Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!Happy Guy Fawkes Day.
Are any of my followers planning to celebrate it? Ever since V for Vendetta was released, I’ve seen a slow uptick in the number of people who either know this poem or do something to celebrate this holiday.
Author Archives: lydias
The Fifth of November
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The Answer
This is a short film by Florent Rubio and Xin Zhao about a man whose electric razor stops working when he’s only half finished shaving his face. He has to figure out another way to get ready for his date.
I can’t tell you anything else about it without giving away spoilers. Go check it out for yourselves!
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Birthday Parties Are for Kids
Birthday parties are for kids.
Balloons, crepe paper, silly hats, and extremely sugary desserts are loads of fun when you’re eight.
As an adult, though, I don’t want any of that.
A quiet, celebratory dinner with my spouse where no one sings Happy Birthday off-key? Sure.
Making a big fuss over every single birthday for adults doesn’t make sense to me. One of the reasons why birthdays are so exciting when you’re growing up is that people change incredibly quickly over their first two decades. A three-year-old is mentally and physically able to do all kinds of things that simply aren’t possible for a two-year-old. Every time I see my niece and nephews, I’m amazed by how much they’ve matured. It’s fascinating to see kids go through this process, whether they’re seven weeks old or a senior in high school.
Unless we’re talking about lower car rental fees, you can’t say that about two people who are 24 and 25 years old. They are indistinguishable from each other in every way but this one, and it only matters on the rare occasion when they actually need to rent a car. It’s not something that affects the other 364 days of their lives.
The older someone gets, the fewer exceptions like this one you’ll be able to find. Adults usually change so slowly that all of their years blend together. A decade makes a difference for us. One year generally does not.
So it surprises me a little bit when adults want to celebrate their birthdays in big ways every single year. It would make more sense if they weren’t expecting to make it to their next birthday or if it was a milestone birthday.
Every year without exception, though?
I don’t get it. To me that’s kind of like celebrating your 357th month anniversary with your significant other and then counting down the days until your 358th month anniversary.
It’s not that I find it unethical or anything.
It’s just kind of odd.
To each their own, of course.
But this isn’t something I understand.
Do you?
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Suggestion Saturday: October 31, 2015
Photo credit: picjumbo.com.
Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poem, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.
Where Freedom Flies via jdubqca. Longterm readers might recognize the username of the guy who wrote this poem. I’ve shared his stuff with you a half a dozen times over the last few years. What I liked the most about this poem is how much information it’s able to pack into a fairly small space. J. Matthew is really good at that, and it’s one of the reasons why I love his work so much.
From Back When I Was a Ghost:
The point of this story isn’t about climbing things that I probably shouldn’t have been. This is a story about being a ghost.
We Are In a Constant State of Becoming. This was great.
The Joy of Fear via InertialConfine. What I find most interesting about this post is how clearly it explains why some of us enjoy being scared so much. I was raised by parents who weren’t fans of haunted houses or the scary side of Halloween one bit, but I still grew up to be someone who loves all of that stuff.
Tough Nut to Crack via KarenCopeland3. I dislike the phrase come out of your shell for similar reasons.
From The Secrets of Gift-Giving Crows:
McGowan first talked to me about that in 1998, and I immediately began to feed peanuts to the crows who would hang around the park where I brought my dog every day.
The birds very quickly—within a few days– recognized me—swooping over and calling to me—to get their handout.
What have you been reading?
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A Tale of Six Pies
Photo credit: Alpha.
I have two basic kinds of dreams: ordinary ones about the somewhat-boring things everyone has to do in life and and pulse-pounding, action-adventure tales where I narrowly outrun zombies, ghosts, or other malevolent forces. (Sometimes I don’t outrun them, of course, and then I get to see what life is like as a sci-fi monster. But I digress).
Then there is my bizarrely specific dream about buying pies from a few nights ago. How many pies, you ask? Six of them, and each one a different flavour.
What two adults with small-to-moderate appetites could be expected to do with so many pies before they grew stale remains to be seen, but dream-me was thrilled with what I’d picked up at the grocery store. I thought we’d start with the lemon meringue, and then move onto the chocolate one that looked a lot like this festive pie pictured above. Just before I woke up, I was imagining how content we’d feel with bellies full of pie. It was the nicest thing I could possibly think of at the time.
This was one of those dreams that took me a moment or two to separate from reality when I woke up. Did we really have six pies sitting on the counter in the kitchen? No, thank goodness. Our kitchen was as pie-free as it ever is.
The dream has stuck with me, though, as I wonder what could have caused it. I’m not craving this type of dessert. I haven’t actually been craving many sweets at all. If I were going to eat them, Halloween candy would be closer to what I’d want at this time of year. There are only so many weeks when you can get certain types of it, after all!
I wish there were more scientific studies about what dreams mean. Almost everything I’ve found on this topic is infused with woo or spiritual beliefs that I don’t share. Those interpretations are great for people who believe in those things, but I’d love to see someone come up with explanations that don’t rely on them.
If I ever win the lottery or sell so many books that I become independently wealthy, I’m going to study this as scientifically as I possibly can. My theory is that the emotions we feel when we’re dreaming are far more important than the content of the dreams themselves.
I’ve had peaceful dreams about zombies and terrifying dreams about something as simple as trying to find a clean, dry, available toilet in a building that seems to contain everything else in the entire world but that.
What odd things have you been dreaming about lately? How do you interpret them?
And more importantly, has this post made you crave pie? 🙂
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Some Rules Have Exceptions. What Are Yours?
Photo credit: Babbel1996.
I’ve been thinking about exceptions to rules lately.
Despite many attempts to become a fan of Doctor Who, I have never learned to enjoy that show.
The exception to this rule: “Blink,” an episode in which the doctor encounters an extremely dangerous alien race that can only move if no one is looking at them. There’s an element of horror in this episode that makes me shiver. It’s truly frightening without being gory, and I love every single second of it.
As many of my readers already know, I can’t stand 99% of the violent shows out there. There’s nothing entertaining to me about seeing people hurt each other in new and creative ways. The Walking Dead is my big exception to this rule. I’m so attached to these characters that I’m willing to look away during the disturbing scenes in order to find out what happens to them next. (Ideally it will involve Rick and Michonne falling in love and having a few adorable children once the zombiepocalypse winds down a bit. But I digress. 😉 )
It’s extremely hard for me to get into online games because of how much focus they tend to put on fighting and destroying stuff. Exception: Minecraft. I love building houses, fences, and bridges in this game. If you want to, you can avoid fighting monsters and build stuff or tend to your farm instead.
Shopping is the worst kind of errand. Exception: grocery shopping. I love standing in the produce section and thinking. Occasionally I’ve rewritten large sections of my shopping list based on what is on sale or what looks amazing this week. There’s something deeply gratifying about this.
I think you get the point.
Everyone has rules for themselves. We all have exceptions, too.
Today I want to hear about yours.
What do you normally love but sometimes dislike?
What do you normally hate but sometimes enjoy?
What are you indifferent about unless it involves (or doesn’t involve) X?
Have you ever changed your mind about any of these things?
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Suggestion Saturday: October 24, 2015
Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.
Born-Again Meat-Eater via lisa_brunette. If it were more socially acceptable to do so, I’d ask everyone what made them decide to be vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or omnivorous. It’s never about trying to convert anyone to any particular eating style for me. I’m simply fascinated by how and why people choose the diets they do.
Sometimes You Eat the Bear. Sometimes He Eats You via LarryNWeiner. This was such a raw, honest post.
Window. Wouldn’t you love to know what’s behind this window? I sure would. I’m imagining a cozy house with smooth wooden floors, leather couches, and a roaring fireplace. There is a big pot of vegetable soup bubbling on the stovetop and a fresh loaf of sourdough bread cooling on the counter. In a few moments, the chill in our bones from walking around outside for so long will melt away when we step inside. What do you imagine is waiting for you behind this window?
Sex: A Guide. Haha! This was great.
The Evil Aunt Who Wasn’t via bobmueller. I’ve wondered the same thing about other high-profile news stories in the past.
From Super Duper Fly:
“You always know the right thing to say,” Topher said. “How come you’re always there when I need you even though I barely know you?”
“I’m the wise janitor. I come to impart wisdom and assuage fears.” Bags emptied the trashcan. “It looked like you needed some friendly, black, optimistic advice.”
What have you been reading?
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The Why Game
Photo credit: Nevit Dilmen.
A few years ago my oldest nephew went through that developmental stage in early childhood where young humans ask a million questions.
No matter what your answer was, he’d always want to know more.
Why do things work that way?
Why do we know that’s the correct answer?
Why can’t things work a different way instead?
He’s an incredibly smart kid, so he’d often reach the edge of your knowledge on a particular topic and still have many questions left to go. Googling it was a option, of course, but he preferred hearing the answers from adults if at all possible.
I was amused the first time this happened. It had been a long time since I’d spent much time with a child that age, so I’d forgotten how curious they are about everything in the entire world works and why it is the way it is. Then I was intrigued.
He doesn’t know this, but I quietly borrowed the Why Game from him. When I’m bored or in a situation where I need to sit quietly but don’t need to pay close attention to what is going on, I pick a topic and start asking myself questions about it.
Why can humans thrive on so many different kinds of diets?
Why do vaccines work?
Why are there so many planets in the universe?
Why haven’t we cured tuberculosis yet?
Why did humans invent art?
I usually have a basic understanding of how the question should be answered. The trick to this game is to discover the parts of the answer that need to be explored in greater depth. Once I’m able to borrow a library book on the topic or do some serious Googling, I try to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.
It doesn’t happen quickly.
A lot of the answers I find are at least a little subjective.
But knowing that much more about our world is deeply satisfying.
If I reach my goal of living past my one hundredth birthday, I still will only know a small fraction of all of the things I wonder about.
What kinds of things do you do to amuse yourself when you’re left alone with your thoughts?
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John Oliver on Mental Health
This video is a little longer than the ones I normally share here, but it was excellent.
My favourite part? When John talked about what life would be like if all of our sex education came from the lyrics in Lil Wayne’s music. It was a hilarious analogy for what the mental health system is like in the U.S. (And Canada, too, from what I’ve seen).
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