THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

 Oyez, oyez, ye olde week draws to a close once again.

It's been . . oh . . one of those weeks.

Nuff said.

I hope life around your corral is galloping merrily.

And speaking of merrily, that's why I'm here.

So let's see what I've dredged up for you this week.

That's all I've got folks.

So the rest is up to you.

Get thee hence and have a spectacular weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . oh, so arty . . )

A BOY AND HIS DOG

Not for real though.

It's a bronze sculpture on the grounds of the Prescott Valley Civic Center.

Nice memories, though.

MEMORIES OF JIMMY

This is one of the last songs the late Jimmy Buffett recorded.

It references the way scuba divers find the surface when they get disoriented.

And it says a lot about life in general.

Thanks, Jimmy.

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.

OOPS

 

And with that bit of knowledge, we bid farewell to a hot, fiery, rainy summer.

In the Northern Hemisphere, anyway.

Happy September 4th, Labor/Labour Day in some parts of the world.

But not in others.

Oh, man, I don't need Spell-Check, I need Fact-Check.

A LONG WEEKEND (in the U.S.A.)

 

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

It's been a frustrating week.

A delivery of a new dishwasher for my next door neighbor ran afoul of her apparently being in the shower when it arrived and her not hearing my repeated ringings of her doorbell and pounding on her door.

So I have been trying for three days through multiple telephone calls to get the delivery rescheduled.

Finally this morning I thought I was getting somewhere.

Until the guy on the other end of the phone said he couldn't do it then because his computers were down and I'd have to call back in a couple of hours and try again.

And do you know what the guy with the computers down does for a living?

He's a member of The Geek Squad at the well-known store!

Sheesh!

And I won't bore you with the waiting games the BAD and SWMBO have been playing this week.

Suffice it to say that the BAD still doesn't know if she'll have to have surgery for her broken elbow and SWMBO learned that she will definitely have to have a knee replacement.

So with that sad tune I'm playing on the world's smallest violin let's get on with something of a lighter note.

And there it is.

Those are the yucks for this week.

Now let's all go out there this weekend (and remember it's a long one) and try to have an exemplary time.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . oops, look out . . )