

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (lilyturf nano, mondograss, fountainplant, monkeygrass; giapponese: リ ュ ウ ノ ヒ ゲ ryu-no-hige ("barba di drago") o ジ ャ ノ ヒ ゲ ja-no-hige ("barba di serpente") è una specie di Ophiopogon originaria della Cina, India, Giappone e Vietnam.

È una pianta perenne sempreverde che forma zolle. Le foglie sono lineari, lunghe 20-40 cm. I fiori vanno dal bianco al lilla pallido, portati in un breve racemo su uno stelo da 5 a 1 cm. Il frutto è una bacca blu, di 5 mm di diametro. Nel sottosuolo, questa specie ha grandi stoloni con radici tuberose. Il frutto è attraente e sembra proprio una perla blu, richiamando l'attenzione di chiunque.

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (Zwergliliengras, Mondogras, Springbrunnenpflanze, Affengras; Japanisch: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige („Drachenbart“) oder ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige („Schlangenbart“) ist eine in China, Indien und China beheimatete Ophiopogon-Art. Japan und Vietnam.

Es handelt sich um eine immergrüne, sodenbildende mehrjährige Pflanze. Die Blätter sind linealisch und 20–40 cm lang. Die Blüten sind weiß bis helllila und stehen in einer kurzen Traube an einem 5 bis 1 cm langen Stiel. Die Frucht ist eine blaue Beere mit einem Durchmesser von 5 mm. Unterirdisch hat diese Art große Ausläufer mit knollenförmigen Wurzeln. Die Frucht ist attraktiv und sieht aus wie eine blaue Perle, die die Aufmerksamkeit aller auf sich zieht.

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (lys nain, mondograss, fontaine, herbe de singe ; japonais : リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("barbe de dragon") ou ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("barbe de serpent") est une espèce d'Ophiopogon originaire de Chine, d'Inde, Japon et Vietnam.

C'est une plante vivace à feuilles persistantes formant de la tourbe. Les feuilles sont linéaires, de 20 à 40 cm de long. Les fleurs sont blanches à lilas pâle, portées en une courte grappe sur une tige de 5 à 1 cm. Le fruit est une baie bleue de 5 mm de diamètre. Sous terre, cette espèce possède de gros stolons aux racines tubéreuses. Le fruit est attrayant et ressemble à une perle bleue, attirant l'attention de tous.

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (dwerg lilyturf, mondograss, fountainplant, monkeygrass; Japans: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("drakenbaard") of ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("slangenbaard") is een soort van Ophiopogon afkomstig uit China, India, Japan en Vietnam.

Het is een groenblijvende, zodevormende vaste plant. De bladeren zijn lineair, 20-40 cm lang. De bloemen zijn wit tot bleek lila, gedragen in een korte tros op een steel van 5 tot 1 cm. De vrucht is een blauwe bes, 5 mm in diameter. Onder de grond heeft deze soort grote uitlopers met knolachtige wortels. De vrucht is aantrekkelijk en ziet eruit als een blauwe parel die ieders aandacht opeist.

 

オフィオポゴン・ジャポニカス（ドワーフ・リリー芝、モンドグラス、噴水植物、モンキーグラス、日本語: リュウノヒゲ Ryu-no-hige (「竜のひげ」) またはジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige (「ヘビのひげ」) は、中国、インド、原産のオフィオポゴンの一種です。日本とベトナム。

常緑で芝生を形成する多年草です。葉は線形で、長さは 20～40 cm です。花は白から淡いライラック色で、5～1cmの茎に短い総状花序を咲かせます。果実は直径 5 mm の青いベリーです。この種は地下に塊根のある大きな匍匐茎を持っています。まるで青い真珠のような見た目が魅力的な果実は、注目を集めます。

 

Ophiopogon japonicus (قزم lilyturf ، mondograss ، fountainplant ، monkeygrass ؛ اليابانية: リ ュ ウ ノ ヒ ゲ ryu-no-hige ("لحية التنين") أو ジ ャ ノ ヒ ja-no-hige ("لحية الثعبان في الصين") هي من الأنواع الأصلية في Oph اليابان وفيتنام.

‎إنه نبات دائم الخضرة معمر. الأوراق خطية بطول 20-40 سم. الزهور بيضاء من خلال أرجواني شاحب ، تحمل في شجر قصير على ساق 5-1 سم. الثمرة توت أزرق قطرها 5 مم. تحت الأرض ، يحتوي هذا النوع على أذرع كبيرة ذات جذور درنية. الثمرة جذابة وتبدو مثل اللؤلؤة الزرقاء ، تلفت انتباه أي شخص.

鬱は... (Depression is...) series No. 3: "Irritability."

 

As I struggle with my current bout of depression, I'm trying to channel it into creativity. Using the Japanese pun of 鬱は (utsu wa: depression is) sounding like 器 (utsuwa: vessel or container), I'm exploring the idea that the empty feeling that is part of depression can be like an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with whatever I want.

 

This symptom is by far the worst one for me because it's the one that directly impacts my family. Little annoyances, especially pet peeves, become horrible triggers leading to angry outbursts that are out of proportion to the annoyance. Indeed, the recipient of the outburst often has no idea what they might have done to trigger it. And the guilt it brings afterwards often prolongs the depression. I hate this one.

 

#artist #artistsoninstagram #origami #origamiart #origami #josephwuorigami #josephwu #paperart #paperartist #depression #utsuwa #鬱 #器

安平運河夏天的午后 - 火爆的天氣 / 台南運河舊港口 - 高樓藍天映水影

The summer's afternoon of the Anping Transport river - The irritable weather / The Transport river old harbor of the Tainan City - The tall buildings with blue sky reflects shadow in the water

La tarde del verano del río del transporte de Anping - el tiempo irritable / El puerto viejo del río del transporte de la ciudad de Tainan - los edificios altos con el cielo azul reflejan la sombra en el agua

安平運河夏の午後に - 盛んな天気 / 台南運河の古い港 - 高楼の青空の映水の影

Der Sommernachmittag des Anping-Transportflusses - Das reizbare Wetter / Der alte Hafen des Transportflusses der Tainan-Stadt - die hohen Gebäude mit blauem Himmel reflektiert Schatten im Wasser

 

I used Yahoo translater. it is the joke don't worry be happy.

 

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

 

原圖JPG直出無後製

Original picture JPG is straight has no children the system

El JPG original del cuadro es recto no tiene ninguÌn niño el sistema

原図JPGはずっと跡継ぎがいなくてつくることを出します

Ursprünglicher Abbildung JPG ist hat keine Kinder das System gerade

 

本圖無合成無折射

This chart does not have the refraction without the synthesis

Esta carta no tiene la refracción sin la síntesis

当合成がないことを求めて屈折がありません

Dieses Diagramm hat die Brechung nicht ohne die Synthese

 

可用放大鏡開1:1原圖

The available magnifying glass opens 1:1 original picture

La lupa disponible abre el cuadro de la original del 1:1

利用できる拡大鏡は1:1の原物映像を開ける

Die vorhandene Lupe öffnet 1:1vorlagenabbildung

Charley: “I prefer honesty and straightforwardness, even if it edges into cruelty.”

 

Dane (dryly): “No wonder you get on with Diego so well, then.”

 

Charley (matter-of-factly): “Adults lied to me repeatedly when I was a kid: you’ll be safe here; I care about what happens to you; just lie still and it won’t hurt for long. Well, I wasn’t, they didn’t, and it still hurts to this day.”

 

Dane: *face contorts, as he reaches across the table to touch Charley’s hand, pulling back at the last moment, afraid of further distressing her*

 

Charley: “So, I swore that when I grew up I’d never be a liar like them. Even when a subject makes me uncomfortable, I won’t lie about it. I will, however, refuse to talk about it…*tilts head* which may not be much better than lying, now that I think about it.”

 

Dane: “I know you like unvarnished honesty. That’s where you and I differ. Sometimes I don’t mind a few pretty lies or harmless omissions.”

 

Charley: “I assume your utter stupidity in handling this situation has something to do with Diego.”

 

Dane: *slumps back in his chair, mien morose* “He knows everything about you. There’s a level of intimacy there that I don’t think I’ll ever match, Charley. You two have shared the kinds of things that lead to unshakeable kinship, like soldiers who’ve served together in wartime. I’m jealous of him—hell, I bloody hate him—but I’m grateful to him for all he’s done for you. It’s maddening not to be able to feel one way or another. I’m trapped in emotional limbo. It’s making me irritable.”

 

Charley (deadpan): “Irritable, you say? Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

 

Dane: *huffs* “If you were in my position, and I had a Diego show back up in my life—move in with me, make it clear she wanted to sleep with me—it wouldn’t adversely affect your mood?”

 

Charley: “No, because I would’ve already killed her and buried her in a shallow grave. You’re mine, and I’ll shank any bitch that tries to prove otherwise.”

 

Dane: *half shocked, half delighted* “You just said ‘bitch.’ You broke your no swearing rule for me.”

 

Charley: “Swearing may be used in dire circumstances for emphasis. The situation you were hypothesizing warranted it. Also, I’d like to point out that I have to put up with the band’s fun bunnies rubbing all over you after gigs. At least you don’t have that to look forward to practically every week.”

 

Dane: “Not the same. I have no physical interest in them—”

 

Charley: *eyebrows shoot up, practically disappearing into her hairline* “You used to have physical interest in them—an intense, insatiable physical interest. You were boinking those bunnies like a kid at his first whack-a-mole game.”

 

Dane: *continues, ignoring Charley’s interjection* “Let alone an emotional connection. You cannot say the same about Diego.”

 

Fashion Credits

***Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes, haircuts) were done by me unless otherwise stated.***

 

Dane

Jeans: Kimberlee of Hazel Street Dezigns

Tank: Kelsie of Mutant Goldfish Designs – Screenprint added by me

Belt: Volks – Who’s That Girl

Sneakers: IT – Homme – Style Strategy Lukas

Necklace: Collected from here-n-there

Bracelet: Me

 

Doll is a Night Vision Count Adrian.

  

Winter blues is a mood disorder called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). SAD usually begins in October and subsides in April. In addition to latitude, storms, and cloud cover exacerbates SAD.

Check the typical symptoms: loss of energy, excessive sleepiness and overeating, especially food rich in starches, gaining weight, irritability, reclusiveness, decreased interest in sexual activities, inability to concentrate or focus problems at work, anxiety, and despair.

 

So: are you in a SAD mood?

Moomin here with a story so horrifyingly long I had to divide it into two parts! Warning: both children and adults are menaced and worse by horrors the mind cannot imagine (except for mine, that is)! Scenes so scary you'll ask for your money back. Cover your eyes and read through your nose as I recount a terrible tale known to baby foxes in their woodland dens only as

 

Ouija (Part I)

  

Ok, it was a bit of a horror movie cliche. A three-storey pale yellow Victorian on a wooded lot. House of the Seven Gables? I think it had at least thirteen. A wrap-around porch, wooden lace, a bay window in the living room (parlour?) The house was shaded by huge maples. Much too big for one woman and a seven-year-old girl.

 

But when my writer friend Joe Franklin (you've heard of him? Thrillers, set mostly in the Mediterranean, so he can go there twice a year for "research") mentioned that his great-aunt's place hadn't been sold yet after her death last year, it sounded like the perfect place to spend a few months working on my first novel. "You might as well use it, Lissa," he told me. "Don't worry about the heat, I'd have to heat it anyway so the pipes don't freeze when it starts to get cold." Joe doesn't have to think about money, Aunt Margaret left him a bundle. "You'll be like the caretaker. You'll be doing me a favour." I was between library jobs and our landlord wanted to sell our apartment, so we had to move anyway and this offer seemed heaven-sent.

 

So my daughter Tansy and I moved in on a warm, bright day at the end of September. The house looked inviting and cosy in its old-fashioned way. The inside was filled with fairly antiquated furniture. Frankly, I'd have preferred Ikea. But it suited the house and Margaret had had some lovely pieces.

 

"I found my room!" Tansy shouted. We had made it to the third floor, a warren of little rooms that must originally have been for servants. I followed her voice and found her in a pretty room that overlooked the front yard. The theme was blue and white: blue wallpaper and curtains, white woodwork and ceiling, and a white painted brass bed with a blue coverlet. I smacked it and dust flew out. "This'll need a wash," I said.

 

Tansy was careening around the room, her loose, fair curls flying, clutching her Barbie doll, a well-dressed blonde she'd named Jodie. "Look Mum, a rocking chair!" She set the white chair rocking. There were shelves with girls' annuals from the forties and fifties, a brush and mirror set and a teddy bear and Raggedy Ann that might be old enough to be worth something.

 

Odd. Perhaps this had been Margaret's childhood room, but why would she have kept it as it was for all these years? She had been childless, as far as I knew, but after all she might have had a niece or a friend's child to stay often enough to keep up this room for her. Or maybe she was just sentimental about her old things, people often were.

 

Within a couple of weeks it was as if we'd always been there. I settled into the master bedroom on the second floor, a little concerned about being so far away from Tansy, but she wouldn't be parted from her blue room and I wasn't that keen about sleeping in the attic. All the bedding and curtains were clean, floors vacuumed or mopped, the leaves were golden and the sun shone almost every day. We were close enough to town that it was easy to drive Tansy to school every day, but far enough out to relish the seclusion. And I was getting on with my novel!

 

One Saturday morning I finished my second cup of coffee and noticed that Tansy hadn't been down for breakfast. Saturday was waffle morning and she usually raced down to the kitchen at a horrifyingly early hour.

 

Reluctantly climbing to the third floor, I peeked into Tansy's room and saw her sitting on the floor, absorbed in a board game. Peering more closely, I saw an array of letters with a pointed tablet sitting on top. A Ouija board?

 

"Where'ja get that, honey?"

 

"Found it in the closet," said Tansy, still moving the pointer around. S-E-E-Y-O-U-S-O-O-N.

 

"See who soon?" I said, and Tansy giggled and shook her head.

 

"Well, it's time for breakfast," I said. "And let's not play with that again, ok? It's kind of a grown-up thing."

 

Tansy pouted but made no real objections as I picked up the board and laid it in its box. On the way downstairs I shoved it high up in a hall closet, waiting till Tansy couldn't see me. I'd get rid of it later.

 

On Monday Tansy was in high spirits when I picked her up from school.

 

"I made a new friend, Mummy!"

 

"Oh, is there a new kid at school?"

 

"Yes there is and she's just my age and she's called Anna and she has long hair, way longer than mine, and it's brown and --"

 

Tansy rattled on and my mind reverted to the plot of my mystery. If Sean got back from the bar at 11, was there really time for Julia's murderer to slip out through the back door and get home a quarter of an hour later?

 

Soon after they'd met, Tansy started asking to play with Anna after school. The first time, I was all set to phone Anna's parents to ask for a playdate, but Tansy informed me that she actually lived "right next door, Mummy! Just up the hill!"

 

I'd asked Joe, and the nearest houses had elderly couples in them, some with adult or teen children, but no young kids. Behind us, there was another old, grey place just up the hill, but I hadn't thought anyone lived there, at least Joe hadn't mentioned anyone. Anna's folks must have just moved in and that was why Anna was new at school.

 

Since Tansy never stopped asking to, we made the trek up the hill, Tansy running ecstatically before me.

 

The grey house came into sight, quite trim and neat, with a big pine tree looming tall behind the house. A woman was trimming bushes in the front yard. Tansy ran around the corner of the house, toward the back, and I heard giggles.

 

I went up to the woman who was gardening in front, and introduced myself. Her name was Joy, and she had an open, pleasant face. I felt reassured that Anna's Mum looked like a safe person to have my child around.

 

"I hope you won't mind Tansy coming over here to play," I said.

 

"Not at all, but it's a little lonely up here. Still, if she has someone with her it should be ok."

 

"Well, she'll be with Anna, and of course you'll be here," I said.

 

"Yes, well, I'm very busy and can't keep my eye on the children all the time," she said. "But I'm sure it's fine. We used to play around here all the time, as kids."

 

"Oh, are you from here?" I said, a little confused.

 

"Originally, yes, but I spent many years away. Back again now and I find myself with this place to look after!"

 

She didn't mention a husband and I didn't like to ask, but I commiserated with her about looking after an old house, and mentioned how we'd come to be staying at Joe's aunt's house. Then I called to Tansy, who came running, looking flushed and happy.

 

"Where's Anna?" I said, smoothing her hair as Joy looked on indulgently.

 

"In her secret place," said Tansy. "No-one can see her there!"

 

Kids and their imaginations.

 

"I must be getting in now," said Joy. "The chores are neverending, but I'm going to have a cup of tea first. See you around!"

 

Tansy and I went back down the hill, she chattering about games and hideouts, I thinking that a glass of red wine would go down better than a cup of tea.

 

Hardly a day went by that Tansy didn't ask to go up the hill. I pointed out that Anna was welcome here, but Tansy insisted that the grey house was more fun.

 

"But don't you want to show her your bed," (thinking of the clean blue coverlet) "and Jodie, and Ted, and --"

 

"But Anna thinks that stuff is boring, and we have our hideout in the back up there!" said Tansy, tears coming to her eyes. "It's the funnest!"

 

So I kept walking her up the hill, and coming back up to get her. I always made sure I saw Joy before I left Tansy. If she wasn't outside, I'd knock, and soon Joy started offering plates of cookies, of which Tansy would take four -- "Two each!" and then she'd disappear out back. Anna seemed shy of meeting me, since she never put in an appearance and was always, apparently, already in the hideout when we arrived.

 

When it rained I kept Tansy home, while she moaned and complained. Even when she didn't see Anna, she talked about her. Anna didn't have a Barbie, but she did have a teddy and a Raggedy. Like the ones in your room? Ezackly like! Anna this and Anna that, till I longed for the rain to stop. "Why don't you go and play with Jodie in your room?" I'd say, and off she'd go, giggling.

 

One evening when I went up to call her down for supper, I stopped dead in the doorway of her room.

 

The Ouija board was spread out on the floor again and Tansy had her hands on the pointer. As I watched it spelled out G-O-A-W-A-Y. "Tansy!" She jumped and let go, looking up at me.

 

"I thought I put that away, way up high," I said crossly. "Have you been climbing on chairs?"

 

"No, I didn't have to," she said, with indignation. "Because Anna's --"

 

"Anna's what?"

 

"Nothing," she said. I lost my temper.

 

"Well, Anna's not here --" she looked as if she wanted to argue the point -- "and I'm putting this in the garbage now. You know I asked you not to play with it."

 

Tansy's face crumpled and I could distinguish the words "No FAIR" in between snotty sobs.

 

"Life never promised to be fair," I said, wondering when I'd turned into my own mother.

 

I put the board in the garbage and watched the collectors take it away on garbage day. So much for that, I thought.

 

That night, as I was irritably wondering why someone hadn't murdered Julia a lot sooner as she was the most annoying character I'd ever written, I heard a thump. I listened, but there are so many noises in an old house, pipes, radiators, things expanding and settling, that bumps and creaks were fairly normal. I had another sip of red wine.

 

Another, louder, thump. I looked up from the keyboard.

 

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

 

Upstairs? I took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. "Tansy? Tansy!"

 

I burst into her room, which was in semidarkness, glowing faintly from her little Stitch nightlight. The thumping had stopped and the house was silent. Her room was cold, so cold... had I left the window open? And something smelled rank, maybe some animal outside.... I reached for the light switch and flipped it on.

 

Tansy was asleep in her white brass bed, the blue cover tucked around her. And on the wall behind the bed--

 

A shadow.

 

It was dark and tall, so tall. Like the outline of a figure, not human, spindly in some places, hulking and shaggy in others.

 

A stain? Damp on the walls?

 

No, because suddenly it moved, it moved fast, sort of stooping or swooping down towards my little girl's head as she lay defenceless in her bed. I screamed.

 

Tansy sat up.

 

"What is it, Mummy? What happened, Mummy?"

 

There was no shadow on the wall. My heart was pounding. I looked over at the window, but it was shut. Why was it so cold in here?

 

"It's nothing, honey," I managed to say. "Let's get you settled back down." I tucked her in again, and went over to feel the radiator. It was pumping out heat, enough for the cold late-October evening. The room still felt cold. Was it me? Had there really been anything on the wall? It had happened so fast.....

 

Tansy lay motionless in her bed, eyes shut. "Honey? You asleep?"

 

She didn't move. That was quick, maybe she hadn't properly woken up.

 

And then I heard it.

 

Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak.

 

Slowly I moved my eyes around the room. The little white rocking chair was .... rocking. With nobody in it. Rocking back and forth. Faster and faster. Creak. Creak. Creak.

 

I felt bile rising in my throat as, still with closed eyes and seemingly asleep, my daughter spoke from the bed:

 

"She told you to go away."

  

(Please see next photo for Part II)

Love is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.

Loves does not demand its own way.

Love is not irritable, and keeps no record of when it has been wronged.

It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

...

There are three things that will endure ~ faith, hope, and love ~ and the greatest of these is LOVE!

1 Cor. 13:4-13

Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita, is a basidiomycete of the genus Amanita. It is a large white-gilled, white-spotted, and usually red mushroom.

 

Despite its easily distinguishable features, A. muscaria is a fungus with several known variations, or subspecies. These subspecies are slightly different, some having yellow or white caps, but are all usually called fly agarics, most often recognizable by their notable white spots. Recent DNA fungi research, however, has shown that some mushrooms called 'fly agaric' are in fact unique species, such as A. persicina (the peach-colored fly agaric).

 

Native throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, A. muscaria has been unintentionally introduced to many countries in the Southern Hemisphere, generally as a symbiont with pine and birch plantations, and is now a true cosmopolitan species. It associates with various deciduous and coniferous trees.

 

Although poisonous, death due to poisoning from A. muscaria ingestion is quite rare. Parboiling twice with water draining weakens its toxicity and breaks down the mushroom's psychoactive substances; it is eaten in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. All A. muscaria varieties, but in particular A. muscaria var. muscaria, are noted for their hallucinogenic properties, with the main psychoactive constituents being muscimol and its neurotoxic precursor ibotenic acid. A local variety of the mushroom was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the indigenous peoples of Siberia.

 

Arguably the most iconic toadstool species, the fly agaric is one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, including in video games—for example, the frequent use of a recognizable A. muscaria in the Mario franchise (e.g. its Super Mushroom power-up)—and television—for example, the houses in The Smurfs franchise. There have been cases of children admitted to hospitals after consuming this poisonous mushroom; the children may have been attracted to it because of its pop-culture associations.

 

Taxonomy

The name of the mushroom in many European languages is thought to derive from its use as an insecticide when sprinkled in milk. This practice has been recorded from Germanic- and Slavic-speaking parts of Europe, as well as the Vosges region and pockets elsewhere in France, and Romania. Albertus Magnus was the first to record it in his work De vegetabilibus some time before 1256, commenting vocatur fungus muscarum, eo quod in lacte pulverizatus interficit muscas, "it is called the fly mushroom because it is powdered in milk to kill flies."

 

The 16th-century Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius traced the practice of sprinkling it into milk to Frankfurt in Germany, while Carl Linnaeus, the "father of taxonomy", reported it from Småland in southern Sweden, where he had lived as a child. He described it in volume two of his Species Plantarum in 1753, giving it the name Agaricus muscarius, the specific epithet deriving from Latin musca meaning "fly". It gained its current name in 1783, when placed in the genus Amanita by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a name sanctioned in 1821 by the "father of mycology", Swedish naturalist Elias Magnus Fries. The starting date for all the mycota had been set by general agreement as January 1, 1821, the date of Fries's work, and so the full name was then Amanita muscaria (L.:Fr.) Hook. The 1987 edition of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature changed the rules on the starting date and primary work for names of fungi, and names can now be considered valid as far back as May 1, 1753, the date of publication of Linnaeus's work. Hence, Linnaeus and Lamarck are now taken as the namers of Amanita muscaria (L.) Lam..

 

The English mycologist John Ramsbottom reported that Amanita muscaria was used for getting rid of bugs in England and Sweden, and bug agaric was an old alternative name for the species. French mycologist Pierre Bulliard reported having tried without success to replicate its fly-killing properties in his work Histoire des plantes vénéneuses et suspectes de la France (1784), and proposed a new binomial name Agaricus pseudo-aurantiacus because of this. One compound isolated from the fungus is 1,3-diolein (1,3-di(cis-9-octadecenoyl)glycerol), which attracts insects. It has been hypothesised that the flies intentionally seek out the fly agaric for its intoxicating properties. An alternative derivation proposes that the term fly- refers not to insects as such but rather the delirium resulting from consumption of the fungus. This is based on the medieval belief that flies could enter a person's head and cause mental illness. Several regional names appear to be linked with this connotation, meaning the "mad" or "fool's" version of the highly regarded edible mushroom Amanita caesarea. Hence there is oriol foll "mad oriol" in Catalan, mujolo folo from Toulouse, concourlo fouolo from the Aveyron department in Southern France, ovolo matto from Trentino in Italy. A local dialect name in Fribourg in Switzerland is tsapi de diablhou, which translates as "Devil's hat".

 

Classification

Amanita muscaria is the type species of the genus. By extension, it is also the type species of Amanita subgenus Amanita, as well as section Amanita within this subgenus. Amanita subgenus Amanita includes all Amanita with inamyloid spores. Amanita section Amanita includes the species with patchy universal veil remnants, including a volva that is reduced to a series of concentric rings, and the veil remnants on the cap to a series of patches or warts. Most species in this group also have a bulbous base. Amanita section Amanita consists of A. muscaria and its close relatives, including A. pantherina (the panther cap), A. gemmata, A. farinosa, and A. xanthocephala. Modern fungal taxonomists have classified Amanita muscaria and its allies this way based on gross morphology and spore inamyloidy. Two recent molecular phylogenetic studies have confirmed this classification as natural.

 

Description

A large, conspicuous mushroom, Amanita muscaria is generally common and numerous where it grows, and is often found in groups with basidiocarps in all stages of development. Fly agaric fruiting bodies emerge from the soil looking like white eggs. After emerging from the ground, the cap is covered with numerous small white to yellow pyramid-shaped warts. These are remnants of the universal veil, a membrane that encloses the entire mushroom when it is still very young. Dissecting the mushroom at this stage reveals a characteristic yellowish layer of skin under the veil, which helps identification. As the fungus grows, the red colour appears through the broken veil and the warts become less prominent; they do not change in size, but are reduced relative to the expanding skin area. The cap changes from globose to hemispherical, and finally to plate-like and flat in mature specimens. Fully grown, the bright red cap is usually around 8–20 centimetres (3–8 inches) in diameter, although larger specimens have been found. The red colour may fade after rain and in older mushrooms.

 

The free gills are white, as is the spore print. The oval spores measure 9–13 by 6.5–9 μm; they do not turn blue with the application of iodine. The stipe is white, 5–20 cm (2–8 in) high by 1–2 cm (1⁄2–1 in) wide, and has the slightly brittle, fibrous texture typical of many large mushrooms. At the base is a bulb that bears universal veil remnants in the form of two to four distinct rings or ruffs. Between the basal universal veil remnants and gills are remnants of the partial veil (which covers the gills during development) in the form of a white ring. It can be quite wide and flaccid with age. There is generally no associated smell other than a mild earthiness.

 

Although very distinctive in appearance, the fly agaric has been mistaken for other yellow to red mushroom species in the Americas, such as Armillaria cf. mellea and the edible A. basii—a Mexican species similar to A. caesarea of Europe. Poison control centres in the U.S. and Canada have become aware that amarill (Spanish for 'yellow') is a common name for the A. caesarea-like species in Mexico. A. caesarea is distinguished by its entirely orange to red cap, which lacks the numerous white warty spots of the fly agaric (though these sometimes wash away during heavy rain). Furthermore, the stem, gills and ring of A. caesarea are bright yellow, not white. The volva is a distinct white bag, not broken into scales. In Australia, the introduced fly agaric may be confused with the native vermilion grisette (Amanita xanthocephala), which grows in association with eucalypts. The latter species generally lacks the white warts of A. muscaria and bears no ring. Additionally, immature button forms resemble puffballs.

 

Controversy

Amanita muscaria var. formosa is now a synonym for Amanita muscaria var. guessowii.

Amanita muscaria varies considerably in its morphology, and many authorities recognize several subspecies or varieties within the species. In The Agaricales in Modern Taxonomy, German mycologist Rolf Singer listed three subspecies, though without description: A. muscaria ssp. muscaria, A. muscaria ssp. americana, and A. muscaria ssp. flavivolvata.

 

However, a 2006 molecular phylogenetic study of different regional populations of A. muscaria by mycologist József Geml and colleagues found three distinct clades within this species representing, roughly, Eurasian, Eurasian "subalpine", and North American populations. Specimens belonging to all three clades have been found in Alaska; this has led to the hypothesis that this was the centre of diversification for this species. The study also looked at four named varieties of the species: var. alba, var. flavivolvata, var. formosa (including var. guessowii), and var. regalis from both areas. All four varieties were found within both the Eurasian and North American clades, evidence that these morphological forms are polymorphisms rather than distinct subspecies or varieties. Further molecular study by Geml and colleagues published in 2008 show that these three genetic groups, plus a fourth associated with oak–hickory–pine forest in the southeastern United States and two more on Santa Cruz Island in California, are delineated from each other enough genetically to be considered separate species. Thus A. muscaria as it stands currently is, evidently, a species complex. The complex also includes at least three other closely related taxa that are currently regarded as species: A. breckonii is a buff-capped mushroom associated with conifers from the Pacific Northwest, and the brown-capped A. gioiosa and A. heterochroma from the Mediterranean Basin and from Sardinia respectively. Both of these last two are found with Eucalyptus and Cistus trees, and it is unclear whether they are native or introduced from Australia.

 

Distribution and habitat

A. muscaria is a cosmopolitan mushroom, native to conifer and deciduous woodlands throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including higher elevations of warmer latitudes in regions such as Hindu Kush, the Mediterranean and also Central America. A recent molecular study proposes that it had an ancestral origin in the Siberian–Beringian region in the Tertiary period, before radiating outwards across Asia, Europe and North America. The season for fruiting varies in different climates: fruiting occurs in summer and autumn across most of North America, but later in autumn and early winter on the Pacific coast. This species is often found in similar locations to Boletus edulis, and may appear in fairy rings. Conveyed with pine seedlings, it has been widely transported into the southern hemisphere, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, where it can be found in the Brazilian states of Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul.

 

Ectomycorrhizal, A. muscaria forms symbiotic relationships with many trees, including pine, oak, spruce, fir, birch, and cedar. Commonly seen under introduced trees, A. muscaria is the fungal equivalent of a weed in New Zealand, Tasmania and Victoria, forming new associations with southern beech (Nothofagus). The species is also invading a rainforest in Australia, where it may be displacing the native species. It appears to be spreading northwards, with recent reports placing it near Port Macquarie on the New South Wales north coast. It was recorded under silver birch (Betula pendula) in Manjimup, Western Australia in 2010. Although it has apparently not spread to eucalypts in Australia, it has been recorded associating with them in Portugal. Commonly found throughout the great Southern region of western Australia, it is regularly found growing on Pinus radiata.

 

Toxicity

a tall red mushroom with a few white spots on the cap

Mature. The white spots may wash off with heavy rainfall.

A. muscaria poisoning has occurred in young children and in people who ingested the mushrooms for a hallucinogenic experience, or who confused it with an edible species.

 

A. muscaria contains several biologically active agents, at least one of which, muscimol, is known to be psychoactive. Ibotenic acid, a neurotoxin, serves as a prodrug to muscimol, with a small amount likely converting to muscimol after ingestion. An active dose in adults is approximately 6 mg muscimol or 30 to 60 mg ibotenic acid; this is typically about the amount found in one cap of Amanita muscaria. The amount and ratio of chemical compounds per mushroom varies widely from region to region and season to season, which can further confuse the issue. Spring and summer mushrooms have been reported to contain up to 10 times more ibotenic acid and muscimol than autumn fruitings.

 

Deaths from A. muscaria have been reported in historical journal articles and newspaper reports, but with modern medical treatment, fatal poisoning from ingesting this mushroom is extremely rare. Many books list A. muscaria as deadly, but according to David Arora, this is an error that implies the mushroom is far more toxic than it is. Furthermore, The North American Mycological Association has stated that there were "no reliably documented cases of death from toxins in these mushrooms in the past 100 years".

 

The active constituents of this species are water-soluble, and boiling and then discarding the cooking water at least partly detoxifies A. muscaria. Drying may increase potency, as the process facilitates the conversion of ibotenic acid to the more potent muscimol. According to some sources, once detoxified, the mushroom becomes edible. Patrick Harding describes the Sami custom of processing the fly agaric through reindeer.

 

Pharmacology

Ibotenic acid, a prodrug to muscimol found in A. muscaria

Muscarine, discovered in 1869, was long thought to be the active hallucinogenic agent in A. muscaria. Muscarine binds with muscarinic acetylcholine receptors leading to the excitation of neurons bearing these receptors. The levels of muscarine in Amanita muscaria are minute when compared with other poisonous fungi such as Inosperma erubescens, the small white Clitocybe species C. dealbata and C. rivulosa. The level of muscarine in A. muscaria is too low to play a role in the symptoms of poisoning.

 

The major toxins involved in A. muscaria poisoning are muscimol (3-hydroxy-5-aminomethyl-1-isoxazole, an unsaturated cyclic hydroxamic acid) and the related amino acid ibotenic acid. Muscimol is the product of the decarboxylation (usually by drying) of ibotenic acid. Muscimol and ibotenic acid were discovered in the mid-20th century. Researchers in England, Japan, and Switzerland showed that the effects produced were due mainly to ibotenic acid and muscimol, not muscarine. These toxins are not distributed uniformly in the mushroom. Most are detected in the cap of the fruit, a moderate amount in the base, with the smallest amount in the stalk. Quite rapidly, between 20 and 90 minutes after ingestion, a substantial fraction of ibotenic acid is excreted unmetabolised in the urine of the consumer. Almost no muscimol is excreted when pure ibotenic acid is eaten, but muscimol is detectable in the urine after eating A. muscaria, which contains both ibotenic acid and muscimol.

 

Ibotenic acid and muscimol are structurally related to each other and to two major neurotransmitters of the central nervous system: glutamic acid and GABA respectively. Ibotenic acid and muscimol act like these neurotransmitters, muscimol being a potent GABAA agonist, while ibotenic acid is an agonist of NMDA glutamate receptors and certain metabotropic glutamate receptors which are involved in the control of neuronal activity. It is these interactions which are thought to cause the psychoactive effects found in intoxication.

 

Muscazone is another compound that has more recently been isolated from European specimens of the fly agaric. It is a product of the breakdown of ibotenic acid by ultra-violet radiation. Muscazone is of minor pharmacological activity compared with the other agents. Amanita muscaria and related species are known as effective bioaccumulators of vanadium; some species concentrate vanadium to levels of up to 400 times those typically found in plants. Vanadium is present in fruit-bodies as an organometallic compound called amavadine. The biological importance of the accumulation process is unknown.

 

Symptoms

Fly agarics are best known for the unpredictability of their effects. Depending on habitat and the amount ingested per body weight, effects can range from mild nausea and twitching to drowsiness, cholinergic crisis-like effects (low blood pressure, sweating and salivation), auditory and visual distortions, mood changes, euphoria, relaxation, ataxia, and loss of equilibrium (like with tetanus.)

 

In cases of serious poisoning the mushroom causes delirium, somewhat similar in effect to anticholinergic poisoning (such as that caused by Datura stramonium), characterised by bouts of marked agitation with confusion, hallucinations, and irritability followed by periods of central nervous system depression. Seizures and coma may also occur in severe poisonings. Symptoms typically appear after around 30 to 90 minutes and peak within three hours, but certain effects can last for several days. In the majority of cases recovery is complete within 12 to 24 hours. The effect is highly variable between individuals, with similar doses potentially causing quite different reactions. Some people suffering intoxication have exhibited headaches up to ten hours afterwards.[56] Retrograde amnesia and somnolence can result following recovery.

 

Treatment

Medical attention should be sought in cases of suspected poisoning. If the delay between ingestion and treatment is less than four hours, activated charcoal is given. Gastric lavage can be considered if the patient presents within one hour of ingestion. Inducing vomiting with syrup of ipecac is no longer recommended in any poisoning situation.

 

There is no antidote, and supportive care is the mainstay of further treatment for intoxication. Though sometimes referred to as a deliriant and while muscarine was first isolated from A. muscaria and as such is its namesake, muscimol does not have action, either as an agonist or antagonist, at the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor site, and therefore atropine or physostigmine as an antidote is not recommended. If a patient is delirious or agitated, this can usually be treated by reassurance and, if necessary, physical restraints. A benzodiazepine such as diazepam or lorazepam can be used to control combativeness, agitation, muscular overactivity, and seizures. Only small doses should be used, as they may worsen the respiratory depressant effects of muscimol. Recurrent vomiting is rare, but if present may lead to fluid and electrolyte imbalances; intravenous rehydration or electrolyte replacement may be required. Serious cases may develop loss of consciousness or coma, and may need intubation and artificial ventilation. Hemodialysis can remove the toxins, although this intervention is generally considered unnecessary. With modern medical treatment the prognosis is typically good following supportive treatment.

 

Uses

The wide range of psychoactive effects have been variously described as depressant, sedative-hypnotic, psychedelic, dissociative, or deliriant; paradoxical effects such as stimulation may occur however. Perceptual phenomena such as synesthesia, macropsia, and micropsia may occur; the latter two effects may occur either simultaneously or alternatingly, as part of Alice in Wonderland syndrome, collectively known as dysmetropsia, along with related distortions pelopsia and teleopsia. Some users report lucid dreaming under the influence of its hypnotic effects. Unlike Psilocybe cubensis, A. muscaria cannot be commercially cultivated, due to its mycorrhizal relationship with the roots of pine trees. However, following the outlawing of psilocybin mushrooms in the United Kingdom in 2006, the sale of the still legal A. muscaria began increasing.

 

Marija Gimbutas reported to R. Gordon Wasson that in remote areas of Lithuania, A. muscaria has been consumed at wedding feasts, in which mushrooms were mixed with vodka. She also reported that the Lithuanians used to export A. muscaria to the Sami in the Far North for use in shamanic rituals. The Lithuanian festivities are the only report that Wasson received of ingestion of fly agaric for religious use in Eastern Europe.

 

Siberia

A. muscaria was widely used as an entheogen by many of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. Its use was known among almost all of the Uralic-speaking peoples of western Siberia and the Paleosiberian-speaking peoples of the Russian Far East. There are only isolated reports of A. muscaria use among the Tungusic and Turkic peoples of central Siberia and it is believed that on the whole entheogenic use of A. muscaria was not practised by these peoples. In western Siberia, the use of A. muscaria was restricted to shamans, who used it as an alternative method of achieving a trance state. (Normally, Siberian shamans achieve trance by prolonged drumming and dancing.) In eastern Siberia, A. muscaria was used by both shamans and laypeople alike, and was used recreationally as well as religiously. In eastern Siberia, the shaman would take the mushrooms, and others would drink his urine. This urine, still containing psychoactive elements, may be more potent than the A. muscaria mushrooms with fewer negative effects such as sweating and twitching, suggesting that the initial user may act as a screening filter for other components in the mushroom.

 

The Koryak of eastern Siberia have a story about the fly agaric (wapaq) which enabled Big Raven to carry a whale to its home. In the story, the deity Vahiyinin ("Existence") spat onto earth, and his spittle became the wapaq, and his saliva becomes the warts. After experiencing the power of the wapaq, Raven was so exhilarated that he told it to grow forever on earth so his children, the people, could learn from it. Among the Koryaks, one report said that the poor would consume the urine of the wealthy, who could afford to buy the mushrooms. It was reported that the local reindeer would often follow an individual intoxicated by the muscimol mushroom, and if said individual were to urinate in snow the reindeer would become similarly intoxicated and the Koryak people's would use the drunken state of the reindeer to more easily rope and hunt them.

 

Other reports and theories

The Finnish historian T. I. Itkonen mentions that A. muscaria was once used among the Sámi peoples. Sorcerers in Inari would consume fly agarics with seven spots. In 1979, Said Gholam Mochtar and Hartmut Geerken published an article in which they claimed to have discovered a tradition of medicinal and recreational use of this mushroom among a Parachi-speaking group in Afghanistan. There are also unconfirmed reports of religious use of A. muscaria among two Subarctic Native American tribes. Ojibwa ethnobotanist Keewaydinoquay Peschel reported its use among her people, where it was known as miskwedo (an abbreviation of the name oshtimisk wajashkwedo (= "red-top mushroom"). This information was enthusiastically received by Wasson, although evidence from other sources was lacking. There is also one account of a Euro-American who claims to have been initiated into traditional Tlicho use of Amanita muscaria. The flying reindeer of Santa Claus, who is called Joulupukki in Finland, could symbolize the use of A. muscaria by Sámi shamans. However, Sámi scholars and the Sámi peoples themselves refute any connection between Santa Claus and Sámi history or culture.

 

"The story of Santa emerging from a Sámi shamanic tradition has a critical number of flaws," asserts Tim Frandy, assistant professor of Nordic Studies at the University of British Columbia and a member of the Sámi descendent community in North America. "The theory has been widely criticized by Sámi people as a stereotypical and problematic romanticized misreading of actual Sámi culture."

 

Vikings

The notion that Vikings used A. muscaria to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samuel Ödmann in 1784. Ödmann based his theories on reports about the use of fly agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. Muscimol is generally a mild relaxant, but it can create a range of different reactions within a group of people. It is possible that it could make a person angry, or cause them to be "very jolly or sad, jump about, dance, sing or give way to great fright". Comparative analysis of symptoms have, however, since shown Hyoscyamus niger to be a better fit to the state that characterises the berserker rage.

 

Soma

See also: Botanical identity of Soma-Haoma

In 1968, R. Gordon Wasson proposed that A. muscaria was the soma talked about in the Rigveda of India, a claim which received widespread publicity and popular support at the time. He noted that descriptions of Soma omitted any description of roots, stems or seeds, which suggested a mushroom, and used the adjective hári "dazzling" or "flaming" which the author interprets as meaning red. One line described men urinating Soma; this recalled the practice of recycling urine in Siberia. Soma is mentioned as coming "from the mountains", which Wasson interpreted as the mushroom having been brought in with the Aryan migrants from the north. Indian scholars Santosh Kumar Dash and Sachinanda Padhy pointed out that both eating of mushrooms and drinking of urine were proscribed, using as a source the Manusmṛti. In 1971, Vedic scholar John Brough from Cambridge University rejected Wasson's theory and noted that the language was too vague to determine a description of Soma. In his 1976 survey, Hallucinogens and Culture, anthropologist Peter T. Furst evaluated the evidence for and against the identification of the fly agaric mushroom as the Vedic Soma, concluding cautiously in its favour. Kevin Feeney and Trent Austin compared the references in the Vedas with the filtering mechanisms in the preparation of Amanita muscaria and published findings supporting the proposal that fly-agaric mushrooms could be a likely candidate for the sacrament. Other proposed candidates include Psilocybe cubensis, Peganum harmala, and Ephedra.

 

Christianity

Philologist, archaeologist, and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John Marco Allegro postulated that early Christian theology was derived from a fertility cult revolving around the entheogenic consumption of A. muscaria in his 1970 book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. This theory has found little support by scholars outside the field of ethnomycology. The book was widely criticized by academics and theologians, including Sir Godfrey Driver, emeritus Professor of Semitic Philology at Oxford University and Henry Chadwick, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Christian author John C. King wrote a detailed rebuttal of Allegro's theory in the 1970 book A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth; he notes that neither fly agarics nor their host trees are found in the Middle East, even though cedars and pines are found there, and highlights the tenuous nature of the links between biblical and Sumerian names coined by Allegro. He concludes that if the theory were true, the use of the mushroom must have been "the best kept secret in the world" as it was so well concealed for two thousand years.

 

Fly trap

Amanita muscaria is traditionally used for catching flies possibly due to its content of ibotenic acid and muscimol, which lead to its common name "fly agaric". Recently, an analysis of nine different methods for preparing A. muscaria for catching flies in Slovenia have shown that the release of ibotenic acid and muscimol did not depend on the solvent (milk or water) and that thermal and mechanical processing led to faster extraction of ibotenic acid and muscimol.

 

Culinary

The toxins in A. muscaria are water-soluble: parboiling A. muscaria fruit bodies can detoxify them and render them edible, although consumption of the mushroom as a food has never been widespread. The consumption of detoxified A. muscaria has been practiced in some parts of Europe (notably by Russian settlers in Siberia) since at least the 19th century, and likely earlier. The German physician and naturalist Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff wrote the earliest published account on how to detoxify this mushroom in 1823. In the late 19th century, the French physician Félix Archimède Pouchet was a populariser and advocate of A. muscaria consumption, comparing it to manioc, an important food source in tropical South America that must also be detoxified before consumption.

 

Use of this mushroom as a food source also seems to have existed in North America. A classic description of this use of A. muscaria by an African-American mushroom seller in Washington, D.C., in the late 19th century is described by American botanist Frederick Vernon Coville. In this case, the mushroom, after parboiling, and soaking in vinegar, is made into a mushroom sauce for steak. It is also consumed as a food in parts of Japan. The most well-known current use as an edible mushroom is in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. There, it is primarily salted and pickled.

 

A 2008 paper by food historian William Rubel and mycologist David Arora gives a history of consumption of A. muscaria as a food and describes detoxification methods. They advocate that Amanita muscaria be described in field guides as an edible mushroom, though accompanied by a description on how to detoxify it. The authors state that the widespread descriptions in field guides of this mushroom as poisonous is a reflection of cultural bias, as several other popular edible species, notably morels, are also toxic unless properly cooked.

 

In culture

The red-and-white spotted toadstool is a common image in many aspects of popular culture. Garden ornaments and children's picture books depicting gnomes and fairies, such as the Smurfs, often show fly agarics used as seats, or homes. Fly agarics have been featured in paintings since the Renaissance, albeit in a subtle manner. For instance, in Hieronymus Bosch's painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, the mushroom can be seen on the left-hand panel of the work. In the Victorian era they became more visible, becoming the main topic of some fairy paintings. Two of the most famous uses of the mushroom are in the Mario franchise (specifically two of the Super Mushroom power-up items and the platforms in several stages which are based on a fly agaric), and the dancing mushroom sequence in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia.

 

An account of the journeys of Philip von Strahlenberg to Siberia and his descriptions of the use of the mukhomor there was published in English in 1736. The drinking of urine of those who had consumed the mushroom was commented on by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith in his widely read 1762 novel, Citizen of the World. The mushroom had been identified as the fly agaric by this time. Other authors recorded the distortions of the size of perceived objects while intoxicated by the fungus, including naturalist Mordecai Cubitt Cooke in his books The Seven Sisters of Sleep and A Plain and Easy Account of British Fungi. This observation is thought to have formed the basis of the effects of eating the mushroom in the 1865 popular story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A hallucinogenic "scarlet toadstool" from Lappland is featured as a plot element in Charles Kingsley's 1866 novel Hereward the Wake based on the medieval figure of the same name. Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow describes the fungus as a "relative of the poisonous Destroying angel" and presents a detailed description of a character preparing a cookie bake mixture from harvested Amanita muscaria. Fly agaric shamanism is also explored in the 2003 novel Thursbitch by Alan Garner.

National Donald Duck Day on June 9 commemorates the birthday (91) of the funny animated cartoon character known as Donald Duck.

 

Donald Duck made his first screen debut on June 9, 1934, in The Wise Little Hen, immediately becoming an iconic symbol in animation and in homes, alike. Usually wearing a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie, Donald Duck is most famous for his semi-intelligible speech along with his mischievous and irritable personality. Known for his quick temper, Donald Duck seems to quack his way through oodles of bad luck. Yet, despite his hot temper, Donald Duck is a loving character with a good heart.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

 

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 

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I'm trying to sneak in some post processing time this weekend, in between getting my house ready to sell, children's parties, my childen's weekend sport, laundry, baking etc. It's 36 degrees celsius today, so the children are irritable that summer is coming.

 

I'm dead impressed that I can hold my camera steady at this shutter speed! And, I do love a shiny floor!

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

~1 Corinthians 13:4-7

大灣天主教聖若瑟堂 - 火爆的午后 / 只想相信主的力量 - 藍天之下就沒有疑惑

Dawan St. Joseph Church - Irritable afternoon / Only wants to believe the God strength - Under the blue sky has not had doubts

大湾のカトリック教の聖人もし瑟堂ならば - 盛んな午後 / ただ主な力だけを信じたいです - 青空の下は納得できなくなっていません

Iglesia de Dawan San José - Tarde irritable / Quiere solamente creer la fuerza de dios - Debajo del cielo azul no ha tenido dudas

Kirche Dawan Str.-Joseph - Reizbarer Nachmittag / Möchte nur der Gottstärke glauben - Unter dem blauen Himmel hat nicht Zweifel gehabt

 

Dawan Tainan Taiwan / Dawan Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南大灣

 

しあわせの一番星 / 浅田美代子

{ The Most of Happiness star / しあわせの一番星 }

 

{View large size on fluidr/觀看大圖}

 

{My Blog / 管樂小集精彩演出-觸動你的心}

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{My Blog / 管楽小集すばらしい公演-はあなたの心を心を打ちます}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

 

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

 

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

 

一旦落日照大員

The sunset Shineing to the Taiwan at once

 

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

 

The Smokey Mountains facing east from Clingman's Dome, at 7000 feet, the highest point in the Smokey range. I read an article yesterday that stated people don't want to see or hear about how great a time you had on your vacation. Supposedly, it makes others irritable, jealous and resentful. I hope that is not the case. If so, why are we all looking at each other's images?? Please accept my apology if I have offended anyone by posting so many vacation shots. There are only a couple of hundred more to go! Just kidding!

I've worked in a call center for a quarter of my life. It grates on my last nerve. Often.

People, more often than not, SUCK. Be nice to your telephone agents, we're here to help!

 

Yellow can represent a lot of things, but being in/around it for too long can cause severe irritability.

Creepy despite everything beautiful

Szondi Test with Pictures That Will Reveal Your Deepest Hidden Self BY ANNA LEMIND MAY 22, 2014 PSYCHOLOGY & HEALTH, SELF-KNOWLEDGE & PERSONALITY TESTS The test was designed in the 20th century by the Hungarian psychiatrist Leopold Szondi. The aim was to explore the deepest repressed impulses of a person on the basis of sympathy or aversion caused by the specific photos of psychopaths. The test is based on the general notion that the characteristics that bother us in others are those that caused aversion to ourselves at an early stage of our life and that’s why we repress them. Here are some psychology terms you need to know before starting the test: Repression: According to the psychoanalytic concept, this is the most important psychological defense mechanism we have. Its most important function is to transfer thoughts and desires we are uncomfortable with to our unconscious. Denial: It is a mental process by which we absolutely refuse our deepest impulses (ie things we want), adopting the exact opposite pattern of the desired behavior. Sublimation: the process of transfer of our repressed choices, states or behaviors to the ones that are socially acceptable or useful, such as artistic activities, hobbies, professional choices, harmless little habits etc. Instructions Look at the portraits of these eight people and choose the one you would never want to meet at night in the dark, because his or her appearance causes disgust and fear in you. Then read the interpretation that corresponds to the number of the portrait you chose. IMPORTANT: please don’t misunderstand the results of the test, which don’t imply that you have a kind of mental disorder, since the test was designed to make an assumption about the possible repressed impulses of each type of personality in accordance with the psychoanalysis theory. The original test included 6 sets of 8 portraits of people, each of whom had been classified as homosexual, a sadist, an epileptic, an hysteric, a katatonic, a schizophrenic, a depressive and a maniac. Here is a minor version of the test, which includes only one set of portraits, since it is very difficult to provide the full version of it with all the possible interpretations in one blog post. Interpretations 1) Sadist Repression You are likely to have repressed some experiences from the first years of life associated with authoritarianism in your behavior, a need to dominate and a propensity for bad intentions. If you chose the portrait of this teacher may have repressed some offensive or demeaning to other behaviors in your unconscious. Denial You are likely to be a completely harmless and peaceful creature, always ready to help others. If you are an office worker, your superiors may find it difficult to handle you. When you do not want to do something, you create barriers (for example, getting late to work or showing that you are in a bad mood). Often, when you have to defend yourself, you choose passive resistance and defiance, which in the long term exhaust those who created problems for you. 2) Epileptic Repression When we talk about personality disorders associated with brain disease, damage and dysfunction (as occurs in some cases of epilepsy), some of the diagnostic features can be impulsiveness, irritability, the outbursts of anger and aggression. If this stout gentleman with a round head caused revulsion and fear in you, it is likely that early in your childhood you repressed some of such feelings and behaviors to your subconscious. Denial It is most likely that you are a kind and peaceful person. Being meek and friendly, you give the impression of a responsible and self-controlled person. You are stable in your feelings and easily bond with people, ideas and objects. 3) Katatonic Repression Some features of this mental disorder is the excessive stimulation of imagination and cognition in general and negativism. If this unshaven but smiling gentleman caused negative feelings in you, you may have repressed some hyperactivity of your mind, which could make you lose touch with reality if it had not been transferred to your unconscious. Denial You tend to adopt stereotypical behaviors and do not like innovations and changes. Maybe you’re the type of timid and diffident person, who finds it particularly difficulte to adapt to new situations. Your biggest fear is to lose self-control. You are a bit stiff, often defensive and perhaps inhibited person who never deviates from the ‘behavior codex’. 4) Schizophrenic Repression The schizophrenic personality is characterized by intense apathy, distortions of thought and incompatible emotions. If this impassive gaze and poker face gave you goose bumps, you probably repressed a feeling of indifference towards others and withdrawal from things and events at an early stage of your childhood. Denial You are probably quite a sociable person. You believe in socializing and communication with others, enjoying your companies and going out often. The sociability is rather misleading and perhaps hides an isolated person who lives with the feeling of being always alone. Your relationships may seem impersonal and superficial, as if they lack the true feeling. Deep down, you may feel that you do not need others and coexistence with them. 5) Hysteric Repression Some personality traits of hysterical people are superficial and unstable emotions, narcissism and exhibitionism. If chose this strange lady with heavy eyelids as the person that scares you most of all, maybe it’s because you have repressed an insatiable desire to captivate attention and a thirst for approval. Denial You give the impression of a modest person with intense inwardness. However, in reality, seeming a quiet and shy person, you may be possessed of an overpowering and excessive desire to charm others. You meticulously take care of your appearance and behavior. For example, you always try to be elegant and well-dressed, complementing your clothes with accessories that attract the attention of others. Sublimation Such people are likely to choose a rare/extravagant profession or hobby. 6) Depressive Repression Lack of self-esteem, feelings of inferiority and guilt are the main symptoms of depression. The fact that this harmless being is an incarnation of aversion for you may mean that you are a deeply depressed person who manages to have these symptoms under control. Denial Perhaps you are an outgoing and carefree person. You always show dynamism, confidence and optimism. Sometimes, of course, you get upset and can manifest dysthymia and melancholy (“sad clown syndrome”). You can also be suspicious and morose. Sublimation It is very likely that shift your depressive tendencies to assuming the role of everybody’s psychologist, searching for solutions to other people’s problems. 7) Maniac Repression Some diagnostic features of mania are extroversion, overstimulation, overestimation of self and a waste of money and emotions. If this kind face seems disgusting to you, it probably means that inside you there is a kind of excitement which, if not controlled, would transform you into a fanatic mystic. Denial You are very likely to be a person who does not want to provoke with his/her behavior and who detests noise, extremes and excesses. You are an example of discretion, restraint and measure. Being logical and thrifty, you always have a fully controlled behavior. 8) Dissociative identity disorder Repression This kind of personality is expressed in a person’s desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex. If this young man seems dangerous and depraved to you, perhaps early in your childhood you repressed an identity problem or more specifically a problem about your gender identity. Denial If the defense mechanism of denial worked, you may have a tendency to emphatically confirm your biological sex. In this case, your behaviors, maners and appearance emphasize that you are a real man or a real woman. If you’re a man, you are very “macho”, and if you are a woman, you always try to look sexy and seek to flirt and attract men.

 

Read more at: www.learning-mind.com/szondi-test-with-pictures-that-will...

 

www.learning-mind.com/szondi-test-with-pictures-that-will...

 

To ALL of you my dear Flickr friends =)

 

LOVE is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

LOVE never ends.

 

I Corinthians 13:4-8

 

Vientiane, Laos

Antisocial personality disorder signs and symptoms may include:

 

Disregard for right and wrong

Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others

Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others

Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure

Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated

Problems with the law, including criminal behavior

Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty

Impulsiveness

Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence

Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others

Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others

Abusive relationships

Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior

Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations

 

Mayo Clinic

A few facts about Lucy:

 

1. She was born on 8th November 2009. We picked her up 27th December 2009. When we arrived, all the puppies ran away at the sound of a rescue dog who lived there also. It took a lot of coaxing to get the puppes to come out of hiding under a single bed.

 

She didn't have any human contact (apart from the vet) until we picked her up. I think that has added to her wariness and dislike of humans, in particular children and men.

 

2. When Lucy was 4 months old, a little kid around 5 years old (being filmed by her dickhead of a mother) constantly hit Lucy on the head, regardless of me repeatedly asking her to stop. Since Lucy had no prior problem with children, I never thought anything bad would happen, but Lucy bit her. The stupid child kept repeating "it bit me, oh it bit me" and I retorted with "I did ask you to stop hitting her didn't I?"

 

Other early interaction with children included soccer balls being thrown at her, being hit with sticks and just generally noisy and hyperactive kids being unpredictable around her.

 

Lucy has HATED children ever since.

 

3. Lucy has Irritable Bowel Disease. Treats are given sparingly and accidents happen all the time. Explosive accidents mind you. Lucky she's only a smallish dog (compared to Leo!)

 

4. She thinks she owns the house. She's completely dominant over everyone but me and Andrew's carer nurse who I've taught to be firm with her. When we first moved in, she pee'd in every room. She also attempts to pee on our shag pile rug so it has to be kept blocked off. She owns Leo's couch, she owns the front door and she thinks she owns all the cuddles.

 

But she'll be fine for a little while with no huge drama's, then she'll just get very naughty in a snap, destroying the door, her toys, their beds and the garden. I wonder if it's PMS? hehe!

 

5. She's really pretty (but shhh... don't tell her I said that, she already knows it!)

安平運河 - 龍舟練習 / 2009 台南龍舟錦標賽 - 青龍出水慶端午火爆夏天

Anping transport river - The dragon boat practice / 2009 Tainan City Dragon Boat Race Championship - The green dragon water leakage celebrates the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in the Irritable summer

Río del transporte de Anping - La práctica del barco del dragón / Campeonato 2009 de la raza de barco de dragón de la ciudad de Tainan - La salida del agua del dragón verde celebra el quinto día del quinto mes lunar en el verano irritable

安平運河 - 竜船の練習 / 2009 台南の竜船の選手権大会 - 蒼竜の水慶の端午を出す盛んな夏

Anping-Transportfluß - Die Drachebootspraxis / Tainan-Stadt-Drache-Regatta-Meisterschaft 2009 - Das Wasserdurchsickern des grünen Drachen feiert den fünften Tag des fünften Mondmonats am reizbaren Sommer

Fleuve de transport d'Anping - La pratique en matière de bateau de dragon / Championnat 2009 de course de bateau de dragon de ville de Tainan - La fuite de l'eau de dragon vert célèbre le cinquième jour du cinquième mois lunaire en été irritable

 

Anping Tainan Taiwan / Anping Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南安平

 

蒼海一聲笑 - 笑傲江湖 / Instruments Version

{川および湖を通るべき笑い声/The laughter to pass through the rivers and lakes }

 

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{My BLOG/管樂雅集台南孔廟精彩演出-2010楊老大生日快樂}

{Wind instrument music elegant gathering Tainan Confucian temple splendid performance - Saxbai Yang happy birthday 2010 }

{Funcionamiento espléndido de acopio elegante del templo confuciano de Tainan de la música del instrumento de viento - Feliz cumpleaños 2010 de Saxbai Yang}

{管楽の風雅に集う台南孔子廟のすばらしい公演-2010楊は非常に誕生日おめでとうございます}

{Windinstrument-Musik elegante erfassenherrliche Leistung des tainan-konfuzianischen Tempels - Saxbai Yang alles Gute zum Geburtstag 2010}

{Exécution splendide sourcilleuse élégante de temple confucien de Tainan de musique d'instrument de vent - Joyeux anniversaire 2010 de Saxbai Yang}

 

{My Blog / 不斷成長與進步的喜悅-管樂雅集}

{My Blog / The joy of the Grows unceasingly and the progress - Wind instrument music elegant gathering}

{Mi blog / La alegría del crece incesante y el progreso - Reunión elegante de la música del instrumento de viento}

{Mein Blog / Die Freude an wächst fortwährend und der Fortschritt - Elegante Versammlung der Windinstrument-Musik}

 

{My Blog/台南府城的日本時代-Swing Girl}

{My Blog/The Japanese times of the Tainan city-Swing Girl}

{Mi blog/los tiempos japoneses de la ciudad de Tainan - haga pivotar a la muchacha}

{Mein Blog/die japanischen Zeiten der Tainan-Stadt - schwingen Sie Mädchen}

  

Yuri: "Kumi, allow her to say goodbye. What will another minute hurt?"

 

Kumi: "You aren't the one that'll be driving through Boston during rush hour."

 

Wren: "I offered to drive! In fact, I begged! Every time I get into a car with you, I feel like I need to get my affairs in order and make peace with my Maker."

 

Kumi: "Don't be such a weenie, Wren. I've never even had an accident."

 

Wren: *mutters* "Yeah, but you've been the cause of legions."

 

Kumi (primly): "Vicious lies."

 

Wren: *out the side of her mouth* "Hey, Dan, I need you to give Dane my info, alright?"

 

Danny: *sharp look from Wren to Dane* "Uh, okay...but what about Fletch?"

 

Dane: "Okay, I give. Who's Fletch?"

 

Wren (firmly): "Just a friend."

 

Danny: *doubtful look* "I thought you two were--"

 

Wren: "Just. Friends."

 

Kumi (irritably): "What are you three whispering about?"

 

Danny: *drawls* "If this PMS from hell you're going through will be over by Monday. If not, we're petitioning Boston to keep you indefinitely. Or I guess you could try some of those lady pills. Got any of those on you, snark-a-pus?"

 

--Room hushes in silent horror, Kumi growls softly--

 

Wren: *eyes Kumi with unbridled anticipation* "Yee-haw. Strap in, boys. It's about to go wild, wild west up in 'dis mug."

 

Dane: *edges away from Danny* "Getting thrashed by supermodel Kumi Callaghan is not a story I want to tell the grandkids, mate. You're on your own here. Great Dane's out."

 

Kumi: *battle cry, lunges at Danny*

 

Yuri: *yanks Kumi back with surprising strength* "No! We are not descending into barbarism, Mi-Mi! I will not allow it! We are leaving directly! *begins dragging her out of the room* Honestly, we are going wedding gown shopping! Show some decorum, dammit!"

   

Fashion Credits

 

**Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes) were done by me unless otherwise stated.**

 

Wren

Skirt: Clear lan

Tank: Fashion Royalty - NuFace - London by Night Ayumi

Napoleon Jacket: trico*

Socks: Mimiwoo.com

Boots: Fashion Royalty - NuFantasy - Wild Wolf Kumi

Necklaces: Me

 

Doll is an Element of Surprise Lilith

 

Dane

Pants: Mattel - Harley Davidson Barbie/Ken Gift Set

Wife beater: Mattel - Playine Ken Underwear Pack

Button-up Shirt: Play-a-long - Camp Rock Shane

Boots: Volks - WTG - Selfish

Hat: Fashion Royalty - Homme/NuFace - In the Mix Takeo

Ring: Fashion Royalty - 2010 Convention - Night Vision Count Adrian

Cuff: Knife's Edge Designs (me)

 

Doll is a Night Vision Count Adrian

 

Yuri

Skirt: Jakks Pacific - Hannah Montana - Lilly is Lola Doll

Chanel shirt: MegannArt (etsy.com)

Hat: Jennifer Sue

Shoes: Mattel - Barbie Basics Accessory Pack - Collection 1.5, Look 002

Belt & Bracelet: Me

 

Doll is a Nu.Fantasy Red Riding Hood Yuri transplanted to a NuFace body.

 

Kumi

Dress: yukostevens (etsy.com)

Belt: Fashion Royalty - NuFace - Elements of Surprise Lilith

Shoes: Mattel - Barbie Basics Accessory Pack - Collection 2, Look 001 (added the studs)

Necklace & Bracelet: Me

 

Doll is a Nu.Fantasy Wild Wolf Kumi transplanted to a NuFace body.

 

Candy

Jeans: Mattel - Best Model's South Beach - Removed front pockets

T-shirt: ababietoy (etsy.com)

Belt: Cangaway (etsy.com)

Sneakers: Mattel - Hard Rock Barbie

Earrings: Integrity Toys - Beatnik Blues Poppy

Bracelets: Me

 

Doll is Making a Scene Erin transplanted to a Misaki body.

 

Danny

Jeans: Mattel - James Dean - distressed by me

Henley: Fashion Royalty - Homme/NuFace - Raw Appeal Lukas

Boots: Fashion Royalty - Homme/NuFace - Rock Ringmaster Lukas

Belt: Miema (etsy.com)

Bind Me Necklace: Knife's Edge Designs (me)

 

Doll is a Style Strategy Lukas

Piercing Lunacy.

Chambers revolvers roulette depressive suicide,

insanity psychopathological voices manias opium experiences,

medications bipolar irritability vodka deluding contradictory time,

weary unrelenting pains labyrinthine nihilistic mind,

perching fatalities energy flying existence erratic opulence lunatic inspirations,

feverish sufferings tempest stretching bedside haunted sockets awake,

hospitalized biography pervasive melancholic illness headaches drilled,

punished sinner interpretations wasted intelligence alchemy,

mocking hell descending scandals tears sensing blood mutilations evil,

terrible enemies approaching demons pitching darken ruins bottom,

ignominious sighs struggling bestial vapors agonies,

blaming reptiles transforming limbs thrusting claws wretched cries,

livid hatred taunting rude works passages hideous edges asunder,

warning revolts retributions mutilating judgments observed!

Steve.D.Hammond.

 

Charley: *looks around, face falling, as she signs/says* “Dane’s not here yet?”

 

Caid: *signs/says* “No, he said he might be a little late, but he’s definitely comin’…*glances at Diego* so no worries, Chuck.”

 

Diego: *smiles for the first time since arriving, but not in a reassuring way*

 

Candy: “Well, y’all come on in and make yourselves comfy. Charley, I got that book you wanted to borrow for you classroom. It’s in the nook.”

 

Charley: “Thanks…*turns to Molly, signs/says* You gotta see Can’s book collection, Molls. She’s got bunches—even ones on textiles and knitting.”

 

Molly: *nods eagerly, signs* “Show me.”

 

Charley: *grabs Molly’s hand and begins leading her from the room*

 

Molly: *looks over her shoulder, deliberately catching Caid’s eye, lips curving up invitingly*

 

Caid: *smiles in return, eyes hot, signs* “Catch you later, honey.”

 

Diego: *shakes head, voice mild* “If she decides to go home with you, take care of her. If you don’t, you’ll answer to me.”

 

Caid: “Understood.”

 

Candy: “I guess I should probably go ahead and order the pizza. Anyone got requests for toppings—” *stops mid-sentence, as a tall, dark-n-handsome stranger saunters into their midst*

 

Stranger: “What’s the craic? Did ye know your door’s open? Seems unwise. I amn’t an expert on this city, but fairly sure there’s crime.” *nods at Danny and Caid* Well lads.”

 

Danny: *huffs* “You didn’t think to shut it yourself, when you came through?”

 

Stranger: *shrugs*

 

Danny (exasperatedly): “Fine. I’ll close it, since no one else seems to remember how hinges work.” *ambles off towards the door, when he’s met by Dane*

 

Dane: “Hey, your door’s—”

 

Danny (irritably): “I know, I know! I’m closin’ the effin’ thing right now! Damn.”

 

Dane: *unfazed by Dan’s outburst, quickly scans the room for Charley, not seeing her, nods to everyone else, bluntly* “Going to the loo.” *heads off*

 

Caid: *raises his eyebrow at Dane’s brusqueness*

 

Candy: “Soooo…*scrutinizing the stranger* you’re Dillon?”

 

Dillon: “That I am, lovely.”

 

Fashion Credits

***Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes, haircuts) were done by me unless otherwise stated.***

 

Candy

Dress: Clear lan

Sweater & Boots: Volks – Who’s That Girl? – Natural Love

Belt: Cangaway (etsy.com)

Necklace: Me

 

Doll is a Making a Scene Erin transplanted to a Misaki body.

 

Caid

Jeans: IT – Dynamite Boys – Radiant Child Remi

Grey Shirt: 2013 Color Infusion Style Lab – Edge of Night: Red-Blooded Male

Plaid Shirt: Miema (etsy.com) – I cut off the sleeves and collar.

Belt: Miema (etsy.com)

Boots: Volks – Who’s That Girl? – Selfish

Bracelets: Me

 

Doll is a Dark Hunter Acheron

 

Diego

Pants: Mattel – BFMC – Fashion Insider Ken

Shirt: IT – Dynamite Boys - Remi

Vest: IT – Homme – High and Mighty Darius

Shoes: IT – Poppy Parker – Baby, It’s You Chip

Belt: Hazel Street Dezigns

Hat: Mattel – Barbie Collector – Frank Sinatra: The Recording Years

Necklaces & Watch Chain: Me

 

Doll is a Rock Steady Romain, eyes, brows, facial hair, and shading by me.

 

Dillon

Jeans: IT – Dynamite Boys – London Calling Kyu

Wife-beater: IT – Dynamite Boys – Summer Daze Kyu

Black Button-up: IT – 2013 Color Infusion Style Lab – Edge of Night: Clean Cut

Scarf: IT – 2013 Color Infusion Style Lab – Edge of Night: Urban Descent

Shoes: IT – Dynamite Boys – Back to Brooklyn Remi

Necklace: Piecemealed from here-n-there

 

Doll is a 2013 Color Infusion Declan.

  

youtu.be/8I0lo42gcgM

Above: Vultan shrewdly bargains with Ming.

Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Priscilla Lawson, Frank Shannon, Richard Alexander, James Pierce, John Lipson.

 

Flash Gordon begins with the strange planet Mongo hurtling towards Earth on a collision course. People across the world, from London to darkest Africa, are panicking as their seemingly certain doom draws near. One of the doomed Earthlings, polo player and all-around athlete Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe) is flying home from college to be with his scientist father (Richard Tucker) at the end. A meteor shower, one of the side effects of Mongo’s ever-nearer approach to the Earth, begins to fall around the plane, and the passengers are forced to bail out. Flash assists pretty fellow passenger Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) with her parachute, and the two land together near a remote laboratory–the lab of brilliant scientist Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon). Zarkov, a former colleague of Flash’s father who is regarded as a loony by other members of the scientific community, has been working on a rocket ship in which he intends to fly to Mongo and attempt to find a way to stop the planet’s impending collision with Earth. Zarkov confronts Flash and Dale, and after overcoming his initial suspicion that Flash has been sent to sabotage his project, Zarkov asks Flash to accompany him on the flight, taking the place of Zarkov’s assistant, who has fled rather than assist Zarkov on what seems a fool’s errand. Flash agrees to go along, and Dale (after some objections from Zarkov) comes along too.

Arriving on Mongo, our heroes are shortly taken prisoner by the soldiers of an Emperor Ming, who is the supreme ruler of the universe (at least according to the captain of Ming’s soldiers). The trio is brought before Ming (Charles Middleton) in his enormous castle, and the sinister ruler reveals that he is deliberately directing Mongo towards the Earth, planning to wipe out the planet (apparently from sheer maliciousness). Zarkov, as a delaying tactic, manages to convince Ming to eschew the destruction of Earth and plan a conquest of it instead, but new trouble instant erupts when Ming gets a look at Dale. He promptly decides to marry her, but the Emperor is so unwise as to clutch Dale’s arm, leading Flash to rough Ming up. Ming promptly orders Flash thrown into the Arena of Death, where our hero must fight three humanoid ape-like creatures. Winning the struggle, he is dropped down a trap door by the enraged Ming, but is rescued through the intervention of Ming’s daughter Princess Aura (Priscilla Lawson), who has almost immediately fallen in love with Flash. This is simply the prelude to thirteen chapters’ worth of high adventure on Mongo, as Flash attempts to keep Dale out of Ming’s clutches and Zarkov, slyly maneuvering against Ming even while working in the despot’s laboratories, attempts to figure out a way to block Ming’s ambitions and safely return himself and his friends to Earth. Along the way, our heroes will encounter Lion Men, Shark Men, and Hawk Men, as well as Fire Dragons, giant lizards, Orangopoids, Tigrons, and Octosacs.

 

Flash Gordon is probably the most popular and certainly the best-known of all movie serials, and both its popularity and its fame are well-deserved. Flash has all the strengths of the other good 1930s Universal serials–strong performances, unabashedly emotional moments, colorful characters, and expansive sets. Add to those strengths fantastic and imaginative props, locales, and creatures, the likes of which are not to be found in any other cliffhanger, and you begin to see why Flash Gordon has remained the best-remembered chapterplay of all. The serial throws one villain, monster or gadget after another at its protagonists, but is so well-paced as never to seem frantic or overcrowded; even its few slow spots are made interesting by the actors, their characters, and the fantastic world that surrounds them.

Flash Gordon was reportedly budgeted at over $300,000, a practically unequalled budget for a serial, and this alone sets it apart from its competition. The serial’s costumes, props, and miniatures are all on a far more impressive scale than those of other 1930s serials (although the miniatures are not quite as convincing as those at Republic Pictures). The serial also makes good use of some impressive re-decorated sets from Universal’s bigger-budgeted films (among them the Frankenstein and Dracula films and the silent Hunchback of Notre Dame). This lavish–for a serial–deployment of resources gives Flash more atmosphere than any other cliffhanger, helping to make the many weird locales of Mongo–Ming’s gadgetry-filed laboratory and enormous throne room, King Vultan’s floating sky palace with its gigantic atom-furnace room, the Shark Men’s underwater citadel, the monster-haunted tunnels beneath Ming’s fortress–convincingly otherworldly.

  

The cinematography of Flash Gordon futher augments the serial’s atmosphere with some strikingly stylish camera angles, particularly in Flash’s fight with the “monkey-men” in the first chapter, Zarkov and Ming’s first laboratory conversation, sequences of various characters hurrying through the tunnels, and Ming’s dramatic entrance into the Fire Tunnel in the final chapter. I’d hazard a guess that these unusual shots are the work of director Frederick Stephani, a German-born director whose only chapterplay was Flash; the serial’s cinematographers, Richard Fryer and Jerry Ash, are two cliffhanger regulars whose other entries in the genre never looked like this.

 

Supposedly Ray Taylor directed many portions of this serial, though he’s uncredited on screen; perhaps Taylor was needed to assist Stephani, who presumably was unfamiliar with the serial format. If Stephani is behind the more artistic-looking moments in Flash Gordon, we probably have Taylor to thank for the serial’s swift pace and for its well-done action sequences. While the serial contains no elaborate fistfights, it is not lacking in derring-do; Flash’s battle with the monkey-men is quite lengthy and exciting, as is a later fight in the water with a group of Shark Men and Flash’s wrestling match with the Shark Men’s King Kala. Flash’s big swordfight with the Masked Champion of Mongo and his subsequent battle with the Orangopoid are also played for all they’re worth, while Flash’s fight with the Sacred Tigron (a very large tiger) is memorable as well, though it’s hard to believe that our hero can emerge from the struggle without even a scratch. The sequence where an invisible Flash, with the help of King Vultan of the Hawk Men, takes on a squad of Ming’s guards is also exciting and rather amusing as well, with the boisterous Vultan laughs heartily while the unseen Flash wreaks havoc among the guards. Some of the stunt work seems to be handled by Crabbe himself, while he is doubled in other scenes by Eddie Parker; Tom Steele, Lane Chandler, and Jerry Frank also participate in the action scenes, while Ray Corrigan turns in another one of his delightful ape portrayals as the Sacred Orangopoid that Flash must fight.

 

One shouldn’t forget to give the screenwriters–director Stephani and the more experienced Basil Dickey, George Plympton, and Ella O’Neill–credit for the many good things in Flash Gordon. Occasionally the dialogue sounds rather pompous and unnatural, particularly Flash’s challenge to King Kala (“If I could not defeat a weakling like you, I would gladly welcome death!”); such lines sound like attempts to emulate the style of the beautifully-drawn but clunkily-written Flash Gordon comic strip. However, the grandiose dialogue, though it sounds inappropriate for Flash, seems just right and adds to the larger-than-life feel of the serial, when spoken by more baroque characters like Ming, Dr. Zarkov, the High Priest of Tao, or King Vultan. There are some funny lines among the grandiose ones as well, mainly spoken by the roistering King Vultan and occasionally by the sardonic Ming (when he learns that Dale has been carried off by Vultan’s Hawk Men, Ming dryly comments that Vultan will “undoubtedly compel the Earth girl to marry him. He makes a habit of it.”)

Again following the Gordon comic strip, the serial incorporates romance into its plot far more than any other sound chapterplay does. Ming’s interest in Dale, Flash and Dale’s mutual attachment, Aura’s attraction to Flash, and Barin’s love for Aura, all play important parts in the plot and allow for some unusually emotional moments, particularly in the scene in which a practically hysterical Princess Aura threatens to put out Flash’s eyes with a blowtorch unless he renounces Dale, only to drop the torch in tears when Flash remains unmoved by the threat. Most plot summaries of Flash risk making it sound like an outer-space soap opera at times, but its romantic elements remain muted, bringing added interest to the action but never stifling it.

The serial’s chapter endings are a memorable and varied lot, with Flash being, at different times, apparently drowned by an Octosac, electrocuted in King Vultan’s “sonic room,” crushed by a Gocko (a lobster-like dragon) and fried by a Fire Dragon, among other perils. The Gocko and the Fire Dragon, who seem to bear a family resemblance though they are clearly not identical species, are fairly impressive “suitimation” creatures (to borrow a term from Dave Sindelar of the Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings site). Both look a bit unwieldy but genuinely scary (particularly their heads); both were played by Glenn Strange, and both are skillfully made to look bigger than they are through well-done miniature work.

 

The giant “slurposaurs” (to borrow another Sindelar term)–in other words, iguanas photographed in miniature sets–are also pretty well-done for low-budget effects and are far more effectively integrated into the action than the “slurposaurs” in bigger-budgeted films like Irwin Allen’s The Lost World. The space-ship miniatures, though a bit toylike in appearance at times, are good, and I appreciate the special effects department’s effort to make the ships of the various planets and countries distinct from each other–Zarkov’s Earth space-ship, Ming’s rocket fleet, and the Lion Men’s “gyro-tops” are all differentiated in appearance. The Shark Men’s city too much like what it is, a table-top set (particularly in the shots of its partial destruction by flood), but King Vultan’s floating city is a memorable visual effect.

 

Although, as mentioned above, Buster Crabbe is occasionally saddled with some difficult dialogue, his Flash is one of the most likable serial heroes of all time. Unlike most cliffhanger protagonists, Flash, though stronger, braver, and nobler than most people, doesn’t seem much smarter or more level-headed than the average fellow, which makes him a lot easier to identify with. He continually rushes into danger head-first, and gets out of trouble either by sheer pluck or through the assistance of Dr. Zarkov or Princess Aura. His good-natured and casual acceptance of danger is also very appealing, as when he cheerily agrees to accompany Zarkov on his possibly suicidal space mission, or when he nonchalantly reassures Dale before asking Zarkov to turn him invisible for a foray into Ming’s throne room. And, of course, Crabbe the champion swimmer can handle the various athletics and acrobatics required of a serial hero quite convincingly.

  

Jean Rogers’ Dale Arden is a pleasure to watch; her stunning beauty has never been seen to better advantage. Her acting is also excellent, particularly in her reactions to the bizarre terrors of Mongo; critics have always seemed compelled to make silly comments about her propensity to scream and faint in times of danger or emotional stress, but one can hardly blame Dale for reacting with horror to some of the sights she sees (among them giant lizards, the Tigron, and King Vultan’s pet bear). Rogers’ Dale is so sweet and lovable right from the start, and has so much feminine warmth and charm, that I’m left scratching my head over those commentators who have treated her as an annoyance or an irritant. She’s as fully appealing a heroine as Flash is a hero.

 

Many serials divide the villainy between a “brains” heavy and an “action” heavy; Flash Gordon is one of the only cliffhangers that features what could be called a brains hero/action hero team. While it’s Flash that always handles the physical challenges, it’s Frank Shannon’s Zarkov who continually handles the mental challenges, whether it be creating various scientific devices to save a situation or formulating a plan to rescue his friends from various dangers. Shannon’s kindly but dignified countenance and his intense, serious delivery help him to bring real credence to the most impossible-sounding technical dialogue and help him to deliver fatalistically determined dialogue and stern, confident commands–like his ultimatum to King Vultan when the Hawk Men’s city is about to fall to Earth–in suitably impressive style.

The serial’s heavy is fully as remarkable as its protagonists. Whether sitting on his throne or stalking about in his flowing robes, always with a perpetual scowl and a hint of a cruel sneer, Charles Middleton’s Ming the Merciless is justly the most legendary villain in serials. Middleton makes Ming properly irritable and domineering, and at the same time very sly and subtle; he seems equally willing to use brute power or craft and misrepresentation to gain his ends. The sardonic “heh” with which Middleton punctuates his lines is priceless, as are the arrogant assertions of supreme power that he hurls at his enemies and his displays of autocratic temper, as when he irritatedly orders his High Priest, who has been badgering him about propitiating the Great God Tao, to the dungeon (“Take this babbling idiot away!”).

Priscilla Lawson is also very good as Ming’s daughter, and conveys as much conviction and believability as it is possible to give to such an oscillating character. Aura can be very unpleasantly aggressive, which is what one would expect of the daughter of a tyrant like Ming, but Lawson does not make the character so hard and mean that her occasional moments of softness–and her ultimate conversion to the side of the good guys–seem out of character.

Richard Alexander has one of the most unusual roles of his career as Prince Barin, the rightful heir to the throne of Mongo who allies with Flash against the usurping Ming. Alexander, usually a rough and tough action heavy (see Zorro Rides Again), handles his atypical part quite well, giving his character a proper air of royal dignity and command. He’s more effective when uttering terse lines, however, since he does seem to stumble over his more high-flown pieces of dialogue at times,. James Pierce, a silent screen Tarzan, is Flash’s other principal ally, Prince Thun of the Lion Men, also an antagonist of Ming. Pierce is likably rough-hewn and not particularly regal in manner–but that seems to fit with his character, since the Lion Men appear to be a more primitive people, “barbarian” holdouts against the technocrat Ming.

As interesting as all these characters are, however, John Lipson’s King Vultan of the Hawk Men nearly succeeds in stealing the serial whenever he’s onscreen. An enormously fat and muscular man, even bigger than Richard Alexander, complete with a huge pair of wings, Vultan’s charisma is equal to his physical presence. The character initially seems to be a villain, terrorizing Dale Arden and forcing Flash and Thun to slave in his atom furnaces, but he’s so jovial and boisterous (with an incredibly hearty laugh) that we rather like him in spite of his actions. The sequence where he treats Dale and Aura to dinner and seems to find it hard to believe that Dale is not interested in food is hilarious, as is his subsequent comment when Dale faints at the sight of Flash in the atom furnace (“Hmm! She is weak; she did not eat enough food!”) Also not to be missed are his impudent defiance of his ostensible overlord Ming and his attempt to entertain the dispirited Dale by making shadow pictures on the wall. Vultan, if a bit of a scoundrel, subsequently proves to be fair-minded where his word of honor is concerned, becoming the Earth people’s champion after Ming cheats on a promise to free them and finally helping our heroes in the defeat of Ming. It’s easy to accept Vultan’s joining the side of good, since we’ve liked him so much even when he was being bad.

  

Duke York Jr. only appears in three episodes, but is quite good as the smirking, hot-tempered King Kala of the Shark Men, who seems to be a once-powerful ruler reduced to dependence on Ming and determined to forget his reduced circumstances by being as nasty as possible to anyone who crosses his path. Theodore Lorch (who oddly takes over the part from the mild-mannered Lon Poff halfway through the serial) is incredibly but enjoyable hammy as the sly High Priest of Tao, rolling his eyes, leeringly double-crossing everyone, and laughing insanely. The dignified but rather elderly Earl Askam is the long-suffering Officer Torch, Ming’s right-hand man, and distinguished Richard Tucker plays Flash’s father, who makes appearances throughout the serial. George Cleveland also appears as one of Professor Gordon’s colleagues. William Desmond plays King Vultan’s second-in-command and minor B-western star Fred Scott is one of Ming’s guards, while Lane Chandler, Jerry Frank, and House Peters Jr. play Shark Men and Fred Kohler Jr., Glenn Strange, and Eddie Parker can be seen as Ming soldiers, John Bagni is a Hawk Man, Constantine Romanoff and Bull Montana are two of the grotesque “monkey-men,” and Al Ferguson is a laboratory worker of Ming’s.

Flash Gordon represents a near-perfect convergence of superior production values, imaginative scripting, and strong acting, and it’s easy to see how it sparked a tremendous upsurge in serial popularity when it was first released–and how it again led to revived interest in the serials when it appeared on TV in the 1950s, helping to keep the genre fresh in the minds of succeeding generations. Of all cliffhangers, it is easily the most famous and the most historically important, as well as being one of the greatest.

 

Wall monument with the busts of George Newton 1746 between his mother & stepmother

 

"Near this place lies interred George the only son of Gabriel Newton gent by Mary his wife daughter of George Bent, gent. He departed this life the 8th of March 1746 in the 18th year of his age to whose memory his affectionate and disconsolate father erected this monument and with a pious intention clothed 35 poor boys and put them out to trades at his own expense settling £3,250 By his last will for a perpetual support of the charity and for carefully instructing them in toning And psalmody which you may see more pathetically described '2 Chron 5, 13' +++ and for educating them rightly in the principles of our most holy and divine religion, for as Denham says: 'All human wisdom to divine is folly, This truth the wisest man made melancholy That man is the greatest monster without doubt Who is a wolf within and sheep without"

 

At the top are the arms of Newton (Argent, on a chevron azure 3 garbs or),

Beneath are the figures of charity children, with the text

"I was hungry and He gave me meat; Thirsty and He gave me drink; A stranger and He took me in; Naked and He clothed me".

 

He was the son of Gabriel Newton, Mayor of Leicester & 2nd wife Mary daughter of George Bent, a prominent corporator; Mary was the widow of William Wightman 1696 - 1724 son of Mary & John Wightman 1709 of Peckleton

 

His father Gabriel was the son of Joseph Newton, a jersey comber, who died in 1688 at Lincoln, to which city he appears to have gone in 1684 to take charge of the jersey school organised by the Corporation there, "for the employment of the poor in knitting and spinning".

Gabriel in his youth apprenticed as a wool-comber later abandoned this trade becoming an innkeeper running the respectable "Horse & Trumpet" near the High Cross, a Tory meeting place. In 1702 he was admitted to the freedom of the borough of Ieicester, as the eldest freeborn son of his father, paying for fine on admission a "bottle of wine". In consequence of admission to the freedom, he gained the parliamentary franchise of the town, the right to ply his trade within the limits of the borough jurisdiction, and a potential footing in the civic hierarchy. From this point, he endeavoured to advance the growth of his public importance and the accumulation of his fortune. In 1711 he was col-lector for the poor, and later churchwarden of St. Mary de Castro

He was an alderman of the town from 1726 to 1762 & mayor & JP in 1732 ; He was churchwarden here 1730 - 32

Gabriel married 3 times, each one strengthening his position in the borough oligarchy , each of his wives a woman of considerable wealth. however George was his only son.

Gabriel m1 1715 Elizabeth daughter of Alderman Wells having 7 children who all died in their infancy; m3 1738 Eleanor daughter of John Bakewell of Normanton on the Heath .

 

Gabriel having no son to whom he could leave his plentiful fortune, decided to devote the greater part of it to the "religious education of children ". To this object he devoted the larger part of his wealth which was estimated at £14,000 founding in his lifetime Greencoat school for boys between 7 & 14 . (His bounty also extended to several places besides Leicester) About 35 boys were educated in St Martins church Leicester from 8 to 11 in the morning and 3 to 5 in the afternoon. Once every year, or 15 to 18 months, each was to have a green cloth waistcoat and breeches of material not under 20 pence per yard, a shirt of flaxen cloth not under 13 pence per yard, with stockings, caps and other apparel. They were given a halfpenny coarse roll each for breakfast, taught reading writing and accounts, and apprenticed with £5.

This venture suffered from Gabriel's irritability which was notorious , consequently bringing opposition to his schemes.

The conditions he set were :-

A. the schoolboys were to be selected exclusively from Anglican families, and they were to "attend daily and join in the liturgical worship of the church for if they were obliged for a series of years to attend the daily office, they might it not reasonably be hoped they were in the most likely way to receive such impressions of religion as might sometime work together for their future happiness as well as be a means to improve their condition in this present life"

B. No town was to enjoy the benefit of the bequest unless the Creed was duly received and recited as enjoined in the Book of Common Prayer

C: No place was to receive money unless the boys were taught to sing the psalms so as to "adorn with music the spiritiual simplicity of the Christian scheme"

After his death, many years passed and a considerable amount went in lawyers fees & collecting bad debts from various people who absconded and excused themselves, Finally 20 years after Gabriel's death the Corporation was awarded £2409. 13s & 5 d, £2300 to be invested immediately

 

Gabriel died 26th October 1662 and was buried in All Saints churchyard, Leicester. His altar tomb in the churchyard, near the south east angle of the church, has 2 inscriptions:

"In memory of Gabriel Newton gentleman, one of the aldermen, and once mayor of the borough of Leicester, who died the 26th of October 1672 aged 78 years. By his first wife Elizabeth daughter of Mr Alderman Wells, he had seven children, which all died in their minority; by his second wife Mary daughter of George Bent, gentleman, he had George Newton who died the 8th of March 1746 in the 18th year of his age; by his last wife Eleanor daughter of John Bakewell, gent, of Normington on the Heath he had no issue"

"Mr Alderman Newon, in his life time by deeds of trust, charged several of his estates with the payment of 26L annually for ever to the following towns, for cloathing and educating poor children therein viz; to Hertford, Bedford, Buckingham, St Neots, Northampton and Ashby de la Zouch; and also 20L 16s yearly for ever to Earl Shilton (for 20 boys); and by his last will directed 3250L to be raised upon his personal estate, for supporting a charity of the same kind in Leicester"

 

Sadly it was noted "the chicanery of law respecting the omission of a word, or a misconstrued sentence, has cruelly deprived the children of the necessitous in Leicester of that support which his bounty had provided for them. It is computed that he left lands and money to the amount of 16000L for charitable uses. Bad debts owed to him became hard to collect , the debtors absconding or denying their indebtedness. His executors instead of enforcing the will by an over caution searched for his nearest relation, and met with a Richard Walker, a pauper, a member of Trinity Hospital here. Him they produced to chancery and acknowledge though on disputable grounds as first of kin. He instead of accepting of a pecuniary present and assisting them to pass a fine, got advice and support to embarrass them several years.

Finally 20 years after Gabriel's death the Corporation was awarded £2409. 13s & 5 d, £2300 to be invested immediately

 

He is one of 4 figures on the Haymarket Clock Tower www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1L01E5

 

Greencoats School later became known as Alderman Newtons School and survived until 1999 when it was merged by the local authority with two other local schools to form a single educational institution. Gabriel is one of the 4 men portrayed on Leicesters Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower.

 

+++ "It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying For He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever that then the house was filled with a cloud even the house of the Lord:"

 

Cathedral Church of St Martin, Leicester.

 

Picture with thanks - copyright Jules & Jenny from Lincoln CCL commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leicester_Cathedral,_Monu...(46228360191).jpg

www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/NewtonPagesfromVolume19.pdf file:///C:/Users/Peter/Downloads/p15407coll6_5999.pdf

Look,

I have a very wordy soul and I use few words.

I am very irritable and hurt easily.

I am also very calm and forgive quick

I never forget.

But there are few things I remember

Nearly everyone has had headache pain, and most of us have had it many times. A minor headache is little more than a nuisance that's relieved by an over-the-counter pain reliever, some food or coffee, or a short rest. But if your headache is severe or unusual, you might worry about stroke, a tumor, or a blood clot. Fortunately, such problems are rare. Still, you should know when a headache needs urgent care and how to control the vast majority of headaches that are not threatening to your health. Headache is defined as a pain arising from the head or upper neck of the body. The pain originates from the tissues and structures that surround the skull or the brain because the brain itself has no nerves that give rise to the sensation of pain (pain fibers). The thin layer of tissue (periosteum) that surrounds bones, muscles that encase the skull, sinuses, eyes, and ears, as well as thin tissues that cover the surface of the brain and spinal cord (meninges), arteries, veins, and nerves, all can become inflamed or irritated and cause headache. The pain may be a dull ache, sharp, throbbing, constant, intermittent, mild, or intense. Headaches can be more complicated than most people realize. Different kinds can have their own set of symptoms, happen for unique reasons, and need different kinds of treatment. Once you know the type of headache you have, you and your doctor can find the treatment that’s most likely to help and even try to prevent them.

Headache is the symptom of pain anywhere in the region of the head or neck. It occurs in migraines (sharp, or throbbing pains), tension-type headaches, and cluster headaches.Frequent headaches can affect relationships and employment. There is also an increased risk of depression in those with severe headaches. Headaches can occur as a result of many conditions whether serious or not. There are a number of different classification systems for headaches. The most well-recognized is that of the International Headache Society. Causes of headaches may include fatigue, sleep deprivation, stress, the effects of medications, the effects of recreational drugs, viral infections, loud noises, common colds, head injury, rapid ingestion of a very cold food or beverage, and dental or sinus issues.The pain you feel during a headache comes from a mix of signals between your brain, blood vessels, and nearby nerves. Specific nerves of the blood vessels and head muscles switch on and send pain signals to your brain. But it's not clear why these signals turn on in the first place. People often get headaches because of:

Illness: such as an infection, cold, or fever. They’re also common with conditions like sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses), a throat infection, or an ear infection. In some cases, the headaches may be the result of a blow to the head or rarely, a sign of a more serious medical problem. Stress: Emotional stress and depression as well as alcohol use, skipping meals, changes in sleep patterns, and taking too much medication. Other causes include eyestrain and neck or back strain due to poor posture. Your environment, including secondhand tobacco smoke, strong smells from household chemicals or perfumes, allergens, and certain foods. Stress, pollution, noise, lighting, and weather changes are other possible triggers. Headaches, especially migraine headaches, tend to run in families. Most children and teens (90%) who have migraines have other family members who get them. When both parents have a history of migraines, there is a 70% chance that their child will also have them. If only one parent has a history of these headaches, the risk drops to 25%-50%.

Doctors don’t know exactly what causes migraines. A popular theory is that triggers cause unusual brain activity, which causes changes in the blood vessels there. Some forms of migraines are linked to genetic problems in certain parts of the brain. Too much physical activity can also trigger a migraine in adults. Treatment of a headache depends on the underlying cause, but commonly involves pain medication. Some form of headache is one of the most commonly experienced of all physical discomforts. About half of adults have a headache in a given year. Tension headaches are the most common, affecting about 1.6 billion people (21.8% of the population) followed by migraine headaches which affect about 848 million (11.7%)

 

There are more than two hundred types of headaches. Some are harmless and some are life-threatening. The description of the headache and findings on neurological examination, determine whether additional tests are needed and what treatment is best. Once you get your headaches diagnosed correctly, you can start the right treatment plan for your symptoms. The first step is to talk to your doctor about your headaches. She’ll give you a physical exam and ask you about the symptoms you have and how often they happen. It’s important to be as complete as possible with these descriptions. Give your doctor a list of things that cause your headaches, make them worse, and what helps you feel better. You can track details in a headache diary to help your doctor diagnose your problem. Most people don’t need special diagnostic tests. But sometimes, doctors suggest a CT scan or MRI to look for problems inside your brain that might cause your headaches. Skull X-rays are not helpful. An EEG (electroencephalogram) is also unnecessary unless you have passed out when you had a headache. If your headache symptoms get worse or happen more often despite treatment, ask your doctor to refer you to a headache specialist. If you need more information, contact one of the organizations in the resource list for a list of member doctors in your state.

 

Your doctor may recommend different types of treatment to try. She also might recommend more testing or refer you to a headache specialist. The treatment you need will depend on a lot of things, including the type of headache you get, how often, and its cause. Some people don’t need medical help at all. But those who do might get medications, counseling, stress management, and biofeedback. Your doctor will make a treatment plan to meet your specific needs. Once you start a treatment program, keep track of how well it’s working. A headache diary can help you note any patterns or changes in how you feel. Know that it may take some time for you and your doctor to find the best treatment plan, so try to be patient. Be honest with her about what is and isn’t working for you. Even though you’re getting treatment, you should still steer clear of the things you know can trigger your problem, like foods or smells. And it’s important to stick to healthy habits that will keep you feeling good, like regular exercise, enough sleep, and a healthy diet. Also, make your scheduled follow-up appointments so your doctor can see how you’re doing and make changes in the treatment program if you need them.

 

Headaches are broadly classified as "primary" or "secondary". Primary headaches are benign, recurrent headaches not caused by underlying disease or structural problems. For example, migraine is a type of primary headache. While primary headaches may cause significant daily pain and disability, they are not dangerous. Secondary headaches are caused by an underlying disease, like an infection, head injury, vascular disorders, brain bleed or tumors. Secondary headaches can be harmless or dangerous. Certain "red flags" or warning signs indicate a secondary headache may be dangerous.Occurring in about three of every four adults, tension headaches are the most common of all headaches. In most cases, they are mild to moderate in severity and occur infrequently. But a few people get severe tension headaches, and some are troubled by them for three or four times a week. The typical tension headache produces a dull, squeezing pain on both sides of the head. People with strong tension headaches may feel like their head is in a vise. The shoulders and neck can also ache. Some tension headaches are triggered by fatigue, emotional stress, or problems involving the muscles or joints of the neck or jaw. Most last for 20 minutes to two hours.If you get occasional tension-type headaches, you can take care of them yourself. Over-the-counter pain relievers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol, other brands) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, naproxen (Aleve, other brands), or ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil, other brands) often do the trick, but follow the directions on the label, and never take more than you should. A heating pad or warm shower may help; some people feel better with a short nap or light snack. If you get frequent tension-type headaches, try to identify triggers so you can avoid them. Don't get overtired or skip meals. Learn relaxation techniques; yoga is particularly helpful because it can relax both your mind and your neck muscles. If you clench your jaw or grind your teeth at night, a bite plate may help. If you need more help, your doctor may prescribe a stronger pain medication or a muscle relaxant to control headache pain. Many people with recurrent tension-type headaches can prevent attacks by taking a tricyclic antidepressant such as amitriptyline (Elavil, generic). Fortunately, most people with tension-type headaches will do very well with simpler programs. 90% of all headaches are primary headaches. Primary headaches usually first start when people are between 20 and 40 years old. The most common types of primary headaches are migraines and tension-type headaches.[6] They have different characteristics. Migraines typically present with pulsing head pain, nausea, photophobia (sensitivity to light) and phonophobia (sensitivity to sound). Tension-type headaches usually present with non-pulsing "bandlike" pressure on both sides of the head, not accompanied by other symptoms. Other very rare types of primary headaches include: cluster headaches: This type is intense and feels like a burning or piercing pain behind or around one eye, either throbbing or constant. It’s the least common but the most severe type of headache. The pain can be so bad that most people with cluster headaches can’t sit still and will often pace during an attack. On the side of the pain, the eyelid droops, the eye reddens, pupil gets smaller or the eye tears. The nostril on that side runs or stuffs

They’re called “cluster headaches” because they tend to happen in groups. You might get them one to three times per day during a cluster period, which may last 2 weeks to 3 months. Each headache attack last 15 mins to 3 hours and often wakens the patient from sleep. The headaches may disappear completely (go into "remission") for months or years, only to come back again. Cluster headaches affect men 3-4 times more often than women.short episodes (15–180 minutes) of severe pain, usually around one eye, with autonomic symptoms (tearing, red eye, nasal congestion) which occur at the same time every day. Cluster headaches can be treated with triptans and prevented with prednisone, ergotamine or lithium. trigeminal neuralgia or occipital neuralgia: shooting face pain hemicrania continua: continuous unilateral pain with episodes of severe pain. Hemicrania continua can be relieved by the medication indomethacin.

primary stabbing headache: recurrent episodes of stabbing "ice pick pain" or "jabs and jolts" for 1 second to several minutes without autonomic symptoms (tearing, red eye, nasal congestion). These headaches can be treated with indomethacin. primary cough headache: starts suddenly and lasts for several minutes after coughing, sneezing or straining (anything that may increase pressure in the head). Serious causes (see secondary headaches red flag section) must be ruled out before a diagnosis of "benign" primary cough headache can be made. primary exertional headache: throbbing, pulsatile pain which starts during or after exercising, lasting for 5 minutes to 24 hours. The mechanism behind these headaches is unclear, possibly due to straining causing veins in the head to dilate, causing pain. These headaches can be prevented by not exercising too strenuously and can be treated with medications such as indomethacin. primary sex headache: dull, bilateral headache that starts during sexual activity and becomes much worse during orgasm. These headaches are thought to be due to lower pressure in the head during sex. It is important to realize that headaches that begin during orgasm may be due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage, so serious causes must be ruled out first. These headaches are treated by advising the person to stop sex if they develop a headache. Medications such as propranolol and diltiazem can also be helpful.

hypnic headache: moderate-severe headache that starts a few hours after falling asleep and lasts 15–30 minutes. The headache may recur several times during night. Hypnic headaches are usually in older women. They may be treated with lithium.

]

Headaches may be caused by problems elsewhere in the head or neck. Some of these are not harmful, such as cervicogenic headache (pain arising from the neck muscles). Medication overuse headache may occur in those using excessive painkillers for headaches, paradoxically causing worsening headaches.More serious causes of secondary headaches include: meningitis: inflammation of the meninges which presents with fever and meningismus, or stiff neck

bleeding inside the brain (intracranial hemorrhage)

subarachnoid hemorrhage (acute, severe headache, stiff neck WITHOUT fever) ruptured aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, intraparenchymal hemorrhage (headache only)

brain tumor: dull headache, worse with exertion and change in position, accompanied by nausea and vomiting. Often, the person will have nausea and vomiting for weeks before the headache starts. temporal arteritis: inflammatory disease of arteries common in the elderly (average age 70) with fever, headache, weight loss, jaw claudication, tender vessels by the temples, polymyalgia rheumatica acute closed angle glaucoma (increased pressure in the eyeball): headache that starts with eye pain, blurry vision, associated with nausea and vomiting. On physical exam, the person will have a red eye and a fixed, mid dilated pupil. Post-ictal headaches: Headaches that happen after a convulsion or other type of seizure, as part of the period after the seizure (the post-ictal state) Gastrointestinal disorders may cause headaches, including Helicobacter pylori infection, celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, gastroparesis, and hepatobiliary disorders. The treatment of the gastrointestinal disorders may lead to a remission or improvement of headaches.

 

The brain itself is not sensitive to pain, because it lacks pain receptors. However, several areas of the head and neck do have pain receptors and can thus sense pain. These include the extracranial arteries, middle meningeal artery, large veins, venous sinuses, cranial and spinal nerves, head and neck muscles, the meninges, falx cerebri, parts of the brainstem, eyes, ears, teeth and lining of the mouth.Pial arteries, rather than pial veins are responsible for pain production. Headaches often result from traction to or irritation of the meninges and blood vessels. The nociceptors may be stimulated by head trauma or tumors and cause headaches. Blood vessel spasms, dilated blood vessels, inflammation or infection of meninges and muscular tension can also stimulate nociceptors and cause pain. Once stimulated, a nociceptor sends a message up the length of the nerve fiber to the nerve cells in the brain, signaling that a part of the body hurts.

Primary headaches are more difficult to understand than secondary headaches. The exact mechanisms which cause migraines, tension headaches and cluster headaches are not known. There have been different theories over time which attempt to explain what happens in the brain to cause these headaches.

 

Migraines are currently thought to be caused by dysfunction of the nerves in the brain. This condition is accompanied by intense headaches. These headaches are often described as pounding, throbbing pain. They can last from 4 hours to 3 days and usually happen one to four times per month. Along with the pain, people have other symptoms, such as sensitivity to light, noise, or smells; nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite; and upset stomach or belly pain. When a child has a migraine, she may look pale, feel dizzy, and have blurry vision, fever, and an upset stomach.Migraines occur less often than tension-type headaches, but they are usually much more severe. They are two to three times more common in women than men, but that's small consolation if you are among the 6% to 8% of all men who have migraines. And since a Harvard study of 20,084 men age 40 to 84 reported that having migraines boosts the risk of heart attacks by 42%, men with migraines should take their headaches to heart. Neurologists believe that migraines are caused by changes in the brain's blood flow and nerve cell activity. Genetics play a role since 70% of migraine victims have at least one close relative with the problem. Migraine triggers. Although a migraine can come on without warning, it is often set off by a trigger. The things that set off a migraine vary from person to person, but a migraine sufferer usually remains sensitive to the same triggers. A small percentage of children's migraines include digestive symptoms, like vomiting, that happen about once a month. Previously, migraines were thought to be caused by a primary problem with the blood vessels in the brain.This vascular theory, which was developed in the 20th century by Wolff, suggested that the aura in migraines is caused by constriction of intracranial vessels (vessels inside the brain), and the headache itself is caused by rebound dilation of extracranial vessels (vessels just outside the brain). Dilation of these extracranial blood vessels activates the pain receptors in the surrounding nerves, causing a headache. The vascular theory is no longer accepted. Studies have shown migraine head pain is not accompanied by extracranial vasodilation, but rather only has some mild intracranial vasodilation.

Currently, most specialists think migraines are due to a primary problem with the nerves in the brain. Auras are thought to be caused by a wave of increased activity of neurons in the cerebral cortex (a part of the brain) known as cortical spreading depression followed by a period of depressed activity. Some people think headaches are caused by the activation of sensory nerves which release peptides or serotonin, causing inflammation in arteries, dura and meninges and also cause some vasodilation. Triptans, medications which treat migraines, block serotonin receptors and constrict blood vessels. People who are more susceptible to experience migraines without headache are those who have a family history of migraines, women, and women who are experiencing hormonal changes or are taking birth control pills or are prescribed hormone replacement therapy. Tension headaches are thought to be caused by activation of peripheral nerves in the head and neck muscles Cluster headaches involve overactivation of the trigeminal nerve and hypothalamus in the brain, but the exact cause is unknown.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headache

I was still quite tense from adjusting to driving on the LHS and on the snow-covered road. But others in my car were reluctant to swap but prefer to enjoy the sight instead!

After my irritable complains, my 30yr old firstborn finally relented, we swapped drivers and I managed to take this snap from the moving car.

There is hardly any safe place or road shoulder to pull over, and the lighting was quite dim.

(20220727_235625FireChiefDalmatianNmbr1Flickr072822)

 

I'm going to try to get a better picture later, but I have been wanting to use this little guy for the #1 in ABCs and 123s group for a long time. So far I used my Nikon on about 7 shots, and none were good. Bad lighting, focus, blurry etc. I checked that it was set on Macro, and it was, but I forgot the battery hatch was open because I had taken my SD card out to see if at least 1 pic was any good. It wasn't, so I tried to just set that camera down somewhere. The battery and SD compartment door flew open and all 4 batteries loudly landed on my floor and at least one rolled into a nook that was hard to get to.

 

I got them all put back in the right camera and tried my cell phone instead. I discovered that if the fact the Dalmatian is wearing a firemen's helmet showed, then the #1 didn't show very well. My computer was being full and irritable, and I really wanted to get the #1 spot for this little dog. It was taking about half an hour. I was pretty sure someone else would take that spot, and telling myself there would be other chances to post a #1. Well, then I argue with myself about I have missed the lasts two times that an opening came up for #1. I hate arguing with myself because I never win.

****************************************************************************

  

I got back online OK, and no one else had taken the #1 slot; so I decided to just post the best that I had out of about 9 so far, cinch the #1 slot and maybe enhance it later.

 

In same 24 hour period, I enhanced this image quite a bit, and I like it better. I posted it here shortly before July 28th will be over.

 

All this for one little game on Flickr. Nothing got done with Yellow groups, waterfall groups, wall groups and on infinitum. I asked myself if it was all worth it, and one of my other selfs replied, it must be. You've been doing this for 17 years. LOL

Picture #1 of Dora's Ornery Day.

 

Dora sees Raven coming across the yard and goes into her classic "Halloween Cat" pose.

  

Every time I happened to spot Dora the other day, she was busy giving somebody "The Business!"

Dora is rather small. Half of what you see is fur, but what she lacks in stature she more than makes up for with attitude!

"Though she be but little, she is fierce!" -W.S.

I posted a few other shots of her causing trouble. She was obviously having an exceptionally irritable day!

  

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

 

. . .

  

"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like -"

 

"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."

 

"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."...

 

Anyway, I keep picturing these little kids playing some game in this big field or rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean, except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

 

—excerpts from J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye

  

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

  

"Somewhere along the line - in one damn incarnation or another, if you like - you not only had a hankering to be an actor or an actress but to be a good one. You're stuck with it now. You can't just walk out on the results of your own hankerings. Cause and effect, buddy, cause and effect. The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to - be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want to - there's nothing wrong in trying." There was a slight pause. "You'd better get busy, though, buddy. The goddam sands run out on you every time you turn around."

 

—excerpt from J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey

  

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

  

John Keats

John Keats

John

Please put your scarf on.

  

Do I go on about my brother's poetry too much? Am I being garrulous? Yes. Yes. I go on about my brother's poetry too much. I'm being garrulous. And I care. But my reasons against leaving off multiply like rabbits as I go along. Furthermore, though I am, as I've already conspicuously posted, a happy writer, I'll take my oath I'm not now and never have been a merry one; I've mercifully been allowed the usual professional quota of unmerry thoughts. For example, it hasn't just this moment struck me that once I get around to recounting what I know of Seymour himself, I can't expect to leave myself either the space or the required pulse rate or, in a broad but true sense, the inclination to mention his poetry again. At this very instant, alarmingly, while I clutch my own wrist and lecture myself on garrulousness, I may be losing the chance of a lifetime - my last chance, I think, really - to make one final, hoarse, objectionable, sweeping public pronouncement on my brother's rank as an American poet. I mustn't let it slip. Here it is: When I look back, listen back, over the half-dozen or slightly more original poets we've had in America, as well as the numerous talented eccentric poets and - in modern times, especially - the many gifted style deviates, I feel something close to a conviction that we have had only three or four very nearly nonexpendable poets, and I think Seymour will eventually stand with those few. Not overnight, verständlich. Zut, what would would you? It's my guess, my perhaps flagrantly over-considered guess, that the first few waves of reviewers will obliquely condemn his verses by calling them Interesting or Very Interesting, with a tacit or just plain badly articulated declaration, still more damning, that they are rather small, sub-acoustical things that have failed to arrive on the contemporary Western scene with their own built-in transatlantic podium, complete with lectern, drinking glass, and pitcher of iced sea water. Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.) And I'm reminded, too, that once when we were boys, Seymour waked me from a sound sleep, much excited, yellow pajamas flashing in the dark. He had what my brother Walt used to call his Eureka Look, and he wanted to tell me that he thought he finally knew why Christ said to call no man Fool. (It was a problem that had been baffling him all week, because it sounded to him like a piece of advice, I believe, more typical of Emily Post than of someone busily about his Father's Business.) Christ had said it, Seymour thought I'd want to know, because there are no fools. Dopes, yes - fools, no. It seemed to him well worth waking me up for, but if I admit that it was (and I do, without reservations), I'll have to concede that if you give even poetry critics enough time, they'll prove themselves unfoolish. To be truthful, it's a thought that comes hard to me, and I'm grateful to be able to push on to something else. I've reached, at long last, the real head of this compulsive and, I'm afraid, occasionally somewhat pustulous disquisition on my brother's poetry. I've seen it coming from the very beginning. I would to God the reader had something terrible to tell me first. (Oh, you out there - with your enviable golden silence.)

 

I have a recurrent, and, in 1959, almost chronic, premonition that when Seymour's poems have been widely and rather officially acknowledged as First Class (stacked up in college bookstores, assigned in Contemporary Poetry courses), matriculating young men and women will strike out, in singlets and twosomes, notebooks at the ready, for my somewhat creaking front door. (It's regrettable that this matter has to come up at all, but it's surely too late to pretend to an ingenuousness, to say nothing of a grace, I don't have, and I must reveal that my reputedly heartshaped prose has knighted me one of the best-loved sciolists in print since Ferris L. Monahan, and a good many young English Department people already know where I live, hole up; I have their tire tracks in my rose beds to prove it.) By and large, I'd say without a shred of hesitation, there are three kinds of students who have both the desire and the temerity to look as squarely as possible into any sort of literary horse's mouth. The first kind is the young man or woman who loves and respects to distraction any fairly responsible sort of literature and who, if he or she can't see Shelley plain, will make do with seeking out manufacturers of inferior but estimable products. I know these boys and girls well, or think I do. They're naive, they're alive, they're enthusiastic, they're usually less than right, and they're the hope always, I think, of blase or vested-interested literary society the world over. (By some good fortune I can't believe I've deserved, I've had one of these ebullient, cocksure, irritating, instructive, often charming girls or boys in every second or third class I've taught in the past twelve years.) The second kind of young person who actually rings doorbells in the pursuit of literary data suffers, somewhat proudly, from a case of academicitis, contracted from any one of half a dozen Modern English professors or graduate instructors to whom he's been exposed since his freshman year. Not seldom, if he himself is already teaching or is about to start teaching, the disease is so far along that one doubts whether it could be arrested, even if someone were fully equipped to try. Only last year, for example, a young man stopped by to see me about a piece I'd written, several years back, that had a good deal to do with Sherwood Anderson. He came at a time when I was cutting part of my winter's supply of firewood with a gasoline-operated chain saw - an instrument that after eight years of repeated use I'm still terrified of. It was the height of the spring thaw, a beautiful sunny day, and I was feeling, frankly, just a trifle Thoreauish (a real treat for me, because after thirteen years of country living I'm still a man who gauges bucolic distances by New York City blocks). In short, it looked like a promising, if literary, afternoon, and I recall that I had high hopes of getting the young man, a la Tom Sawyer and his bucket of whitewash, to have a go at my chain saw. He appeared healthy, not to say strapping. His deceiving looks, however, very nearly cost me my left foot, for between spurts and buzzes of my saw, just as I finished delivering a short and to me rather enjoyable eulogy on Sherwood Anderson's gentle and effective style, the young man asked me - after a thoughtful, a cruelly promising pause - if I thought there was an endemic American Zeitgeist. (Poor young man. Even if he takes exceptionally good care of himself, he can't at the outside have more than fifty years of successful campus activity ahead of him.) The third kind of person who will be a fairly constant visitor around here, I believe, once Seymour's poems have been quite thoroughly unpacked and tagged, requires a paragraph to himself or herself.

 

It would be absurd to say that most young people's attraction to poetry is far exceeded by their attraction to those few or many details of a poet's life that may be defined here, loosely, operationally, as lurid. It's the sort of absurd notion, though, that I wouldn't mind taking out for a good academic run someday. I surely think, at any rate, that if I were to ask the sixty odd girls (or, that is, the sixty-odd girls) in my two Writing for Publication courses - most of them seniors, all of them English majors - to quote a line, any line from "Ozymandias," or even just to tell me roughly what the poem is about, it is doubtful whether ten of them could do either, but I'd bet my unrisen tulips that some fifty of them could tell me that Shelley was all for free love, and had one wife who wrote "Frankenstein" and another who drowned herself.* I'm neither shocked nor outraged at the idea, please mind. I don't think I'm even complaining. For if nobody's a fool, then neither am I, and I'm entitled to a non-fool's Sunday awareness that, whoever we are, no matter how like a blast furnace the heat from the candles on our latest birthday cake, and however presumably lofty the intellectual, moral, and spiritual heights we've all reached, our gusto for the lurid or partly lurid (which, of course, includes both low and superior gossip) is probably the last of our fleshy appetites to be sated or effectively curbed. (But, my God, why do I rant on? Why am I not going straight to the poet for an illustration? One of Seymour's hundred and eighty-four poems - a shocker on the first impact only; on the second, as heartening a paean to the living as I've read - is about a distinguished old ascetic on his deathbed, surrounded by chanting priests and disciples, who lies straining to hear what the washerwoman in the courtyard is saying about his neighbor's laundry. The old gentleman, Seymour makes it clear, is faintly wishing the priests would keep their voices down a bit.) I can see, though, that I'm having a little of the usual trouble entailed in trying to make a very convenient generalization stay still and docile long enough to support a wild specific premise. I don't relish being sensible about it, but I suppose I must. It seems to me indisputably true that a good many people, the wide world over, of varying ages, cultures, natural endowments, respond with a special impetus, a zing, even, in some cases, to artists and poets who as well as having a reputation for producing great or fine art have something garishly Wrong with them as persons: a spectacular flaw in character or citizenship, a construably romantic affliction or addiction - extreme self-centeredness, marital infidelity, stone-deafness, stone-blindness, a terrible thirst, a mortally bad cough, a soft spot for prostitutes, a partiality for grand-scale adultery or incest, a certified or uncertified weakness for opium or sodomy, and so on, God have mercy on the lonely bastards. If suicide isn't at the top of the list of compelling infirmities for creative men, the suicide poet or artist, one can't help noticing, has always been given a very considerable amount of avid attention, not seldom on sentimental grounds almost exclusively, as if he were (to put it much more horribly than I really want to) the floppy-eared runt of the litter. It's a thought, anyway, finally said, that I've lost sleep over many times, and possibly will again.

 

(How can I record what I've just recorded and still be happy? But I am. Unjolly, unmerry, to the marrow, but my afflatus seems to be punctureproof. Recollective of only one other person I've known in my life.)

 

—poem and excerpt from J.D. Salinger's Seymour An Introduction

  

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I was staring, as I remember, directly in front of me, at the back of the driver's neck, which was a relief map of boil scars, when suddenly my jump-seat mate addressed me: "I didn't get a chance to ask you inside. How's that darling mother of yours? Aren't you Dickie Briganza?"

 

My tongue, at the time of the question, was curled back exploratively as far as the soft palate. I disentangled it, swallowed, and turned to her. She was fifty, or thereabouts, fashionably and tastefully dressed. She was wearing a very heavy pancake makeup. I answered no - that I wasn't.

 

She narrowed her eyes a trifle at me and said I looked exactly like Celia Briganza's boy. Around the mouth. I tried to show by my expression that it was a mistake anybody could make. Then I went on staring at the back of the driver's neck. The car was silent. I glanced out of the window, for a change of scene.

 

"How do you like the Army?" Mrs. Silsburn asked. Abruptly, conversationally.

 

I had a brief coughing spell at that particular instant. When it was over, I turned to her with all available alacrity and said I'd made a lot of buddies. It was a little difficult for me to swivel in her direction, what with the encasement of adhesive tape around my diaphragm.

 

She nodded. "I think you're all just wonderful," she said, somewhat ambiguously. "Are you a friend of the bride's or the groom's?" she then asked, delicately getting down to brass tacks.

 

"Well, actually, I'm not exactly a friend of--"

 

"You'd better not say you're a friend of the groom," the Matron of Honor interrupted me, from the back of the car. "I'd like to get my hands on him for about two minutes. Just two minutes, that's all."

 

Mrs. Silsburn turned briefly - but completely - around to smile at the speaker. Then she faced front again. We made the round trip, in fact, almost in unison. Considering that Mrs. Silsburn had turned around for only an instant, the smile she had bestowed on the Matron of Honor was a kind of jump-seat masterpiece. It was vivid enough to express unlimited partisanship with all young people, all over the world, but most particularly with this spirited, outspoken local representative, to whom, perhaps, she had been little more than perfunctorily introduced, if at all.

 

"Bloodthirsty wench," said a chuckling male voice. And Mrs. Silsburn and I turned around again. It was the Matron of Honor's husband who had spoken up. He was seated directly behind me, at his wife's left. He was seated directly behind me, at his wife's left. He and I briefly exchanged that blank,uncomradely look which, possibly, in the crapulous year of 1942, only an officer and a private could exchange. A first lieutenant in the Signal Corps, he was wearing a very interesting Air Corps pilot's cap - a visored hat with the metal frame removed from inside the crown, which usually conferred on the wearer a certain, presumably desired, intrepid look. In his case, however, the cap didn't begin to fill the bill. It seemed to serve no other purpose than to make my own outsize, regulation headpiece feel rather like a clown's hat that someone had nervously picked out of the incinerator. His face was sallow and, essentially, daunted-looking. He was perspiring with an almost incredible profusion - on his forehead, on his upper lip, and even at the end of his nose - to the point where a salt tablet might have been in order. "I'm married to the bloodthirstiest wench in six counties," he said, addressing Mrs. Silsburn and giving another soft, public chuckle. In automatic deference to his rank, I very nearly chuckled right along with him - a short, inane, stranger's and draftee's chuckle that would clearly signify that I was with him and everyone else in the car, against no one.

 

"I mean it," the Matron of Honor said. "Just two minutes - that's all, brother. Oh, if I could just get my two little hands -"

 

"All right, now, take it easy, take it easy," her husband said, still with apparently inexhaustible resources of connubial good humor. "Just take it easy. You'll last longer."

 

Mrs. Silsburn faced around toward the back of the car again, and favored the Matron of Honor with an all but canonized smile. "Did anyone see any of his people at the wedding?" she inquired softly, with just a little emphasis - no more than perfectly genteel - on the personal pronoun.

 

The Matron of Honor's answer came with toxic volume: "No. They're all out on the West Coast or someplace. I just wish I had."

 

Her husband's chuckle sounded again. "What wouldja done if you had, honey?" he asked - and winked indiscriminately at me.

 

"Well, I don't know, but I'd've done something," said the Matron of Honor. The chuckle at her left expanded in volume. "Well, I would have!" she insisted. "I'd've said something to them. I mean. My gosh." She spoke with increasing aplomb, as though perceiving that, cued by her husband, the rest of us within earshot were finding something attractively forthright - spunky - about her sense of justice, however youthful or impractical it might be. "I don't know what I'd have said to them. I probably would have just blabbered something idiotic. But my gosh. Honestly! I just can't stand to see somebody get away with absolute murder. It makes my blood boil." She suspended animation just long enough to be bolstered by a look of simulated empathy from Mrs. Silsburn. Mrs. Silsburn and I were now turned completely, supersociably, around in our jump seats. "I mean it," the Matron of Honor said. "You can't just barge through life hurting people's feelings whenever you feel like it."

 

"I'm afraid I know very little about the young man," Mrs. Silsburn said, softly. "As a matter of fact, I haven't even met him. The first I'd heard that Muriel was even engaged -"

 

"Nobody's met him," the Matron of Honor said, rather explosively. "I haven't even met him. We had two rehearsals, and both times Muriel's poor father had to take his place, just because his crazy plane couldn't take off. he was supposed to get a hop here last Tuesday night in some crazy Army plane, but it was snowing or something crazy in Colorado, or Arizona, or one of those crazy places, and he didn't get in till one o'clock in the morning, last night. Then - at that insane hour - he calls Muriel on the phone from way out in Long Island or someplace and asks her to meet him in the lobby of some horrible hotel so they can talk." The Matron of Honor shuddered eloquently. "And you know Muriel. She's just darling enought o let anybody and his brother push her around. That's what gripes me. It's always those kind of people that get hurt in the end ... Anyway, so she gets dressed and gets in a cab and sits in some horrible lobby talking with him till quarter to five in the morning." The Matron of Honor released her grip on her gardenia bouquet long enough to raise two clenched fists above her lap. "Ooo, it makes me so mad!" she said.

 

"What hotel?" I asked the Matron of Honor. "Do you know?" I tried to make my voice sound casual, as though, possibly, my father might be in the hotel business and I took a certain understandable filial interest in where people stopped in New York. In reality, my question meant almost nothing. I was just thinking aloud, more or less. I'd been interested in the fact that my brother had asked his fiancee to meet him in a hotel lobby, rather than at his empty, available apartment. The morality of the invitation was by no means out of character, but it interested me, mildly, nonetheless.

 

"I don't know which hotel," the Matron of Honor said irritably. "Just some hotel." She stared at me. "Why?" she demanded. "Are you a friend of his?"

 

There was something distinctly intimidating about her stare. It seemed to come from a one-woman mob, separated only by time and chance from her knitting bag and a splendid view of the guillotine. I've been terrified of mobs, of any kind, all my life. "We were boys together," I answered, all but unintelligibly.

 

"Well, lucky you!"

 

"Now, now," said her husband.

 

"Well, I'm sorry," the Matron of Honor said to him, but addressing all of us. "But you haven't been in a room watching that poor kid cry her eyes out for a solid hour. It's not funny - and don't you forget it. I've heard about grooms getting cold feet, and all that. But you don't do it at the last minute. I mean you don't do it so that you'll embarrass a lot of perfectly nice people half to death and almost break a kid's spirit and everything! If he'd changed his mind, why didn't he write to her and at least break it off like a gentleman, for goodness' sake? Before all the damage was done."

 

"All right, take it easy, just take it easy," her husband said. His chuckle was still there, but it was sounding a trifle strained.

 

"Well, I mean it! Why couldn't he write to her and just tell her, like a man, and prevent all this tragedy and everything?" She looked at me, abruptly. "Do you have any idea where he is, by any chance?" she demanded, with metal in her voice. "If you have boyhood friends, you should have some -"

 

"I just got into New York about two hours ago," I said nervously. Not only the Matron of Honor but her husband and Mrs. Silsburn as well were now staring at me. "So far, I haven't even had a chance to get to a phone." At that point, as I remember, I had a coughing spell. It was genuine enough, but I must say I did very little to suppress it or shorten its duration.

 

"You had that cough looked at, soldier?" the Lieutenant asked me when I'd come out of it.

 

At that instant, I had another coughing spell - a perfectly genuine one, oddly enough. I was still turned a sort of half or quarter right in my jump seat, with my body averted just enough toward the front of the car to be able to cough with all due hygienic propriety.

 

—excerpt from J.D. Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

  

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John Coltrane—"I Want To Talk About You" (1962)

Nearly everyone has had headache pain, and most of us have had it many times. A minor headache is little more than a nuisance that's relieved by an over-the-counter pain reliever, some food or coffee, or a short rest. But if your headache is severe or unusual, you might worry about stroke, a tumor, or a blood clot. Fortunately, such problems are rare. Still, you should know when a headache needs urgent care and how to control the vast majority of headaches that are not threatening to your health.

 

What causes headaches?

 

Doctors don't fully understand what causes most headaches. They do know that the brain tissue and the skull are never responsible since they don't have nerves that register pain. But the blood vessels in the head and neck can signal pain, as can the tissues that surround the brain and some major nerves that originate in the brain. The scalp, sinuses, teeth, and muscles and joints of the neck can also cause head pain.

 

When to worry about a headache

 

You can take care of many types of headaches by yourself, and your doctor can give you medication to control most of the tougher headaches. But some headaches call for prompt medical care. Here are some warning signs for when you should worry about headaches:

 

Headaches that first develop after age 50

A major change in the pattern of your headaches

An unusually severe headache

Head pain that increases with coughing or movement

Headaches that get steadily worse

Changes in personality or mental function

Headaches that are accompanied by fever, stiff neck, confusion, decreased alertness or memory, or neurological symptoms such as visual disturbances, slurred speech, weakness, numbness, or seizures

Headaches that are accompanied by a painful red eye

Headaches that are accompanied by pain and tenderness near the temples

Headaches after a blow to the head

Headaches that prevent normal daily activities

Headaches that come on abruptly, especially if they wake you up

Headaches in patients with cancer or impaired immune systems

Types of headaches

 

There are more than 300 types of headaches, but only about 10% of headaches have a known cause. The others are called primary headaches. Here is a rundown on some major primary headaches.

 

Tension headaches

 

Occurring in about three of every four adults, tension headaches are the most common of all headaches. In most cases, they are mild to moderate in severity and occur infrequently. But a few people get severe tension headaches, and some are troubled by them for three or four times a week.

 

The typical tension headache produces a dull, squeezing pain on both sides of the head. People with strong tension headaches may feel like their head is in a vise. The shoulders and neck can also ache. Some tension headaches are triggered by fatigue, emotional stress, or problems involving the muscles or joints of the neck or jaw. Most last for 20 minutes to two hours.

 

If you get occasional tension-type headaches, you can take care of them yourself. Over-the-counter pain relievers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol, other brands) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, naproxen (Aleve, other brands), or ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil, other brands) often do the trick, but follow the directions on the label, and never take more than you should. A heating pad or warm shower may help; some people feel better with a short nap or light snack.

 

You can live free of headache pain!

Check out Harvard Medical School 's guide to relieving and preventing migraines and other headaches

Click here to learn more

 

If you get frequent tension-type headaches, try to identify triggers so you can avoid them. Don't get overtired or skip meals. Learn relaxation techniques; yoga is particularly helpful because it can relax both your mind and your neck muscles. If you clench your jaw or grind your teeth at night, a bite plate may help.

 

If you need more help, your doctor may prescribe a stronger pain medication or a muscle relaxant to control headache pain. Many people with recurrent tension-type headaches can prevent attacks by taking a tricyclic antidepressant such as amitriptyline (Elavil, generic). Fortunately, most people with tension-type headaches will do very well with simpler programs.

 

Migraine

 

Migraines occur less often than tension headaches, but they are usually much more severe. They are two to three times more common in women than men, but that's small consolation if you are among the 6% to 8% of all men who have migraines. And since a Harvard study of 20,084 men age 40 to 84 reported that having migraines boosts the risk of heart attacks by 42%, men with migraines should take their headaches to heart.

 

Neurologists believe that migraines are caused by changes in the brain's blood flow and nerve cell activity. Genetics play a role since 70% of migraine victims have at least one close relative with the problem.

 

Migraine triggers. Although a migraine can come on without warning, it is often set off by a trigger. The things that set off a migraine vary from person to person, but a migraine sufferer usually remains sensitive to the same triggers. The table lists some of the most common ones.

 

Major migraine triggers

 

Changing weather: rising humidity, heat

Lack of sleep or oversleeping

Fatigue

Emotional stress

Sensory triggers: bright or flickering lights, loud noises, strong smells

Dietary triggers:

missing a meal

alcohol, especially red wine

chocolate

nitrates in cured meats and fish

aged cheese

an increase or decrease in caffeine

MSG (often present in Asian and prepared foods)

Migraine symptoms. Migraines often begin in the evening or during sleep. In some people, the attacks are preceded by several hours of fatigue, depression, and sluggishness or by irritability and restlessness. Because migraine symptoms vary widely, at least half of all migraine sufferers think they have sinus or tension headaches, not migraines.

 

About 20% of migraines begin with one or more neurological symptoms called an aura. Visual complaints are most common. They may include halos, sparkles or flashing lights, wavy lines, and even temporary loss of vision. The aura may also produce numbness or tingling on one side of the body, especially the face or hand. Some patients develop aura symptoms without getting headaches; they often think they are having a stroke, not a migraine.

 

The majority of migraines develop without an aura. In typical cases, the pain is on one side of the head, often beginning around the eye and temple before spreading to the back of the head. The pain is frequently severe and is described as throbbing or pulsating. Nausea is common, and many migraine patients have a watering eye, a running nose, or congestion. If these symptoms are prominent, they may lead to a misdiagnosis of sinus headaches. One way to remember the features of migraine is to use the word POUND

 

P is for pulsating pain

O for one-day duration of severe untreated attacks

U for unilateral (one-sided) pain

N for nausea and vomiting

D for disabling intensity.

 

Without effective treatment, migraine attacks usually last for four to 24 hours. When you're suffering a migraine, even four hours is far too long — and that's why early treatment for a migraine is so important.

 

Migraine treatment. If you spot a migraine in its very earliest stages, you may be able to control it with nonprescription pain relievers. Acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, and a combination of pain medications and caffeine are all effective — if you take a full dose very early in the attack. The anti-nausea drug metoclopramide (Reglan) may enhance the activity of NSAIDs.

 

When prescription drugs are needed, most doctors turn to the triptans, which are available as tablets, nasal sprays, or as injections that patients can learn to give to themselves. Examples include sumatriptan (Imitrex), zolmitriptan (Zomig), and rizatriptan (Maxalt). Triptans provide complete relief within two hours for up to 70% of patients; the response is best if treatment is started early. Some patients require a second dose within 12 to 24 hours. Because the triptans can affect blood flow to the heart as well as the head, patients with cardiovascular disease should not use them. Patients who take antidepressants in the SSRI family should also avoid triptans.

 

Work with your doctor to find the migraine treatment that works best for you. Remember, though, that overuse can lead to rebound headaches and a vicious cycle of drugs and headaches. So, if you need treatment more than two or three times a week, consider preventive medications.

 

Migraine prevention. Some people can prevent migraines simply by avoiding triggers. Others do well with prompt therapy for occasional attacks. But patients who suffer frequent migraine attacks often benefit from preventive medications. Effective prescription drugs include beta blockers (such as propranolol, nadolol and atenolol), certain antidepressants (such as amitriptyline), and certain antiseizure medications (such topiramate and valproate). Difficult cases may benefit from referral to a headache specialist.

 

Cluster headaches

 

Cluster headaches are uncommon but very severe headaches, and they occur five times more often in men than women. Although anyone can get cluster headaches, the typical patient is a middle-aged man with a history of smoking.

 

The problem gets its name because the headaches tend to come in clusters, with one to eight headaches a day during a one- to three-month period every year or two, often at the same time of year. The pain always strikes one side of the head and is very severe. The eye on the painful side is red and watery, the eyelid may droop, and the nose runs or is blocked. The attack starts abruptly and lasts for 30 to 60 minutes. Most sufferers become restless and agitated during the attack; unable to sit still, they pace, jog in place, or beat their head against a wall. Nausea and sensitivity to light and sound may accompany the pain.

 

Inhaling high flow oxygen soon after the onset of the headache can often stop the attack. Sumatriptan is often effective for cluster headaches, particularly when given by injection. Other triptans may also help. Some patients favor lidocaine nose drops, dihydroergotamine injections, or other treatments. The most effective medication for preventing cluster headache attacks is verapamil, a calcium-channel blocker. Other drugs that may help include divalproex, topiramate, and lithium.

 

Other types of headaches

 

Doctors have diagnosed hundreds of conditions associated with headaches. Here are just a few:

 

Medication headaches. Many drugs number headaches among their side effects. And although it seems paradoxical, many medications used to treat headaches can also cause medication overuse headaches or rebound headaches. Migraine sufferers are particularly vulnerable to a vicious cycle of pain leading to more medication, which triggers more pain. If you have frequent headaches and use medication, OTC or prescription, or both, for more than 10 to 15 days a month, you may have medication overuse headaches. The way to find out is to discontinue or taper your medication — but always consult your doctor first. A corticosteroid such as prednisone may help control pain during the withdrawal period.

 

Sinus headaches. Acute sinusitis causes pain over the forehead, around the nose and eyes, over the cheeks, or in the upper teeth. Stooping forward increases the pain. Thick nasal discharge, congestion, and fever pinpoint the problem to the sinuses. When the acute infection resolves, the pain disappears. Sinusitis is not a common cause of chronic or recurrent headaches.

 

Ice cream headaches. Some people develop sharp, sudden headache pain when they eat anything cold. The pain is over in less than a minute, even if you keep eating. If you are bothered by ice cream headaches, try eating slowly and warming the cold food at the front of your mouth before you swallow it.

 

Headache from high blood pressure. Except in cases of very high blood pressure, hypertension does not cause headaches. In fact, most people with high blood pressure don't[h1] have any symptoms at all, and a study of 51,234 people reported that hypertension was associated with a reduced incidence of headaches. But that's no reason to neglect your blood pressure. Hypertension leads to strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, and kidney disease, so all men should have their pressure checked, and then take steps to correct abnormalities.

 

Headache from exercise and sex. Sudden, strenuous exercise can bring on a headache. Gradual warm-ups or treatment with an anti-inflammatory medication before exercise can help. Sexual intercourse may also trigger headaches; some men note only dull pain, but others suffer from severe attacks called orgasmic headaches. Some people can prevent orgasmic headaches by taking an NSAID 30 to 60 minutes before intercourse.

 

Headache testing

 

Modern medicine depends on tests to diagnose many problems. For most headaches, though, a good old-fashioned history and physical will do the job. In fact, CT scans, MRIs, and EEGs (brain wave tests) look normal in tension-type headaches, migraines, and cluster headaches. Still, these tests can be vital in patients with warning signs or other worrisome headaches.

 

Living with constant headaches

 

For most of us, an occasional headache is nothing more than a temporary speed bump in the course of a busy day. Even so, most men can ease the problem with simple lifestyle measures and nonprescription medications. Relaxation techniques, biofeedback, yoga, and acupuncture may also help. But for some of us, headaches are a big problem. Learn to recognize warning signs that call for prompt medical care. Work with your doctor to develop a program to prevent and treat migraines and other serious headaches. And don't fall into the trap of overusing medications; for some gents, rebound headaches are the biggest pain of all.

  

As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

 

www.health.harvard.edu/pain/headache-when-to-worry-what-t...

Here a small bee fly is stealing pollen direct from the Stylidium lateriticola flower 'trigger' or column. The fly has landed without setting off the trigger. On other flower visits it has set off the irritable trigger which has patted pollen onto its back. This allows the pollen to be transferred from one flower to the other.

 

inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/170078675

What is going on inside my head?

 

"Why are all of these thoughts disturbing me.... why can't I just rip it out of my brain. God, I'm ugly, I'm fat... no one likes me... my mother hates me... I can't seem to find anything to be happy about. Fucken homework, stupid school uniforms... my Math teacher is alwasy on my ass. My friends don't understand me... my brain is working overtime. I can't stop, I can't stop letting this all chew away."

 

"I hate being a teen."

   

So many teens today & even back in our day, suffer from Teen Depression. You would think it is a passing phase & they will grow out of it once adulthood approaches, but the truth is that if it is left unsettled, that tired teen can become a dangerous adult, for himself or for society. Teens have less capacity to deal with their emotions rationally. Whereas we think we have a hard time as adults, it is much worse for them. Teens have so much to think about, and no matter how minor it seems in comparison to making your mortgage payment or signing a new client contract, teens thoughts and worries become them.

 

We often tag children who cut themselves as "Emo", or that fucked up kid. Well, that kid is in fact fucked up & needs your help. The last thing a child needs is a judgemental sticker on their forehead. Teen suicide often begins with "simple" mutilation. Mutilition derives from feeling misundertood, lack of trust, lack of confidence, lack of family & social support, media playings of what a girl or boy should look like.

 

Being an angry teen takes away all the fun of childhood. If you know any teens that are angry........... try not to pep talk them... it won't work, but just try to make them smile as much as possible, and make sure someone close to them knows what is going on.

 

Something I am learning as a parent, and also being an angry teen myself, is to just listen. It is always easy. Sometimes their, what seem to be boring & useless details in their conversation, become lengthy & all you can think of is getting supper done on time. My daughter, not so much an angry teen, (these pictures are for fun), although she definitely can have her occasional outburst, she still has worries & friends who piss her off. I certainly get on her nerves, more often than not. But the fact that I am aware, helps me help her in her devolopement into adulhood. I try to remember what it was like, as much as possible, I try to level with her. I think in general she appreciates me. She is a "happy" girl, in "general". She understands that being angry isn't worth it... and she understands that depression is something serious, she understands that mutilation is not cool nor necessary... and she understands that she can talk to me about these issues if ever they derive inside her.

    

Don't be ignorant... see the signs of teen depression:

 

Sad or irritable mood

Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed

Large changes in appetite or weight

Difficulty sleeping or oversleeping

Slow or agitated movement

Loss of energy

Feelings of worthlessness or guilt

Difficulty concentrating

Frequent thoughts of death or suicide

Frequent headaches, muscle aches, stomach aches or tiredness, without a medical cause

Frequent absences from school or poor performance in school

Talk of or efforts to run away from home

Being bored, sulking

Lack of interest in spending time with friends or family

Alcohol or substance abuse

Social isolation, poor communication

Fear of death

Extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure

Increased irritability, anger, hostility, or crying

Reckless behavior

Neglect of clothes and appearance

Difficulty with relationships

Changes in mood

This guy is standing so that the fish cannot see his face. Fish don't like being stared at, eyeball to eyeball. Also, he is careful not to throw anything non-food into the water. Fish make a dart at anything above them and get irritable if it ain't food. And fish do gossip a lot among themselves. Wish him luck - the fisherman, not the fish!

He also looks smart…..fish probably like the look of him!

here is a quick poopy photo from an irritable day. I feel like today was waste and could have been way better if I didn't has to live on other people scheduales. Aside from that the little photo shoot I went on today was a bust. But I think I'm finally motivated enough to do a 365. I've been thinking about today one for a solid 3-4 years now... we'll see. On top of all this informal junk I finished my first week at uni and that was really good. It just felt right.

The Hearty Party was supposed to be a fun dance for her and Nate. It was supposed to be a night to dance away just like the dances before. It was supposed to be a happy wonderful day.

 

But life had other decisions.

 

Due to the full moon coming up, Abigail was feeling tired and irritable while also feeling that slight ever present pain. If it were any other week, she would only have been slightly miffed by people trying to help her. This was not one of those weeks and her classmate's worries - though most do not know - grated on her. She tried to dance it off with her boyfriend, but with the chaos surrounding them due to Jeeve's high-jinxes, all the stress just crashed down on her. Walking out of the ball, she and Nate went to just have a quiet time in the Room of Requirement, just talking to hopefully distract the second year. But the stress claimed both of them as their eyes drooped.

 

Instead of dancing the night away like previously, they both ended up sleeping the night away.

and i don't feel the same.

 

i've been TAGGED. by flickr.com/people/25897487@N08/

check out her awesome photostream.

 

1. i have this irrational fear of halloween's "michael myers"

2. i'm very irritable in the morning according to parents/friends, but i can never remember being that way.

3. i hate when people use any form of this greeting: "hey kid". i'm only annoyed

if they are younger or insignificantly older than me. doesn't bother me if it comes

from someone who is much older than me.

4. i hate MTV, and i don't know why. i used to watch it, but now i just stick to

discovery, national geographic, and the history channel.

5. i workout religiously...except lately, but i'm getting back on the wheel.

6. i love sarcasm, but not the venomous kind. i prefer it to be comical rather than rude.

7. i love the disney animated classics such as: hercules, the fox and the hound, the lion king, etc. d:

8. i have the cleanest, most organized computer...but i couldn't say the same about my room.

9. i come from a family that likes to hunt. however, i find the killing of four-legged animals the least entertaining or pleasurable thing to do.

10. i hate traditions and the feeling of being confined by them. i love to break them.

11. i have ADD or uhm, ADHD. whichever the one is where you can't focus in school and tend to be easily distracted by dust particles(iotas) floating in the air. i'm not on meds though, my mom thinks they will cause negative side effects on me.

12. irrational fear #2: i don't like swimming in the deep end of pools because i feel like at any given moment a great white shark can magically appear and drag me under.

13. when i go to use the restroom, i have to pull open the shower curtain to make sure dead people aren't lying in the tub.

14. i feel like insects/arachnids watch me, so i try not to annoy them. they may recruit their flock/militia on me, and do something to me in my sleep.

15. i fall off my bed...more times than reasonable in a single week.

16. i refuse to eat deer meat. the smell is putrid. (yes, i smell things before i eat them)