In which Mrs. RWP's latest creation is compared to Liberace's theme song

Alice in Wonderland was once asked the question, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Forget about her. I just threw that in to get you in the mood to consider another question, and that question is, "Why is Mrs. RWP's latest creation like Liberace's theme song?"

I can hear you saying, "How should I know? First of all, I'm not familiar with Mrs. RWP's latest creation."

We can take care of that problem immediately.

Here is Mrs. RWP's latest creation:

Isn't it lovely? But the question remains, "Why is it like a writing desk Liberace's theme song?

I can hear you asking, "How should I know? Can't you help me out a little? I'm not familiar with Liberace's theme song either. What was it?"

Again, we can take care of that problem immediately. This is Liberace's theme song:

Owl be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.
In that small café,
The park across the way,
The children's carousel,
The chestnut tree,
the wishing well,

Owl be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day,
In everything that's light and gay,
Owl always think of you that way,

Owl find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new;
Owl be looking at the moon
But owl be seeing you.

...and if by some chance I happen to be wrong, I still am happy to have made you smile today, which my calendar tells me just happens to be April 1st.

It's George Washington's birthday. Time to take down the Nativity scene.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Christmas was over. New Year's Day came and went. Epiphany came and went. Ash Wednesday came and went, to say nothing of Mardi Gras. The Super Bowl came and went. The first two Sundays in Lent came and went. But in the fullness of time Washington's Birthday arrived, and today -- February 22nd, 2016 -- I finally took down our Nativity scene from the credenza in the entrance hall and packed it away in the garage for another year nine-and-a-half months.

Hello, my name is Bob and I am a procrastinator. I'm nearly 75 years old and it's time I admitted it.

Confession is good for the soul.

It could have been worse. One year it was mid-March and St. Patrick's Day was looming before I put the Nativity scene away.

In my defense (British, defence), I have had lots of other activities contending for my time, such as:

A. Watching my grandson play baseball. Here he is in the batter's box against Wabash College. [Editor's note. For readers who don't follow baseball, in this particular "at bat" (AB) the "bases were loaded" and my grandson "reached first base" when he was "walked" by the pitcher, and although he didn't get "a hit" (H), he was credited with "a run batted in" (RBI) because his "base on balls" (BB) caused the player on third base to "reach home" and be credited with "a run" (R). Statistics are everything in baseball. --RWP]:

B. Admiring Mrs. RWP's latest creations from her coloring (British, colouring) hobby. Here are four more:

C. Pondering life's really important questions, like "Where are the snows of yesteryear?":

I knew you would understand.

Here's one last look at you know what:

Peacocks are blue, dilly-dilly, peacocks are green

One green peacock may be beautiful:

But two blue peacocks are downright gorgeous:

These are Mrs. RWP's fifth and sixth creations since she began enjoying her new hobby of using artist's pencils to complete adult-difficulty coloring books. She chooses her own combinations.

Thanks to Sue in Australia who blogs as Elephant's Child, I was introduced today to an Australian poet, Dorothea Mackellar, who was born in 1885 and died in 1968. In my next post I will share with you her best-known poem, but today I want to share her poem "Colour" because it gives me, a non-artist, insight into how Mrs. RWP must experience things:

Colour

The lovely things that I have watched unthinking,
Unknowing, day by day,
That their soft dyes have steeped my soul in colour
That will not pass away -

Great saffron sunset clouds, and larkspur mountains,
And fenceless miles of plain,
And hillsides golden-green in that unearthly
Clear shining after rain;

And nights of blue and pearl, and long smooth beaches,
Yellow as sunburnt wheat,
Edged with a line of foam that creams and hisses,
Enticing weary feet.

And emeralds, and sunset-hearted opals,
And Asian marble, veined
With scarlet flame, and cool green jade, and moonstones
Misty and azure-stained;

And almond trees in bloom, and oleanders,
Or a wide purple sea,
Of plain-land gorgeous with a lovely poison,
The evil Darling pea.

If I am tired I call on these to help me
To dream -and dawn-lit skies,
Lemon and pink, or faintest, coolest lilac,
Float on my soothed eyes.

There is no night so black but you shine through it,
There is no morn so drear,
O Colour of the World, but I can find you,
Most tender, pure and clear.

Thanks be to God, Who gave this gift of colour,
Which who shall seek shall find;
Thanks be to God, Who gives me strength to hold it,
Though I were stricken blind.

--Dorothea Mackellar (1885 - 1968)

P.S. - Peacocks can also be white:

Have you heard the one about the nine ladybugs, the peacock, and the Guernsey cow who walk into a bar?

Neither have I.

There isn't a Guernsey cow. I made up that part.

Actually, the photographs in this post are the two latest masterpieces from Mrs. RWP's new coloring book.

Survey: Which is funnier, a Guernsey cow, a St. Bernard, or a big, black tarantula? Give reasons.

This post makes absolutely no sense because the full moon once again approaches. Accordingly, I am dedicating it (the post, not the moon) to our old friend Putz (David Barlow of Tooele, Utah) who hasn't posted since January 16, 2014. His innovative spelling and indecipherable punctuation are sorely missed in this little corner of Blogland.

All in favor say "Aye"....

Butterflies, they say, are free

...so here are three of them, courtesy of Mrs. RWP:

If you think they are female and you are of a certain age, you might name them Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne after the Andrews Sisters singing group of the 1940s, or you might name them Phyllis, Chris, and Dottie after the McGuire Sisters singing group of the 1950s and 1960s. But they could be male (the butterflies I mean, not the Andrews Sisters or the McGuire Sisters), in which case you might name them Manny, Moe, and Jack after the guys who own 803 Pep Boys automotive supply stores with 7000 bays in 35 states and Puerto Rico, or you might name them Frank, Dean, and Sammy after the best-known members of the Rat Pack. And if you are of a certain age and/or frame of mind you may never have heard of the Andrews Sisters, the McGuire Sisters, the Pep Boys, or the Rat Pack and furthermore it has never occurred to you to care whether butterflies drawn on paper are female or male.

Whatever floats your boat.

Butterflies usually make everyone happy, but sometimes they make me sad when I think of I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the German concentration camp Theresienstadt during World War II. The book is named after a line in a poem by Pavel Friedman, a young man who was sent to Theresienstadt and was later killed at Auschwitz.

You can read Pavel Friedman's poem "The Butterfly" here.

Mrs. RWP creates Number Two

That is, she completed her second pattern from her new coloring book.

Here it is:

I thought about also showing you the sample versions that the publishers of the coloring book provided so that you could contrast the drab, dull, depressing products they suggested with the delightful ones Mrs. RWP has created using her own color choices. But then I realized it might be a copyright violation, so I decided against it.

Mrs. RWP is definitely the visual artist in the family.

Mrs. RWP begins a new hobby

The beginning of a new year brings with it, to our house at least, a new hobby for Mrs. RWP. She had dropped a few hints to the children before Christmas that she would like to have an adult coloring book. Get your minds out of the gutter, people. She didn't want an adult-content coloring book, she wanted an adult-difficulty coloring book. These are all the rage this season hereabouts.

No one acted on her hints. Our children pooled their fortunes and presented us with the joint gift of a new computer. From now on I will be composing these posts on a Hewlett-Packard "All-in-One" PC with Windows 10 instead of a 16-year-old dinosaur with XP. I missed Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 altogether. The new computer came with a wireless mouse and a wireless keyboard. I went out on December 31st and bought a new wireless printer/scanner to go with it, replacing the unbelievably slow but still-functioning HP-812C that I've had since 1999. But I digress.

Mrs. RWP went out to an art-supply store one day last week and bought a coloring book herself along with some "artists coloured pencils" (hey, look, British spelling!). On December 30th she began working on her first project. If I had been thinking, I would have shown you the page before she began, but as usual, I was not thinking. (Note to self. If I had been thinking, I would have given her the coloring book.)

Here's how the page looked when she had filled in half of it:

And here's how the page looked on December 31st after she had finished it:

I think it is very pretty.

Mrs. RWP says doing it was very relaxing because she had to stop thinking about everything else and concentrate on the coloring. If I tried to do this sort of thing myself, it would make me tense and frustrated, and perhaps I would go stark raving mad.

They say opposites attract.

To end on a somewhat melancholy note, here is Kitty Kallen singing “My Coloring Book” (3:18) from 1962.