Thursday, February 28, 2013

On a rainy day of gloom

These are from pinterest and they made me laugh. out loud.

i just can't help liking the lols.




























Tuesday, February 26, 2013

some Beautiful Pictures of Nature

all over the web are wonderful pics of animals in nature, enjoy:






my mom took this

 

The Surface of the Sun

Amazing:

 

Pet Food Stamps! Contibute...

HERE is a link for those interested in helping feed pets in financial trouble...

and here's the story on MSN--http://now.msn.com/pet-food-stamps-pays-for-owners-to-buy-pet-food

 

A Woman Run a Marathon!? From PBS "Makers"

Just try to imagine...(no you can't -- you're a woman...)

 Kathrine Switzer, in 1967, became the first woman to enter and run the Boston Marathon. The press took pictures as a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the race.

(She did finish.)

Stories. click HERE

"AMY GOODMAN: The year was 1967.
MERYL STREEP: The 1967 Boston Marathon was run in some of the worst conditions in race history. While most of the crowd was focused on the front of the pack, another runner was making a stir far behind.
KATHRINE SWITZER: The idea of running long distance was always considered very questionable for women, because, you know, an arduous activity would mean that you’re going to get big legs and grow a mustache and hair on your chest, and your uterus was going to fall out.
MERYL STREEP: In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was a junior at Syracuse University. Because Syracuse had no women’s track team, she began training with the manager of the men’s team, a part-time mailman named Arnie Briggs.
KATHRINE SWITZER: It was Arnie who told me about the greatest day in his life every year, which was the Boston Marathon. And we were out running, and Arnie began telling me another Boston Marathon story. And I said, "Oh, Arnie, let’s just quit talking about the darn marathon and run it." And my dream then became to prove that I could run 26 miles, 385 yards.
MERYL STREEP: For 70 years, the Boston Marathon had excluded women. But Switzer entered using just her initials.
KATHRINE SWITZER: We walked to the start, and the gun went off, and down the street we went. So there we were, Arnie Briggs, the 50-year-old mailman, and me, the 20-year-old college student, and my boyfriend, Tom Miller, an ex-All-America football player. When other runners would come by, they would say, "Oh, it’s a girl!" and they were so excited.
And all of a sudden, the press truck is in front of us, and they’re taking, you know, pictures of us. On this truck was the race director, a feisty guy by the name of Jock Semple. He just stopped the bus, jumped off and ran after me. And he just grabbed me and screamed at me: "Get the hell out of my race, and give me those numbers!" He had the fiercest face of any guy I had ever seen. And all of a sudden, Big Tom, my boyfriend, came with a streak and gave Jock the most incredible cross body block and sent Jock flying right through the air and landed on the curb. And all of this happened in front of the press truck. The journalists got very aggressive: "What are you trying to prove?" You know, "Are you a suffragette? Are you a crusader?" whatever that is, you know. And I said, "What? I’m just trying to run."
Then it got very quiet. Snow is coming down. Nobody is saying anything. And I turned to Arnie, and I said, "Arnie, I’m going to finish this race on my hands and my knees if I have to. If I don’t finish this race, then everybody is going to believe women can’t do it. I’ve got to finish this race." I finished that race in four hours, 20 minutes.
It wasn’t until we stopped on the thruway to get an ice cream and some coffee that we see the newspapers and the coverage, front and back, of all the different editions with the pictures. And I realized that now this was very, very important, and this was going to change my life, and it was probably going to change women’s sports. There is an expression in a marathon that you do go through sort of a lifetime of experience. And I often say that I started the Boston Marathon as a girl, and I finished the Boston Marathon as a grown woman., at one point, wrote a memo to her boss at NBC News as the women’s movement was heating up, and she said, "Hey, let’s do a story on the women’s—how about doing a story on the women’s movement?" Her memo came back to her: "Not enough interest." I mean, there’s example after example in the documentary of the kind of dismissive tone and coverage of the movement. I don’t think that the media really understood what was going on in the mid to late ’60s with women from all walks of life who were kind of fed up with the restrictions that they were facing...."

Friday, February 22, 2013

How to Save a Life The Fray


lyrics and video
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life







wiki say:
According to lead singer, pianist and songwriter Isaac Slade, the song was composed and influenced by his experience while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens:
“              One of the youngsters I was paired up with was a musician. Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and he was just 17 and had all these problems. And no one could write a manual on how to save him.          ”
Slade claims that the song is about all of the people that tried to reach out to the boy but were unsuccessful. As Slade says in an interview, the boy's friends and family approached him by saying, "Quit taking drugs and cutting yourself or I won't talk to you again," but all he needed was some support. The boy was losing friends and going through depression. He lost his best friend and could not deal with it. The verses of the song describe an attempt by an adult to confront a troubled teen. In the chorus, the singer laments that he himself was unable to save a friend because he did not know how.
While this was the original intent of the song, the band has opened the song to interpretation. They created a website where fans were welcome to submit music videos they had made for the song. This arose from the response that Slade got from the song:[3]
“              I got a lot of e-mails about it (...) One boy died in a car accident, and I guess it had been the last song he downloaded from his computer. They played it at his funeral, and some of his friends got Save a life tattooed on their arms. The response has been overwhelming..."


Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life





lol is a good thing if you can't i'm so sorry












Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Blizzard of Oz 2013 Storm

Winter storm Q, or The Blizzard of Oz 2013 was certainly hyped. Now the first wave is over and we picked up a few inches-- it's hard to say since the winds are so magNIFicent here in the bowl of flint hills that we have constant and massive drifting. Some drifts in the yard are up to five feet.

The Rusty Blackbirds are here! Not quite endangered but not where they should be. (Pictures HERE)
Well, a big lovely flock came today. Over 100 or probably 200. I'll post some pics and vid later today.

(The internet is not reliable right now. I've already lost this post and was unable to connect for a while.)

They come because: I have provided a steady water and food source for 12 years. I even get a flock of yellow headed blackbirds in the spring. (Some pics HERE)

Today is a blast, everything is closed and folks are nestled in. No demands except whether to make chili or toll house cookies....

Birds i saw today: (most live here at the moment)- Several types of woodpeckers,

 two eNourmous Flickers, a small flock of robins, a large group of finches, some house finches, purple finches, and goldfinches in winter wear. Nuthatches, a Titmouse, cardinals of course, many types of sparrows. Crows, red-winded blackbirds, rusty blackbirds, geese, a hawk, Black-capped chickadee. more...
oh! a yellow-bellied sapsucker was here!! (and i have the pics...:-)

Abovei have a great pic of a red bellied woodpecker by a big mushroomy thing on the tree.

laater...
and here are a few quick shots:
rusty blackbirds in winter 2013


yellow bellied sap sucker



Blizzard of Oz Bird

birds can spell

does this snow make me look plump?


cardinal pairs