Hi there….. Regarding that first paragraph: you may ignore it at will…. No excuses, and no complaints, I guess. I wrote it pre-coffee, so I can’t put the same expectations on it that are valid post-salvation. Given that stricture, it isn’t too bad, all in all, though I think I could have been a bit more graphic in the line about the dwarf…. a dwarf is always good for some laughs, but you’ve got to use good imagery, or you lose the total effect of the contrast in their overall appearance when interacting with, shall we say, less fascinatingly grotesque creatures, such as ourselves….. In my opinion, I could have been clearer in my expression there…. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day, and the dwarf is on retainer….

Now what? Here we are, three paragraphs in, and, so far, nothing is manifesting itself for inclusion. I’m beginning to think I’m going to have to just break down and write a template introduction, that I can just plug in each day at the start, to get me moving, in SOME direction, if not on a specific vector…. You know, something like, “Here’s today’s news,,,,”, or, “Another day dawns without hope here in America….,”, or, “OMG, shut that window, NOW!”…. You know, something gripping, that will pull ffolkes in without hurting or insulting them, and lead them gently into the body of the Pearl…. I’ve considered this idea for some time now; it’s an attractive one, that could conceivably save me a lot of time and worry over getting the intro done…..

But, what fun would that be? I think part of what I enjoy about blogging like this is the freedom I feel to NOT restrain myself in such ways, to allow myself the mental freedom to go anywhere my crafty little grey cells want to go, and say whatever I want to say, within the bounds of good taste and compassion… I do skate a bit close to the edge of the one about good taste, so it’s good for me to keep watch on that….. and if I cop out and make a template, that sense of alertness might get dulled from disuse….. All of our mental strengths are exactly like muscles, and will grow soft and useless if not exercised, so it’s good for me in that sense to have to be creative, in a small way, each morning, first thing….

Plus, it gives me the opportunity each morning to put together five or six of these nonsensical gems, full of absolutely diddly squat (hmm… Spell Checkers are funny… it didn’t like “diddly”, but was okay with “squat”… Oh, right, that’s actually a word… What, they’ve never heard of Bo Diddly?….never mind…), which I find to be both a good warm-up for the typing fingers, and a good warm-up of the grey cells, giving the coffee a chance to work its magic before I get into anything serious (And, as long as I can avoid the use of too many parenthetical comments in one paragraph)…. Yesterday’s intro, which grew into a pretty good-sized rant, happened for just that reason, to wit: I got into what I was writing before the coffee was fully on board….. a dangerous habit to form….

Why look! What’s this? I do believe it’s happened again! I’ve found another complete intro section, just laying here, ready to go…. What do you know about that? Now, don’t get all antsy, and upset with me…. SOMETHING has to go in this section, so what’s wrong with some deliberate nonsense, and a bit of prattle? Nothing, that’s what… Besides, it’s all finished now, so you won’t have to try to figure out if it will ever get anywhere significant…. It won’t. It’s done, It’s time to dive…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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“Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a lamb.” — Smart Bee

I’m in a mood today, one that, if typical of such, will not yield to any sort of alteration or modification into something less abrasive, or more tasteful… In other words, I don’t know why, but I feel like biting somebody. I have no reason to feel this way; all is proceeding quite smoothly in my life just now, pretty much, so I don’t have any really good reasons to feel grumpy.

No excessive pain going on, money and food are in the house, computer’s functioning well, as is the internet service. I have plenty of reading material, and I just finished watching all seven Harry Potter movies last night. I could ask for fewer sirens at night stopping just up the block, but, alas, there is nothing I can do about my neighbors’ behavior late in the evenings…. My lady friend isn’t feeling well, but, I think, and hope, she will feel better, so I’m only worried a little about that, not enough to cause a grump….

I could also ask for Social Security to move a bit faster, but, they have already shown me over the last two years what their typical pace is…. Their bureaucracy’s automatic cruise control is set at “crawl”, and isn’t going to go any faster anytime soon. I received verbal confirmation of my approval for benefits on Tuesday, the 12th, when the caseworker told me she would be sending out a packet of information for me, with the notice of the granting of my appeal of their original denial (long story….)…

Any who, that was eight days ago, so, I speculated, then, that she might send out the information the next day, or perhaps on Thursday, and I would receive it a couple days later. The office from which the packet is to be sent is here in the same town, so I thought, hmm, two days to go 30 blocks would be a reasonable estimate, even for the USPS, for a 10 X 12 inch envelope…. HAH! So much for speculation about the USPS…. Serves me right for assuming ANYTHING…. Especially for assuming normal behavior from an organization that has already proven to be broken, and abnormally anomalous, or anomalously abnormal, or both….

I suppose I’ve found why I’m grumpy, as these last two paragraphs show on whom my subconscious is placing the blame, squarely…. So, before I give Ms. H., my new case worker at SS a call, to ask WHEN she might be sending the stuff to me, I’m going to put together a pearl, with a specific type of pearls in mind for the search process… those that bring me peace of spirit in some way…. Enjoy!…. Oh, and, given my tendency to not be able to shut myself up, I’ll put any thoughts that occur to me about the pearls in parentheses, which is as usual as it probably is annoying….    😆

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” — Agatha Christie

“1 four letter word is sometimes worth 1000 pictures.” — Smart Bee

(Which may be why there are so many of them….. We humans are nothing if not hilariously and prolifically vulgar….)

“In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away
— for the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.”

— Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

POETRY, n.  A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

(Ambrose was a Grand Master of Sarcasm, and a social critic of immense genius…. )

” What is it the Bible teaches us? – rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches us? – to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.” — Thomas Paine — The Age of Reason

(    😳    Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself…. This one isn’t particularly soothing to most ffolkes, or folks, nor is it part of the connective tissue for this pearl; it just sounded like something I might use for a rant some day, and I saved it before I could stop myself….. Just ignore it, please, or set it aside for later perusal… Thank you for your cooperation….)

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” — Albert Einstein

“Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand.” — Spinoza

I don’t know about y’all, but, after those last two, I’m soothed….     Okay, okay, we’re going!   No need to shove!….
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Here is an obscure little poem from Keats; I like it, which is all it needs to get included here…. but, it’s also a nice example of classical romanticism, with precise cadence and rhyming, and very personal imagery… I hope you enjoy it, as I do….

A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode Of Paolo And Francesca

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

~~ John Keats
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“We are the protagonists and authors of our own drama. It is up to us; there is no one left to blame. Neither the system, not our leaders, nor our parents. We can’t go out and hang the first amoeba.” — Rebecca McClen Novick

Oh. My. Goodness. This is the perfect quotation for a rant on global warming, or overpopulation, or climate change, or any of the other immediate threats to our species’ survival one may consider. It begins at exactly the correct point to have a discussion about what might be done, for whatever can be done, can only be done when people admit the need, which, obviously, entails accepting the responsibility for causing it in the first place… Duh!….

But, as I said above, I’m in a mood, which isn’t the time to start ranting…. Outrage is necessary, and a touch of anger to fuel the outrage…. but, in a mood like this, I would likely get vicious, and lose track of what I promised to keep track of, to wit: good taste…. Instead, I’ll do what I always do in such situations, and fall back on yet another old-school pearl… I’ll make it a short one, with only five aphorisms, as small as I can find, on the subject at hand, again to wit: Our own particular brand of human foolishness, or, as I labeled it many years ago, the Principle of Bozoid Tendencies…..

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.” — George Bernard Shaw

“These round things Asur has attached to his sled: they take the wood away from the Earth-Mother, they make it move too fast; they turn around and round in a strange, e-ville fashion.  Indeed, they are ungodly, and Asur should be stoned to death forthwith.” — Translated from proto-Indo-European — scratched on clay tablets, circa 6500 BC

“I haven’t committed a crime.  What I did was fail to comply with the law.” — David Dinkins (Mayor, New York City) — Answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes.

“Yes, many primitive people still believe this myth…But in today’s technical vastness of the future, we can guess that surely things were much different….. I think we’re all Bozos on this Bus!” — The Firesign Theater

“An INK-LING?  Sure — TAKE one!!  Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS??” — Zippy the Pinhead

Well, there you go…. Perhaps I should have known better…. Ah well, at least it’s all over now, but for the shouting….
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I’ll try not to shout so loudly it will awaken those who decided to nap early….. I probably should be ashamed, but, I’m not being paid for any of this, so I have nothing to feel ashamed about, other than the entire content herein…. Too late now, I’m committed…. Or, will be, once I go back and proof it…. which, I will now do, in the interests of getting something else, anything at all, done today…..