WARMING UP

The heat is on! 

It might be a good day to do your outdoor gardening early or late.

At least here in Arizona.

At 9 a.m. today it's already 84 degrees F.

That's almost 29 C, according to the Google Gods.

The forecast high for today ranges from 97 to 100, depending on which site you use.

Down the hill, in Phoenix, the temperature has already hit the triple figures in the last few days and today it's expected to reach about 115.

And we still have July and August to go!

But long-time Arizonans, like yours truly, know to just take it in stride.

Unlike that guy above, I stay inside an air conditioned house during the middle of the day.

And hydrate, which means drink a lot of water.

The calendar says it isn't here yet but Happy Summer, everybody!

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

There is not much to laugh about this week.

But I'll give it a try with the help of my accomplices, the humor elves.

That's it, my friends.

I hope for this brief time I was able to take your mind off whatever bothers you and give you a rare moment of joy.

Now try to have a good weekend and always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oh, I don't t-h-i-n-k so . . . )

ODIN

Well, my loyal readers, I have searched and searched until I am "blue in the face" but I can not tell you where yesterday's picture was taken.

But I can tell you a little.

The subway (who knows where?) rider is posing as the Norse god Odin, or All Fathers.

And, by the way, that is NOT a crow on his shoulder.

It is a raven.

Let me explain the difference.

Crows avoid humanity and hide in the cornfields.

Ravens are very social as they come in to raid our dumpsters.

Ergo, that has to be a tamed raven on the Odin-posing man's shoulder.

Now to get back to the facts.

Or folk fiction as we know it.

Odin is the god of wisdom, knowledge, air, poetry, death, healing, royalty, divination, gallows, frenzy, magic and runic alphabet in Norse mythology

Thanks to Wikipedia for that information.

This is what he supposedly looks like.

You will note the spear and a couple of ravens (the real Odin was price-ier, apparently) but no eye-patch though he was known to have only one eye.

He is known as All-Fathers, because he is said to be the father to all of the other Norse gods.

And Wednesday is his Big Day because it is named after him: Odin's Day = Wednesday.

You have to say it out loud to get it.

The only thing I can't figure out is why he was riding the subway and where.

Anybody else out there with an investigative mind and time to spare?

Go for it!

AN AGING LIFE

I saw this picture on Facebook today and couldn't resist cheekily sending it to a friend in England, asking if it was him.

This is aging with style..an older gentleman in England riding on the train wearing an eyepatch, carrying a spear and he has a live crow on his shoulder.

Now that I am a tad more than halfway through my octogenaria, I feel I can get away with things like that.

My beloved Judy (aka SWMBO) constantly gets compliments when she is out in public.

Comments like "I can't believe you're ** years old!"

Or "You are so beautiful!"

And the latter does not always come from men!

As for me, the best I've been able to manage is "I like your hat" when I'm wearing the beret I acquired in Paris 40 YEARS AGO.

Or occasionally someone will note a shirt I'm wearing, like my treasured Rolling Stones tee, or one of my seemingly larger Hawaiian shirts.

I say "seemingly larger" because I have been shrinking in these so-called Golden Years.

So far, no young lady has seen fit to comment on how handsome I am.

Ah well, alas and alack.

Now there's another thing, old sayings pop into my head from time to time.

I just had a back and forth with Margaret up in Washington who was wondering if anyone knew the expression "meeting someone coming and going".

Yup, I knew that one and still use it from time to time.

Another part of my senescence is getting rid of stuff.

Marie Kondo be damned, it's hard to part with.

But I sent a huge box of old family photos and history off to a nephew recently who had volunteered to take if off my hands.

There is still way too much clutter taking up space in our living quarters.

But you know what Scarlett said, "tomorrow is another day".

JUNE IS BUSTIN' OUT ALL OVER!

With apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein, I couldn't think of a better name for this post.

The plants are putting on a show with beautiful blossoms everywhere, whether in the wild or planted around my library as these are.

The background is kind of crappy here but I couldn't resist a snap of these floral beauties outside a medical laboratory this morning.

I have to give credit to a friend, the recently retired newspaper reporter in neighboring Prescott, Cindy Barks.

She is an inveterate hiker and traveler and shows her talent on her blog NearandFarAZ.

I saw her photos of wildflowers, cactus flowers and sunsets on Facebook this morning, inspiring me.

I'm too old to hike like her anymore so my pictures are mostly shot from my car window.

SUNDAY DINNER

Shrimp Piccata & Rotini Alfredo.

Accompanied by salted bread sticks (not shown) and Judy's latest fruit salad.

Strawberries, cantaloupe and pineapple sprinkled with Tajin Clasico seasoning.

Very tasty!

SAT-UR-DAY, SAT-UR-DAY . . .

This morning a new recipe from the Washington Post Food section sounded interesting so I tackled it.

This picture doesn't really do them justice because they look like cookies.

They're actually muffins.

Maple Oatmeal Muffins and they came out pretty well.

By that I mean they tasted great but I think they could have used an extra minute or two in the oven.

The blotches you see are dried cranberries, sometimes called Craisins.

It's a pretty easy recipe that incorporates some applesauce, cinnamon, a touch of ground cardamom and vanilla, along with the rolled oats and maple syrup.

Like I said, they turned out pretty good on a first attempt but the next time I make them I'd probably bake them a tad longer.

Happy weekend, friends!

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

It was a week like any other week.

Well, not really.

I mean we had several rainy days.

Or at least parts of some days.

The Dread Monsoon Season is not supposed to begin in my part of Arizona until July 4th, just in time to rain out parades, picnics and fireworks.

But like all climate related events these days, it seems to be arriving sooner.

I'm not sure what that holds for the summer season; whether it will be much hotter than usual or much wetter than usual.

But I'm not going to think about that anymore today.

I'm not going to think about anything anymore today.

I'm just going to be mildly amusing.

See what I mean:

There.

My work is over.

If you need any of them to be explained to you, just be patient and keep checking the comments.

Ofttimes, my readers are a lot quicker than I am.

Now I'm heading for the kitchen to see what I can mess up.

The rest of you, I trust, will have an astoundingly fine weekend.

You will if you always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . not to worry . . .  not in this house! . . . )

AN OLD NEW POST

 I was looking back into the archives of this blog to see if there might be something interesting that I could re-post and I found the post below from about ten years ago.

I thought of how the years have changed a lot of things, including the people who read this blog so I decided to run it again.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

BOOKIN'

This was a scene I encountered a week ago at a familiar location.

The folks at my local library were trying to clean out their overload of books by offering many of them for sale at bargain prices in a used book sale. The books were displayed just outside the front entrance of the library and local bibliophiles were having a great time perusing the collection and searching for good deals.

I had to prowl the piles of written material myself having had a lifelong love of books. Regular readers here may remember that SWMBO and I owned and ran a bookstore called BOOKENDS here for 7 years.

I was tempted numerous times by some of the titles but then I remembered our bookshelves at home with so many volumes waiting to be read.

And then SWMBO, noticing what I was doing, reminded me of the normally closed cabinet with the cookbooks!

By the time I got around to taking this picture, our curious big black cat, Blackwell, had discovered a new niche to be explored. I didn't notice him in there until I was editing the pictures.

Having taken this inventory, I am glad I refrained from buying any more books at the library book sale.

Sort of.

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While I didn't take note of it when I posted this originally, ten years ago, June 6th was my mother's birthday.

She, too, loved to read and maybe would have enjoyed looking through our book collection.

Regrettably she died in 1953, before we had accumulated this houseful, many of which are gone now, passed on to other readers.

CLOUDS

Yesterday was a rainy day, off and on, but the sky views were the treat.

There may be more today.

Great for cloud watchers.