Friday, March 15, 2024

Hey, hey, hey. . . KATE's OKAY!

 


I wasn't going to deal with this at all, except. . . it's been a slow week, I've been sick with the double-whammy of a nasty headcold and fierce spring allergies, and what the hell. I needed a distraction from "it", which is what I now call the so-called-Sussexes, those supremely boring ex-royals in which I've completely lost interest. But then this popped up!

After not being seen in public since Christmas, amid the usual swirling rumors about what the hell has happened to her, THIS photo of Kate Middleton with the kids was released, and right away everyone thought it was fishy.

Which it is.



A few teeny-tiny mistakes were made in the photoshopping - and yes, indeed, the image was photoshopped TWICE according to the "metadata", the digital information every public photo now yields.  With Adobe, which is the one I use, for God's sake - the equivalent of manipulating a photo using your thumbs.

Worse than that, the news agencies looked at it and immediately became alarmed, then "killed" it (pulled it from all the papers, wire services, etc.) - something that generally only happens with suspicious images from North Korea or the Oval Office.  So what was actually going on? All too soon, a very lame-sounding "apology" was issued implying Kate herself had botched it up. Which is, to quote the Brits, "not bloody likely".




This has led to some alarming theories, not to mention some highly-entertaining memes on social media, along with newly-fired-up speculation about where and how Kate actually is (IF she is - some say the worst has happened already). Now rumors are surging to the forefront about Prince William's affair with his old flame, Rose Whateverhername is, and the fact she is now pregnant with their SECOND love child.

I told you it was weird.



I must say that Kate makes a rather handsome man, which is more than I can say about most "trans" men who still look like women. That beard is rather striking. But not "manipulated", surely?


But this is my personal favorite. No doubt naughty Kate cut-and-pasted this one, late at night, with her thumbs, just in time for Mother's Day, which in Britain is on March 10 for some reason (and the brilliant green leaves and grass in the background added yet another element of unreality to the thing).

But never fear, I've found a number of charming photos which prove that there's nothing to see here at all. I've titled my gif presentation:  Hey, Hey, Hey. . . KATE'S OKAY!

And if she really DID photoshop these, she has obviously learned from her mistakes.


I'm in a Pogo state of mind. . .

 

Today I'm just in a Pogo state of mind. Hardly anyone remembers Pogo now, as even in his heyday in the 1950s, it was a sort of niche market. Though Walt Kelly's artwork was brilliant and sometimes breathtaking, people complained about all that darned TEXT. The things those characters SAID, the way they talked with each other and expressed things about life that were so neatly nutshelled, no one really appreciated how brilliantly succinct they were. 

He made it look easy.

This one is a personal favorite because it makes us laugh, and then it makes us - oh. 

Oh, so true.




Right now, the Church of Pogo is about the only religion I have, and the only one that hasn't totally disillusioned or even damaged me. How to say it in a handful of words? Human beings have taken something which MIGHT have been a wonderful concept, and utterly poisoned it. We just do not know how to access a state of grace, which to me is what "God" represents.


But even then, Pogo knew.


This one, perhaps the most famous Pogo-ism of all, has kind of a strange backstory. Kelly was invited to speak at some sort of event, and to conclude it he said, "We will soon discover that we have met the enemy - and not only may he be ours, he may be us." Or words to that effect. Only then did people latch on to it, and only then did he incorporate it into one of his most famous cartoons.


This one just spoke to me the other day when I was so royally pissed-off at a family member I have never liked, but who phones me several times a year (I have never once phoned her in 30+ years, because I never want to talk to her). I finally did what I should have done decades ago and cut her off. Now she's furious and feels I owe her an apology and insists she was only trying to HELP me, for God's sake, be an advocate for all my experiential fuckups. ., . never mind. She is gone out of my life forever, as far as I am concerned, and high time, too.

YOU GO, POGO!


Wednesday, March 13, 2024

All, Some, None (or "this but not that") - words to live by, especially now

 


After a particularly hair-raising and horrendous phone call from a relative I secretly can't stand (and whom I have never once phoned myself, though she calls me at least several times a year and begins to bombard me with highly-personal questions), I wrote this Facebook post and ran it with the photo above. I won't break up the text with images this time, as I like to do, because I really don't have the energy right now. It comes at a time when I already feel vulnerable due to another family member's sensitive crisis, and information that has been entrusted to me which I now realize I cannot and will not violate.

Maybe I should title this "things you shouldn't share on social media". It's a timely subject, particularly in light of the fact that we're now realizing that "delete" doesn't really mean "delete", that people can screenshot and save anything you post and use it for whatever purpose they choose, even years and years later - and in whatever distorted form they want to.


I have no complaint with sharing stuff that's sensitive, and I've done quite a bit of it myself over the years. This has led some people to believe that because I brought up certain subjects, I am quite willing to share EVERYTHING that has EVER happened to me in that area, including things that I went through literally decades ago.

Am I still the shy, smiling young girl you see in this picture? Well, no - and bringing up some of the worst things that ever happened to her is - what shall I say? - not productive. This is particularly true if the person unearthing these archival incidents is not sharing ANY of their own personal struggles, but is hiding behind a sort of social worker position. When that happens, I feel "studied", and it's not sharing on any meaningful level. It is not identification, and it is the farthest thing from empathy that I can imagine.

I learned some valuable things about boundaries many years ago, little gemstones I carry around in my pocket, which have never been more useful than they are right now.

"This but not that." Does that sound simple? It is, but not easy to actually do. In other words, I may be comfortable sharing THIS feeling, incident, situation, etc., but not THAT one. The topic is not wide open for discussion simply because I have brought it up. Most especially, it's not helpful if the incidents the person is bringing up are things I would obviously rather forget.

This is a related issue, but very important. If someone asks you to do something (and especially, if you ask YOURSELF to do something), you can do ALL, SOME, or NONE of it. These are all good choices, and each one of them serves you in the moment. But it is entirely your own choice, and if you get pushback from people (especially wanting ALL when your choice is SOME or NONE), that is their concern and not yours. This has nothing at all to do with them. And "no" is a complete sentence.

We talk about boundaries, but in the Wild West of social media, it seems like boundaries are beginning to dissolve. I have shared some things on my blog that I honestly thought were OK to repost here (it's easy and can be done with the click of a button) - but my blog is personal, my following small, and generally speaking the content won't be held up for scrutiny in the same way.

Another issue that comes up a lot is the value of going public. It used to be seen as really admirable, but it's a whole new ballgame now. Back when I wrote columns for community newspapers, one or two people might appreciate what I wrote or how much of myself I shared. Now it's simply "out there", or up there, where people can either misinterpret it, or just assume I am willing to reveal more (and more and more!) about myself.

This but not that. All, some, none. It's time for me to pull those valuable gemstones out of my pocket once again.

On social media you can be anyone you want to be. You don't even have to use your real name. The person asking you all those uncomfortable questions or digging up incidents from forty years ago can easily take on the safely-defended role of a "mental health professional" (even though they're usually not), safely removed from the actual messy reality of your own experience. But something worse might happen next, and often does. That person then uses your moment of vulnerability to benefit themselves.

Several years ago I dumped Facebook because it had become a drag that wasn't adding anything to my life. Now I honestly wonder how much it might be taking away. I know a lot of people who have stopped posting, perhaps wisely. If I do partake of this, I won't assume things I wrote five or ten years ago will have the same impact. Things have changed radically, and we must watch out for people who are, in a subtle way. predators.

Maybe cat videos and the odd family photo might be safer for me here, as I realizes now I don't want to be public property, even in the most minor way. I'll also make an effort to pay more attention to my own discomfort, and not allow even the most subtle form of exploitation to take place.

For that is what it is.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Why I hate "mental health"

 


I hate buzzwords and fads, and they exist in every single area of human endeavour. The one I hear repeatedly now is "mental health". But what does it mean? Scratch a little deeper, and it usually refers to a celebrity or public figure "admitting" he or she experienced depression, but always in the deep past, at a safe distance.

Anxiety is big these days - it always has been - but it's just what folks get when things are this bad, hard-wired into our brain evolution. But what about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and - the big, bad boogeyman of "mental health" - PSYCHOSIS?

One day I tried to count the number of times I heard or read terms meaning "crazy", and I stopped after fifteen. It includes nut case, whack job, cracked, batshit crazy, psycho, and on and on (I don't even need to tell you, do I?), with facilities to house these undesirables called the nut house, the booby hatch, the funny farm, the whatever. 


Want to know what Merriam-Webster's dictionary has to say? I've copied and pasted all the synonyms, verbatim. Buckle in.

Insane
as in psychotic
having or showing a very abnormal or sick state of mind 

These nasty epithets have INCREASED in the past couple of years, and I sense that public contempt for "crazies" has grown exponentially. At the same time, every day and in every way, we hear the term bandied about: mental health, mental health, mental health. I suspect there is considerable schadenfreude involved, in that people love to watch other people's crises. It's a great spectator sport. And it's almost (but not quite) a badge of honour now for a celebrity to take a little break from their multi-billion-dollar career to "work on their mental health".

But they don't know what they are talking about. 


These people who so delicately refer to "mental health" know nothing at all of the real deal, how it can be life-threatening, and how it can take every fibre of your being to put your life back together after an "episode". The confusion and the lurching moods, the baffled and frightened loved ones, the endless trials on medications that seem to make matters worse - but this is only part of the story.

I don't know how many times I've been in psychiatric wards, because I don't remember those horrendous passages in my life very well, nor do I wish to. But there were no cards, no flowers, and most definitely, no visitors. Who would want to go there? Or did they just assume someone in that "state" did not want or require visitors? The people around me just pretended it hadn't happened, or told people I was "away".

No doubt if I'd had my tonsils out, it would have been a different story. But it's obvious that something as horrendous as a  tonsillectomy would require sweet gifts and cards and visits, whereas that other thing - well - 


I remember sitting in a women's group in which we were encouraged to "share" some particularly vulnerable experiences in our lives. I made the huge mistake of saying I had recently been in the hospital, and as I talked, I noticed the woman sitting next to me was acting as if she had suddenly developed an all-over body rash. Then she said, "I'm sorry", got up from the chair and moved away from me. She apologized profusely, saying "I'm sorry, I just can't hear stories about the psycho ward." No one objected, and the group went on talking, though the temperature of the room had dipped slightly.


I've heard people blow off "psychos" with such utter contempt that I have been tempted to grab them by the collar and say, "Look into my eyes. You are talking about ME." Not only that, it might be YOUR closest, dearest loved one, or even YOURSELF who may be next to bear that label of utter disgrace and contempt. 


There is no disgrace in a condition which has been part of humanity forever, and which is poorly-understood at best, even by professionals. Why people are now pretending so hard to understand it, or at least pretend to be more compassionate about it, is beyond me. I guess it's better than nothing - but not much. Maybe it's just an updated version of "thoughts and prayers", 


I say fuck the genteel, sanitized label of "mental health", particularly to display how compassionate and enlightened you are, and instead STOP referring to whack jobs and nut bars and try to see human beings as human beings. Is that such a tall order?

AAAAAND, just for reference, here are the ANTONYMS of "insane" from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:


Doesn't quite match up. Does it?

POST-BLOG THOUGHTS. I wrote this post several years ago, and if anything, it's even more true now. I believe you can still order "mental patient costumes" online for Halloween, and in my very own neighborhood, I've seen lawn decorations that said things like "DANGER! ESCAPED MENTAL PATIENT" (or looney or whack job or whatever the epithet of the day is). "The Mentally Ill" (a separate species, apparently) are still the stuff of horror, violence, and dread. The more extreme depictions in pop culture are virtually indistinguishable from that other celebrated cultural icon, the zombie.

That means I'd better join the club, or grab a club or something, and start stalking the neighborhood. But I will ONLY pursue people who spew the meaningless term "mental health" left, right and centre - because everyone else is saying it now. It's just the thing to say.


This Cat is DRIVING a CAR!


Maybe it's the mental space I'm in, but lately I am obsessed with cat memes. These are ludicrously primitive animations which have been cropped out of cat videos (and primitive animation is right up my alley!), with cats usually having conversations with each other, or, in this case, confidently and casually driving a car. I think most of them appear on TikTok, which means they make their way to YouTube as well. Who knows how long my obsession will last, but I'm enjoying this one, and it's so much better for me than cults or bad religion (two more of my obsessions). 

Thursday, February 29, 2024

"Yayayayayayayoo!" Green Screen Cat Memes


Given that I have decided to DUMP anything remotely royal on YouTube (at long and bitter last), I had to fill the void with something. Then - somehow, some way - I discovered CAT MEMES, featuring the same two cats having a "conversation" which  never varies:

"Yayayayayayayoo"
"Aiw"
"Yayayooyayaaaayyayo"
"Aiw
  R-aiw"

There are a number of variations on this, but for the most part, the only thing that varies is the background and subtitles. Since then, I can't stop watching these, even though most of them are ten seconds of non-sequiturs. But that's the whole point, that they aren't very good, that they don't ask anything of me - and already, I'm making some of my own.

These are silent films, of course. . . I don't yet have the technical know-how (do you love that "yet" part, as if I ever will?) to add a soundtrack to a gif. The green screen is supposed to allow you to add your own background, subtitles, other cat memes, etc., but I doubt if I'll bother. 

But making the gifs is such fun! And some of these are being converted into YouTube videos, with the usual abysmal results. My views are in the toilet now, whereas that ONE video, a really stupid one, is now at nearly THIRTEEN MILLION views, with tens of thousands of comments. But the ones I spend hours on just crash and burn. 

I will undoubtedly reach 20,000 subscribers in the next few weeks, because the stupid 13M one has pushed the count up by 650+ in four weeks. I still don't know why, but even more than that, I don't know why my lovingly-created videos are getting 15 views. If that. But I swore I wouldn't get into this! YouTube is a hobby, and it should be an enjoyable one. It's not the same game at all however, and the changes in the past year or so are alarming. It's just a mad scramble for views, likes, subs, etc. etc. And there are so many things you can't say, or show, or do. 








But these were still fun to make. And fiddling around with cat meme gifs is easier on my soul than the terminal boredom and endless irritation of "it", the issue I just had to dump after realizing it was basically the same story endlessly repeated for five years. If anything actually HAPPENS, I may start watching again.

Or not.

Monday, February 26, 2024

KING of the WIND: The Glorious Horse Art of Wesley Dennis


The horse stories of my childhood were brilliantly illustrated by Wesley Dennis, who captured movement and even facial expressions in a way that was almost uncanny. Marguerite Henry's horse stories, which now seem terribly sentimentalized, were brought to life by Dennis's whimsy and fierceness. Misty of Chincoteague and King of the Wind would not have been the same without these works of art. 


🌞RETURN of the KEYBOARD CAT!🌞


One of the very first videos I saw on YouTube, back in about 2008 when the whole thing was new, was this Keyboard Cat. I found it in green screen and was able to add my own soundtrack (Darktown Strutter's Ball), which syncs up surprisingly well!

Friday, February 23, 2024

😀CLASSIC Maxwell House Commercial: A Cup-and-a-Half of Flavor!☕


As a child, I thought this ad was pretty magical and didn't know how they achieved the effect. Now that I'm an adult - I still don't! In the era before special effects, it was some accomplishment. Maybe I should research how they did it. 


OK THEN!!! I'm back. I did a bit of googling around, and different people had different ideas (no one has kept a record of how they actually did it), but I like this long, impossibly convoluted explanation (from an obscure 2007 message board) the best:

My first reaction was that they had used a slightly buoyant black plastic cylinder with a small hole in the bottom. If the coffee was poured in at roughly the same rate as it exited the hole (trial and error), it would have floated on top of the coffee pooling under it. Of course, this would work in a mug, but not the kind of cup shown, and we seem to be able to see well into the cup before the coffee is poured.

I was about to dismiss this theory when I noticed the large vortex that actually continued to grow after the coffee was no longer being poured – as if there were a hole in the bottom of the cup. It’s visible through the coffee, too, once it rises above the rim.

So here’s the sketch of a possible method:

1.      two white cups, say a coffee cup (which we will now ignore) and a cylindrical mug, filmed separately in almost the same spot, so the lips of the two coincide against the background.

2.      The cylindrical mug contains a black plastic buoyant cylindrical cup in it. (Think: an inverted cap from an aerosol can.) There is a hole in the center of the bottom of the black “cup”, blocked by a spring-loaded flap valve, adjusted to open under a pressure equal to the pressure of coffee filling the cup almost to the rim.

3.      The black cup has a high, but adjustable, buoyancy due to a styrofoam disk (with a hole for the valve) affixed under it. The total mug.valve/cup assembly can have any height: we will only see the very lip of the white mug, and the black cup as it rises out of the while mug

4.      Coffee is poured into the assembly at a rate that matches the outflow through the hole. The black cup, perpetually almost full of coffee, rises out of the white mug, floating on the coffee that flowed out through the flap valve. Outflow stops when no more coffee is added, but the “bathtub whirlpool” remains, and actually consolidates and grows a little without the interfering flow of poured coffee.

5.      A static (still) matte is created of the white “coffee cup”, up to the rim, and composited against each frame of the film of the (lip of the) white mug/black cup/poured coffee.

If the mechanical effect seems finicky, please recall that this was an analog/mechanical era. Every man wore a mechanical watch, and most woke to mechanical alarm clocks. All car ignition and control systems were mechanical, and adjusted by he man of the house every few months. Now that I think about it, the cup system I just described would have seemed familiar to the average carburetor-float-adjusting, toilet-fixing 1960s man

The still vs motion composite I suggest would have been far cheaper and less complicated than a masked motion vs. “phaser beam” composite ing 1966 Star Trek or even the motion vs. Motion compositing of the “identical cousins” on the 1963 sitcom The Patty Duke Show.

In the mechanical/analog film age, masking and compositing wasn’t just for Sci-fi effects. Cathy and Patty Lane (both played by Patty Duke) appeared together several times in every episode, on a sitcom budget. It was pretty much the whole gimmick of the show. Also Cathy’s and Patty’s fathers were identical twin brothers, both played by William Schallert – so the producers clearly weren’t worried that it’d break the budget.

Heck, it’s much easier, faster and cheaper than 1920s-80s rotoscoped or hand-drawn animation or claymation, all widely used in 1960s commercials.


Friday, February 16, 2024

The Troll Doll Channel: Birthday Unboxing of SWEET Grandma and Baby!


Another birthday. . . another family unboxing, though this time we couldn't get the crawling baby to crawl. My first birthday dinner was on the actual day (February 9 - I was 70 on that day, a nice round number which I actually like, so I may stay that age for a few years), and Bill and I went to Red Robin where I had my free birthday burger. But that was just the beginning! When our long-awaited dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory didn't materialize last weekend (Shannon and crew were all sick with the flu), we invited Erica, Lauren and Jeff over, and had a jolly unboxing along with the cake and flowers. If all goes well this weekend, I will have my THIRD birthday dinner, which I guess will make me 210 years old. 

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

"The Tacky is Scrumptious and Easy to Chomp": Worst Product Translation in Human History!



(Blogger's note. In my endless quest to find some sort of non-pharmacological pain relief, I've tried hemp gummies (made with hemp seed oil, which apparently has some medicinal properties without the THC). Whenever I find a brand I like, Amazon stops stocking it. This sublime advertisement for the latest iteration was so glorious that I couldn't bring myself to edit it very much, except to put a few spaces between words. It is certainly the best and the worst translation I've ever encountered, likely from Chinese to English. Buckle in, it's quite a ride!) 

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Tuesday, February 13, 2024

One year in 40 seconds


Stunning.

The Teddy Bears' Picnic




If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise 
If you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise 


For every bear that ever there was 
Will gather there for certain because 
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic 


Every teddy bear who's been good is sure of a treat today 
There's lots of marvelous things to eat and wonderful games to play 


Beneath the trees where nobody sees 
They'll hide and seek as long as they please 
That's the way the teddy bears have their picnic 


Picnic time for teddy bears 
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today 
Watch them, catch them unawares 
And see them picnic on their holiday 


See them gaily gad about 
They love to play and shout 
They never have any cares 


At six o'clock their mummies and daddies 
Will take them back home to bed 
'Cause they're tired little teddy bears


If you go down in the woods today, you'd better not go alone
It's lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home 


For every bear that ever there was 
Will gather there for certain because 
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.


Thursday, February 8, 2024

✨GANDALF the Great Blue Heron!✨


I was mesmerized by this guy! This was a senior Great Blue Heron, with a shaggy beard and wings which he preened while I filmed. There is something mystical about this bird, which is why I called him Gandalf. 

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

ASMR: Cat Crunchies (late at night!)


I spend some quality time with Bentley, late at night. This is an unvarying ritual in which he paws at me, yawns, paws at me some more, then finally gets his treats. I love the crunchy sounds in this video - very soothing!