Pi or Pie.Mary ponders..


Dotty cats 2

Mary was getting dressed on a wet October morning.The cycling  shorts she had never worn alone  made a warm extra layer under her green cotton trousers.On top she wore a red tunic and also  some green plastic earrings.

She saw Annie who had just rung the  door bell

My goodness,Mary,you look different.Where on earth did you get those earrings? she said enviously

I made them, myself out of the  littlrr tops of those plastic milk containers from the supermarket.

I say,you’re not that poor are you?Anne asked her  kindly

It’s not what is real,it’s how you feel,Mary replied poetically as she sometimes enjoyed a bit of fun and teasing  a friend gently.

Cats on the hillNo,said Annie it’s It’s not what you feel,it’s what is real.

And how do we know what is real?Mary asked her with deep curiosity her eyes glowing in a deep shade of teal blue.

Well,I know you had a reasonably  good job so you must have more than just  your state pension.You may be giving more than a tithe to Charity.Is that wise?

No,Mary cried,but I want to…I like to do it.

Oh,dear,Annie said.By the way you will need a coat,it’s much colder.I hope you’ve not given all your coats to Oxfam like Stan once did with his shoes.

Thanks,Mary smiled with her voice.I still have twenty two  coats of all colours,A bit like Joseph in the Bible.

At the bus stop Mary met  Tom who lived round the corner in a semi detached villa with a an extension,conservatory  and downstairs shower room.He had fallen over again and bruised his face but still looked quite  handsome with his dark hair and Irish eyes.

Maybe you need to pick up your feet more,Mary whispered to him .What a strange expression that is,.I wonder who invented it.It’s amazing how wise our ancestors were.They invented writing and cooking and philosophy.We are going backwards.

Thus Mary passed her day,talking to friends and musing on the meaning of words and sentences. and making  herself jewellery from mundane objects she noticed on her walks.Not to mention cleaning the loo and  putting all her old Xmas cards into bags for recycling.

Since from the natural numbers 1,2,3,4,…… we can get to  the strange transcendental  numbers pi and e and the fact that there are different orders of infinity  does that prove God exists,she asked Tom  plaintively.Well,not prove,but suggest.

I don’t know what you are on about,honey,he responded.Nobody ever saw pi in a burning bush although I have seen pies burn in a halogen oven more than twice

That is a totally different order of reality,she  told him sweetly.

Wow,Mary, many men don’t like  extremely clever women you know.

Which men are those ? she asked wonderingly, as her peaches and cream complexion glowed with health.

I suppose  I don’t mind myself,he said,.it’s  possibly  because men need to feel superior otherwise they lose their confidence. and then they are in big troubleBut what about women’s confidence Tom reflected further.

Maybe women don’t need  confidence  so desperately much,Mary sighed.They looked at each other and smiled.The sun came out and the trees were glowing in red and gold as the bus came down the hill  looking like some  chariot from a myth as the sun hit the windows at an obtuse angle.

My coloured cats show

Pronounce it the Greek way:Ouranos, the Greek god of the sky

Words With Confusing Pronunciations

#6: Uranus

Pronunciation:

\ˈyu̇r-ə-nəs, yu-ˈrā-\

Definition:

: the planet that is seventh in order from the sun

About the Word:

No matter which of the two standard pronunciations you choose, someone may snicker.

The planet was named for Ouranos, the Greek god of the sky and father of the Titans. The Greek take on Ouranos sounds more like “oo-rah-NOHSS” than either of the two English pronunciations.

Autumn is here

The doctor was oppressed by my blood

He read it whenever he could

But he tried tea leaves instead

As he ate some fried bread.

And his fate is foretold well and good.

Fortune may favor the brave

And neglect those who  never make waves.

But   in the middle we hope

To have just enough scope

For the knowledge our hearts and souls crave.

Autumn is an ambiguous time.

Her darkness is hard on the mind.

But the red leaves  in sunshine

Transform  us enough times.

We give thanks for the stunning designs.

The News

Here in Britain the government is determined to take measures all those old people who break their hips after slipping on wet leaves purely to get a few nights in a warm bed with delicious NHS meals like warmed up Fray Bentos tinned meat pies

PM David Cameron has said he will not share his bed with any other men and neither will Samantha.

British holidaymakers are wondering where to go for winter sunshine when that is what we get all the year round.

In France there is an outburst of madness after twenty swine carrying demons to the borders leapt out of a van near Nice.That takes  the biscuit.Barbecues are expected later with thunder.

Meanwhile in Israel there is an epidemic of irritable Palestinian disorder.Milk and honey are on order meanwhile  residents are advised to have seven Sabbaths  consecutively and  to wear pans  upside on their heads if they go out for a breath of fresh gunpowder.

In Rome the  Vatican   says the Pope  is no longer infallible.He slipped on the  proverbial banana skin and cursed in Spanish… those….. steps again.He’s in a right State,he is.

Near London there is a new sign  on the  M2,……….No room at the Inn.Good Lord,whatever next?

Britons say only pure thoroughbreds should be here.That rules me out as i have a  Scandinavian long head but Irish bone structure and that is only the beginning….I look like the milkman and he’s an Italian Jew..Sorry I meant I like the look of the milkman etc

That’s about it for tonight

Love is simple,love is plain

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Love is simple,love is plain.

Will love ever come again?

Life is joy and life is woe.

Through its pains all humans go.

Love enlightens and discloses

Thoughts as sweet as summer roses.

Take me back to Northern hills

Where my fraught soul with honey’s filled.

All I want is to be there,

With you ,my love,now grown so dear.

Oh,love is kind and love is rare.

We’ll not discover better fare.

Feed me with such love again,

And I shall be a most blessed one

Alphabet

Anxiety is the price of life.
But don’t pay over the top.
Calmness is good at most times.
Dread is a bad friend.
Exploring nature soothes the soul
For what are we but part of it?
Gentle music helps the mind
How ever we do it,
Listening is a kindness to ourself.
Ink is the friend of the writer.
Judgment  of quality is another one.
Kindness is essential to the good life.
Lessons are available daily.
Money is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
Needs are simpler then we imagine.Oxygen is good for the brain.
Prayer is good for the mind.

Quality is hard to judge quickly.
Rest is often a good idea.
Sleep may be even better!

Tension inhibits ideas
Unleashed with relaxed mind

Volleyball is good exercise
Work should involve play

Tension inhibits ideas.
Work should involve play.

X- rated films are optional
Yes…You are a valuable person.

Z is the final letter
And life is an Art.

 Thanks to Mike for noticing I’d missed three letters.. and giving suggestions

Flimflam… it’s Merriam Webster’s word of the day [easier to read]

M-W’s Word of the Day

I have managed to change the format by copying it into Notepad and editing it.It’s easier to read now
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Flimflam,the limerick

Flimflam’s an under used word,

As most people think it’s absurd.

But it enriches our tongue

It sings its own song.

It’s the lightest word I’ve ever  heard.

But some people won’t say flimflam

Just ‘cos it rhymes with goddam.

So never say pluck,

Or you’re down on your luck.

Or  the saintly will send you to spam.

I must admit I am surprised

That flimflam in a  limerick’s disguised

My unconscious mind

Always manages to find

A rhyme for most   words  we’ve devised

How to dress

Coot1_KB

They sa the French are the most stylish women

And we should emulate them

But  given the lack of time,it might be better to follow

Seven simple rules

1.Get washed  and wash your hair

2 Get some decent yet bright underwear

3 Never wear anything too small

4 Never wear anything gigantically big

5.Keep warm in winter with a dashing scarf [ and your clothes of course]

6.Wear a big hat in the summer plus sunscreen

7.Never wear anything that stops you from running ,climbing over fences,riding a bike ot leaping up in joy.

See, it’s easy!!

Up or down

Social class is definitively an issue for us here in the UK
If some are upwardly mobile
It seems some must go down?
Unless we all get equal pay…?

We keep seeing this in the paper…will the public school educated etc step down?Seems unlikely.

I tried to write a story

I seem to lack the energy for writing prose.No doubt 3 weeks on antibiotics might not be altogether good for one even if it’s necessary.I feel too weak to post a  letter.Writing it was hard enough.Maybe I’ll have to do some kind of art without words.share

Drink to me lonely

photo1826_001Please do not speak during the General Erection.

Kindly keep off the Mass at all chimes,owls and whispers/

Do not keel for prayer today.Stand up.

In  our religion, we are buried 24 hours before death…….we use guesstimates.

Holy Communion didn’t prevent the Shoa.

Digression has almost died out in the Catholic mind

i have always found life a hard druggle but birthwhile in the end for some

Grass has no leaves

After church women gossip and men get drunk.What’s the weed? Grass

i am an illegible variant.

What’s wrong with fake,anyway?

Am I upwardly nubile?

Our doctor cured the ham but not me.

God moves in his wisteria’d plays so we never see her now.

Was Jesus a Jew?Am I  a poet ? This is logical disparity as we call it in Nuxford.The scales fell off my eyes so the machine didn’t balance.Just like us.

Civilisation is the price of war.

Men like it shot

Apparently I  ought to blaspheme now.That is kosher or as Cleopatra said,where is the bed?Jews,Arabs. Egyptians,garages, borders,walls,they are all won to me by my teapot which is very large,almost a barge in a very feeling  sense.Just knock it off and drink  it up together ,buoys.

Men are very confused and it’s not good for them

Googol ?

Lightning strikes near the town of Searchlight, Nevada as the first storm of the season passes through the western deserts of the United States in the early hours of June 8, 2006. (REUTERS/Gene Blevins)
Lightning strikes near the town of Searchlight, Nevada as the first storm of the season passes through the western deserts of the United States in the early hours of June 8, 2006. (REUTERS/Gene Blevins)
October 23

googol audio pron   \GOO-gawl\

=

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Definition
noun
:
the figure 1 followed by 100 zeros equal to 10100

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ampersand

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Examples
In January 1997, astronomers Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin predicted that the universe would end in a number of years equal to approximately onegoogol.
“Google spits out massive amounts of information. Even the name Google, a misspelling of ‘googol‘— the number one followed by 100 zeros—isinnuendo, delivering a promise of massive amounts of results with each search.” — Alexis Sobel Fitts, The Huffington Post, 25 Aug. 2015

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Sponsored Wink tonight

Vagina is kosher.

I’m told vulva is a very rude word
Yet onto one we all emerge.
Vagina is kosher.
Vulva is grosser.
So keep mum unless you’re disturbed.

I suppose dick is a regular word
As opposed to a regular verb.
We did verbs in Greek
But I cannot speak
In case any organ gets stirred.

While you still have it, do use
If anyone ignites your fuse.
For atrophy comes
And prunes are your plums.
If you live and you long you can’t lose

I’ll read some soft porn ere I go
To the hospital where I will show
I am not totally dry
I have  tears in my eyes
If I bleed then I’m human,you know.

Is total freedom of speech wise in today’s world?Do you allow free speech in your comments?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/28/i-admire-charlie-hebdos-courage-but-it-does-not-deserve-a-pen-award

Francine Prose is a well thought of American writer.She was against Charlie Hebdo being given the PEN awar but she says she believes in total freedom of speech.

I used to take that position.When we had no internet  and other mass communication it was usually freedom of speech within your own country or ones nearby.But even here freedom of speech has not always been allowed,.I mean by that there was a struggle to attain it just as Catholics struggled to get the vote and only got it in the UK in about 1817.Similarly racial discrimination was  completely legal  until  the race relations act in 1964 when Harold Wilson was PM.

The problem with world-wide free speech is that when newspapers or magazines publish very nasty cartoons about another country’s religion,if that country is what we meanly call ” behind” us politically then they are going to be very wounded and hurt like Catholics might be  if one   made  cruel jokes about Holy Communion or Jesus.But Catholics here are used to a certain amount of that and are unlikely to react violently..They know that certain magazines would be only to happy to know that Christians were very hurt.Similarly Jews have been subjected to  derogatory cartoons and stories but if they live here they understand the notion of free speech.And with the internet nasty stories or cartoons are seen across the world very rapidity

Yet someone I know who was born here nearly 100 years ago to a Russian Jewish family still recalls with pain how he and his wife who just escaped from Germany before WW 2 were refused admission to a superior local golf club which all his colleagues  and their wives/husbands  went to.Hard to imagine  but it is only 60 years ago.

People living in countries which were catapulted into the modern era from being mainly peasants and farmers probably because oil was found  in their country will not yet have become inured to the notion that people csn insult their religion as a mere joke or a teasing  of them.If we want peace we must have some empathy for the Other even if we disagree with their  attitudes.

And as a woman I would not like it if Private Eye constantly had jokes about the stupidity  of  women.

Obviously it will be hard to say where the line should be drawn but I emphasis the need for respect of others’ treasured  beliefs and the need to treat them with understanding. and dignity.Yet we do not wish to return to censorship either

As  bloggers I am sure that many of us have moderated or deleted comments.In other words, we don’t allow totally  free speech in our comments section.We can even block certain people of we choose presumably thinking they will criticise us in a nasty way.Yet we expect Muslims and Jews and Christians to  take insults to their values and beliefs without protest.

If we eat a meal with others we do not say whatever we think of however rude.We are concerned to be courteous and kind to guests even if they disagree politically or religiously.If we discuss those ihings we show  guests respect if we can.

I know we would not wish to shoot people who said rude things about Jesus [ blasphemy]  and any violent attack ih those who hurt is evil and illegal.But as I read yesterday,people become terrorists when they have nothing to lose.Unfortunately there are quite a  lot of people in the Middle East where they may feel they have little to lose and so are willing to die for their beliefs.If they had more to lose that would restrain them.

Replete

I must write a poem with replete.

Sotto voce,do men have big feet?

Toujours tristless

Aimez vous my new dress?

Pardonez vous,where is my sweet?

Latin was once a new tongue.

Greek is pronunciated wrong

Hebrew is terse

So hang on to your verse.i

I guess  that I’ll never be long.

I am replete with good grief.

i guess sometimes life  is a thief.

I weep for my mother

And for my dear other.

Now I’ll go  to court  sans serrif

Now he will not answer his iphone

I talked to him last Sunday

I phoned him up on Monday

But now I don’t know where he might have gone

I made his bed on Wednesday

I cooked his dinner Thursday

I called him on his mobile,Hello John.

I loved him on the weekends

I loved him at the deep end

But now he never answers his i phone.

I ironed his pyjamas

And kept away pirhanas.

But now he never answers ‘cos he’s gone.

He won’t ever call me

He won’t ever see me

He can’t use his five senses cos he’s dead.

He won’t ever kiss me

Will he maybe miss me?

I saw him lying peaceful on his bed.

He smiled at me the last day

He smiled before he sank away.

But he can’t use his mobile any more.

He winked at me in Hampstead

He winked right from his death bed.

He was only a hundred and ninety four.

Come weep with me tomorrow

Embrace me and my sorrow

Don’t bring your i phone  to my little house.

Come eat some  hot boiled beetroot

Come eat  exotic sweet fruit.

But don’t bring your computer or your mouse.

He laughed with me at bed time

He smiled at each peculiar rhyme

He never got to know his mobile phone.

He liked to brush my hair

When it was long and fair.

Now I think I hear  his mobile groan.

Word of the day:Replete

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

October 22

replete audio pron   \rih-PLEET\

Share the Word of the Day
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Definition
adjective
1 :
fully or abundantly provided or filled
2
a :
abundantly fed
b :
fat, stout
3 :
complete

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ampersand

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Examples
The children were delighted to find that the costume trunk was replete with dresses, hats, capes, and all sorts of props to play make-believe.
“While his sumptuous poetic language is replete with historical references and deeply philosophical turns, it is also studded with words and images from the inn and the countryside.” — Michael Beckerman, The New York Times, 30 Aug. 2015

Let him go

The very  last time he fell, just before he died finally

He hit the table,broke my beautiful lamp

I can’t fix it,so

I balanced the shade over the base

As if to pretend everything is alright.

But at night I have to use

a cheap little white amp.

i don’t understand.

Where has he gone?

Where do they all go,our loves?

mixed with the soil, the clay,

come to nothing

broken down into particles

fragments is too big  for a describing word.

where are  the hands I held.

but I let him go

let go,let go,let go

let him go.

some nights

he was assailed by strange feelings

I sat or lay by him and read him  stories

He liked Stan but mostly Emile

even in the day time,he said,

this doesn’t feel like our house any more

and he said

we’ll be going home soon,won’t we?

yes,we’ll be going home,I said.Darling.

going home without him

is it my home without him

Where’s dad, he said one night

He died,I said.I’m sorry.

why are we  still here,

and not in the northern  hills?

he asked.

what could I say?

we don’t live there any more.

still I have his ashes  so

maybe I’ll

take him to Roseberry  Topping

because I like the name.

Or maybe I’ll keep him here by me

i’d like to get into a little space

and  crouch   in a   curled up  ball for safety.

only the cat would know or Philip

but he’s broken his hand.

not surprised really

he won’t find me.

anyway

He went away without me.

New malware

I am afraid my laptop got infected with malware which looked like Onedrive.. One system  cleaner it was called.It took Microsoft 3  hours to get it out.I didn’t recall clicking any thing odd.Anyway I saw malwarebytes eliminator recommended.Mcafee didn’t find it or stop my problems…so with that and the other stuff I feel like leaving home.

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I saw angels on the rose bush

We felt lonely in the garden
Noone climbed through our dense briars
All we saw were flying saucers,
Plus twenty menstruating liars.

Is it right to be amusing
Is it ethical or droll?
I have neuralgia in my eyeball
Would you like to see it roll?

Would you like to be my pupil
Would you widen in the light?
I saw angels on the roses.
What a ravishing delight

The drone hovers

The drone hovers
under
the iron-gray dome
of heaven.

Bloodshed
turns
the gray dome
furnace-red.

Evenings we
warm
our hands
over the news.

Jon Swan is the author of two collections of poems—Journeys and Return and A Door to the Forest. His poems have been published in several magazines and reviews in the United States and the United Kingdom. In collaboration with director Ulu Grosbard, he translated Peter Weiss’s Die Ermittlung (The Investigation), and, in collaboration with Carl Weber, Weiss’s Hoelderlin. He lives in Yarmouth, Maine, with his wife, Marianne.

For then ,on earth, our life will long endure

110906_5662We think we own our bodies and our minds

Not knowing  when we have the gift of health

We use them without thought ,.with vision blind

Yet nature creeps up with her sylvan stealth.

When to work  or when to take our ease,

The signals sent may never reach our brains.

But later, they will turn to constant pleas

For help to stop  imposing  far more strain.

Days we work and never take a rest

Except to slump  by  TV, tablet,screen.

It takes much time to learn what is the best

If not, what is will soon be ” what has been”

Let us learn our body’s  signals clear

For then on earth our life will long endure

One of the 600 most impressive words that will benefit your writing…!From the Oxford Dictionary

PICT0003

abstruse

Line breaks: ab|struse

Pronunciation: /əbˈstruːs/

Definition of abstruse in English:

adjective

Difficult to understand; obscure:an abstruse philosophical inquiry

Derivatives

abstrusely

1

adverb

abstruseness

2

Pronunciation: /əbˈstruːsnəs/

noun

Origin

Late 16th century: from Latin abstrusus ‘put away, hidden’, from abstrudere ‘conceal’, from ab-‘from’ + trudere ‘to push’.

Words that rhyme with abstruse

abuse, adduce, Ballets Russes, Belarus, Bruce, burnous, caboose, charlotte russe, conduce, deduce, deuce, diffuse, douce, educe, excuse, goose, induce, introduce, juice, Larousse, loose, luce, misuse, moose, mousse, noose, obtuse, Palouse, produce, profuse, puce, recluse, reduce, Rousse, seduce, sluice, Sousse, spruce, traduce, truce, use, vamoose, Zeus

Definition of abstruse in:

I did and look at me:This is not my cat

Mary sat by the window ,which she had meant to clean, reading Windows 8.1.The Missing Manual.The one great advantage of this new Windows system was that it seemed one no longer needed to instal anti-virus programmes.So much time is taken up by looking after older versions that Mary was not surprised that Chromebooks were nTarsier-Sabah2015ow very popular.Yet even so,she enjoyed learning new skills and it’s not as if they are like the theory of quantum physics or even studying nonlinear algebra and baking cakes.
Stan her husband had taken Emile ,their naughty cat for a spin on his old sports bike which he still used when the feeling came over him and as they were only a mile from the edge of the mysterious town of Knittingham they were soon cycling through a deep green, quiet forest where Kings once hunted deer and no doubt chased women… or was it hunted chaste women?
Mary had decided to stay at home as she was expecting a new vacuum cleaner to arrive.She kept one eye on her book and the other on her neighbour Rick who was very handsome despite being 113 years old.He was hanging his washing on his large front hedge which was unusual in winter.Most of the people in the road had tumble dryers or heated rails.Some even hung their washing outside on lines to let the blustery winter air dry it and kill the germs which might survive in a low temperature machine wash
Maybe I should do some washing ,Mary thought.How about I do my annual sheet changing.I made a big mistake deciding it was to be in the winter,but,alas it is hard to change a routine.Am I a cyborg,she thought nervously,licking her lips till they were damp and red.
Maybe I should clean the kitchen floor too,she thought as she drew an elongated ellipse with some mud that had fallen of Stan’s shoes as he passed by.She looked down pensively at the pattern the mud had made on the lino.I wonder if I can predict our fortune by studying this pattern deeply,she wondered.Some people do it from the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup,so why not from mud.There seemed no logical reason why mud splatters should be worse than tea leaves.It is simply a pattern through which the Unconscious can send a message to us.
Why it could not speak in ordinary language nobody knew and nobody ever will.Not all questions have answers.How strangely dull life would be if that were so.Don’t you agree?I don’t.
Sundial
.Mary had just seen a short story relating a dream a woman had that she had fallen in love with a strong healthy hippopotamus and taken it home.Unfortunately when they went to bed the weight of the animal had made the solid oak bed collapse onto the purple and orange carpet.Unable to give up her love,she had spent the rest of her life trying to build a new bed out of sawdust.It seemed not unlike the labours of Hercules in a new form
Mary was sceptical.I can’t believe a woman could love a hippopotamus,even in a dream,she murmured.But even if it was not a dream but a conscious invention,what did that say about the person writing it?That she always fell in love with men who were too heavy for her and who pulled her down onto the carpet to make love whenever they felt the urge regardless of whether she was as flat as a pancake or even dead
A lion,yes, Mary mused,but never a hippopotamus.I mean,they have no expressions on their faces and could they drink tea in bed and chat?Unlikely.Still, other people’s dreams are a mystery.Even our own are but we can sometimes take the hint.
Suddenly she heard the doorbell ring.Who could it be now?
Alas it was only a Mormon trying to convert her which was no good as Catholics can’t be Mormons as well.They are what one might call mutually exclusive groups.As I have no wish to teach algebra I shall stop here.However if that disappoints you,why not read
“A survey of modern algebra ” by Birkhoff and MacLane.I did and see what has happened to me!
lighter tree

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