Body Modification and Ornamentation

Even though I regard surgical modification with great dislike—so much so that I don't want to even describe them—I really love temporary tattoos!  I think they're really cute.  I mean henna tattoos, or other stick-on type tattoos. 

I even love body jewelry: nose rings, eyebrow rings, earrings, even multiple rings!  Nipple rings—this is getting a bit personal ... But I'm too much of a coward to get myself pierced.  I am convinced that young people who get themselves permanent tattoos are foolish.  Why do that when temporary tattoos are available?  Kids who get permanent tattoos—and I include anyone, really; they're awfully difficult to remove; they're usually doing it to make a statement about themselves.  Soon they discover that those statements are not worth making. 

Obviously, that's just my opinion; and it's easy for me to say that because I have a blog; I can make all the statements I want at any time. 

And I do.   Sometimes I'm wrong, and I walk back the statements, and I apologize.  With a tattoo, you can't do that; at least, not easily.  For about a thousand dollars, you can erase about a square foot.  Or less.  No one is worth that sort of statement; screw them. 

An Interview with Helen Nordstrom

Back in 2018 (I think) I felt moved to write a fictitious interview with Helen.  At that time, I felt that Democrats, the Liberal Media, and all sorts of talking heads were coming down on Trump like a ton of bricks.

At that time, I was convinced that Trump was talking in sentence fragments, because it was easier to connect to his base that way.  I thought: (we) Democrats had lost the election fair and square, and it was time to let the Republicans do their thing.  These were the sentiments I made Helen articulate. 

Since then, I have changed my mind; all the lying from the Trump White House was partly effective.  It was no longer possible to talk about any federal programs, without a barrage of lies from the Trump team, with a Greek chorus from a confused GOP.  Obamacare, the low unemployment rate, all sorts of Democrat achievements were papered over, or hijacked by the GOP.  Then came Covid, and the lessons of that missed opportunity to show leadership were maddeningly effective: the GOP was unable to help the poor; they only stood ready to (try to) help Business.  Direct aid to humans was left to the Democrats.

This pretend 'interview' with Helen should be taken as something she would have said before matters got a lot worse:

https://k-helen.blogspot.com/2019/10/helen-nordstrom-interview.html?m=1

Kay

Skiing Down Mount Everest

I just found out—quite by accident—that someone had skied 12,000 feet down Mt. Everest.  (They reported his name, but I forget it.)

Everest, I remember from school, was some 29,000 feet high (I'll check and correct that if I'm wrong*), which means the skier skied just about halfway down.  I've never gone skiing, so I don't know whether the further you ski, the harder it is on your knees.  (*29,032 feet above sea level.  They say, actually 29,032.68 feet, but I can't give a lot of credence to those last few inches, honestly.  Half of that would be 14,500 feet.  But this gentleman couldn't ski further than the edge of the snow line.)

Honestly, this is the sort of daredevil stunt I really dislike.  I expect this gentleman's entire claim to fame is based on dangerous undertakings—and being the first to do them,  perhaps?—so, obviously, he'd head towards an insane idea like skiing down Everest like a lemming to the sea.

Kay.  (Google suggested 'Kayla!'  Hmm ...)

More Celebrity Women

Here's another installment in my list of celebrity women I admire.  There are 27 of them, so there will be two installments. 

Olivia Newton-John.  I've loved Olivia wholeheartedly, ever since I was a kid.  Though she was from a much older generation, I was enchanted by her voice, and I loved many of her songs.  (There are a few I really can't stand!)

Diana Spencer.  This is Princess Diana's maiden name.  My Mom and I stayed up the night of their wedding, and I was heartbroken when she died. 

Whitney Houston.  I think Whitney was so beautiful, and her songs were so wonderful.  But I hated to watch her sing, with her jaw wobbling like mad!  But she was a goddess.

Miranda Kerr.  Miranda is a model, she was one of the so-called Victoria's Secret Angels.  She was married to Orlando Bloom briefly.  I think she's beyond cute!

Elle MacPherson.  Younger readers may not know who this is, but when I was still an infant, she was The Body!  I should also mention Cheryl Tiegs, but I don't want to crowd this thing with Sports Illustrated models ...

Jennifer Connelly.  This woman has always been one of the most beautiful women alive.  Just look at her.

Dolores O'Riordan.  This was the girl who was the front woman for The Cranberries, the Irish band who performed Zombie.  I always felt that Dolores (or Delores, it wasn't clear which spelling was correct) was just a lovely person; completely unaffected.  What a sad loss to us when she died. 

Enya.  I thought Enya was sort of doll-like, and unapproachable.  I loved some of her songs, especially from Orinoco Flow.

Björk.  This woman is so different, she seems almost from another planet!  My favorite song from her is It's So Quiet.

Julianne Hough.  This girl is short, but so cute!  She's primarily a dancer, and also a singer, but I like neither her singing nor her dancing!  Can you believe, I liked her so much at one time, I wanted to use her as a model for Helen!  But there were too many things wrong with that plan.  

You probably want to see photographs of these women; I'll try to get copyright-free images of them. 

Kay

'How about?' in 17th Century England

From all I know, the phrase 'How about X?' hadn't supplanted the older equivalent 'What about X?' until the 19th Century, at the earliest.  But I'm not so well-versed in English spoken in earlier times as to be able to authoritatively say that the phrase 'How about X' is an anachronism. 

I'm reading a well-written story called The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, by Erica Ridley.  Of course, the need to report dialog in language of a bygone time has to be balanced against the need to make the characters feel real, from the perspective of the present day (especially given that the audience would be quick to misunderstand language just a tiny bit away from what is current.)  Readers won't expect the protagonists of a period drama to talk like, say, Taylor Swift, but in a romance between women, there's so much subtlety to convey through dialog! It makes it hardly worth the effort to write a period story, but ... it is so much fun!  Erica Ridley's stories—this one, anyway—is a lot of fun. 

Kay

Feeding Pets!

When I was taking care of my friend's pets, naturally, one of the important jobs was giving the little guys their victuals.  Twice a day, for the doggies, and whenever her bowl was empty for the cat. 

I would fill her bowl, and I would watch to see whether she was eating her food.  She was quite picky, and sometimes she would take a quick sniff, and go down from the feeding table, and go off looking for some other entertainment.  But some times she would eat the food!  At times like that, I would be so pleased, that I wondered whether this was what parents felt to see their babies eat their food!  It is a strangely satisfying thing; and you get an inkling of a mother's instinct to feed little kids—be they her own, or the children of others—until they can eat no more!

One thing many school districts do well, is to feed underprivileged grade schoolers at least one square meal each school day.  During Covid, we learned that when schools were closed down, to prevent spreading infection, kids went hungry, without school lunches.  Of course, middle-class kids famously despise the free school lunches.  That's the foolishness of extreme youth.  They should hope that the day would never come when they're starving so desperately that they would be glad for that free lunch. 

Kay

Celebrity Women Whom I Like

I've wanted to do this for ages, but put it off because I knew that my taste in women would put off lots of readers.  It probably will; people judge others based on whom they admire; why shouldn't I be subjected to the same process?  I don't anxiously watch the viewership statistics anymore (any more?), and the books are being acquired based more on the prices than anything else, so here we go, in no order. 

Brooke Shields.  I thought she looked beautiful as a kid, and a teenager, but a bit robotic.  But when she grew into adulthood, she blossomed, she had a lovely sense of humor; she seemed as admirable a woman as it was possible to be in show business. 

Goldie Hawn.  I've always loved Goldie!  I think, in addition, she really understood the humor in the scripts she had to work with; well, let's face it, it's not as if the scripts were very intellectual, or anything!  A beautiful woman. 

Ingrid Bergman.  She's lovely, and so is her daughter Isabella Rossellini, and they both have a delicious sense of humor!

Olivia Hussey.  I used to dream of her, ever since we got a Romeo and Juliet DVD.  I was a little kid, but I had a huge crush on her, and I thought her voice was to die for.  (If you notice, her facial features, and those of the figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya, resemble each other!)

Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn.  For me, what's magical about these two are their voices, especially for Julie Andrews.  Her singing voice, for most people.  In my opinion, she never acts; she's always doing Julie!

Anne Bancroft.  I hated her in The Graduate.  But she's totally an actress; she made us hate her.  (She's lovely in every way.)

Kate Winslet. I have only seen her in two movies: Sense and Sensibility, and Finding Neverland.  In both, she was an awesome—wait, there's three movies I've seen her in: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind!—she's a wonderful actress; I haven't seen The Miracle Worker; if I do, that may pop her into the Brilliant category.  (No, haven't seen Titanic, either.)

Kate McKinnon.  OMG, she is just funny as hell!  I used to watch SNL* like a prayer, but at the time she was a regular, I was somehow missing the show, and having to watch Kate's skits on YouTube.  Amazing!

Fortune Feimster.  Did I get the name right?  She was funniest, I think, on the Chelsea Handler show.  Brilliant!  (Her comedy material is a little limited; maybe she should hire some writers.  They're not cheap 😞)  I love her dimples!  I put the two dimples next to each other, that was clever. 

My goodness; that's enough for one post, I think!  I think I might have more; gotta fink about it. 

Kay

A Moving Story

The last couple of days I've been reading—actually, re-reading—a pretty intense story by an author called Siera Maley.  I'm inclined to think that it's at least distantly autobiographical; like something that happened to her (I think she might be non-binary; I'll clear that up after I go back and read her bio she's definitely female), or someone she knows well.

Among other things, the story is concerned with how Southern (Georgia) Christians deal with the far more liberal attitudes and lifestyle of Los Angeles: non-christians, alternate lifestyles, rebellion against authority, and so on.  The main character is kind of a poster girl for all of those!  The author—Siera—was brought up in the southern Bible belt, she says, so the whole issue of how to be an alternate chick in that environment is kind of a central theme in at least this book.  (In her other books, too, coming out as queer isn't routine; it is a battle in each story.)

You don't have to guess the title; it's a pretty pathetic title, probably enforced by an agent or editor who should go back to publishing school.  Siera Maley: Taking Flight.

The child of a celebrity mother and alcoholic father is completely knocked off her balance, and stays in bed, in LA, for several months, when her mother dies in an auto accident.  She's taken before a judge, who instructs that she must spend several months in rural Georgia, under close supervision, living with a farming family.  She must share a room with their daughter.  What they don't know is that the girl is a lesbian. 

The farmer's daughter is, in some ways, trusting and innocent, but wise in other ways.  The LA girl is cynical and suspicious, but upright.  Inevitably, they are attracted, despite the complex arrangements for the rehabilitation of the 'problem teenager,' Lauren.  I love the relationship that came about between the girls; so much so that I want to write a story about teenagers (so far I've only—or mostly—written about adults), though I could never do it as well as Siera M does it. 

There are a dozen wonderful characters, who give the story a lot of texture; it's a lot more than high school drama.  I'm still just a little more than halfway through (though I've read it before, I can't remember how it goes from here).

One thumb, and one middle-finger up.  No, make that a pointy finger. 

Kay

They're Kids

The images on DA are all of really young misses!  I can't really complain; as time goes on, the median age of DA members is going to grow steadily younger than me—you know what I mean—and the day will arrive when it's no more useful for me to be a member there. 

I look in the eyes of the wild-haired redhead (a ginger is what the artist calls her) and I despair. What are the chances that this infant will understand anything I'll say?  Can I take her to meet a gathering of my friends?  Will she be happy to spend an evening with me?  I don't think so. 

There were lots of images of girls that looked promising.  But increasingly, they're beginning to look like the kind of girl toys that adolescent boys fantasize about.  <sigh>  I'm no longer relevant to DA.

Kay

Every One, and Everyone

Every one means the same as each one.  When Tiny Tim says "God bless us, every one!" the meaning is clear.   When someone says go through these books, every one should be checked for bugs, it means: not a single book should be left out. 

Everyone means everybody.  This word only applies to people; like everyone thinks you're so innocent!  The implication is that 'But I know what a crook you really are.'

Also desert, a place with a lot of sand, and dessert, something sweet, to eat after the main course.  Desert can also be a verb: to heedlessly abandon some person, some duty, or some responsibility. 

A Few More Pairs of Sound-Alikes

I'm reading—actually re-reading—an interesting time-travel story.  There are lots of details that I would change, but the story-telling is so good that, in some ways, if I tried to rewrite it, I would screw it up.

Its title is: Sweet Paladin, by Alex Washoe.  The author is trying to describe someone in modern-day Seattle, who was very, very Greek.

"If you were doing a revival of Zorba the Greek, and you needed the most obvious type for the roll, Babis was who they would send you."

The right spelling of role, a part in a play, is ROLE; the word roll means something rolled up, like a bed-roll (a sleeping-bag, your pillow, and your night-clothes, all rolled up), or something you use to put your hamburger in. 

Wait a minute; this pair of words is already in our list, darn it...

Brooch and Broach.  I wish I knew more about jewelry, but as far as I know, a brooch is a large, pin-on ornament, that sometimes can also be used as a clasp.  You wear it on your breast, just as an accent, or you use it (as a clasp) to fasten a cloak.  Broach is a verb; it means to break through.  You broach a keg of beer.  You broach a sensitive topic, or a negotiation.  To my ears, both words are pronounced the same.

OK, This Is a Political Opinion

So you can skip reading right now if you don't want your Superbowl Weekend to be ruined by something completely non-athletic.

People who have become famous through Television often begin to believe (wrongly, sometimes—or most times, I'd say) that they're never wrong.  Comedians who feel this way, usually know that they're probably wrong some of the time, but that's okay as long as they're still funny.  But serious TV personalities who are convinced of their infallibility are a huge turnoff.  Kanye West (who started calling himself something different, I forget what) is a case in point.  I do not now, nor have I ever, looked to him for serious commentary on any issue.  Clueless people, who don't have two reasonable ideas in their heads to rub together (it's just a saying; people shouldn't be rubbing their ideas together for real) are probably the only ones who spend any time finding out what K. West thinks about anything. 

Unfortunately it appears that our erstwhile president Trump has patterned himself on Mr. West.

There is a small group of people who consider Trump their oracle.  They deserve our pity; the times we live in are too complicated for us to have any hope of finding an oracle anywhere.  At least Jon Stewart will be hosting the Morning Show*—or whatever they're going to call it—starting tomorrow, and he's been good about laying all the important facts before his audience, so that we can all worry about what they mean together, but I wouldn't call him an oracle.  [*The Daily Show.]

Kay 

Another Ridiculous State of Affairs

OMG.

I don't know about other people, but I had got the impression that I wasn't the only one who thought twins were adorable!  I just love seeing twins, and an unexpected sight of a pair of identical twins really makes my day!  (It's so cute to study the reaction of a pair of twins who notice that you've guessed that they're twins!  Some of them react identically <squee> while others have quite distinct reactions, which is so strange.)

When photographers used to post a photo of a pair of identical twins on DA, of course I would 'like' it.

Now, using AI, a member can generate an image of 'twins' and put it up any time they want.  It most definitely isn't cute anymore.  If an artist painted an image of actual twins—as I had Jane do in Jane—it would be attractive or uninteresting based on simple criteria.  But a pic of fake twins using AI?  What are we to make of that?  All the artist has to do is instruct the software to paint a pair of twins, based on Emma Watson, or even a set of quintuplets.  Can they call that 'art'?  I should complain about this in DA, it doesn't do any good to gripe about it here.  Any of you who are members of DA—I assume there must be a few—should join me to speak out against this totally fake way of posting what amounts to 'clickbait'.

Kay

Magic Cat

I swear, this cat is magic.  If I turn to go one way, she's running ahead of me.   Then I turn to go the opposite way, and—guess what?—she's running ahead of me again!  How does she do that?  When I finally sit down, she magically appears on my lap, and I'm supposed to pet her.  It never stops. I so want to show you a photo of her, but I have decided no photos, and I'm sticking to that decision.  (Kitty is scowling at the phone in severe disapproval while I'm typing, but at least she's letting me type this morning.) 

But it was such a battle getting breakfast this morning, with the dog following me around licking his lips even after I had fed him.  And then there was the magic cat business. 

If I briefly use the toilet, when I come out, they're both looking at me with great interest: can we come in with you?  That's so weird.  I guess cat people take it all in stride.

Their peeps are coming home at lunchtime. 

Kay

Cats and Dogs

Last week I was again looking after my favorite animal friends.  I'm so thankful that, as a kid I wasn't up to my neck in pets, because I can enjoy the experience so much more now!  Of course, I'm sure there are many adults who grew up with animals, and who now, as adults, have pets for the sake of their children, and they're quite happy.  But I think they get a little jaded; they can't quite go absolutely bonkers about their pets the way people who have been pet-deprived in their childhood do!

I'm sure people who have grown up in a farm, say, look at the silliness of adults losing their cool with kittens and puppies, and just feel pity for them!  (When I say 'farm', I mean any household with pets; it's just easier to write 'farm.')

My friend, the owner of the animals, had bought a little dog-bed for her dog.  He sleeps anywhere except in his bed.  There are exceptions, but he generally sleeps on furniture, in front of the fire, all over the place. 

Somehow, my friend never got around to getting a bed for her cat.  The cat sleeps all over the place, too.  But if she happens to notice the dog bed, she walks up to it,  cool as you please, and hops into it and falls asleep. 

At first, I saw the dog march up to the dog bed—currently occupied by the cat—and growl.  The cat just calmly stared at him.  That's all; they can't show any feeling in their faces, all they can do is stare.  After a brief minute of growling, the dog walked off.  (I can guess that this has happened before, and maybe the cat swatted at him, with her claws out, or something.)

Everybody knows that dogs want to be fed at all times of the day; if you feed them, they'll happily eat, until they burst.  In complete and utter contrast, the cat is fed at some convenient time, and she eats a little of it, and then does something else.  She proceeds to eat from time to time from that same bowlful, until it's gone, at which time she climbs into my lap, and sort of does some low-pressure pestering of me.

At first I thought she was getting very fond of me, and I was flattered!  After a while, I realized that perhaps she wanted something.  I asked her: what do you want?  She looked puzzled for a bit, and then she marched up to where her food was given to her (where the dog couldn't get at it, otherwise he'd eat the whole thing in a second), and then turned round and looked at me!  See, she seemed to be saying, it's empty!

I was in heaven; we were communicating!!  I'm not sure how excited other people would have been if this had happened to them!  Farm-raised humans—you know what I mean; not wild-caught humans—would have expected this, or even anticipated this problem, and said to themselves: her bowl must be empty.  But I had to learn; and she taught me!

The moment her bowl was filled, she settled down to chow down her usual two mouthfuls, and moseyed off to look at the birds through the window. 

Obviously this routine has taken place a number of times, and I'm no longer surprised by it; I just think about how much the real 'mommy' of the pets is missing, by taking it all for granted!

Kay

Dressing Sexily

Wow.  Has TikTok made this happen? : Just some of the TikTok clips get on Facebook, and some of the chicks there really dress sexy.  I guess each individual Fb person has to set her filters, so that these ultra-sexy clips don't find their way into our feed.  But if I'm unhappy with them, imagine how much Whassername Taylor-Green would hate it?

In an ideal world, nobody would care how anyone dressed.   At first I cringed when women wore tights with tunics; then I got accustomed to it.  But then girls began to wear crop-tops with tights or leggings.  I know they're quite different things, but I haven't figured out the difference.  (The first step is to start wearing the damn things.  I've lost a little weight, so I could do it, but for whom am I doing it?  Rest assured I'm not going to post a photo of myself wearing those things on here!!)

But the more everyone shows skin, the more the presumed targets of this sexy dressing will be de-sensitized to exposed skin, etc.  Between yawns they'll think: 'Ho hum, there's another half-dressed chick.  She ought not to wear clothes like that with her goofy body,' etc, etc.  Everyone is a critic. 

Gosh.  Practically every girl seems to want to get themselves recorded, pirouetting around on TikTok.  I'm getting jaded. 

Kay