Passport Stamps

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

~Aristotle

The Unemployed Philosophers Guild

Viaggiatore and I wandered across a delightful new site and must share it with you; it's that good. I don't like to think of any philosopher being unemployed, but this group has made the most of it, that's certain!

Welcome to The Unemployed Philosophers Guild!

This is where you will find such fantastical fancies as:

Atonemints... for each of your sins - You could ask forgiveness with fresh breath, which won't hurt...  

Relativity of Time Watch  -  The numbers on this watch actually rotate with each passing second, making 3:00 into 9:00 in 30 seconds.

Alice's Enchantmints - Fresh breath for the Curiouser and Curiouser! 

 

Inspired by Leonardo's notebooks, this watch tells time backwards. The numbers are backwards. Everything is backwards. Look at in a mirror and it looks like a normal (but beautiful) watch.

Mug Shots - 6 arresting shotglasses! Includes Al Capone, John Dillinger, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy Floyd.

"Super Strong Manly peppermints. Let the world see and smell you for who you are."

One of their best products, in my humble opinion: 

Freudian Slippers! 

"Now you can really put your foot in it! Walk in the masters footsteps with our Freudian Slippers!"

There are so many clever, fun things to enjoy at this site.  I do love the mugs; most of them have disappearing and reappearing features when a hot beverage is poured into them, some of the best are:

The Cheshire Cat mug... the cat appears and disappears
The Global Warming mug... the continents disappear
The Civil Liberties mug... the civil rights disappear
Dr. Who's disappearing Tardis mug
The Freudian Sips mug
The Dorothy Parker martini glass "...'I like to have a Martini, two at the very most; three, I'm under the table, four I'm under my host!' So quipped Dorothy Parker."

I bought the Shakespearean Love mug, of course, as I am a hopeless romantic and I adore Shakespeare.
If love isn't your thing, there's a Shakespearean Insults mug which is very fun!

The best thing on my SLove mug is a little notation printed on the bottom that states, "For best results, use other side." Such clever mirth!

There are T-shirts, notepads, a large variety of mints, time pieces, finger puppets, energy bars, pill boxes... and so many other fun things for the keen thinker who has everything.

If you like politics, art, history, impressionism, science, philosophers, music, religion, literature or the renaissance, you will find yourself laughing at so much of what these Unemployed Philosophers offer.

Have a fabulous time visiting them.

That's The Buzz

There are companies who manufacture caffeinated water.  I used to buy a couple called H20 Zip and Aquajava.  It seemed a sort of oxymoron incarnate to me, because caffeine dehydrates a body.

I was just wondering... what would happen if someone made coffee with caffeinated water...

Letting Go

The bad news: letting go can be a difficult thing to do.

The good news: once we let go, it leaves our hands wide open to accept new things.

Love Embattled

"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same..."

"...He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."

"He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine..."

"He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease himself!"

- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Is there nothing as tragic and beautiful as deeply passionate love that exists but cannot be given a breath of life? I find myself wandering through the mists of Wuthering Heights from time to time; aching for the dark, brooding, melancholy Heathcliff and the only light in his life, his strong and determined Cathy.  

It is nearly unbearable to love someone so much that you cannot have; as though they were the very air that brings life and without it there is no life worth living. Is there passion like this in life? Is there love that cannot be measured, cannot be lost or changed; even by death? I must believe that there is. I must believe that every level of love leads to a pinnacle as poignant and eternal as this... as deep and strong and timeless as this... for there is no denying what our souls know, and mine knows that this is true.

Oh The Irony Of It All

First and foremost: a hearty thank you to those who served their country whether or not they agreed with politics or war.  Happy Veteran's Day.

Second... I had something shipped from a distant library to my library because I need it desperately and immediately.  I got an email from my library this morning saying that it was in and I could come pick it up when I liked.  So, I drove to the library today, was delighted because the parking meters were free (Veteran's Day) and then completely flummoxed that the library was closed (Veteran's Day).  My urgent request will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Dear, Dear Diary

Dear, Dear Diary,

Let's do this today, because we need to do this today.  Let's come up with 5 Things What Are Good, as our Dearest Jon used to do. 

1. Trying BIG new things which necessitate one jumping feet first into the OMIGOSH-I-HAVEN'T-EVER-NEVER-THOUGHT-I-COULD-DIDN'T-THINK-I-EVER-WOULD-BUT-I'M-GONNA-DO-IT-ANYWAY-OMIGOSH pool.  It's deep in here, and I like it.

2. Very grateful for dear friends & family who are always there to support, love, encourage and believe in me. I cannot imagine where I would be without you. 

 

3. Stash White Christmas White Tea.  O.M.G.  This is my new favorite tea of the season. I don't like peppermint, but I LOVE this tea.  YUM.  If you could put a snowy Christmas morning in a mug and drink it, this is what it would taste like.

4. The last truly warm day of fall on a Monday, following a weekend that could have been stolen out of late June... right before the first snow of the fall.

5. Seeing each new day as an opportunity to grow.

Beautiful

Something very beautiful, to make up for the last post.

Momentary Pause For A Trainwreck

Normally I only post quality material on this blog.

I'm going to make an exception today because Halloween just didn't scare me enough and one of my friends directed me to a very scary website; a recommendation which just may have earned him a smack in the back of the head.

As with any trainwreck, it's one of those seriously disturbing things that draws you in and you just can't look away, even when you know you should.

Fair warning & disclaimer given.  Welcome to People of Walmart.com.  Don't eat or drink anything while you are at this site; it will not end well.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

It is astounding to me that people like this exist on our planet, and may I just say how grateful I am that so far our paths have not crossed often. Sometimes there are just no words... and yet, somehow, the commentator on this website is witty enough to find a fitting & oftentimes humorous caption for every single photo.

If you click on the photo tab, be sure you scroll down each page... you won't believe what you'll see. 

Here are some of the more TAME demo shots from the site... Don't say we didn't warn you:

A Denial

A Denial

We have met late-it is too late to meet,
   O friend, not more than friend!
Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
   In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
   Look in my face and see.

I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
   In silence; drop my hand.
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand.
   Can life and death agree,
That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee. If the word is faint,
   Look in my face and see.

I might have loved thee in some former days.
   Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
   Had this been asked of me,
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,
I should have said still . . . yes, but smiled and said,
   "Look in my face and see!"

But now . . . God sees me, God, who took my heart
   And drowned it in life's surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part
A light song overcomes me like a dirge.
   Could Love's great harmony
The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
Not weigh me down? Am I a wife to choose?
   Look in my face and see.

While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
   Some woman of full worth,
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's,
Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;
   One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
With brighter eyes than these . . . which are not wet . . .
   Look in my face and see!

So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
   To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great,
And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!
   Not I! That cannot be.
I am lost, I am changed, I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
   Look in my face and see.

Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
   I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
   Of loyal troth. For me,
I love thee not, I love thee not! Away!
Here's no more courage in my soul to say
   "Look in my face and see."

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My Heart And I

MY HEART AND I

Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colors could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

How tired we feel, my heart and I
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
"Dear love, you're looking tired," he said:
I, smiling at him, shook my head.
'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor.  Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures?  Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

Yet who complains?  My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, - well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browing