calzephyr | Network

poliphilo

Picture Diary 103

1. Elixir

2. Sundancers

3. Happy Horse

4. Keep to the Path

5. Going, going.....

6. City on the Hill

smokingboot

Well, that was truly terrible.

I used to get cluster migraines with aura. Now they don't cluster, in fact they hardly come at all. I don't think I get more than 3/4 a year. But when they arrive...

Last night was one such and onset was so rapid all I could do was go to bed. The migraine went away eventually and there was a man at the end of my bed. I was awake and I was screaming, R rushed in and held me, and for a while I couldn't stop.

The man had long hair, so long in fact that it might have been some sort of Louis XIV wig, only much lighter and less voluminous. I didn't see his clothes, I barely saw him before screaming. Pfff, when I would give so much to see the spirit of our dear boy Ralik I get some 17th century random. He was raising his hand.

The ghost can't be house related, this place is less than 30 years old, half that possibly, and before that it was pastureland. I said 17th century, might have been 18th, I'd have more info if I had been able to hold back my shock. So much for that.

When I was better R went away, I told him to turn off the light because... I don't know why. The room was very cold and I kept hearing creaks. but the room wasn't so cold. I was so cold.

Then I started to burn up and I went to find R, asked him to get me a drink of water. Noticed a butterfly down in the corner close to the floor. Checked with R, it was really there. I was disturbed because how would it feed there? Wouldn't it die?

Went back to bed and dreamed now, of nuclear man and his wife, how we seemed to be in this strange strained situation where everyone was trying to act normally. Then a glimpse of the proper ex trying a combover. I laughed, cos there was no need for such effort. He was always handsome, might as well let lack of hair show off his features.

Then I woke properly with the smallest remnants of a headache but there's nothing ominous to it. Still, no caffeine today, very little screen time, and I might well have to postpone my calorie burning walk.

The butterfly was there this morning, so I moved it with some flowering mint. I placed that on a sunflower facing the outside so it can go when it wants, but it's a small tortoiseshell and they hibernate in sheltered places. How long is that for, and where can I put it that's dark enough and safe from the cleaner?

The peace symbol was entirely accidental. But it's a cute moment.

P.S. I heard a stern fluttering at the patio doors. Butterfly was awake and ready to fly off, after all that, not hibernating, just asleep. I hope its dreams were better than mine!

poliphilo

I dreamed "we" drove into a service station to fill up the car. It was a new kind of service station --roofed in with a carpet on the floor- and it was unclear whether we could drive into it and the woman at the desk seemed to think our doing so irregular. The petrol pump was a new kind of petrol pump and we had to work out how to use it- at which point I wandered away and climbed a slope and saw, over the fence, a collection of wonderful ancient buildings shining on top of the hill- and wanted to photograph them but couldn't frame them quite to my liking. I wanted to stay in this place and explore it properly but I knew everyone else would want to continue the journey so I turned and saw the family I'd forgotten about down below- and my mother looking harassed and knew I needed to get back down there and muck in and show an interest.....

flemmings

The macrocosm is a dumpster fire that's spread to the neighbouring houses, but on the microcosmic scale, I find that the city has forgiven me three months and change worth of property taxes. This means I am rich! if not beyond the dreams of avarice, at least to the point that I need fear no dentist bill, since the insurance company is getting persnickety in what it will cover. As in that crown, which was supposed to cost me three hundred dollars, wanted a deposit of five. Yes well. Insurance companies are like that.

There was no google when I first read Terra Nostra: indeed, there was no internet. I knew there was something A/U going on because Elizabeth Tudor never married a Spaniard of any description. But I only now discover that Felipe II's father was not Felipe the Fair, husband of Mad Joanna, but a very prognathous Carlos of some numeration. These Habsburgs who were kings and/or emperors of half a dozen countries are an historical PITA. Luckily it's not my period. And equally, Felipe II was quite a different type than the one in the book. So Terra Nostra is not so juch historical A/U as magical realist history.

mellowtigger

True, it's not MoodyMonday, but it's in the same vein, and it's getting harder to compartmentalize the various atrocities on the news these days

Last week, Brian Kilmeade of Fox News recommended killing homeless people. Media likes quoting the phrase "involuntary lethal injection", but the true meaning was just a few words later when Kilmeade finished with, "just kill them".

This week, I don't think it's making national news, but Minneapolis had 2 more mass shootings. At 2 different homeless camps. I just watched this news channel's story about it. Not once did I notice anyone mention Kilmeade. According to the story, these shootings are clearly the fault of homeless people and their sympathizers. As far as I know, nobody knows the shooters' motivations, because we don't know who shot all of those people. Kilmeade, though, clearly moved that Overton window and shifted expectations. Stochastic terrorism is a term that I keep seeing reasons to mention.

asakiyume

Yesterday I was responsible to get R to a first English class, only I was late.

( go slow )

Any time we can slow stuff down and humanize it, even if it's only for a little bit, it feels like a victory.

summersgate

Watch on YouTube

Another morning with the dancing lights.

We stayed up late last night reminiscing. Kathy holds the last love that is rooted in my original family. We're heading out soon to the hardware store and to get a few groceries. I bought a swimsuit yesterday and later when it gets hot I'm going swimming in her pool.

smokingboot

I did see it though, that black and silver river.

Dreams rose, seeing myself in a carriage where appeared a small Nosferatu/elven type creature. I was very prepared and basically kicked its arse right out of the carriage, but it appeared again, with a ring as a gift from its 'master.' The ring had a stone most like one of those black opals full of fire. He took forever to persuade me to take it, merely as a gift, no strings attached... but it did have a wish in it, if I ever wanted/needed.

Then I was on the silver river and the night was black above us all. All! There were loads of people, in dinghies and coracles and little boats, whole families, many with their pets (lots of dogs playing in the water) and along the banks were walkers travelling in the same direction, some pausing for a while to sit around fires, maybe eat a bit or just tell each other stories. There were so many of us, beasts and people alike, all headed in the same general direction, that I wondered if a major event had happened and we had all died. Were we on the way to Hades? If so Chiron was clearly out of a job. It made me think of the song 'Future' by Madonna, 'Not everyone is coming to the future/Not everyone is coming from the past.'*

Meanwhile, some people were not - I couldn't get it right, the picture in my head - not joining us. But the physical barrier was something like a page being turned. And I remembered the ring, realising that if I reached event horizon, the wish was still there. I could go to any point in history or space or imagination, I could reincarnate if I chose. Then for a moment, I saw the old train station at Hue and then somehow after that, the Cao Dai temple in South Vietnam.

*Remembering her performance of this at Eurovision19, it seems fair to say that that even Madame X must face this possibility.

poliphilo

Ailz asks me if I "rate" the woman I was listening to yesterday who was talking about The Shift- and I say, "Yes".

But I'm not entirely happy with my answer. "Rate" I want to add isn't the same as "Believe". I like the woman, I like her energy and her take on things, but I don't necessarily believe her.

I collect information- esoteric and non-esoteric (much as I collect knick-knacks ) then add it to the data banks and see how it fits with everything else that's in there. My assent to anything rarely goes beyond "very likely".

flemmings

Ah, so The Magic Flute is playing at the Elgin. The candlelight concert is The Four Seasons, but equally it's not at my local church but also somewhere downtown. So no, probably won't be going to either, sigh.

Warm September continues rather pleasantly, aside from the sweatiness going anywhere. Anywhere was the laundromat this morning so towels and pillowcases and my threadbare hoodie are now clean. I'd been wearing the hoodie alone the past couple of nights quite happily, but the lows aren't getting low enough early enough for that. Sleep shirt it is for now. I should also take my down duvet into the dry cleaners but am afraid temps will nosedive to the point where my fibre duvet and wool blankets won't be enough. OTOH my duvet is over 20 years old and never been cleaned, so kind of overdue.

summersgate

Pennies From Heaven.

We went to downtown Bradenton this morning so Kathy could go to a meeting at the library. I walked the River Walk. A city park that runs beside the Manatee River with a paved pathway that goes a couple miles. A beautiful warm morning, breezy, not hot, though it did get hot later today.

Sitting in the backyard at the moment. A cicada in the live oak tree above me just now started. This is the first one I have heard here. Incredible! The volume of sound. I think there are 2 but they blend together. And maybe another has now joined in. They seem louder here than anything I've ever experienced up north.

mellowtigger

There are far too many relevant topics for Moody Monday, and there is far too little time to actually delve into them.

Here's the abridged version of most of the important things in my brain during this past week.

Click here to read the 7 items...

Charlie Kirk's apparent political assassination:
A whole lot of people are putting words into other people's mouths. Here are the things that Charlie Kirk said (free archive copy), that political leaders said, and that actual progressive commentators said. In that last video, skip to the 12-minute mark to hear what I hope is wise advice for how to responsibly prepare your mind to watch violent war footage, if you choose to do so. I haven't watched the snuff video. I have enough exposure to violence where I'm at, thanks.
The USA President's health and ego:
So, Trump disappeared for a week, which is highly unusual, then returns with a droopy half-face (at least temporarily), looking exactly like he had some kind of stroke. Then during his speech against the "radical left", Trump publishes a video where his hands and fingers glitch visually. According to this review of it, that video was not AI generated, merely badly edited. Both the editing (at all) and the quality (poorly done) are bothersome concepts in this context. Separately, there's a detail that is nagging at my brain. According to this story, the accused killer was caught at 10pm Thursday night. But what was the very first mention to the public of this apprehension? I cannot find a solid answer. It seems (without solid proof) that news was deliberately withheld from the USA public until Trump could go on Fox News on Friday morning and claim he was told about it just "5 minutes before I walked in." Oh, pleasant coincidence? Only after his statement, from what I can find, did other press conferences happen that morning. I want to be wrong about this obscure detail of timing, because that level of national manipulation for Trump's personal benefit is just... unconscionable. Why was the USA kept ignorant overnight on what is obviously an issue of national importance... until Trump gets to play the role of important political strongman revealing such significant news in person to Fox & Friends? We got news about Luigi Mangione seemingly every hour for days. Please, prove me wrong on this issue.
The ongoing USA civil war:
I've mentioned stochastic terrorism on this blog several times in recent years. I think we will not properly address violence in the USA until we get a national legal definition of stochastic terrorism, so it can be objectively identified and punished in court. It will need to clarify what is not protected by the 1st Amendment. Likewise, I've said before that we need clarified what is not protected by the 2nd Amendment. Towards a solution for that problem, I think more states need state defense forces which cannot be controlled by the federal government. (Florida also started one recently.) Why? I think that federal law should require that all citizens be active members of those state forces, or members of federal military units, before they're allowed military weapons. Not everyone (and literally their children too) should have them. Make actual military units (which any citizen can potentially join) responsible for the use of their weapons. I think that culpability would put a quick end to idiots taking weapons whenever they want and firing them whenever they want. Possession of any military weapon without a military unit's explicit orders would be a punishable offense. That still leaves handguns (and 3D-printed ones) out there for potential misuse, but we have to start somewhere. It will require new constitutional amendments to make those changes. We should've started that process after Columbine. Until adoption of these (and other) new amendments, so-called blue states could financially starve and delay fascist government by pursuing economic secession.
Ukraine:
I agree with this vlogger who says that Russia is sending drones into NATO countries, not because Putin thinks NATO will react. Putin knows NATO will not react. Instead, Putin does it because triggering worries in those populations might convince them to hoard their defense supplies instead of sending them to Ukraine. That's actually a shrewd military plan. I hope the NATO countries don't succumb to it.
Climate change:
We're supposed to be in the midst of a La Niña year, but temperatures didn't really cool off globally. In addition, we're learning that very unusual breaks are happening in air and water and species migration patterns. We've got 1 more year expected of this La Niña, then 2027 (or late 2026) should shift back to El Niño, when things start heating up again. The last El Niño set some bad global records, but we'll start next time from another high point.
Privacy:
I've tried explaining before that the only privacy that matters is what happens inside your own brain. We keep getting better at decoding brainwaves. We need a guarantee of absolute, inviolable (under any imagined emergency circumstance) privacy within our own bodies, and it needs to be encoded directly into the national constitution as a new amendment. Urgently. I think maybe I'm prepared for technological telepathy, but I'm increasingly sure that the rest of humanity is not capable of resisting the allure of knowing what other people think... or enduring the consequence of actually knowing those thoughts.
UFOs:
I still feel a bit of embarrassment (I think it is) at my mention of supposedly-trustworthy news 2 years ago about an archaeological find in Peru, which turned out to be false. So I've been more guarded than usual on any UFO news. There was new testimony at the U.S. Congress last week. Apparently-reputable people testified where there are very real legal consequences, so I'm trusting one particular story as accurate first-person information. Like this video (MSN.com) of an Air Force veteran describing what sounds very much like stealth technology. A practical invisibility screen that can be turned on and off at will, not just difficult-to-radar surfaces. There's a longer video here (YouTube) of the Congressional testimony with even more footage of another flying craft. That UFO takes a missile hit, survives, appears to start tumbling, yet it and shrapnel pieces near it keep flying on the same trajectory, not falling down at all. That is not aerodynamic propulsion. That is something new. Given how easily our tools (including AI tools) can generate false text, images, speech, and video, it's important to stay skeptical, especially if somebody's selling something. I don't know what's going on, but I'm certain that my government is lying to the public and to Congress, which is supposed to have regulatory oversight of the military forces of the USA.

Strange times. So much distracting drama.

smokingboot

That was a very tough weekend.

I cried a bit today, out of tiredness more than anything.

He's fine, or as fine as possible, he's gone home. I introduced him to Clarkson's Farm and Grimm, he seemed to enjoy them.

R has comforted me. But.

I'm going to take my acrylics and paint a black sky, and a broad silver river/sea beneath it. Today's sunset was so extraordinary in its gold but it hasn't stayed with me.

Maybe tomorrow. I have things to do tomorrow, quite a few of them. Still, at least I will be able to think and read, get back to myself, later maybe read and paint.

Or perhaps the black sky and silver sea will just be, untouched by my attempts to express or make something out of them.

Gosh, time to close my eyes.

summersgate

Watch on YouTube

Good morning. This is where I like to sit on the porch in the morning when I'm at Kathy's house. We imagine that Pete is visiting us in the dancing lights from the mirror curtains. Like the sparkles in the snow from that funeral poem.

The plane trip yesterday was good. Kathy has a gallery meeting this morning and I'm going to walk by the river while she's there. Later, lunch at the Thai Palace restaurant.

wayfaringwordhack

I shall preface my kitty introduction with the reason we adopted her:

Our kids have been overall good sports at the international living, but for various reasons, proper to each child, life abroad is wearing thin for at least two of the three. This is problematic because J and I are not quite ready to return longterm to France. In talking things through with the kids, we discovered that one of the chafing points of not settling back down in France is that we can't have animals. Well, J and I have made several international moves with cats and know what it entails, so we decided that we could get a kitten. For the kiddos, this means another another point of stability in their lives, another loved being, to make any subsequent moves with us.

One of J colleagues showed him a photo back in March of her pretty (pregnant) cat, who happened to look a lot like a cat his mother once had (with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen). After talking it over, we decided we would adopt one of the kittens when it was weaned and surprise the kids. The kitten was old enough (by Lebanese standards) to get before we left for France this summer, but a) we thought her still too young, and b) we didn't want to cause her trauma by bringing her home for a week and then having to find someone to look out for her for a month while we were on vacation. Happily, the cat owner was willing to keep her for us until we returned. We didn't breathe a word of it to the kids.

For weeks before we traveled and during the whole month of July, the kids, especially Farmer Boy, kept on and on about how he wanted a pet. He was researching sugar gliders of all things. Everyday, "I want a pet. I need a pet." To which I took to answering with, "When we get back to Lebanon I will pet you." Of course this (mildly) irritated him because he thought I was merely making a word play.

The first day back, I bought all the supplies for the kitten and hid, and that night Julien brought the kitten home after work. We snuck her inside and then opened the cat carrier. Soon, strident meows were heard throughout the house. However we are blessed (yes, that is sarcasm) with a plethora of feral cats that visit our garden and circle our building, so at first, no one batted an eye. But finally, Sprout, the most observant of the bunch realized the sound could not be coming from outside and she dashed up from the couch and set off to find out what was going on. She discovered a beautiful white kitten exploring the craft room.

Sprout scooped her up, and it was love at first sight. After being repeatedly assured that it was their cat and no mistake had been made, the kiddos decided to name her Pearl. They call her their little sister. And the funniest thing is, when we were pregnant with Ti'Loup, the name we had picked out for a girl was Inji*, a name that means "pearl."

So meet the newest member of the family:

She is a Turkish Angora (or a mix; she doesn't have papers). True to the breed characteristics, she is super friendly, outgoing with strangers (didn't even take a moment to hide and get her bearings when we brought her home), extremely playful. And Vocal. She is a looker, but her voice! It cracks me up. 🤣 I have a knack for creating with my hands, but a singer I am not. And for that, Pearl takes after her "momma."** But she is thinking about taking up pottery, or at least playing with the potters' things.😝

The cat owner wasn't very knowledgable about Pearl's exact birth date. The vet agreed with me that it was--if not on, then very close to--April 21. So 21 April it is, so she can share a birthday with another special someone in my life.🥰

_____________
*We had a lovely Egyptian friend named Inji and she told me it was Turkish for "pearl."

** I don't actually call myself her mom or her my daughter.😜

poliphilo

Edna was in her car, she says, and the news coming over the radio was so distressing she could either have burst into tears or drunk a carton of custard- and she chose the latter. She drank it then and there, in the car, having first- I hope- pulled over to the side of the road.

Strange days, these, odd days, most peculiar days- with time moving so fast and all sorts of mad things happening- like Elon Musk, supposedly the world's richest man, speaking by satellite to Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's discombobulated, flag-draped hordes on the streets of London and calling for the otherthrow of a government not his own- and the rain is falling in torrents and the wind blowing high. It's confusing, giddy-making, sick-making even. I don't feel too good- and I don't think there's anything physically wrong with me.

Someone I was listening to the other day explained it thusly: We're going through the Shift/the close of the Kali Yuga/the transition into the Age of Aquarius/the Last Days- and the world is moving out of third dimensional reality- where time is strictly sequential- into fourth dimensional reality- where it isn't- and our bodies which are still three-dimensional are having difficulty coping. Also, to make things even more messed up, our consciiousness is increasingly open to fifth-dimensional reality which is where things get really wild.....

mellowtigger

It has been nearly a quarter-century since progressive U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota, but his influence still affects Minnesota politics today. I've even used his phrase "We all do better when we all do better" in conversation at work myself. Paul Wellstone originally used it in 1999 during a speech to the Sheet Metal Workers Union.

This song is very "situational" and not relevant for most situations, but it's a nice counterpoint to tomorrow's post for Moody Monday.

Watch on YouTube

The lyrics are simple and short, about that married couple's death. It begins with these words.

October morning, little plane on the forest floor,
Up on the TV between a rerun and another war.
Here in a hotel, trying to make some sense of this.
Two thousand miles from my family in Minneapolis.

Hey Senator, I wanna say,
All the things you fought for did not die here today.
Hey Senator, I'm gonna do
All the things I can to live my life more like you lived.

So... that's the theme song for today.

flemmings

Googling around for discussions of Boneland gets me a reminder of Cocteau's Orphée, a forgotten fave from my 20s. Probably seen in that same Film Odyssey series that introduced me to Kurosawa that was another 'opposite of nail in coffin' (unconscious impetus?) that led me almost twenty years later to go to Japan. Seventeen years is nothing now but then it was several lifetimes. Anyway, Orphée. Brief clips on YouTube suggest I might find it reeeally overdone now, and Jean Marais is entirely Too Much. But. But. I would like to see it again.

Equally I would like to go to some upcoming concerts hereabouts. Ballets Trocadero, or a candlelight and surely truncated Magic Flute. The latter is at a local church where I could enquire about how disabled seating works with first come, first served. The former is way down Yonge St and pricey, and I have these dental bills still piling up. But I'd like to be out and about again because this crippled mindset is getting me down.

Will I read Boneland? Am disinclined, especially if I'm supposed to think that all of the preceding books is Colin's dying hallucination, or Colin refusing to remember being raped, or something equally unpleasant.

somedayseattle

Happy New Pee Bag Day!!
Looking back it's been since last NPBD that I’ve dropped in here. Things have been a little out of the ordinary. Nothing major just cumulatively too many things to deal with. I’m still struggling with losing MeMum. Adjusting to life in an adults only community has definitely been weird. Monday through Friday there are usually four or five activities per. Trying to be social, I try to attend two or three. I have to schedule all my trips out as well as my actual job around whether or not today is bingo. Speaking of which I have won twice so far. lol. Erica and I have been able to walk to North Hills mall in one direction and a Food Lion groceria in the other. Thankfully we have somewhat busier than the last apartment. Speaking of which, I have to catch Da Cripple Van to grab Erica from work. I promise you I will be back a lot sooner than next Pee Bag Day.

poliphilo

Our radio controlled clock lost exactly four hours this morning. And by "exactly? I mean the minutes were right but the hour was wrong- and we were getting the time as it was in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Buenos Aires.

Very odd. I've never known a clock do that before....

Profile

calzephyr

August 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Paletteable by branchandroot
Theme: Full Sky by krja

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Sep. 17th, 2025 12:46 pm

Got to be birds flying higher

in a sky more blue

Network

Picture Diary 103

Headach, Ghost, Butterfly

City On The Hill

(no subject)

(no subject)

taking a little time

tuesday

The River, The Opal

Rating And Believing

(no subject)

monday later

so much drama

Black and Silver

monday

Meet Pearl

Shifting

theme song: Ballad of Paul and Sheila

(no subject)

the journey from grape to raisin

Odd

Profile

August 2025

Links

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags