DAY OF REFLECTION

Twenty-two years ago today the United States came under attack on its own soil by terrorists who hijacked four commercial jets.

They flew two of them into the World Trade Towers in New York, one into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and, during a battle with passengers, crashed the fourth one into a field in Pennsylvania.

Here, far away in Prescott Valley, Arizona, those tragic events are memorialized every year.

The Healing Field, as it is called, is a display of some 3,000 flags set up on the grounds of the Prescott Valley Civic Center to honor those whose lives were lost on September 11th, 2001.

Each flagpole carries a card with details about one of the victims.

And boots are placed at the base of the flags of firefighters, police and military victims.

It is a quiet place for people to think back and remember that dark day in America's history.

Ummmm . . . .

 

CLOUDS A-BUILDING

Our normally blue skies were filling with what I call "thunder bumpers" today and we could have a few rainy days ahead of us.

It makes for some pretty sky shots.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

So how was your short week, my friends and Gentle Readers?

Oh yes, I forgot, some of you in foreign lands didn't have a day off on Monday for workers.

Come to think of it, neither did I.

All of my days in my Senior Years are days off.

That sort of makes me smile.

And speaking of smiling . . . it's time for the end of the week tomfoolery!

Fellow fools, the tomfoolery has come to an end for the week.

Now, though some of you have just had one, I'd like you to finagle your way to a festive weekend.

No F's on your grade card, please.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . aww, the disappointment . . )

BOLD AND BAD

You may remember some time back my telling you about the travails of the BAD (Beautiful Artistic Daughter), who took a tumble coming out of an appointment and broke a bone in her elbow.

She's been living with this thing while waiting for an appointment with a surgeon, now (finally) scheduled for tomorrow.

You may also remember that I told you how the arm that is broken is her left one, which happens to be her dominant arm.

And once again I remind you that she is an artist.

So how does a left-handed artist make her art when her left arm is nearly disabled?

It beats me.

But not her.

Here's a project she just completed.

And here's a new one that she is working on now.

When I asked her how she is able to do such intricate work when her good arm is in a cast, she said "Taking my time and taking breaks to rest. I just can't sit around doing nothing!"

I have often been in awe of the art she creates but never more so than now.

WHO DAT?

So I was out prowling around our side yard, checking on our pretty-much-inactive tomato plant and a couple of vines to see which one was going to die first.

When a leaf caught my eye, apparently stuck to the wall.

Now it's a rough stucco wall so I could imagine a leaf having been blown up there and becoming attached.

But when I looked closer, I saw this leaf was actually a critter so I took a couple of more pictures of it.

When I showed the pictures to Judy and suggested it might be a Praying Mantis, she said "No, it's a Cicada."

Well, I went to the omniscient Google and the Cicadas it showed didn't look anything like this critter.

So I asked Google to show me some bugs that look like leaves and it promptly convinced me this was a member of the Tettigoniidae Family.

More commonly known as Bush Crickets or (especially in North America) Katydids!

And, just to put a fine point on it, the Google said they are nocturnal and that during the day when they're "resting" they assume a posture that causes them to resemble a leaf!

So case solved and thus ends today's lesson in Insect Identification.

I can't wait until nightfall when it may start "singing".

As I said to Judy, "It may be good that we're practically deaf!"

C or F?

Just a couple of thoughts today about the differences between we (supposedly) enlightened people here in the U.S. of A. and all of the troglodytes in the rest of the world.

Yes, it's the problems caused by the refusal of most of the so-called Enlightened World Citizenry to switch over from the old Metric System to the very modern Imperial System.

But the U.S. is not the only place where the Metric System is considered outdated.

There's Liberia.

And Myanmar.

And . . . and . . . and . . .

Well I guess that's about it.

So we argue and correct each other and so on and so forth ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

But it didn't start with us.

It went back to the founders.