signifying.1

Happy Birthday!

Freedom of the Blog, Truth, Justice,

and all that stuff...

--photo courtesy of LeMa

The Splenda Molecule.1

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Go on now go walk out the door

just turn around now

'cause you're not welcome anymore

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.

weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye

you think I'd crumble

you think I'd lay down and die

Oh no, not I

I will survive

as long as I know how to love

I know I will stay alive

I've got all my life to live

I've got all my love to give

and I'll survive

I will survive

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

--thank you to Anonymous for this splendid moment.

Blue Cats

The Dilettante knows a Blue Cat named Hattie. We have never seen another Blue Cat, but yesterday we accidentally came across a postage stamp with, yes, a Blue Cat!

This stamp was issued by a group of islands known as The Faroes, somewhere between Iceland and Scotland.

It is a magic land with a lost Viking language. Perhaps it is also the land of Blue Cats?

The Splenda Molecule

"Moochers are people who, when they are to blame, say it's the other fellow's fault for bringing it up."

--Ishmael Reed

Baby, don't you drive that car!

In 1926, a Bugatti roared through an Italian hillside town taking one of the 1500 treacherous bends in the 67 mile Targa Florio race course in Sicily. The driver was Eliska Junkova, the first woman to ever compete in the race. "The Czech racing queen of the Jazz Age," known in the West as Elizabeth Junek, went on to compete and win in races against some of the best male race drivers of the Twentieth Century.

The screech-the-oval races, currently known as NASCAR, started as an offical entity and icon of the American South in 1948. "The King" of what began as local stock car racing, Richard Petty said in 1976 regarding contender Janet Guthrie, "She's no lady. If she was she'd be at home. There's a lot of differences in being a lady and being a woman."

Thirty years later, with NASCAR courting women's, er, ladies' dollars at the gate to worship their valiant male champions, Petty says he still hasn't changed his mind about women in racing.

But then, perhaps he never met Eliska Junkova.

This catty commentary was suggested as material worthy of consideration by Her Royal Dowager Highness of The Clan Fiend (left) -- First cat to compete in the Antique Car Races.