Good Morning!
Fish. It’s what’s for dinner.
It’s cold and rainy in the Northeast. So think sunny and warm. This pick from Michelle will help.
On this day in 1861 the inventor of basketball, James Naismith, was born.
In 1894 William C. Hooker received a patent for the mousetrap.
In 1935 Edwin H. Armstrong announced his development of FM broadcasting.
And in 1967 Phil Donahue began a TV talk show in Dayton, OH. The show then continued to be on the air for 29 years.
______________________________________________
Quote of the Day
“Any composer who is gloriously conscious that he is a composer must believe that he receives his inspiration from a source higher than himself.”
“Sincere composers believe in God.”
John Philip Sousa
______________________________________________
Today is Ignacy Paderewski’s birthday.
And it’s John Philip Sousa’s too.
______________________________________________
Wandering Views 
Good morning everyone.
LikeLike
Poor fish!
Nobody cares about the fish.
LikeLike
Well Chas, if they wanted us to care, then they should have been cute and fuzzy. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
I had fish for dinner last night!
The birds, at least some of them, know what makes a good dinner. I won’t dine with the birds that stick with worms, grubs, as flying insects for a meal.
🙂 I have left over salmon patties for today, too!
LikeLike
as= or
Prayed over the gremlins already today. We are suppose to pray for our enemies rather than curse them.
How often do you pray for your enemies? Who do you consider to be your enemy? Does everyone have enemies or do some people manage to not have any enemies?
LikeLike
I don’t have any enemies that I know of.
I never have had enemies.
There were people I have tried to avoid and not let into my life because they created a bad attitude in me. I chalked it up to my problem of bad attitude.
I do have enemies who are not personal. You see them mentioned on TV often.
I don’t interact with any of them.
A curious thing in my life. Remember, the following was before social media.
It is said that people wonder what others are saying about them behind their backs.
It never occurred to me that someone would talk about me behind my back.
I never considered that anyone would think about me, unless I was personally connected to that person.(friend, girl friend).
People were thinking about themselves, not me.
I didn’t spend much time thinking about them, unless I was personally affected.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we all have enemies on some level, maybe not personal, like you said, Chas, but certainly there are radical Muslims who are our enemies because we are Christian. I don’t think I remember to pray enough for those Muslims.
I know some people who have a terrible time getting along with family members, usually the problem escalates when a death occurs in the family and there are disputes over property or money. Those siblings can act like enemies to each other.
Those who perpetrate fraud against the vulnerable are our enemies often without our knowing it. All the scams that try to deceive and take advantage of individuals or institutions, IMO, are instigated by enemies.
LikeLike
When I was in my twenties I had a boss, also in his twenties, who was a meanie at times. He was always thinking people were talking about him behind his back, and I admit to doing that, just as I am now, because of his overt meaness. Well, one day he came into my office where I was talking to two other ladies. He asked what we were talking about and I could not keep myself from blurting out, “Our periods.” I think that helped cure him of his curiosity and thinking people were discussing him.
I would not be inclined to think that people talk about me behind my back except that sometimes my ears itch and that’s a sure sign unless I have picked up ear mites from Bosley. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Our pastor talked about election/predestination a bit last night.
People worry about the heavy issues of the Bible.
I wonder about trivial things, like, “How did the Samaritan woman in John 4:9 know that Jesus was a Jew?” Did they wear some identifying garment?
LikeLike
Chas, I would assume he had typical Jewish facial features.
LikeLike
Janice, what does a Jew look like?
Along the lines of my grandmother saying that “a dog that will bring a bone will tote a bone”, meaning that if someone brings you gossip about another person they are going back to someone gossiping about you. I have always figured that people who are worried about others talking about them are talking about others…although there have been times in my life I felt others were talking about me and I was right.
Recently we did some anonymous surveys among the agents. Apparently I am un-approachable and sometimes rude. I don’t speak unless I am spoken to. I am not very helpful and the agents don’t know what I do and someone else could do my job. Sometimes it really doesn’t pay to know what others are saying about you.
I am being extremely sensitive right now and I wish I weren’t. I think most of it comes from “burning the candle at both ends” this week. I put my heart into making Thanksgiving at work as close to what everyone would have gotten if I had had them in my home. On the one hand I did it because it makes me happy to do it, but it sure did sting with two other people got thanked for what I did.
I am off to Biloxi this afternoon. Staying at one of the casinos, but don’t worry about me–the quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your pocket. Tomorrow I will be in New Orleans for the day. It will be a long one.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow, AJ, that’s an incredible shot! Just where did you go in Florida? (I’ve never been there, but my husband has lived there a couple of times and he wants to take me someday. I’d like to see the parts of Florida with birds–I know the Everglades are one such place, but I have no idea whether it would be practical for us to go there. I care nothing about alligators.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kim, not all Jews look the same. But there are some distinguishing features among many I have known beginning with the ones who attended my schools early on. They tend to have dark curly hair, a prominent nose, and eyes that are set in a particular way. I find their looks attractive, in general, and distinctive. As a person dealing with the public, I would imagine you have noticed this, but perhaps your area does not have much of a Jewish population.
LikeLike
Samaritans would likely have Jewish features, whatever they were.
LikeLike
You are right, Chas. I guess when I was young and in the south I did not see many people who were from Middle Eastern backgrounds. Therefore, the Jewish people I knew back when young seemed to look different from the typical southerner. Now Atlanta is a melting pot, and I am more the one who looks different from the others when out and about.
LikeLike
Interesting piece from a Jewish perspective on looking Jewish:
http://everything2.com/title/looking+Jewish
LikeLike
The Jewish people are God’s chosen people, so I think of looking Jewish as a good thing. I hope no one thought I meant it in a negative way. My thoughts on that have been with me since being a child making observations of differences in the looks of my classmates.
LikeLike
Great shot. I suspect that Chas feels bad for the fish because he’s got a pet rock and likes the underdog, including nontraditional pets. But I kind of feel for the fish, too. It’s gotta be a shock to get plucked away like that.
We had an alligator in our local LA city park some years ago. I still remember getting the call from the city councilwoman’s office, saying, hey, there seems to be an alligator in the lake, you might want to check it out.
Sure enough. It was dusk when a photographer and I stopped by to check it out. Several park & animal control employees (holding nets on dog-catcher poles, the only equipment they could come up with) and the councilwoman w/staff stood perplexed on the banks of the city lake filled with runoff water, all watching the 6-foot long reptile swimming back and forth in a perfect scene out of some wildlife program.
No one really knew how to catch an alligator, though. So mostly everyone just watched, feeling quite helpless.
This was Los Angeles, after all. Alligators are hardly native to this area.
It took more than a year to catch him. The city paid to bring in professional alligator wranglers from Florida & Louisiana — and even (briefly) hired some guy named TBone who had been evacuated from Katrina and had very few teeth who claimed he’d catch him. That ended when authorities from New Orleans found him, he apparently was wanted for a few things back home and was extradited forthwith.
Spectators lined up nightly on the shoreline to watch the summer entertainment, many bringing their beach chairs & cameras. Spanish-speaking entrepeneurs with little push carts found a lucrative business in selling ice cream and alligator hats and T-shirts.
But no one was around to see it when a city employee with the zoo managed to nab the gator one quiet afternoon when the gator crawled up onto the shore to sunbathe. The animal, it turned out, had been dumped in the lake by a former LAPD cop who bought him and decided he’d become too big to keep as a pet.
Now he’s at the LA Zoo. The alligator, not the ex cop. I think he had to pay a pretty hefty fine, though.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Janice, the Samaritans were half-Jewish, and I doubt they really looked different in terms of facial features and what have you. She might well have heard of Jesus and knew He was Jewish, but very likely He also had Jewish mannerisms, dress, etc. When I lived in Chicago, the black people of the West Side could easily tell blacks from the South Side, and I can imagine Jews and Samaritans could just as easily tell one another apart.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Janice, my nephew has a friend that BG has been “in luv with” since she could talk. She has even yelled across restaurants, “Mommy, look! It’s red-headed Alex”. Alas, the 12 year age difference breaks my heart, because he is a fine young man.
He has pale skin, red hair, and blue eyes and is well over 6 feet tall. He, for many years celebrated Easter and Christmas with us and my nephew celebrated Passover and Hannuka (sp?) with Alex’s family.
Mobile, being a port city has people of all ethnic backgrounds. One of the most prominent families that produced many attorneys and judges are Lebanese. There is a very large Greek community. One Greek friend is more “Middle Eastern” looking and the other is a blue eyed blonde.
These are just my experiences. Oh and I forgot the absolutely GORGEOUS black woman who lives in my town with green eyes.
My grandmother looked distinctly German, but her full sister looked Native American Indian.
Genes are funny things aren’t they?
Me? I look like a typical Southern/Scotch/Irish Mutt
LikeLiked by 2 people
Donna, I read your alligator story aloud to my husband–great story. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I went to college with a Jewish man who had a very distinctly un-Jewish nose. I happened to be there one time when he told the story of “how he got his nose.”
It seems that as a teen and young man he was quite a roughneck. Had his nose broken several times in various fights. Finally he needed major reconstructive surgery.
Among the steps of preparation for surgery, he was given a catalog with all the different shapes of noses the plastic surgeon could give him, and told to choose one. So he went through it, deliberated, and chose his own nose.
I also know a woman who is half Jewish, half black. Very tall, dark, ethnicity completely uncertain when you look at her. She married a reddish-brown-haired white man, and together they had one child: a little girl who was a blue-eyed blonde. (I think as she approached adolescence her hair darkened, but as a pre-schooler she was a very pale blonde.) My own brilliantly red-headed mother married a fellow Scott with just a hint of American Indian blood, and one of my brothers was born with Dad’s black hair and brown eyes . . . Mom was told that only American Indians are born with brown eyes, but my only brown-eyed brother was. Born to a pale blue-eyed redhead, but born with brown eyes.
LikeLike
🙂 The gator (which was named Reggie, BTW) was one of the more entertaining and longest-running stories I’ve covered over the years.
And the gator wranglers were fascinating, even though none of them ever caught the animal. One crew from a gator theme park in Florida left quite angry with the council office after they were bumped to make way for the Katrina evacuee. They called me from the airport on their way home after they’d had a few drinks to vent about LA politicians. 🙂 Good stuff, great quotes.
Today it’s back to the school controversy/uproar I’ve been covering with the 2nd of 3-in-a-row public meetings I’ll probably have to go to. I filed late last night after a 4-hour board meeting, but they did have wifi in the meeting room so I was able to just set up the laptop & write from there.
Meanwhile, I got the call back I’d been hoping for yesterday from Louie Z’s son — and the film producer said I could call him today, so the two “Zamp” Rose Parade stories should (hopefully) get done by the end of this week, only a day past the early deadline they originally gave me.
I always make deadline, but this has been an impossible couple of weeks with so many dailies to do on top of the special project assignments they’ve been throwing at us lately.
I got up still really tired this morning. 😦 I need a break. Soon.
LikeLike
That’s a shocking picture when it opens full screen on your desktop computer. I actually pushed my chair back in surprise!
The palm trees are along the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica. These are the types of trees Donna has to live with all the time.:-)
When they’re growing in your yard, it’s like having a telephone pole since all the fronds are up high. 🙂
In Hawai’i, though, as I’ve mentioned before, all the Navy wives would gather to watch the native men climb the trees barefooted to knock down the coconuts. They usually wore short skirts . . .
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cheryl,
Orlando/Buena Vista/Disney area. Lakes and ponds everywhere, very few gators. They don’t tolerate them because of the tourists. If one is spotted, they are removed quickly to Everglade locations. 🙂
The birds are everywhere too. Most of the ones I shot were in the lake next to our hotel.
LikeLike
Enemies?
I have a list… 🙂
Doesn’t everybody? 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, michelle’s photo looks very familiar …
LikeLike
Timely QoD. Not exactly enemies, but there were a few people at work who were quite difficult to get along with. We had a “house cleaning” yesterday and five were let go. I am very sorry for anyone who loses his job but not sorry to see any of these working elsewhere.
LikeLike
Well, I’m not saying it would be horrid seeing a gator in the wild, just that I have no special wish to do so. Sharks and gators don’t really interest me, even in the zoo. I’m OK with nearly all spiders and generally with snakes (I grew up watching for rattlesnakes when I walked, to make sure I never stepped on one), but the water-based predators are more creepy than interesting to me. Well, I like the mammalian predators, particularly sea otters, but somehow they don’t seem in the same category!
If I were going to the Everglades, then “distant view of alligator” might be on my list of sights I wanted to see, but it wouldn’t be in my top ten.
LikeLike
Chas, I care very deeply about fish. So much so, that I eat fresh fish whenever I get a chance. When I visited family in Nova Scotia, I feasted on seafood. I love fish! 😆
Re – Jewish appearance: My Jewish uncle was redheaded. He was a very handsome man, and didn’t really look ‘Jewish’, but one of his sons ended up with the ‘Jewish’ nose. Not that I think the nose is ugly – I think it can be rather attractive, depending on the face. BTW, Kim, my Jewish uncle was 19 years older than my aunt, so I don’t think 13 years is too much of an age gap. They had a very happy marriage – he was one of the saintliest men I have ever met – and the only sad thing was when he died in his 70s, my aunt was a relatively young widow in her 50s.
LikeLike
My father-in-law, a true Renaissance man, was a self-taught pianist and loved Chopin. He didn’t play this well, but it was always so poignant to lie awake at night and hear him playing the grand piano late into the night. I miss him.
My Chopin playing days . . . are probably over. That music is tough!
LikeLike
Janice’s QoD: I don’t think I have any personal enemies. I have encountered a few nurses who were nasty to me, but I think they would have been that way to any young student. I generally pray for those who oppose my convictions and faith. It sometimes makes me angry to see how Christians are slandered, but then I remind myself that is what we are to expect. I do not need to fear those that can kill the body, but not destroy the soul. Fear is what often generates hate, and the remembrance of the security I have in the Lord, helps me not fear or hate those who would oppose Him.
LikeLike
Heads up! Free for Kindle today:
Billy Graham: Candid Conversations with a Public Man by David Frost at Amazon and Bookshout.
LikeLike
I agree with what Chas said earlier about avoiding some people, but I feel it is more their attitude than mine that causes a problem. 🙂
I have found that a few disagreeable people with whom I have worked without a way to avoid them have generally turned their original bad attitude around and have shown appreciation of me. I am thinking that could happen to Kim, too. Sometimes people feel threatened by other people when they first work with them because of skill level or education level. It can take awhile before people see the goodness of the person behind the skills and education.
LikeLike
I just heard from my friend, Karen. Her hand and arm are swollen much as my husband’s was, and she is having terrible pain. This is after being in rehab for knee surgery. I told her that it was a week after my husband and I visited her in the rehab center that his arm had flared up. She is getting cultures done now. She can’t do physical therapy for her knee now because of this new affliction. 😦 I almost did not tell her that I thought it could have come from the rehab center. Her husband is a doctor and said just because her symptoms are similar to Art’s that it does not mean it is MRSA. I hope it isn’t. But then again, I hope it is not some new unknown thing that they just haven’t labeled yet.
LikeLike
Love the Sousa quote, Aj. I knew I liked his music.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheryl, your story of the reconstructed nose reminded me of when in high school a friend’s sister was in a horrible auto accident that killed her husband. They were in a small car that jammed into the back end of a tractor trailer truck. My friend had to go see the plastic surgeon so he could use her nose as a model to reconstruct her sister’s nose.
LikeLike
I have had a couple of people I’ve worked with who could count as “enemies” because of the way they treated me. One was consistently rude, and one annoying little habit she had was talking about me to other people a few yards away from me without using my name. For example, we had a work potluck and I signed up to take salad. A day or two later I overheard her saying to someone else (obviously for my benefit), “We ought to make a ‘rule’ that anyone who brings salad has to bring dressing, too, so someone doesn’t just bring lettuce and call it a salad.” I checked the sign-up list later, and sure enough, I was the only one on the sheet who had signed up to take salad. (The salad I was making, however, was one that doesn’t use a dressing!) She made such nasty digs regularly. “Some people don’t know that . . . ” “When I did the books, it didn’t take me all day . . .” (It didn’t take me all day, either. It took me about 90 minutes.)
It bothered me initially, but eventually just started to amuse me. I hadn’t done anything to offend her; my conscience was clean. Though I had no idea why she didn’t like me, everyone else in the store did like me, and I figured it was her problem and not mine. (I did sometimes wonder if the other people caught that all those unnamed digs were about me. But again, not my problem.) I started praying for her, at least daily, and I found myself truly loving her and wanting the best for her.
Later I worked with someone who was extremely moody and hard to be around. She was cheerful and friendly to me if other people were present, but ignored me if they were not. I did see her moody with other people too, people who were actually her friends, and she said no when I asked if I had done something to offend her, so I figured it was her problem. One day I heard that her boss was moving to another building, and I rejoiced in knowing that meant she was moving too. I thought of that as an answer to a prayer I hadn’t even thought to pray.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting question. I have an enemy that will continually go after me and slander me on fb. I had no idea of the extent of the bitterness this person harbors towards me until seeingthings on fb. I have prayed for this person for years. I do realize our enemies are not ‘flesh and blood’ in the biggest sense. I know this is a spiritual battle. It is terribly hurtful, but not surprising. Jesus told us to expect it.
Because others have seen these interchanges even more people are praying for this person. For that, I am grateful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Does anyone feel like they have become an enemy by association? By that I mean that because you are friends with someone that another person takes you on as an enemy because they have been an enemy of your friend? I don’t like being put in the position of taking sides, but some people tend to force it.
LikeLike
Janice, I once had a boss caution me that a certain person wouldn’t be working for our company much longer and so it would be in my best interest not to be seen with her, or something of that sort. Well, the woman was about my same age, but she worked in a different department and I hardly knew her, so the warning wasn’t needed . . . but it almost made me want to call her up and offer to go out to lunch with her! That was simply mean-spirited gossip, and quite unnecessary. (I was glad that boss didn’t stay very long.)
LikeLike
Along those lines, Cheryl, I had a boss who was going to give a bad reference for an employee because he wanted to retain her since he liked her work. He did not want her to advance. He only wanted to selfishly meet his own needs.
LikeLike