Welcome Newbies, Lurkers, and Regulars
It is past sunrise at Balthray Ireland Standing Stones on this Winter Solstice Morning.
Coffee and Tea are by the fireplace, newspapers in the usual place by the window – come in an be welcome this morning!
Froggy Bottom Lounge: Solstice Tea and Cider is now open.
Please unrecommend this one and recommend the new one!
Coffee and buffet are served!
Godd Morning, SallyCat! I have Astronomy Picture of the Day as my home page on my browser. When I turned on the computer, I said to myself, I think SallyCat would like this picture.
That is a marvellous picture – I absolutely love it!
Thank you Janet!
What a fine BooTribber you are to get up so early to bring us this cafe and early morning greetings for the Winter Solstice.
I’m usually up between 4 and 5:30am depending on the insomnia…only difference is I turned on the computer monitor this morning!
That is a marvellous picture – is it snow melting on a retaining wall or path? It looks very restful like a ‘water feature’ from the garden shows.
So sorry about the insomnia. I don’t have that but I don’t usually sleep past 5:00 either. Ah well, it’s ust more time to enjoy the world and get things done.
That’s a little creek down in the hollow. It’s water source is drainage so it doesn’t flow all the time. The spot in the picture is a tiny cascade (about 3 feet high).
Here’s a zoomed out view.
My co-worker suffered from insomnia for years. She simply could not sleep through the night. She has tried everything to cure it, from sleeping pills, to teas, to natural remedies, all to no avail. Her latest attempt though seems to have done the trick. It is a natural light machine thingy. She sits under it every morning for about half an hour. After two weeks, her insomnia has completely gone away and she now sleeps through the night. Just thought you might be interested if your insomnia is a regular problem.
I go out of my way to spend time outside no matter the weather…so I get lots of sun light and fresh air.
This is one of those ‘women’s issue’ things…it is almost night sweats but not quite. So I get the insomnia part of it. Fortunately I average 5-6 hours sleep…and Valerian pills on the weekend help me stay complete on my overall sleep things.
This is now one of my favs ever of your photos. There’s something very satisfying to me about it.
Morning, all! Lovely to see you hosting, SC!
Thanks. I thought of it as relaxing — I think it is a function of the slowly thin streams of water.
This is a beautiful photo, Andi. I can almost hear it. And for some reason it is making me very thirsty. Damn this forced-air heat. I wake up with a tongue that feels like carpet and my eyes too dry to blink.
Go drink some coffee.
Hey, on your request “Please visualize me on one of Andi’s mountains, but without any snow.” I took care of it here but I don’t think you ever came back to the cafe.
That’s a cool shot and such great service posting it so quickly. Sorry I didn’t see it last night but I never did make it back to the Cafe and missed all the fun. Sometimes my real life emits these irresistable calls for my attention. THe house has been fun the past couple of days, with just the right number of people in it. It’s weird but anything fewer than 6 just feels wrong to me. And since my oldest son still lives in Cleveland with his wife and dog, my daughter’s boyfriend visiting seems to fill up that empty space, though not in the same way.
Oh RL is such an inconvenience some times (but then it goes and makes up for it by being so wonderful).
Speaking of families and real life, if you didn’t go all the way throught that cafe, go back and look for a post title “Yay!! I’m home” from katiebird which has a great picture of her with her sisters.
I forgot to say that I totally love this photograph. It’s wonderful.
for awhile, that you keep delurking at work. We love it when katiebird is bad 🙂
And thanks for the compliment.
So many lovely photographs, what a wonderful way to start the day!
Thank you!
Good morning to you. Are you delurking from work?
How much time off do you have for the holidays?
Do, dragging along at home. I’ve still got to get dressed.
I keep checking the Internets to see if Bush has freaked yet.
I don’t see him freaking out — he’s too damn arrogant for that. I think he really believes in his god-given rights to do what he wants and he’s disconnected enough from human feeling to how no idea of how people will react.
I hope you’re right (and what a thing to hope for)
Hoping that Andi’s right is a terrific way to avoid disappointment, since she usually is right. I like that about her very much.
Let’s not put any pressure on me or anything.
However, the truth is not that I am usually right but that I rarely admiit that I am wrong.
But seeing things as a pragmatic pessimist and principled cynic may provide a nicely skewed view of the world that often works out.
Huh, I have no trouble admitting when I’m wrong, I just so rarely am that fortunately it doesn’t come up all that often. 😉 (Heh, I suspect this is only true because I almost always make hedgy and/or subjective statements, like, “almost always” or “I suspect that”, which is really about attempting to be as honest as possible, but has the nice side benefit of rarely being wrong about a thing. Of course, I am equally just as rarely right about a thing, but that’s not as important to me.)
that I am so egotistical that I didn’t thank you for the incredible compliment. Really, to have you think that about me is paradoxically quite humbling.
There is a real gift to making everyone believe you are always right. I have this horrible gift of being able to win almost every argument I’ve ever had, even when I knew I was wrong. I just can’t stand to be wrong. This makes me almost impossible to live with.
Frighteningly, I do not lose arguments either, even when I am clearly wrong. I will admit I’m wrong and still somehow manage to win the argument. My mother taught me this — the woman was never right a day in her life but she never lost a tussle whether it was with a divorce attorney or a clerk at Eckerd’s. And everyone I’ve ever been close to has absolutely hated that about me. It really is obnoxious. I don’t mind being wrong, but damn I hate to lose.
we have in common. My mother says that no one ever wins an argument with me (and she’s been saying this since I was about 6).
Today’s my last day until Tuesday!!
5 days off this week, 4 days off next — !!!
Aren’t breaks wonderful things. I’m off from Friday till the the January 3rd and definitely looking forward to it.
where is it?
It’s between the house I grew up in and the Pacific Ocean (which is just a 10 mile drive or so), it’s from that driving tour I posted a month ago or so.
I don’t know how this shot came out — the car was going about 50 miles an hour and I just barely got it at all. And the full sized version is almost frighteningly clear. You can see every detail of the rock.
That looks similar to a rock here in Marin out by the Lucas Film Ranch
I love the big rocks just standing in fields…makes me ponder each time I see them!
SallyCat — That’s the one!!!!
How cool that you recognized it!!
Geez though – 50 miles an hour on that road is risky!
We are on the other side – out towards the Bay and China Camp. When we want to hike the coast that’s the road we take!
Well, 50 may be an exaggeration — I wasn’t driving. But that’s the straightish part, nothing very hazardous there.
We’re hoping to have a family reunion next summer, but I think it’ll be in Carmel. I’ll have to get to Marin & S.F. for at least a couple of days if that happens.
Did you see the driving tour I posted of that drive a month or two ago? I can’t find it now — it was in a Cafe, but I have no idea who’s or when.
i think thats a monadnock
which is one of my favorite words
mo·nad·nock Pronunciation (m-ndnk)
n.
A mountain or rocky mass that has resisted erosion and stands isolated in an essentially level area. Also called inselberg.
I’d never even heard of that word before now. Look at the pronunciation!
i learned it in college…when i was getting my degrees in agriculture and horticulture…i think i was in an ecology class.
some of them look like giant penises sitting in a cow pasture..i always thought the word was similiar to gonadcock…thats how i rememebr it.
Since I’m actually supposed to be at work now, I guess I’d better pack my lunch and leave!
Love you all.
Good morning to all! I wish that I could see the photo but our industrial-strength filter here at work is blocking it. Maybe at home later.
Link to photo of Balthray Standing Stones
I’m never sure if links or photos are filtered for some stuff….
Apparently the evil tech wizards here have blocked the links too. But thanks for trying.
Need to get ready for work and zip down to the office!
See you all on the flip side of the commute!
No traffic because of the holidays and the parking lot is empty….I think I’m going to enjoy driving today and tomorrow….then off for 12 days.
Count me in. I’ve already had a huge mug of tea, but that looks lovely, and since I’ve got a cold I think I’ll indulge.
You know, the Bill O’Lielly one. I’ve had a chance to meet and talk with Barbara a couple of times and I know her field director. I’m wanting to give them some feedback on the ad – I’ve seen the complaints about it.
So my questions: Have you clicked on it? If so, was it because you often/always click on the ads to support the site, or because you wanted to know what it was about, or . . . ?
If you did click it – what did you think about the page it takes you to?
I haven’t clicked on it because she’s not running anywhere near me but I thought the ad was funny.
I just went and clicked. Page looks okay to me if a little boring (but then most of the political sites I’ve seen qualify as boring).
Were you looking for specific types of reactions?
Well, this is part of what I emailed to Robert (her field director):
But I didn’t know if that was right, after I thought about it. Maybe a picture of the candidate would be too boring to attract attention. I was wondering if they are right that our response to Bill – and wondering why he looks like a pirate – would get more clicks than a picture of Barbara.
It wasn’t the picture that caught my eye it was the Happy Hanukkah and that what’s cracked me up. I even made my own addendnum to it (in a comment about it):
Yep, I saw this when you posted it. Pretty funny. Barbara is Jewish – knowing that made the “Happy Hanukkah reference even more funny to me.
I figured she was — bit of trivia that I can’t remember where I picked it up: if you see a Russian or Polish name that ends ‘sky’ the person is most likely Jewish or of Jewish descent, it if it ends ‘ski’, then not.
Interesting. I didn’t know that. My realname is Polish. It’s been Americanized, but the original ended in “ski” – and my ancestors were Polish Catholics. So there you go.
An aside – I once saw a documentary about a Polish Jew who went back to Poland decades after the war to look up his relatives who had stayed there. One of his cousins, I swear, it was like looking at my clone. I found myself wondering, were all of my ancestors Catholic? Were some Jews? But given history, with intermarriages and conversions (forced and otherwise), I guess it’s hard to know.
Get a dreidl. If you don’t have one, ask a Jew if you can borrow theirs. It’s Hannukah time, they will all have one in their pocket or lunchbox.
Now try to spin it. If you can do it on the first try, some of your ancestors were Jewish!
😀
the plastic ones don’t spin well at all.
And for those of you who want to know how to play the dreidel game, here’s how.
What an abomination! Where is the outrage? Dreidls are made of wood, carved by somebody’s grandpa.
My looks are very different than anyone in my family — green eyes, light hair (actually blond through my early twenties), paler coloring. My family stock is from Russian Jews some of whom apparently migrated from Germany some time in the 1700’s. I’m figuring there’s some German recessive genes hanging around somewhere — either that of some unwanted cossack ones from some porgrom.
A man I used to work for had a wife of Russian Jewish descent, and she was blonde haired and blue eyed. A very beautiful woman, actually, and stunningly brilliant — she spoke 7 languages fluently.
right after the words “blonde haired.”
At the risk of sounding like “. . . but some of my best friends are Jewish*,” in reality, one of my best friends is Jewish. I “lost my faith” in Catholicism when I was 17 and have been an atheist ever since. We joke in my family that the only religion my daughter actually knows anything about is Judaism, because of her spending many seder dinners and Hanukkah evenings at my friend’s house, and later, with her best high school friend, who also is Jewish. (She’d drive across town just for her friend’s mom’s world-class kugel.)
Anyway, I’m sure my friend has a dreidel I could use for the test. I know I’ve played the dreidel game at her house before. Can’t remember if I was a “natural” at it, though. Does it ruin it if I’ve practiced in the past?
[*I really hate how that phrase and its variants is used to excuse some racist or otherwise prejudiced statement, because, really, having a close friend with a different background from your own – a different race, religion, sexual orientation, etc – really does help one see the world through different eyes. But I never know how to say that without sounding like . . . you know.]
It’s okay to say when it’s authentic (and using around words like kugel and seders, proves that you really do have Jewish friends).
I’ve got something of the same problem in that I feel guilty saying I am Jewish since I don’t believe in Judaism or any organized religion and haven’t attended any service (other than seders) since I was 18 (that would be 37 years but only my mother is counting).
BlogAd critique….my $0.02….from a regular local campaign background worker.
– The ad itself is sort of interesting…I look at it and snicker. Didn’t click on it until you asked because Texas isn’t anywhere on my radar screen for candidates.
The actual website…
– The Donate button should be off to the upper left…in the middle is sort of odd.
– At the top of the page next to the first picture, should be a statement of what she stands for….that 30 second sound bite statement
– The photo of her by herself should be at the top – instead of the one with the Donate button on top of it.
– The light blue hyperlink after being read is too light…hard to read.
Overall – it looks like most political web sites…a little boring and needs some tweaking. Nothing reaches out and makes me want to read more but it has sufficient content to keep me there if I specifically wanted to learn more.
More of what I wrote to Robert:
While I do try to remember to regularly click ads around here to support the site, I always wind up avoiding the ones with pictures of right-wingers. I cannot stand them and wish they would go away. In a weird way, it almost always feels to me like someone’s bringing Fred Phelps signage into the gay bar, even if only to mock it, and I’d rather have a space that’s free of it altogether.
Does that sound bitchy? Sorry. 🙂
Morning all. Here’s another Solstice sunrise for your collection:
winter solstice sunrise, Stonehenge(ctrl clik for larger image)
Later
Peace and Blessings
for showing them how to do it!
😉
Happy Solstice to all earth residents!
I think, perhaps, it’s more likely to have been the other way around.
Stonehenge was constructed during the period between 2000BC and 1400BC. At about the time the Babylonians were beginning to study and record the movements of celestial bodies.
The Mayan culture reached its peak between AD300 and 900, some 1700 years later.
Just sayin’ :{)
Peace
the other day. 😉
assuming that the 2000 yr old dating puts it at, or near, AD1.
:{)
Peace
who have always insisted that there were Maya WAY before any of the invaders can even imagine, and this ruin means that there are even older ruins, and unless the Maya dropped from a spaceship, as some do believe, there were proto-Maya, pre-Maya, who imparted the astronomy and math invention specs to the more modern Maya you speak of.
Why can’t Europe be satisfied with being the One True Source of Real Wine and Real Cheese?
Those are very valuable contributions, certainly nothing to sneeze at.
No cheese ever made in Meso-America can compare to Top Hat Cheddar.
I had this Communications professor in college who used to like to say that the Chinese invented everything first. That whenever you thought it was someone else, eventually the evidence would turn up that it was really the Chinese. So every time I see an article about some dig in China unearthing unthinkably early evidence of whatever allegedly “modern” technological innovation, I always laugh my ass off.
to show up and flame us all, and explain that anything that we think that the proto-Celts or proto-Maya or proto-Han invented, well they did not either, because a Greek went there and told them all about it 😉
I do not question your historic data, but disagree w/ your interpretation/conclusion. I think it unlikely that the Maya influenced the Druids. It is, imo, more likely that these systems were developed and evolved independently of one another.
Belief systems and cultures in what is commonly referred to as early civilizations often are based in, or relative to, the movements of celestial bodies and the repetitive cycle of the seasons.
OT, why is it that every time I read and/or respond with you, this guy’s image pops into my head. :{)
Peace
this for who invented what. While the Maya invented astronomy and math, the Druids invented airplanes, and got into one to fly to Honduras. Or maybe it was Guatemala. The signs were blurry and hard to read because they were already really, really old.
Anyway, the Maya were so impressed at the ancient Druid airplane, that they offered to tell them all about math and astronomy in exchange for an airplane ride.
The Druids agreed, and so they all piled in together and went to visit China, a faraway country that had recently been invented by a Greek…
Signor Ferrari (from Casablanca)…and yeah, I think you’ve nailed it.
Works for me…
Peace
I saw the movie so long ago, I don’t even think it had been made yet. I do not look at all like him, though. I hope you won’t be disappointed. 😉
Trying to figure out what to tackle today; spouse and I both needed extra sleep so didn’t do the planned grocery shopping this morning. 🙁 I could take the list and wheeled daypack with me when/if I get out later and at least get the baking supplies; spouse is shopping tonight for my gift(s) so I’m on my own for dinner anyway. Would like to bake tomorrow; Friday I’ll be gone all day at my sister’s for our family get-together, and Saturday will be busy working on appetizer stuff. Things are moving too damn fast!
Okay, time to get to work, reluctantly…
Hmmmm – something doesn’t seem right here???
Here is the queen, jealously guarding the Christmas gifts. You think she’d just sniff out the one containing the Little Friskies jello mold, but she’s been hanging out within 6 feet of the tree since we put it up, and every time someone adds another package she sniffs it up and down until she’s satisfied that it’s nothing for her to eat. But still she hopes that St. Nick will come through for her…
Pretty tree, funny kitty, funnier Shy Bitch Goddess.
Really? I just feel off my game lately.
Is all the family change stuff around the holidays making you feel out of sorts? {{hugs Second Nature}} I still think you’re hilarious.
And now SN will have to agree, too or she’ll lose the argument.
I was just thinking how, um, eventful it would be if you and me and Indy got together. We’d have to agree on absolutely everything or the arguments might get out of hand with all of us needing to be right, even when we know we’re not.
And see, I was just thinking that fate is a very cruel mistress not to have put all 3 of us together in, like, 10th grade in 1976. The fun we could have had. The two of you delight me to no freakin’ end.
Same, Indy. I’ve been really lucky to have met you this year. You’re a peach.
Let’s blame it one of three things, because the alternative theory is that I’m just a bitch. Take your pick: PMS, perimenopause (a catchall term that means the three decades prior to menopause) or family changes paired with a simmering depression.
As long as we’re tossing around blame, let’s not forget to blame the patriarchy and its lapdogs, the Republicans. 😉
I hope you get to feeling better soonest. Maybe Santa will bring you something nifty.
This one is now a little slow to load so the Tea and Cider Lounge is now open!