The Missing Sock Dilemma

Yesterday when I was outside gardening I realized I was on my last pair of socks. I always wear socks inside my wellington boots , even if it is 100 degrees. Which made me start to think about socks.

When both my boys were living at home I would be forever finding socks all around the house. They usually were rolled up in a ball as I think most teenage boys throw their socks at something automatically when they take them off. Some socks ( very few) would land in the laundry basket but some of the other places they were found in were quite a mystery; under the seat of the car, always at the farthest point under the bed , behind the couch and quite often out in the yard. Not always the boys fault with this last place as we always had dogs and old ( and new) socks were and are, a favorite play toy for dogs. Something about the smell I think.

Mike has a plethora of socks and even now always seems to be buying new socks. I, on the other hand, have just a few pairs which get worn out, holey or just lost. Which leads me on to my thought 'Where do lost/missing socks go?

When I do laundry I just hate washing socks. I sort them into lights and darks. That is okay. I get them out from the dryer and I have this mountainous pile of socks to sort but do they ever match up into pairs again. NO!

Have you noticed even when you buy socks in a set , say 4 pairs all the same color or pattern, after they have been washed they never seem to match up again. I spread them all out over the bed and perform the matching game. The ones that have a different knit, the short ones from the long ones but always there are some that never quite seem to match be it a variation in color shade, a different feel to the material, wrong size and of course , at the end of the game ,there is always the inevitable lone sock.

So I look in the dryer and its not there. I look on the floor by the washing machine and the bedroom , under the bed but no matching sock. This happens time and time again. Occasionally at a later laundry time, I might find the missing sock returning from its vacation and be able to match it but I still have a forever growing pile of odd socks waiting for its partner to turn up.

I noticed when I mentioned this to a friend she said the same thing happened to her . Just where do all these missing socks go? So if you want an answer to a question the easiest way is to 'Google “ it. Right ,so that's what I did. Would you believe there is a”Bureau of Missing Socks”. I thought it might be rock group or a infamous painting but no. It's supposedly an organization set up by the USA government at the time of the civil war to deal with issuing socks to its soldiers and continues to this day going through all kinds of strange and interesting changes. As I read all about it, it sounded like it would be the plot of a zany movie. Read about it here ( with your tongue in your cheek) http://www.funbureau.com/History/history.html

and decide for yourself if it is our tax dollars at work or just a wonderful fabrication. I still think it would make a great movie! And as an added bonus you'll find out how the catch phrase “Sock it to me “ originated. I bet , like me you thought it came from the TV series “Laugh In”

So I continued researching .

Well then I found out about sock gnomes and sock goblins. I bet you didn't know about these mysterious creatures either. It seems they are arch enemies . The sock gnomes have 4 feet and they are the ones that pilfer the socks but along come the sock goblins,the good guys, probably they wear white hats, and they are the ones that bring the missing socks back. I don't think they are winning this game so far at least in my house.

Rambling Through My Dreams

The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary. 

~Ashleigh Brilliant

Its already hot and humid in North Texas making it easier to fall asleep in the afternoon.

I usually sit down after lunch and read and quite often I drift off for a little nap. I do notice though that on these catnaps I never seem to dream.

Mind you, I have noticed even at night, I don't seem to dream much either or maybe I should say I don't remember dreaming very often. Now Mike, on the other hand, seems to remember in great detail all the convoluted twist and turns of his dreams. His dreams seem to be concentrated on mostly the ordinary things in life; work , projects, traveling etc. He has reoccurring dreams too of running through the airport trying to get to the airplane on time. This must be a relic of his working days that has stayed with him after all these years. He often wakes up with a person on his mind who he saw in the dream , someone he knew ages ago but can't remember the name. And then comes the invariable question, “ Remember that guy we went out with in London, the one with the piercing eyes and funny shirt? What was his name?"

When I wake up, immediately any dream I might have had, has disappeared. Just gone. I do remember once waking up because I was giggling and laughing so hard that it actually woke me up .And what was the dream about? I was in a dentist chair and had been having my teeth pulled out!! Dreams are very strange. Maybe it was my brain reminding me that I needed to go for a check up !!

The only other dream I can remember in detail was a dream I had when I was a very small child. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old. I was on a high wall of some kind in the middle of a big battle; there were soldiers wearing red and black uniforms and the noise and smoke and fire was everywhere, It was very real. Movie picture quality. Suddenly I felt a pain in my body and saw myself falling over a high wall,. I screamed , everything went dark and I woke up. Young as I was I can still feel how scared I felt. It might have been a night mare but it has lasted with me all these years. Where did that dream originate? I have thought about it and the dream could have been a reflection on the war and all the talk about World War 2 I would overhear but at my young age would not understand . This was in the days before television and I'm pretty sure I was too young to read so where did this dream come from. I often wonder about that.

The other thing I have noticed about dreams is that for years after we had moved from England to Canada and then to Texas , the dreams always seemed to reflect England. Even if I knew the house or the person in the dream was in Texas or Canada it always seemed to be in an English countryside. Now is that because I grew up in England and those are the oldest thoughts in my mind or because subconsciously I have never left England.

Some people reckon that if you take note of your dreams you can solve many problems. Seems logical to me. After all if you think and think about a problem during the day, maybe at night your mind can work on it at night and then the answer is solved in a dream. Maybe that where the expression came from “ I'll sleep on it”.

I know at one time they ( remember the department of they) said that if you wanted to learn anything you should tape it and put in under your pillow at night so the information would go into your brain and you would learn and remember your new subject. I have never tried it but not sure I could go to sleep with a voice coming from under my pillow.

Dream catcher 

photo wikipedia

Then there is the other kind of dream that maybe originates at night but becomes during the daylight an aspiring thought; something you plan or dream to do at some time. Maybe we should ask kids,"What do you dream you would like to do when you are grown up?" rather than "What do you want to be when you are grown up?" I think the answers would be very different. Dreams give you the idea of infinite possibilities. Maybe that is why we dream at night because then all our dreams become possibilities.

So as the song goes Dream on, dream on, dream until your dreams become true.

Or you could invest in a dream-catcher. That way only good thoughts and dreams will filter through the web and bad thoughts will fade with the light.

And do listen to Gary Wright singing . “Dream weaver” at youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N1wnJoFAl4 and continue to believe in your dreams.

Sweet dreams you'all.

The Eyes Have It.

Elizabeth Taylor died recently. She was one of the most beautiful ladies of all times, a classic beauty and a great actress and truly a star. As I was watching the reports on TV, I heard of her beautiful violet blue eyes, a color very special and rare but I didn't know she was also born with a double set of eyelashes which added to her allure and beauty.

Eyes do make a lot of difference to a person. If you are like me , it's the person's eyes that can make all the difference to my understanding of them. It is the part of the face that I can't help but notice and also the part I am drawn to. The eyes are supposed to be”the window to the soul” and I quite believe that. What is it that makes one person so special to us and another one, we can't abide. Could it be a glance in the eyes gives you a glance into the soul or being of that other person?

I think the color has something to do with our fascination with eyes. Think of some of the famous people you know, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra and immediately you think “blue, blue eyes”. I read somewhere that the blue eyes gene does not mutate like the brown eyes gene does . There have been people over the last 6000 to 10000 years that have had blue eyes and so in fact because of this blue eye gene, they are all related to each other. I am sure both my daughter in law and granddaughter will be very pleased to hear that they might be related to Paul Newman , Frank Sinatra and even Elizabeth Taylor.

And thinking about Paul Newman and his car racing career , I think there is something very special about racing car drivers and their eyes. They all have very penetrating eyes, no matter what the color. Is this something they are born with or does it develop with their skill? In the high speed sport in which they are engaged and where a lack of concentration can mean life or death, is this a trait they must have?

Now good actors , on the other hand, have the ability to show within their eyes different emotions and different characters .Even so, some are very much typecast by their eyes and how they appear. I can't imagine Robert Redford playing a nasty or cruel person not with his friendly eyes . Likewise Antony Hopkins just makes you shudder. Just think of him in “Silence of the Lambs” his eyes are just scary. Now we have such great technical make up and effects that can change a person's eyes and features so even Brad Pitt could become a monster.

 Bette Davis must have had outstanding memorable eyes because she even had a song named after her eyes. Remember “she had Bette Davis eyes,” kind of soft,sultry and sexy at the same time.

It's the same with cats' eyes . I don't mean the great device for helping us see along roads in the dark although I can quite see why those are called cats' eyes. Catch a real cat out in a dark yard and cat eyes really glow. 

Cats ,unlike dogs, do not show affection within their eyes but seem , at least to me, to be analyzing the situation and deciding on what their next move will be. That is not to say their eyes aren't beautiful because it is also a thing much noted in a cat. A cat's eyes are actually blue for the first 9 weeks and only gradually change color and sometimes what wonderful colors they end up with as well. Colors you would never see on a dog. Marmalade orange and emerald green and even yes , sometimes blue .

Dogs on the other hand have open, readable  eyes and you can see what they are thinking. Their emotions come through. See that sparkle when a dog gets a treat or you pick up a leash to go for a walk. No escaping the happiness gleam coming through. Likewise check out the dogs in a cage in a shelter .Nothing so pathetic and heart breaking as a sad dog's eyes waiting for someone to take him home.

Then of course there are the people and pets with odd color eyes. Most disconcerting in both I find. With animals, it can be a mark of deafness or some kind of eye problem but in people it has long been a note of high superstition . It led to accusations of being a witch or of possessing the evil eye , not a good quality to have in ancient times. I only remember Margaret, a lovely lady, who had odd eyes, a brown eye and also a green eye and she was the kindness and most loving and considerate person you could ever wish to meet, Certainly no witch but she did have outstanding but disquieting eyes.

NB. I do know my title should be 'The Ayes have it” not “The Eyes have it”but who wants to think about politics these days!!

Rambling along the Green Path

Saint Patrick’s Day came and green was everywhere You could even see it in the pool and fountain at the White House in Washington. The Irish green beer was being drunk in plenty in Chicago and New York and probably in lots of other places as well. I bet there were lots of green ties ,shirts and blouses , funny green hats and funny green shoes to be seen  in offices, shops, pubs and parties.

I'm not sure why green is associated with Saint Pat or why it comes at this time of the year but we know Ireland is a very green place. Fly over it at any time. There is no doubt green is the color of Ireland.

Green is also the color of a Texas spring. It is just wonderful to see all the bright leaf greens appearing after most of the blossom fades. One thing that surprises me is the many shades of green of the leaves and how quickly the pale green turns darker as the days progress.

As a painter the color green is the one I have most problems in mixing to get the shade I need. I know to get a basic green you mix blue and yellow but I can never quite get the tone I like. My color green is always too intense or primitive.

I suppose it's this variation and the link of the color green and growing plants that has come to symbolize the Green movement. I am happy that it is still moving along and progressing, be it very slow at times but there are still signs of life .

Finally we have curbside recycling in my part of Texas even though we do have to pay for it extra to our garbage pick up fee. I can remember if you wanted to recycle you had to collect all your cans and papers and haul them away to collection bins. That's if you could even find one. I understand there is big money in all these recyclables so I never can understand why we have to pay to have ours collected. Still we would recycle anyhow to do our bit to keep the earth green.

I shudder every time I think of that huge swath of plastic bags and junk that is said to be floating around somewhere in the Pacific ocean that is about the size of Texas just because people are downright lazy and will not clean up after themselves and recycle.

At least a a few countries have started the ball rolling and outlawed the useful but everlasting plastic bag. Finally shopping bags are becoming fashionable again. Maybe there is hope for the oceans yet.

Any plastic bags we do get, I collect to give to a friend who has taken on a self imposed volunteer job to go around clearing up the lanes and roadsides around where she lives as she wants her part of the world to stay green. She uses the bags to collect the bottles and cans that are thrown there by definitely NON green people.Cheers to her. She sets a great example.

I did wonder if these plastic bags and plastic items are made from oil could there not be a process found that could turn them back to oil?That could solvea lot of problems.

I am always amazed at the huge piles of garbage that is still being collected and not recycled. Travel all over the place and new mountains and hills are being made from all the junk we throw away. We have a couple of these mountains close to us. They will make good ski slopes if it ever snows long enough.

The problem is we have too much these days and are very wasteful of our resources. When I was growing up everything was saved. It was during the war and so everything was in short supply and used as much as possible. String was saved to be used over and over again. Paper bags were used as wrapping paper especially at Christmas and for mailing packages. Newspaper was one of the most useful items to be reused. Some of you will remember the time when 'fish & chips” was always wrapped in yesterdays newspaper. Glass jars were very usable and I can remember collecting a halfpenny each for each one I found when I sold them back to the store. Old habits die hard I suppose so recycling is not such a strange idea to older folk.

Just think how quickly nature takes back an area that man has discarded and believe that in the end, green will prevail

Please try to recycle and reuse as much as you can.

What did you say?

Grandad's Loblob car

“Butinski?” said Mike.

“What?” I said. Mike was doing what he always does at breakfast besides eating his very healthy meal of bran flakes, banana and raisins. He was trying to solve the puzzle on his daily MENSA calendar. Usually he can do these puzzles quite easily on his own and I only get called into adding my wise(?) thoughts if he is stuck. Not of course if the puzzle has to do with numbers or math. I'm useless at those.

” Any other clues?” I said.

“Well MENSA says it's a common uncapitalized English word.”

Now I'm the reader of the family so usually I know many obscure words or at least can hazard a guess at what they might mean. “Sounds like a Polish thing to me ...maybe a general” I said. “Or on second thoughts, maybe a person that invented something scientific.”

I left him to ponder the answer and went out to do my daily walk. While I walked, I let my mind ramble about strange and different kinds of words. I glanced down at my walking shoes. I really need to get a new pair. The shoes I call walking shoes are I think often called sport shoes these days. I can remember a while back when the term for them was running shoes. I know some people called them trainers and some called them pumps. Maybe today the kids call them by the brand name, Nike or Adidas or whatever is in fashion now.

When I came over from England and taught in Montreal, I faced a first grade class that looked like the offspring of the United Nations. There were English and French Canadians, English, Scottish, Irish, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Romanian and West Indian children facing me. I am sure all those children's mothers called running shoes something different as well but in my class they were refered to as “plimsolls” because that is what I knew them as at that time.

Wysiwig

A while back when I was first learning about computers, I adopted two darling kittens and we were trying to think of neat names for them both. Have you noticed that a lot of new words come about because of computer use? Well our kittens became Pixel, because his coat had many blended colors and a Wysiwig because “what you see is what you get".

Friend is another word which is definitely being changed because of the internet. Now it's a verb, “May I friend you?" still sounds strange to me. Still on the whole I like the inventiveness of the new computer words.  Mike tells me some people have a dongle on their computer. Well I haven't found it yet. Widget I like as well. Not sure what it is but it sounds like it would be helpful. Can't be that long before some of these new words become part of the official English Dictionary

Pixel

Kids invent words all the time and they become part of the individual family's vocabulary. When TIB was a baby and he saw an commercial on TV that featured slow motion photography of the kind where two lovers are running together through a beautiful meadow that became “soft running”. Very descriptive. I think "anbulince" came from him and we still use it today.

Half the fun of hearing toddlers learning to talk is the way they make up great new words to make their point. RMB always refered to Grandad's car as a loblob car, short for Ford Popular Prefect car. 

I remember there was radio program on the BBC eons ago and one of the characters was a small child ,Horace, who talked in baby talk which only certain people could understand and the catch phrase from the show was “ What did Horace say?” Well that became standard in our family for all kinds of situations when we encountered someone we couldn't understand or who talked in gobbledegook.

One of the old & famous comediens Stanley Unwin became a great star by using made up words to perform in a language that is both clever and hilarious. Check out his videos at Youtube. They are hilarious.

Probably the best known nonsense words that strangely enough made sense are the well known words of the poem by Lewis Carrol. He was a master of strange and unique words and very  peculiar stories if you think Of “Alice in Wonderland”

                                         Jabberwocky

'TWAS brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Check out the link for further verses http://theotherpages.org/poems/carrol01.html.

By the way, we had to look up the word butinsky on the web and found out that it was American slang for One who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where (s)he is not welcome.

Hardly a common English word MENSA!

Feeling Blue

It's a blogging kind of day today. We have had a very Spring like episode in the weather here in Texas with blue skies and sunshine when outside activities have dominated our days. We finally managed to get outside to start tidying up the garden and enjoying the daffodils and the blossom trees l after a longer and colder winter than we are used to. Now today we are back to gray skies and cold winds so inside activity is the thing to do.

Yesterday we painted our hallway , which tends to be a bit dark and a bit gloomy at times. Hallways are a bit like that. So to brighten it up we chose a yellow paint and I'm still not sure I like it.

Yellow once was my favorite color. Choose a new blouse or dress and I'd opt for a bright yellow. I was young . It was fresh and I loved yellow.

As I got older. like a lot of other things, even my choice of colors has changed. I have to think that now blue in all its many variations is my my color of choice. I began to let my mind ramble on why that might be. For sure a bright blue sky can do wonders to lift a flagging spirit. Even if it is really cold as it often is in Canada, a bright blue sky makes it feel less so. We are blessed in Texas to have many bright blue sky days but in the dog days of summer when it gets hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, the sky looses its blueness and becomes almost white and just add to the feeling of malaise and inactivity.

Crater lake painting by SAB

Have you noticed how the blue in the sky changes? You would if you tried to paint it.

A year ago we visited Crater lake in Oregon. A wonderful trip and a must see if you visit out West. When I came back I tried to paint an oil painting of Crater lake but it was the sky with all the variation of blue that I had the most trouble with getting right. The lake itself was the deepest color blue for a lake that I had ever seen , rich and strong without being that ominous dark blue you see in some lakes.

Wedgwood blue ,that lovely light blue, is such a wonderful tone. Paint a room with it and you don't get tired of it. It always looks fresh and gives a sense of calm and peace.

I've always thought how great it would be to have blue eyes. Not so many people seem to have blue eyes anymore and we all miss Paul Newman who had outstanding , penetrating blue eyes. I met a girl once, a friend of friend and she had such intense blue eyes that I couldn't help staring at her. They mesmerized me. I had never seen eyes so blue. It was not till afterward I was told they were only colored contact lenses. I should have guessed. They had been too blue to be real. What a disappointment.

Blue also brings to mind my blue cat. Blue was a stray cat that was hiding out in our barn

Blue Cat

and at first he looked a bit like a cat out of a horror movie. His coat was dirty and almost black ; he was scrawny and thin and very very scared. It took months for him to become the beautiful Russian blue cat he became. His blue was a very special blue, a silvery blue grey. He loved sitting on your lap and I can guarantee the best kind of Blue to have.

There are a lot of songs with blue in the title and as I think of them it brings back memories. “Blue Moon' brings to mind an intense young man I danced with years ago.”Blue Skies” always makes me feel happy but the “the Birth of the Blues' makes me think of the other feelings associated with blue. The dark side. Are you feeling blue? That's not a nice wedgewood blue feeling more like a dark navy blue tinged with charcoal with maybe a mournful trumpet playing in the background.

Definitely not my kind of blue.

Here's one more blue song much more to my liking by one of my favorite singers, Neil Diamond of his greatest and well known. “Song Sung Blue.”

Listen and enjoy , courtesy of youtube.com 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ighSddnnaPE&feature=related

Just looked outside and there in the clouds is “enough blue to make a Dutchman's pair of trousers “ so be assured grey skies are clearing and it will be a nice day after all.

Seeds of an Idea

        "I wonder what it could be?" I looked down in my red tin of seed packages and saw all kinds of packets and seeds .There at the bottom was a seed that was quite large and I couldn't remember it from last year. Well I set it in some potting soil, watered it and left it and maybe if it grows, the penny will drop, and I'll say "Oh yes, it was so and so..."

The best part of gardening to me is planting seeds. I am always just amazed that from these tiny little fragments can grow such wondrous things. Not only that, they all seem to know if they should grow into a dahlia or a daisy. They know if they like an abundance of water or sun and if they will be large or small .They know what kind of leaf they should grow, what color to be and  if they like bees or butterflies best .However the most amazing thing is  they produce new seeds that will look just like them. Within that little miniscule seed is all that information.

I read somewhere that every different kind of seed from all over the world is being collected into huge seed banks to be stored for future emergencies. Can you just imagine how big the building would have to be to store seeds from every kind of flower, tree, bush and growing thing? It's like an Ark for seeds.

 See Wikipedia for more info.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedbank

Banksia seed pod

Most plants make seeds in great abundance. Open a seed package and there are just too many to count. Look at the acorns underneath our oak trees in the garden and know nature is planning ahead to make sure at least some new oak trees will grow.

I suppose with humans and other living things our seed package would be in our genetic DNA and the miraculous thing is that is also packed into  tiny spaces and has a wealth of information. From a single particle of a hair, all kinds of things about me as an individual can be known. Not only that, information about my mother and father and what I might also pass on to my children and even their children is there for the reading if you know how to do it. I wonder one day if there will be a home machine where we can read our own DNA seed just like we look at our blood pressure readings. Now wouldn't that be interesting?

  

That sounds like the seed of an idea. But where do these abstract ideas come from? Is there a seed for ideas already planted in our DNA?. Maybe Great Grandma Millicent originated different ideas but didn't use them and so passed them on to me. So do we have ideas already buried deep within our DNA? Seeds passed on through generations of ancestors. Does that account for the prodigies of early age we hear about?

Or just maybe an idea is a new original seed that is just being evolved. How would it happen? An idea springs in your mind but comes from where ? Maybe it's an idea seed particle that you have read about or seen or heard or touched and it lodged in your brain. Maybe there are trillions of idea seed particles floating about in the universe all around us that we haven’t discovered yet.

Who knows, maybe there will be a machine to collect and read those floating idea seeds one day too. Now that would be truly amazing.