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History of Valentine’s Day
February 14, 2017
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Saint Valentine
In February everyone’s heart turns to love… and chocolate… but mostly to love. February 14 is the day we show those special people in our lives how much we truly care. But did you ever wonder why? Who was Saint Valentine? And why is February 14 so special? Well, let’s have a look at the history of Valentine’s day and see if we can find out…
Who was Saint Valentine?
According to legend, Valentine was a priest who lived in Rome during the third century. At that time, Emperor Claudius II, who liked going to war, discovered that married men didn’t make very good soldiers. For some reason, they were more concerned about staying alive and providing for their wives and children than about enlarging the empire for him. So, he simply outlawed marriage for men of soldiering age.
But Vicar Valentine was a romantic at heart. He couldn’t bear seeing young lovers…
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Fermented Full Moon Fun
February 13, 2017
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Luke’s Pizza
Luke’s Pizza
towel toss
Luke’s Pizza
Hop Shop menu
The Metal Arts Village has a party every month with open artists’ galleries, live music and food trucks. This month was special because there as a DJ’d yoga class in the parking lot, and some acrobats on silk fabric hanging from a big tripod. The crowd was happy and the entertainment was fantastic. The fuel that kept the fun going was as ancient as human partying itself–fermentation. Beer is a fermented beverage, and pizza dough is a fermented grain product as well. Brewers and bread makers often combine to use the leavening from a beer in a bread. This kind of artisanal food production is rampant in Tucson, which is a happy thing for us. I am not the biggest beer drinker, and try to keep my pizza eating to a minimum, but do indulge when the time and the quality is right. Full Moon Party at metal Arts Village is just such an occasion.
I drank a glass of excellent stout aged in a bourbon barrel as a starter. Bob had a more bitter stout, which he stuck with for the day. I switched to a cappuccino stout from Lagunitas Brewery that made me happy. We sat with a couple drinking a red pilsner that was yummy also. This is the kind of place where people taste each other’s beer, no fear of cooties. Our table companions were interesting and cool with two dogs under the table. We enjoyed chatting with them. We all noticed Luke of the pizza truck trowing a towel in the air, pizza style. From a distance is certainly looks like dough. I went to investigate the situation and enjoyed learning about Luke’s dough and fermentation process.
He uses a sourdough proofing to create an amazing crisp thin crust. His wood fired oven takes 4 hours to heat up, but once it is hot the pizza cooks quickly. We ordered the pesto pizza from the menu and added jalapeño and garlic. This rates as one of the pest pizzas we have ever eaten. We will now become groupies of Luke and follow him around town when he parks at breweries and events. I can highly recommend this pizza with Lagunitas cappuccino stout..it is dreamy on the tastebuds. It would be good with any beer….or without beer.
The flying acrobats were fabulous, but the night was still young. One of my favorite artists in Tucson had set up a table top sell little stuff from her garage, and I was able to buy a piece of her art for almost no money. I now own an original signed Lynne Rae Lowe metal sculpture, that was derived with an amazing story. It is a Shabbis angel. She is highly symbolic, and now has a place of honor in front of a lamp I made myself. This is huge, and unexpected. I bought her on Shabbat, right before sunset on Saturday, then I walked home. OY!!!! Magic Moon!
#WeekendCoffeeShare Moving The Feast
February 11, 2017
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Barrio Bread
Barrio Bread
The movable feast known as weekend coffee share is itself on the move. Our gracious hostess Diana has arranged to hand off the coffee party action to Nerd in the Brain next weekend. We will still be a band of writers bonding over digital beverages and stories on the weekend. I am sure the move will not disrupt anyone. Thank you Diana, for finding us a new address to continue the party. If we were having coffee today I would invite you to taste some of the bread I just brought home from Barrio Bread. It is still warm, made from local grains, and crusty like crazy fire . I just had a smoked mozzarella sandwich, grilled, with all the trimmings. I can whip one up for you while you relax and tell me how you have been and what you have planned. We are very proud of this bakery, and would love for you to try our local organic, totally groovy food products. Our city is a UNESCO culinary heritage city because of our deep agricultural traditions and knowledge. I love to show it off to tourists.
It is warm here, and the peach tree is budding out. The grapefruit is still very full of fruit, although I am juicing like crazy. I hope you will help yourself to a big glass of ruby red grapefruit juice, with or without whipped vodka, as you tell me about your writing this week. Mine is rolling along, with the weekly photo prompt working for me very well. This week I wrote a short poem, still on the depressing side, a thinly veiled reference to current politics. The prompt picture was a fire, which gave lots of leeway. I wrote about pants and vanities on fire, since I feel this is our current backdrop for news in the real world. I plan to continue the once a week fiction with Sue Vincent’s prompts because it is inspirational to read all the other takes on the same picture. I do want to write more fiction someday. This is a good warm up for that day. I like taking a break from just the facts.
I am enjoying my correspondence challenge #InCoWriMo more than I imagined I would. I have gotten mail from several people I do not know, and a couple I know in on-line relationships. It is a blast to both send and receive the snail mail. Most of my pen pals have great penmanship and sealing wax, etc. I admire it, but that is not what I have to offer. My correspondence has enclosures and a little bit of art. My biggest advantage is all the cards and specialty paper I have collected around the world. I have started to enclose extra postcards so my pen pals can send them forward, and I get rid of twice as much collected choice paper. I also send a temporary tattoo and my biz card. Today I mailed some hollyhock seeds to Kentucky to a perfect stranger…Perfect!!
#InCoWriMo
I send or hand deliver more than one letter a day. I may get carried away with this and just keep mailing letters until all my paper is gone. It is so much fun, and I do have the supplies. I am meeting people and getting such a thrill out of checking my mailbox every day. I guess it is like riding a bike because I used to be a big letter writer, but not for many years. If anyone in coffee share wants to receive mail from me in February please send me your snail mail address on this secure form. I promise I have no reason to share it with anyone and will only use it to send you handwritten notes and surprise gifts from my exotic stash.
If we were having coffee today, I would recommend the grapefruit juice and invite you to stick around to go with us later to the local beer garden and metal arts village where there will be yoga with a DJ followed by live music, fire performers, stilts, acrobats on silk, and lots of hipsters. We will rock the full snow moon in our summer clothing. It is free and all in the hood. Stay and soak up Tucson before you go back home. For those of you who want to read, write, or post this week visit Diana here. See you next week at Nerd on the Brain. Cheers!
#WeekendCoffeeShare
Full Moon/Eclipse in Leo: The Return of the Feminine
February 10, 2017
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Time to shine
The Full Snow Moon/Eclipse in Leo + Comet 45P/ Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova
February 10, 2017 at 7:32 p.m. EDT
Comet 45P/ Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova
This is one of my favorite times of the year, the Snow moon, and with a fresh blanket of snow in my neck of the woods in Brooklyn. I think it’s the first real snow I have seen all winter here, and I really love the show mother earth put on today. We have an amazing portal to higher things opening on this Full Moon, and I am in awe of its generosity, opportunity and potential. Contradictions, upsets, openings, beginnings and the containment of opposites, so we can peel back the layer of mist that has caused so much confusion to us all. So many things going on. Let’s get to it!
Personally, Leo moon in the 12th house means it’s a time of finding out what makes you shine, what your…
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#writephoto Pants And Vanities On Fire
February 9, 2017
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bonfire of vanities
We watched them huddle around the fire to confer
About the plot they hatched to silence her
Laws and rule books were tossed in to burn
The flames grew large and the wind swirled
The bonfire of their vanities was burning in space
They were enveloped in a hellish backfire
There was no remedy for the sudden change
With pants all aflame they tried to conspire
We could neither believe them nor save them
They were consumed by their own vanities.
To participate by reading or writing a post about this picture go to Sue Vincent’s blog. She generously provides a new photo for inspiration each Thursday. Some very creative writers participate, and it is fun to see how the same picture inspires completely different responses in each writer.
#writephoto
Looking Forward
February 9, 2017
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The Leo Moon is all bright and shiny today, happily soaking up all the attention she can get and encouraging us to do the same. She exchanges witty remarks with Mercury in Aquarius first thing this morning before basking in the pleasure of a trine to beautiful Venus in Aries. The warmth of the fiery […]
Vibration Platform Routines
February 7, 2017
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I have been using my vibration platform for at least 15 minutes each day for a few weeks. Some days I do it in different positions for 30-45 minutes. I have been experimenting with speeds, and programs, as well as positions. I have been enjoying it and think it is having a positive effect on my general health. I found a couple of good videos to teach me various new options. This smooth moving sequence above looks like a vinyasana…constantly in motion. I like the idea of using a mat for traction on the floor behind the platform. I am going to incorporate some of these ideas and positions into my routine.
My neighbor Heidi has been using it also and we both like it. We talked today about finding more material to try on our platform. I am crazy about the Philippine version below of vibration plate class. This is used like a vibrating step…wild!! He also does an eight count then changes position. I have been holding positions as long as I can, like squat, backward bend, etc. I see the fun of changing positions constantly, but we will use different music. There are other demo videos on Youtube with more ideas for those of us who love to vibrate. These new ideas keep it fresh. I am a big fan. Have you tried the power plate, gentle reader? It is an efficient way to get a great workout in t short time and drain your lymphatic system at the same time. I bought it for the lymphatic drainage, and now I find I love it for the way it makes me feel. FUN!!
Criminally Unconscious
February 6, 2017
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Halls of Justice, Blurred
We will soon discover if what appears to some to be extreme Fascism will be contained by the United States judicial system. The checks and balances originally designed into our system have been blurred by political power. If religious organizations are liberated to use funds for direct political campaigning we will be in a whole new universe of crossed purposes. Many worry that when the president said he revoked Dodd Frank financial regulations because some of his friends have good businesses and can’t borrow (yes, that is what he said) that we are running fast down the road that brought us to ruin when Wall Street was too big to fail. Since we made up that term we have done absolutely nothing (except Dodd Frank) to address this too big to fail banking problem. The complicated regulations are never well understood by normal people, but we are clearly being told that banks will be able to lend more freely and do as they please (gamble) with the banks’ holdings as soon as this has been enacted. I am no banking expert, but this sounds very fishy to me. We don’t fully understand it, but we have political deja vu.
The executive branch of the government is intended to enforce the laws created by Congress. The president, the military, and the police are “arms of the law” intended not to make law but to enforce it. The judicial branch provides needed expertise to guide the executive branch to stay within the law. It adjudicates disputes about the laws that congress creates. The Supreme Court has been fully politicized to the point that the appointment is viewed now as extreme political victory. It is such a big deal that the present vacancy was “held open” until the election was concluded. This says a lot about The Supreme Court and Congress. This appointment is now a public political wrestling match which is getting messy. Is this how the government is even supposed to work?
The reason to watch the judicial branch very carefully now is that it holds the key to rule of law. With a strong independent and functional judiciary branch we can move forward and resolve disputes without running amok in political expediency. I currently trust the court system more than I trust the other two branches. In my own mind the checks and balances are wildly out of balance. A poorly educated public that does not understand how the government is intended to work is not very likely to be governed by a functional, rational leadership. This is a formula for Fascism. This is how rule of law is destroyed, with ignorance. I am not as much a subscriber to good and evil as I am to real and unreal. The evil I believe we need to fight in the world today is unconsciousness. If we think someone is criminally unconscious it is our duty to persuade them to make contact with reality. That task is much harder than judging or assuming anything about anyone. These are troubled times, gentle reader.
#WeekendCoffeeShare Food Festival Fun
February 4, 2017
— 7 Comments
Savor
Savor
If we were having coffee today in Tucson I would invite you to sit back and enjoy a cup of your favorite beverage while you tell me about your week. I am drinking iced roiboos tea and relaxing after attending our favorite food party of the year. The Tucson Botanical Garden is the venue for this culinary fiesta each February. Chefs, restaurants, caterers, distillers, brewers, and food providers of every kind set up stations to offer tastings to the guests. We pay $65 per person, then roam around the gardens eating and drinking, tasting our way though the wonderful options. The quality is outstanding since the purpose is to show off and find new customers. It works well for everyone. We always find a new place or product to try that we might not otherwise have discovered. This time we found an excellent Mexican restaurant we have not tried, and much to my surprise, there is a distillery making very tasty gin downtown Tucson. Who knew? The event lasts for 4 hours, but I believe I would burst if I stayed for the whole time. We lasted for about 2 hours before we called the Uber.
I am interested in your latest news about your writing projects. Some of you have inspired me to try my hand at writing fiction. I wrote another piece this week based on a photo prompt, and once again it was dark and disturbing. I surprise myself with these eerie, haunted stories. I plan to continue if only as a form of self analysis. I am discovering a part of my brain that makes up dark stories. I hope I will be able to make it create some brighter, funnier stuff. My fiction muse is stuck on horror.
I have started to write and mail correspondence daily. The International Correspondence Writing Month, #InCoWriMo, challenge involves people from around the world who send each other mail. It is much more fun that I thought it would be. Some old friends are sending mailing addresses, and I have collected some from the website. My most ambitious pen pal choice is a professional calligraphy artist in Florence, Italy. My handwriting is not that great, but I own an amazing collection of cards and stationary from around the world to send. I am using colored markers, and may start to do little drawings or write poems to the people I have never met. I am enjoying the process and think it is a good way to prime the creativity pump.
If you want to prime your creativity pump, or read some interesting writing, visit Diana’s blog on the weekend. Read, comment, or submit your own post here.
#WeekendCoffeeShare
Swiss Humor
February 3, 2017
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Europe is having more fun at President Trump’s expense. After a spoof of Trump’s “America First” slogan from the Netherlands went viral, the Swiss comedy show Deville Late Night made the case for “Switzerland Second.” The bit begins by burning the Dutch—”they so flat, total disaster”—before taking aim at Trump on issues like women’s rights,…
via Switzerland Parodies President Trump’s ‘America First’ — TIME
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