Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Life Goes On

Indeed it does. Accordingly, here are more answers to Jeopardy! clues no one knew during my absence from Blogland:

What is lurk? What is scribble? What is New Jersey? What is hymnology? What is the Casbah? What is the Delaware River? What is Dien Bien Phu? (or, more accurately, Điện Biên Phu.)

It never stops.

For those who care, 48 years have gone by since the USA celebrated its bicentennial (200th) anniversary. In two more years, therefore, its 250th anniversary will occur. Do you know the word for that? Also, in what country is Mount Kilimanjaro? Keep reading.

The word for 250th anniversary is semiquincentennial (literally, half of 500) and Mt. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania. When one of my grandsons spent a whole summer in southern Kenya several years ago he could see Mt. Kilimanjaro every day from his front yard.

it suddenly occurs to me how well-traveled some of my family members are. They have been to Hungary, the fjords of Norway, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Guatemala, Japan, Hawaii, England, Mumbai, Dubai, Kenya, Uganda, Honduras, France, Switzerland. The list goes on and on.

I have been to Alabama several times.

I'm joking, sort of. I have set foot in 38 of our 50 states, I think, plus the District of Columbia (as in Washington, D.C.), as well as Canada (just barely), Mexico (just barely), England, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. I remember that enroute from New York City to Copenhagen, the plane flew high over a very snow-covered Scotland, but i have never had the pleasure of stepping foot thereon.

In the lull between my recuperating from having had a cataract removed from my right eye on July 8th and the excited anticipation of having a cataract removed from my left eye on July 29th, Mrs. RWP kept life exciting for us by being hospitalized/hospitalised for three days days and theee nights because of a gallstone. She came home just in time to celebrate her 89th birthday.

I'm back in Blogland for the moment, but I'm going away again. When I return, my left eye will be able to see what my right eye is already seeing. Unfortunately, I will not be flying over Scotland this time, snow-covered or otherwise.

In closing, I think I have managed to kill a hydrangea.

Not just another Saturday

Mrs. RWP and I were binge-watching a few old episodes of Rescue 911, a series from the 1980s and 1990s hosted by William Shatner of Star Trek fame, but we decided to switch over to Fox News to see if anything interesting might have happened on a sleepy summer afternoon.

Former President Donald J. Trump had just been shot in an assassination attempt at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

We were glued to our set for the next six hours.

I am going to make one statement, after which I will not say anything else of a political nature. It infuriates me that even though statements condemning the act were made by former Vice President Mike Pence; U.S. Congressman Steve Scalise (survivor of a shooting/attempted assassination); former President George W. Bush; current third-party Presidential candidate Robert F.Kennedy Jr. (whose own father was assassinated during the 1968 Presidential campaign); and former President Barack Obama, all of them were released before current President Joe Biden got around to saying anything. He also told a reporter that he didn't have enough information to say that it was an assassination attempt.

A final note: Earlier this year he supported ending Secret Service protection for former Presidents, and he prevented RFK Jr. from being provided with any.

Will wonders never cease?

Recent Jeopardy! stumpers include:

What is fondant?
What is Bewitched?
What is Bonanza?
What are the New York Mets?
What is the Atomic Energy Commission?

I'm baaaack (much sooner than I expected to be)!

One of my eyes has been successfully repaired, and it makes a world of difference. I see bright colors now instead of drab shades of grey. Most importantly, I can read text on the computer screen easily again after fearing it was going to fade away altogether. It's like being reborn. The difference is amazing.

My second eye is scheduled to be repaired on July 29th, but until then I can cope. I can do just fine. I just can't drive.

I do not have a third eye.

Not that I'm aware of.

Can you tell I'm downright giddy? You would be too if you had experienced the sudden improvement in vision that I just did on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

I will still have to be fitted for glasses for distance vision. Of the two types of lenses that could have been inserted, I chose to be able to read books, music, newspapers, hymnbooks, etc., without glasses instead of being able to see afar off. I have worn glasses since I was seven years old (except for the 40 years I wore contact lenses between 18 and 58, when I got corneal abrasions and had to stop wearing contact lenses) and it won't be a big deal to still wear glasses when I need to drive a car. I'm driving less and less these days, but I intend to be reading and doing computer work and playing music for some time yet.

This whole transitional period will take two or three months (surgically remove cataract from right eye, post-op exams, surgically remove cataract from left eye, post-op exams, being examined for new prescription for eyeglasses, waiting for new eyeglasses to be made) but I'm ecstatic.

All systems (well, some of them) are GO, and I thank you for your interest!

My dad used to say, "I see," said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

I know how that blind man felt.

A probable hiatus looms

Before I get to that, last night's triple-threat stumpers from Jeopardy! were "What is the Organization of American States?" (another mid-twentieth-century one) and "What is cloistered?"

Moving right along....

I wanted to let my vast reading audience (Hi, Emma! Hi, Janice!) know that I will probably not be posting anything on the blog for about six weeks. Removal of a cataract from my right eye (Oculus dexter) and insertion of a new lens is scheduled for Monday, July 8th. It will be blurry vision and dark glasses time for a while, and then just about the time I might be getting back to normal, the removal of a cataract from my left eye (Oculus sinister) and insertion of another new lens is scheduled for Monday, July 29th. But one never knows how one's body will respond. My getting back to normal (or whatever the new normal will be) is anybody's guess.

So I will see you when I see you, and with the new lenses and all, I really will see you.

In the meantime, keep your powder dry, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, don't take any wooden nickels, and other inappropriate expressions. What I'm really tryiing to say is:

T.T.F.N.

P.S. - A happy Fourth of July (American Independence Day) to all of you.

Some games involve thrones, real or imagined

If only I had been a contestant, some recent dead-air segments on Jeopardy! would have been filled with the correct responses of "Who is William Randolph Hearst?" and "What is a Hudson Hornet?" and "Who is Cab Calloway?" and "Who is Bob Hope?" but as some grammar-challenged wag once opined, "Them's the breaks".

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed two things. First, all of the answers the real contestants couldn't supply are decidedly mid-twentieth-century (an era with which, having lived through, I am personally acquainted). Second, I ended the first paragraph using U.K.-style punctuation, not U.S.-style puntuation (that is, the period is placed outside, not inside, the quotation mark (known as inverted commas in the U.K.).

Tonight is the long-awaited and much-anticipated debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, a first in American history, although, speaking of the mid-twentieth-century, 1968 saw a debate between Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and former Vice-President Richard Nixon. A major difference is that the 1968 participants were the nominees of their parties but the 2024 participants are only the presumed nominees, their respective parties having not yet held their nominating conventions.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to find out whether William, Prince of Wales, is King Charles III's heir-presumptive or heir-apparent, or both, and report your findings in a comment. Be sure to cite your sources, because some sources give you extra points and others cause points to be deducted. Your correspondent will decide which are which.

Parlez-vous français?

Ma petite-fille voyage en France cette semaine. Elle a vingt-quatre ans et voyage avec une amie d'école. Je ne sais pas si l'aime parle français mais ma petite-fille ne le fait pas.

How am I doing?

I took one year (two semesters) of French during my second year at university way back in 1959-60 when I was 18 and 19 (in other words, a long time ago).

So it was with a bit of fear and trembling that I took pen in hand put fingers to keyboard and wrote typed the first paragraph above, which says:

My granddaughter is traveling in France this week. She is 24 years old and traveling with a friend (female) from school. I don't know if the friend can speak French but my granddaughter does not.

Thanks to a rich and varied life I can tell my granddaughter how to say "Thank you" in Portuguese (Obrigado) or "Where could I find the men's toilet?" in Swedish (Var finnst der herrtoaletten?), but if she needs much more besides "How far is it to the train station?" in French (à quelle distance se trouve la gare?) I wouldn't be very much help.

The two friends' European trip is a gift to thenselves for having recently obtained their Master's Degrees. It will include side trips to Suisse (Switzerland) and Pays Bas (The Netherlands, literally The Low Country) before it ends in early July. I hope they have a wonderful time. I pray daily for their protection, safe travels, and safe return.

My granddaughter is 24, not 9, and she has a head on her shoulders. She may not be a little girl any more, but she will always be my petite-fille.

I see the moon, the moon sees me

Do you know how many phases of the moon there are?

Before you say "I don't know and I don't care" or embarrass yourself by guessing some wildly inaccurate number, let me tell you the answer.

There are eight.

Some of you may be thinking "No way. Impossible. Cannot be true," to which I respond, "Way. Possible. Can be and is."

I will now tell you the eight phases of the moon while you silently marvel, "Is there no end to his knowledge?":

1. New Moon (Illumination: 0%)
2. Waxing Crescent Moon (Illumination: 0.1% to 49.9%)
3. First Quarter Moon (Illumination: 50%)
4. Waxing Gibbous Moon (Illumination: 50.1 to 99.9%)
5. Full Moon (Illumination: 100%)
6. Waning Gibbous Moon (Illumination: 99.9% to 50.1%)
7. Third Quarter Moon (Illumination: 50%)
8. Waning Crescent Moon (Illumination: 49.9% to 0.1%)

You know, of course, that wherever each human being stands on the surface of Ye Olde Planet Earth, his or her feet are pointing down, perpendicularly as it were, toward the center of our planet. Only gravity keeps us all from flying off into space. Depending on where we happen to be standing causes a curious effect on how the moon looks to us. This phenomenon is known as the moon's orientation. I said all that to say this:

In the Northern Hemisphere, the moon's orientation is from right to left, but in the Southern Hemisphere the moon's orientation is from left to right. Stated another way, in the Northern Hemisphere the First Quarter Moon resembles a capital D. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Third Quarter Moon that resembles a capital D.

It is absolutely true, though you may find it hard to believe. Coincidentally, I have never seen an illustration of the moon's phases from the Southern Hemisphere's point of view.

In a previous life I think I may have been a middle school science teacher.