Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Fishless Chips” for SOCS, July 18, 2025

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I received the below new lunch menu from a local restaurant :


A NEW LUNCH MENU is being offered from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm

  • Fish & Chips with Coleslaw
    Burritos ( Shrimp or Fish)
    Chimichangas (Shrimp or Fish)
    Tacos Shrimp or Fish
    Large Salad with  Shrimp

          This was my mental reply to their message:

          Fishless Chips

          Never have I had a wish
          for any kind of seafood dish––
          fillet of flounder or tuna knish.
          The only menu I find delish
          is piscine-free, served with a flourish.
          So if this bod you wish to nourish,
          just french fry spuds and skip the fish!

          The prompt for SOCS is “chip.”

          What’s in a Name? For Fibbing Friday, July 18, 2025

          11 Replies

          For Fibbing Friday, the theme is What’s in a Name?

          The following are all nicknames for celebrities (true answers later) but who or what would you suggest they could be?

          1. Nitro: What they call fish eggs after dark.
          2. Skinny Legs: Cruel nickname of Jiminy Cricket
          3. Iron: How Ronald McDonald introduces himself. 
          4. Mailman: An extremely repetitious description of a fella.
          5. BoJo: What they call former president Biden now that he’s taken up the violin.
          6. Teflon Tony: Anthony Bourdain’s nickname.
          7. Iron Lady : The Statue of Liberty. (Actually only wearing an outer garment of copper.)
          8. J.Lo: Mr. Leno on a bad day.
          9. Smokin’: What mom said at the family reunion when she answered the door for the twentieth time. 
          10. Bottler Brown:  James Brown’s moonshiner brother.

          .

          In Memory of Jay Consolati, 1947-2020

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          Today I received a message from Jay’s sister inquiring about the location of his ashes. Instead of sending her pictures of the memorial we had to spread his ashes, I decided this would be an easier way for her to share them with the rest of his family and friends.

          Sacrificial jarritas from Lake Chapala

          As with many Mesoamerican cultures, the people of Chapala worshipped local deities. One was the goddess of the water, Michicihualli (“maiden of the fish”), a feminine spirit believed to control the lake and winds. Ritual baths at dawn in the lake were held in her honor, and older practices even included sacrificial blood offerings thrown into the lake in small jars like the ones pictured above to ensure good fishing and harvests. As the lake started to dry up, thousands of these jars were exposed and people have been collecting them for years. It was Jay’s idea that we ask those of us who had some of these jars in our possession to donate them and to have children write messages to the lake and put them in the jars, seal them with sealing wax, and take them out by boat to deposit them back in the lake.

          This was such a beautiful gesture that I suggested we do the same with some of his ashes. We filled jarritas donated by many of his friends with his ashes and cast them out in the lake along with flowers. It was a lovely day as Lety and I and other friends put part of Jay back into the lake that he had loved enough to ensure that her former blessings had been returned to her.

          It was today’s request by his sister Anne concerning the location of his ashes, that occasioned this post so long after Jay’s death. As I told her, I also buried some of his ashes under a very special tree in a sculpture garden I have constructed in the lot below my house. Under another tree, I buried a few of the ashes of his friend and housemate John Wester, who died a year or two before Jay did, then sent the rest of Jay’s ashes to his son.

          R.I.P. Jay

          You can see another tribute plus photos I took of the day on the lake HERE. And HERE is something I wrote for him.

          I Hope Trump Supporters are Satisified

          15 Replies

          More good news for those who would rather line billionaires’ pockets and spend a billion dollars bombing the entrance to an Iranian nuclear facility than to support schools in the U.S. (Not to mention $25 to $45 million for Trump’s birthday parade and $30 million for his trips to Mar-a-Lago (not counting costs for security.)

          THINK, PEOPLE!!!!!!

          Supreme Court allowed Trump to slash the Education Dept.

          The Supreme Court issued an order this afternoon that cleared the way for the Trump administration to fire thousands of employees from the Department of Education and effectively dismantle the agency.

          The decision was a significant victory for President Trump, who has set out to sharply curtail the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools. His administration has announced plans to fire more than 1,300 education workers, which would largely gut a department that manages student loans, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools.

          Excerpt From the New York Times,

          Author Headshot By Matthew Cullen

          FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors, Documents Show

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          NY Times: FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors, Documents Show

          Two days after deadly Texas floods, the agency struggled to answer calls from survivors because of call center contracts that weren’t extended.

          Listen to this article · 6:26 min Learn more
          Kristi Noem, dressed in a black polo and a dark hat with a FEMA logo on it, sits in front of a microphone.
          Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference in Kerrville, Texas, on Saturday. Ms. Noem did not renew a contract to staff call center workers until Thursday.Credit…Jordan Vonderhaar for The New York Times

          By Maxine Joselow

          Leer en español

          Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

          The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters.

          The agency laid off the contractors on July 5 after their contracts expired and were not extended, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted a new requirement that she personally approve expenses over $100,000, did not renew the contracts until Thursday, five days after the contracts expired. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

          The Numbers Game #81, Please Play Along, July 14, 2025

          31 Replies

          Welcome to “The Numbers Game #81”  Today’s number is 203. To play along, go to your photos file folder and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.

          MERA
          Warm talk that makes you feel good
          Tzintuntzan Pyramid, Michoacan
          Tzintzuntzan Pyramid
          “Pussycat pussycat, I love you. Yes, I do!”
          Open Lens
          OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

          Help Solve a Mystery?

          14 Replies

          I had 6,343 views so far today-  A good portion of them are from Germany. Can anyone explain to me why? If you are in Germany reading this blog, can you tell me what prompted your reading it?

           

          For the Sunday Stills Red, White and Blue Challenge.

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          Sunday Stills  July Color Challenge: Red, White and Blue Challenge.

          Luz Marie’s 6th Birthday for Cellpic Sunday, July 13, 2025

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          Luz Marie, Birthday Girl
          Luz Marie and Dad, Ishmael.

          This was a blowout event, so I couldn’t publish just one pic.

          For johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday

          To “L” With It, for Fibbing Friday, July 11, 2025

          9 Replies

          Another Friday brings yet another opportunity to fib.  Here is this week’s Fibbing Friday challenge:
          To ‘L’ with it this week: Some may be familiar, so fib away with your definitions, please.

          1. Lunkhead: A certain American president
          2. Lugubrious: a feeling of dread and gloom brought on by the process of carrying numerous heavy boxes when in the process of moving from one house to another.
          3. Lickspittle: What dogs do to the faces of owners who are sputtering in rage.
          4. Lampoon: An ironic humorously-shaped lamp fixture
          5. Lollywater: The product of rinsing off a child’s sucker when they drop it on the ground.
          6. Lollypopper: A child pulling a Tootsie Roll Pop out of their pursed lips.
          7. Lumpen: A small swelling.
          8. Loofah: Polite slang for the letting of a small fart while on the potty.
          9. Lippy: One’s condition after a botox injection.
          10. Lughole: Something it is impossible to do.