food for thought

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"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest -
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men -
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me."

~William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

ab absurdo, and let's move!!!

Ut ut velit adipiscing in mundum, et ego post haec et latine. Lingua Latina estGRAVIS primo dictum est a Romanis, quia multi doctissimi viri. Multa sunt eiusradicem multis in Latin, Gallica, et Hispanica. Unus pluma in oculis meis, utnemo possit redimere CLAMOR at, si male Latinis pronouce nemo scitRomanos non profertur?

(Not in primis esse virum doctum, immo vel a viro, usus sum valde benevolensquod dico Google Translate to vertere hic quod non possum loqui vel Latinetantum scribere. Proin pati, carissimi lectorem.)

Plus ego studium antiquata frui attrahenti history. Ut natoque id quod Graeci etRomani sub te quae non habet effectum, sed errant. Sed adipiscing mi servatoreliqua fragmenta SANITAS faciam illum dolore historiae libri bona non a C. ad hoc.

Translation: 

So, in order to be unique in the blogging world, I shall post this in Latin. Latin is an estimable language, first spoken by the Romans, and by many learned men since. Many of its words are the root of many words in English, Italian, French, and Spanish. One redeeming feature in my eyes is that no one can yell at you if you pronouce Latin words wrong as no one knows how the Romans pronounced it!

( Not being a particularly learned man, or indeed even a man at all, I used the extremely helpful Google Translate to translate what I say here, as I am not able to speak or write much Latin. Thank you for bearing with me, dear reader.)

Plus, I enjoy the fascinating study of antiquated history. You may be under the impression that what the Greeks and Romans did has no effect on you whatever, but you are wrong. However, in order to preserve the remaining fragments of my limited sanity, I shall refer you to a good history book NOT a textbook to show this.

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Whew! I return to my lingua mater. So, anyway.........I completely forgot what to write, hence the above.

Something to be proud of! <<<<

...NEXT, here are three things on the same subject--Namely, A Call to Action. Put off your Apathy! MOVEIT!!!! Shake off the sluggardness! Just do It. [In the style of John Adams, who as was the fashion in those Times, capitalized many Words in his Writings.]

A Psalm to Life

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;--

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait. ~

The Aunt and the Sluggard  by P. G. Wodehouse

"About once a month he would take three days writing a few poems; the other three hundred and twenty-nine days of the year he rested." 

A hilarious short story featuring Jeeves and Bertie concerning a hypocritical poet.

~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~

"Is this a time for airy persiflage?" [My answer: NO.]

 ~ W.S. Gilbert 

"Just do it."

~ Nike slogan 

[Note #1: Nike was a minor Greek goddess, representing Victory]

And speaking of victory: here is Churchill, from the second World War, making the victory sign. 

[Note #2: W.S. Gilbert's full name was actually William Schwenk Gilbert. Now you know!]

[Note #3: per-si-flage

1. Light good-natured talk; banter.

2. Light or frivolous manner of discussing a subject.]

.......And with that eccentric mix, I must depart. 

Valete, lectores.

[BTW, the reason for my posts starting out on one subject and ending on one completely different is this: for me, inspiration comes WHILE I'm writing]

~ Diana  

toodle-oo for now...

I will be away for the weekend, returning on Sunday, so please don't expect me to post before then. 
Going to attend a baby shower for my as-yet-unborn niece, due in September. Very excited--who wouldn't be?I have never been an aunt before! My sister-in-law doesn't want any pink, so it took some ingenuity to make some baby items for her. I used an absolutely gorgeous brown, lavender, red and white. 


We like babies here. And children. They can be *extremely* annoying but also keep life from becoming stagnant..........as do teenagers. I know that from first-person experience. LOL.


Just ramblings....so, as is my wont when inspiration fails me, I will post a lovely painting and a not-so-lovely painting.

"Shepherdess with her Flock" by Jean-Francois Millet. 1863.
(I'm assuming "millay" rather than "millett" as it is French, but feel free to pronounce as you see fit!)


A lovely realistic painting of a French peasant girl. The girl is quite young, and the heathered tones of the painting are beautiful. And as a shepherdess myself, I can appreciate its realism. 
*Click on photo/s to make them larger*
Side note: When my mom was this painting she said "Oh look! She's knitting!" If you look closely you can see that the young shepherdess is indeed knitting: a sock in the round, on four needles. This made my mother, an inveterate sock knitter, overjoyed. 


~~~~~
Now contrast it to this truly horrifying painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard. Notice the dreamy looking sheep, whose face resembles a child, and who possesses a fleece of impossible whiteness. A real sheep would never consent to be away from the rest of the flock (in the right-hand bottom corner). It would be baa-ing it's silly head off, rather than dreamily admiring the basket of flowers. (Unless it was sedated?)
 And the shepherdess, with her plump white hands, goofy silk dress, and snowy bosom, looks like she never did a lick of work in her whole life. Seriously. I hate that shepherding was so romanticized  by those out-of-it romantics  This type of painting was extremely popular at one time (early 1800s) , and was enjoyed probably by the same ilk as Marie Antoinette, who was playing on a be-ribboned hobby farm while the real peasants were starving. 

Real shepherds are like the top painting. Shepherding, or indeed any type of farming, isn't for the faint of heart. It is a dirty, complicated job which requires are patient constitution and a love for the animals, in this case sheep. It is not the kind of job where you can sit whispering words of love to your male companion while wearing an extremely tight dress and while petting a (sedated?) sheep.....
Rant finis.


What paintings do you like? LMK in a comment! Also LMK how you liked the new format. I like it. 


Anyway.....that is it for now!


Auf weidersehn, das Leser.


~ Diana, another sock-knitting shepherdess

grammar lesson: commas

For once here is a nice, ladylike, flowery heading for this post. Speaking of ladylike-ness, I would like to say that my five oldest hens (Mary Lou, a Barred Rock, at left) aren't very ladylike. Oh, sure, I can hear them protesting loudly, but the way they steal food from the little ones and bother/annoy/steal from the roosters is definitely not very ladylike. My hens are more the loud, obnoxious, feminist, lazy, and bossy female type rather than the sweet, unassuming,  gentle, smart and ladylike female type.
Ah, chicken personalities. I love them! I have sweet docile little pullets, fire-brand little hens, a gentlemanly-chivalrous (yet not exactly the brightest bulb!) Silkie rooster, a gangly cockerel, a dumb yet lovable blonde Polish hen, a paranoid Leghorn hen, and a slew of other personalities in my coop.


I have been brainstorming, trying to think of a topic to post about, but have come up blank.....


I believe I will post a short lesson in punctuation, namely, the correct use of the comma, for the benefit of all.


Commas are used to separate thoughts or ideas. 
Example A:
"Because I am going away, you need not bother delivering the milk."


If the sentence can be divided into two sentences, such as this:


"I really need to blow my nose, it's dripping all over the floor!"


Chances are you shouldn't put a comma there, it would be wrong. As demonstrated by my last sentence! This is an unfortunately extremely common mistake I have noticed often in different books and periodicals. It irked me to see the much-loved little comma abused in this way.


 You can either a) place a semi-colon [;] there, or divide it into two sentences.
Example B:

"I really need to blow my nose; it's dripping all over the floor!"

Example C:

"I really need to blow my nose. It's dripping all over the floor!"

 (You can tell I made up the examples!)

Example  D: 

"Andromeda decided to buy the orange blue purple green black yellow socks."

That is wrong. It looks wrong, doesn't it? That, my friends, is why we need commas!

Corrected:

Example E:

"Andromeda decided to buy the orange, blue, purple, green, black, and yellow socks." 

Too many commas:

"Andromeda decided to buy the orange, blue, purple, green, black, and yellow, socks."

That one extra comma can make a difference!

~ Finis. Enough punctuation for now. Next lesson will be on that infamous apostrophe, plurals, and why Bill's cats were fat. 

A handy chart from the New Yorker.

"How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath? "  ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, the only witty thing Juliet EVER says!

"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! 

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times." ~ Julius Caesar 

Speaking of Caesars, I have two things to say. A) I love ancient Roman history. B) You should try making this Caesar salad; it is delicious, easy to make, and delicious.

"...Parting is such sweet sorrow!" 

~ Diana