May Words of Wisdom

I only write when I'm inspired, so I see to it that I'm inspired every morning at nine o'clock. --Peter DeVries

Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to be happy is always now. --Roy T. Bennett

Let today be the day you love yourself enough to no longer just dream of a better life; let it be the day you act upon it. --Steve Maraboli

Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own. --Marcus Aurelius

 

I'm going to make everything around me beautiful - that will be my life. --Elsie de Wolf

 

The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind. --Caroline Myss 

 

Consider how precious a soul must be, when both God and the devil are after it. --Charles Spungeon 

Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit. --Henry David Thoreau 

 

Elegance is the only beauty that never fades. --Audrey Hepburn

 

Let the magical night sky with beautiful music be your backdrop. Make the moon and stars your friends because they know your secrets. --Hiral Nagda 

The love of old things is a way of respecting time. --Wu Ming Yi

 

Once you realize your worth, you'll be embarrassed at the shit you once settled for. --Jesue Pena

 

Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent. --Ayn Rand 

Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made. --J.R.R. Tolkien

I will absolutely leave the court when I do my job as poorly as you do yours. --Justice Clarence Thomas (to the media)

The most dangerous person is the one who listens, thinks and observes. --Bruce Lee

We don't always need to agree with one another. But we should try our best to behave with respect for one another. --Karen Salmansohn (How sad is it that in today's society that advice sounds quaint and naive?)

There's no crying in hockey. The NBA, on the other hand...

Man oh man, it's been a slow blogging month. Luckily, The Babylon Bee has come through with this hilarious headline: 

From the most excellent article:

LOS ANGELES, CA—With nothing to do during basketball playoffs, LeBron James turned on a hockey game and was shocked to see players somehow getting back to their feet after being knocked over.

"This makes no sense!" said a bewildered LeBron. "No tears, no waiting to be carried to a wheelchair, they just literally stand back up and keep playing. How is this possible??"

In case you don't know, LeBron is known for, uh, exaggerating physical contact on the court. Because, apparently there's crying in the NBA. 

 

Also, be sure to scroll down past the article and check out the Law & Order: Microaggression Victims Unit video. Spot on.

I can't believe it's been x years, yada yada...

I'm going to make this year's short and sweet, partly because I have four assignments for two classes due this weekend (including a major exam due by this evening) but also because I basically say the same thing every year: I can't believe it's been this long. Eleven years ago today my Dad passed away. It's boggling how fast it's gone by, etc. etc. And it's always going to feel that way. 

So only a couple favorite pics today. There's always Father's Day next month.

Miss you, Dad.

Happy Mother's Day

Fifth one without her. Man, that went by fast.

We both looked so young...

Recent reading: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (March/April 2022)

I am so far behind in reading. I have three books in progress and the new Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mags have already arrived, so it was a relief to finally finish something. 

 

"Send in the Clowns" by Paul Charles was probably my favorite. It's a murder mystery in which a minor, blink-and-you'll-miss-it clue gives the investigating detective the ability to unravel a clever but ultimately unsuccessful revenge killing. Dominique Beibau's "Russian For Beginners" is a claustrophobic tale of an avid spelunker lost in a Russian cave; the moment at the end when he finally figures how and why he got lost is absolutely haunting. I also enjoyed Edith Maxwell's "Bye-Bye, JoJo" a brief but entertaining tale about a woman who has no patience with noisy neighbors and their barking dogs.

Some other good ones: Michael Caleb Tasker's bleak "Another Saturday Night" looks at desperate lives in New Orleans. By the end, you do hope that the main character, Sal, a night shift blackjack dealer, does move on, hopefully to bigger and better things. Lou Manfredo's "Sundown" is an interesting whodunit about a pair of detectives seeking the killer of young woman. And I have a soft spot for Tim Baker's "The Rendezvous" because of its clever switch-up of a character's understanding of what it means when someone is about to report to the CIA - in this case, the Culinary Institute of America, not the spy agency. Oops!

In Anna Scotti's "Schrodinger, Cat" a woman confronts her college professor boyfriend after seeing him with another woman and has to deal with his increasingly bizarre explanations for his increasingly odd behavior. How and why she exacts revenge provided a neat twist ending. "Justice" by Cath Staincliffe starts with the line, "She used a claw hammer." Why she used a claw hammer is eventually revealed in a way that thwarts the very justice she was trying to achieve.

From "Bye-Bye, JoJo": If that dog doesn't stop barking, I'm going to kill someone. It's not like I don't know how.

It's official: Orwell was an amateur

Apparently, Joe Biden thinks massive inflation, record high gas and food prices, a plummeting stock market, and just the suffering of non-elites in general is hilarious:

 

 

You can watch the whole God-awful exchange here if you can stomach it.

 

"Fucking Hell" is right.