A is for apoplectic, E is for extraterrestrial, M is for Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP)

Today is the 70th anniversary of my first glimpse of planet Earth and vice versa. If I have amassed threescore and ten big ones, can fourscore and seven be far behind? Abraham Lincoln, eat your heart out. Perhaps, like my cousin who used to live there, I will have a Gettysburg address of my own one day.

It’s my party, and I’ll cry if post what I want to. It doesn’t have to make sense. You can’t make me make sense.

Here are some bits of flotsam and jetsam, comments actually, that I left scattered around the blogosphere recently as my birthday approached:

“It has become practically an article of faith among certain people in the U.S.A. that while whites are undoubtedly racist concerning blacks, it is impossible for blacks to be racist concerning whites. The reason given is that racism is by definition the suppression of, oppression of, or denial of rights to persons of a minority group by persons of the majority group. Therefore, members of the minority group cannot possibly be racist in their views, speech, or behavior. This seems to me to be a very inadequate and flawed definition of racism, which clearly operates in both directions.” (United Kingdom)

[Note. Why can’t we just make beautiful music together the way Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder did in this video? --RWP]

“I hope one day to be as wealthy as you Brits and be able to afford my very own creative writing tutor. Until then, I will muck along with the help of a few active verbs and a handful of eager adjectives. (United Kingdom)

[Note. And an online copy of Strunk’s The Elements of Style. --RWP]

“Did I ever mention that I watched Biff Pocoroba up close and personal in his rookie-year spring training in West Palm Beach in 1975? The fact that in later years, in order to get to the church we attended after we moved to Atlanta, we had to drive past Dale Murphy's house every week never dimmed the luster of that 1975 spring training!” (California)

“When I was a boy we had a little flock of White Leghorns, Black Dominicks, speckled Dominicks, and a Rhode Island Red or two. My dad placed a white porcelain doorknob in each nest to encourage the hens (I started to say ‘give them something to shoot at’ but I thought better of it.)” (The Netherlands)

(Photo courtesy of Tony Northrup at www.northrup.org/poultry)

“I know I’m thinking of calla lilies and not your canna lilies, but Katherine Hepburn comes to mind (‘The calla lilies are in bloom again...’ from Stage Door Canteen). Our area finally has a few jonquils here and there, and we spotted some forsythia, a couple of tulip trees in full splendor, and even some cherry blossoms hereabouts. I do hope the winter is over.” (Arkansas)

[Note. If you simply cannot get enough of listening to Katherine Hepburn talk about herself, then this (9:05) and this (9:56) and this (9:40) and this (9:52) are definitely for you. There are two more segments, but you get the idea. If a single photograph of Katherine will do, look in the dictionary under “self-absorbed.” --RWP]

“I have no idea who Michael Schumacher is, but there’s something obviously wrong with a country where the Queen Mother’s teeth should have been in a sports figure’s head, and the sports figure’s teeth should have been in the Queen Mother’s head.” (United Kingdom)

[Note. On second thought, we should all live to be nearly 102, regardless of the condition of our teeth. --RWP]

“Just once I would like to encounter a schoolroom where the alphabet chart says A is for anachronism, B is for bituminous, C is for charlatan, D is for demonic, E is for effervescent, and so forth....” (United Kingdom)

I feel so much better now.

I’m really not crazy, just giddy at having reached this milestone.

Let’s have some cake.

(Copyrighted Photo by Christophe Verdier)

What, leaving so soon?

Perhaps a better question is: How did that white cake turn into a chocolate one?

Hyde Park, Mon Amour?

The lovely home in the preceding post was the residence of this happy couple:


Here they are in another location with some friends who dropped in for a visit. Unfortunately, I have no idea who the gentleman resplendent in white in the center of the picture is.


Without straining your eyes to read the photo caption, can you identify the husband and wife who are serving as bookends or hazard a guess as to what year the photo was taken?

When I said the mystery home was “very close to a place that has been in the news lately” I was referring to the Hudson River, not the Gaza Strip as one person guessed, but he is more to be pitied than censured as he makes his home in Utah. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Home and Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, is indeed quite near the Hudson River, about 75 miles north of where a passenger on a ferry bound from Manhattan for New Jersey snapped this photo with his mobile phone a few few days ago:

(Photo by Janis Krums of Sarasota, Florida)