May 2nd, 2019
“Bonan matenon” “Good Morning !!!” to you all in Esperanto, an international auxiliary language devised in 1887 by Dr Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof.
My youngest child, my baby, celebrated her 41st Birthday last Saturday! I just find that fact astounding! We had a lovely dinner of standing Rib Roast, grilled vegetables, a new wonderful mango, avocado salad with the much requested home made mac & cheese. It was a feast! That was followed by a tasty but rather strange combination white cake with a tres leches bottom and of course, ice cream. We topped off the celebration by going to see the new Avengers moive… which was very good. But still… 41years!!! that means OMG I must be Old!
This week I learned some stuff:
• Today is INTERNATIONAL FIREFIGHTERS’ DAY Honored around the world on May 4th, firefighters put their lives on the line every time they go out on a call. On this day, take some time to thank a firefighter for the providing such dangerous services.
Website Update:
• 2nd week for the new Vocabulary Quiz!!
• A new UJT Music Trivia Quiz….. Haaaaaa… The crowd goes wild!!..
• I wanted to do something interesting and new for Jessica’s birthday dinner so I checked out my buddies over on MilkStreet and found this very interesting and tasty salad (Even the salad haters in the house liked it!!). The recipe for Senegalese Avocado Mango Salad has been added. I also came up with another tasty and interesting dish that you may wish to try – Peanut, Chicken and Pears Noodles.
Writing, Ceramics and Painting Update:
• I managed to complete some more paintings this week. I may not be getting much better but I am going through some paper! I did some more work on the Flamingo’s body in Ceramics Class this week. I should be able to glaze it next Friday. I also created a rather interesting flower pot out of the remaining mix of colored clay that I had left over from our class demonstration. My little box of mix color clay came out of the low fire kiln much lighter than I wanted so I put it back in for a high fire run.
• Grandpa Stories is still not re-published.
Weird-Stuff-O-Meter:
• I struggle sometimes I understand the world around me. I mean it seems to make pretty good sense when you think of the balance between plants, animals, weather, sea and land and air on the planet. That is until you plop a human being or a billion in the middle. Then that lovely little “to-ing and fro-ing” that naturally occurs gets all wopperjawed! Oh I do love that word so!“Wopperjawed” is a redneck adjective for messed up, askew or off kilter (another great word!) in some way. And it seems the perfect term to describe what happens every time human beings interject themselves into systems that need no interference. I get infuriated when I hear, “….studies have found that humans have the greatest intelligence of any speeches” Whose studies? What a shock! Humans decided humans are the smartest species. Oh yeah? If we are so smart why are the oceans now full of plastics? Are we the smartest ones because we figured out a way to extend our addiction to fossil fuels by pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground to force out the remain oils and natural gas from the earth? Thereby creating our very own earthquakes miles from any know fault in the planet crust. We have decided that is “ok” for other species to go extinct because it’s inconvenient or too expensive to keep that from happening. Humans are the only species that creates money and religion to justify their personal existence and to give themselves hope for a better life after this one. All of our fellow earth inhabitants tend to enjoy the life they have. Our lives might not be so bad if we stopped hurting each other and the planet, every chance we get. The least intelligent forms of life on the planet fulfill their purpose and live their lives without threatening each other or their planet… just sayin …
• It happened again! I bit the inside of my cheek again!! I couldn’t believe it! I mean it has happened before but it has been years. Why 2 times in one 10 day period? I went to the oracle of all truth and knowledge, my iMac and the internet to research this serial failure in safe mastication. It turns out that like most things in life, if you don’t want to get hurt, you best be paying attention to what you are doing… even when eating. Yep! Distracted eating is the root cause for most cheek bitings. You get serial cheek bites after the first one because, a swollen bit cheek gets in the way more. I apparently did not learn my lesson the first time.
Music Update:
I hope you all enjoy this week’s musical selections. I had some sort of neural network glitch and the updates I made to last weeks UJT Radio Broadcast did not stick. When I found out I re-uploaded the tunes and tried saving the changes before exiting this time ..seemed to help.
Go to this week’s UJT Radio program.
• Eric Johnson — Trademark — This is a deeper cut from his “Ah VIa Musicom” album released in 1990. Superb guitar player.
• Barcelona — Faded — This is another deep cut from their 2007 release, “Absolutes”. This is an eerie song. It’s almost like he is singing to himself alone in the dark.
• Kacey Musgraves — Family is Family — This is twang C&W based thing that just makes me smile. Check out her album, “Pagent Material” released in 2015.
• The Lumineers — Flowers in Your Hair — Been a while since UJT Radio featured these boys. I haven’t heard anything lately but I really liked what they did on their debut album, “The Lumineers” released in 2012.
• Israel Kamakawiwo’ole — Somewhere Over the Rainbow — This one won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I like it. In fact, I would say it is my favorite Ukulele song. This comes from his 2001 release, “Alone in IZ World.”
• Sting – Fragile — This one is from his second solo studio album, “Nothing Like the Sun” released in 1987.
• Les Paul and Steve Miller — Fly Like An Eagle (2005) — This is the very best versions of this kind of cheesy commercial song. This comes from the “Les Paul and Friends” album released in 2005
That’s it… Do the best you can; Laugh every chance you get; And always remember … The best is yet to come!
As always, thank you for being my friend!
James