For Loretta Who's Under the Weather

Hope this makes her laugh even if it doesn't cure what ails her!

Common Cold
by Ogden Nash
 
Go hang yourself, you old M.D,!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!
   
 

Double Entendre

Today marks my second anniversary on Multiply so Happy Halloween!

My Horoscope for October 18th

Here's my horoscope from My Yahoo for today:

You can expect a ton of invitations, opportunities and special requests to hit your inbox today. Sure, everything will sound tempting, but you can't do it all -- and you shouldn't. In fact, you should do none of it. It's time to slow down the pace of your days. Take on fewer commitments in your life, and remember what it's like to have free time! Too much has been going on lately, and you're in danger of losing perspective on who you really are.

So this has convinced me to get off here and go to the park.

Now here's my horoscope from Mi Yahoo:

La vida doméstica te está pesando eres demasiado bueno y hay quehaceres que debieras dejar a otros que ayuden aunque el resultado no sea perfecto. Los arreglos económicos tienen un chance mayor de éxito si los pospones hasta la semana que viene hay un ángulo de tu carta que es un poco flojo.

Translation: Your domestic life is weighing you down. You're too good (that's true) and there are chores that you should let others help you with even though the result won't be perfect. Your economic arrangements have a better chance of succeeding if you postpone them until next week. There's an angle to your chart that is a bit weak.

So I should leave things lying around until someone picks them up for me? I'm going to the park!

Promises, Promises

It's a lovely sunny day in Madrid though the mornings definitely have a feeling that yes autumn has arrived. I had planned to post one or two photo albums today, but I don't have any of the photos organized and some I haven't even uploaded yet. I've sent a few photos to family that's all. Since it's such a lovely day, Zara and I are going to our favourite park later on. That's one promise I mean to keep. Another promise I'll try to keep is to post some recipes from a cookbook I bought in September for quick and easy dishes. I really like it because the measurements have been converted to the metric system too, which as you know most of the world uses. At the moment I'm still cleaning out things that I haven't used or worn in a long time.

Last week was only the second time since he's been posting them that Frank didn't post any new secrets. This week's secrets made up for that and I'm including one of the ones I liked. Almost 100% of the time I get an odd number and this week's is no exception: 275,081,689.

This is a normal week with no holidays so I'm going to make this a short post today. Here's wishing everybody a good week.   

Happy Birthday, Aaron

Today is my nephew Aaron's 17th birthday. I kind of think he now prefers Starbucks to Yoo-hoo, but I hope you have a happy birthday anyhoo, Aaron. You share the same birthday as the Madrid underground system (el metro). Today marks it 90th birthday!  

BAD 2009

Funny how we're always waiting for Friday (TGIF). Blog Action Day (BAD) is the day that I've been waiting for and here is my contribution to this year's chosen topic 'Climate Change'.



There is a video somewhere that says everything that I believe to be true about climate change and the underlying causes. I've seen it and thought that it was one of the best put together videos that I've ever come across. I'm sure I've seen it on someone's page in our world here at Multiply. Video or no video, and despite what many people would have us believe to be a scam, there are too many indications that we are experiencing climate change, global warming or whatever we want to call it. At least for me this is true, and I have absolutely no training in meteorological matters, and any scientific facts I would have learned at school are long forgotten. In my quest to find the video that I'd have liked to include, I came across an interview on Fox News with the Weather Channel founder who said that the whole global warming thing was a bunch of hoopla (my words, not his exact ones). The interviewer remarked that he was looking forward to the Ice Age (and these were more or less his exact words). Because I want this to be a serious blog and not one of name-calling, I'll keep my comments to myself.

For a long, long I've thought the United States has bizarre weather that I sure don't remember experiencing when I was a child - record high temperatures, tornadoes in areas that are not known for them, hurricane winds in areas where maybe there is some heavy rain but never hurricane-force winds, baseball-size hail, etc. I know many of us are able to look back on our childhood with fondness, and some of us even think it's the best time of our lives. However, I'm convinced that the part of the country where I grew up wasn't so humid and I know it wasn't as hazy as it so often is now. Sometimes when I've heard people there talk about what a nice sunny day it was I've thought it was a rather dull day. Somewhere I read that the sky is getting duller in the United States due to pollution while in Europe it's getting lighter. I suppose that's what I see. Anyway, the climate which I live in now is dry and we're usually blessed with blue skies. Not that Europe doesn't have its bizarre weather too. Please don't think for even a second that any part of this planet we live on is exempt from drastic change or unusual events. Just recently one of my Multiply friends who lives in Scotland posted photos of a terrifying sandstorm that she and a friend had got caught in. A sand storm in Scotland! I'm sure anyone who knows a little bit about geography knows that Scotland is far from any deserts. People who have lived in that area of Scotland for ages have no recollection of any such phenomenon. We can only hope that the experts, especially those who are sceptics about global warming, have a logical explanation for why this happened. From what I understand, the sand storm didn't even make the local news.

If climate change is a reality and not a scam as many detractors claim, what are we going to do to stop it or try to slow down the process? Unfortunately until our governments decide to take action ( by then it will possibly be too late), we must rely on ourselves to do what we can and through our example influence others to do what they can. Ever since I can remember, I've been a no litter freak. I've never been able throw even a minute scrap of paper on the ground although there are those in my adopted country who claim when they do so they're giving someone a job. I recycle as much as I can; I eat leftovers (I love leftovers) because I don't want to waste food; I take showers instead of baths (I've never understood sitting in your own slime anyway), stay in the shower only as long as it takes me to do what I have to, and turn off the water while I'm soaping up; I pick up my dog's solid wastes and dispose of them properly; turn off all unnecessary electrical appliances and never leave phone and camera chargers plugged up all the time like I've seen some people do.

The above list contains just some of the things I do to hopefully make things better for future generations yet this is not enough on my part. I don't like to think of myself as a hoarder, but this past weekend when I was taking out my winter clothes I had to admit that I had too many clothes. I used to think I had an addiction to magazines, especially to home decorating and computer magazines and I 'cured' myself. Now I only subscribe to one computer magazine and buy other magazines once or twice a year. I know some of us tend to love acquiring new clothes and nice things for our home to make ourselves and our home sweet home look better. However, we tend to buy more than is necessary and, in my case at least, have little space in which to store them, so we effectively become 'hoarders'. Oh, I have a good clean out from time to time and have no problem passing on items that are still useful. Nevertheless, I would like for this problem not to exist. I can see another 'cure' being worked out here. I only hope it works as I can only hope that the people whom we've elected to represent us and look after our rights and interests start taking an active part in finding and applying solutions which are beneficial for all.

 http://www.blogactionday.org 

   
 

Happy Birthday, John From Bob Marley

Bloggin' Again

True to form, my holidays have come and gone.  I still have the memories though and a yet-to-be emptied suitcase to remind me.  Most importantly I was able to see almost everyone in my large family - we had an extremely unorganized family get together the last full weekend that I was there.  I have photos to post whenever I get round to it.  Most of my pics are of animals and places we visited because I think sometimes people get in the way of photos.  Right now I feel like poor Riley here.  I'm jetlagged and probably will be for another week or so. (BTW, this shot was taken by my brother-in-law.  I don't have the date stamped on mine).

I started my classes this past Thursday.  I have them more or less organized, I think.  I'm getting a couple of new students this term, which is good as a new language school has just opened up around the corner.  I have no idea how successful it will be in the long run, but it's near quite a few schools.

I got back just in time to avoid a taxi strike.  There would have been no way I could have made it home by bus or underground with the luggage I had.  As it was, when I went to check in at the airport I had to take some things out because my suitcase was over the limit.  For one pound over the limit it's $150!  Anyway, nothing else is new here except Madrid didn't get it to host the Olympics of 2016 and Zara was happy (and fatter too) to be home.

I haven't been over to Post Secret yet.  Will do that later on.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week.