I wish I had more hair on my head, but hair is best when it is limited to being contained in certain regions and not present everywhere on your body. Hypertrichosis is an abnormal amount of hair growth over the body and extensive cases are sometimes called werewolf syndrome. Did you ever wonder what Cousin Itt (the fictional character in the Addams Family television and film series) looks like under all of that hair? Gomez once asked him what is underneath all of his hair, and Cousin Itt replied with the nebulous remark “Roots”.
Corn silk is the stringy hair like stuff that you find underneath the husk of an ear of corn. It’s all about sex, since corn is a monoecious plant, that produces both male and female flowers on the same plant. Both flowers are initially bisexual, but during the course of development the female components (gynoecia) of the male flowers and the male components (stamens) of the female flowers abort. The corn silk growing out of the ear is the female part of a corn plant, and the tassel growing out the top of the corn stalk is the male part. The corn silk is the stigma and style of the female part of the corn. The stigma is the sticky end of the silk where pollen attaches.
A single ear of corn, which is about a half cup of corn kernels, contains 2 grams of fiber. Fiber has a number of health benefits, including normalizing bowel function and preventing constipation. Psyllium is a form of fiber made from the husks of the Plantago ovata plant’s seeds. Psyllium is a bulk-forming laxative, it soaks up water in your gut and makes bowel movements much easier and can help promote regularity without increasing flatulence. Psyllium husk fiber often comes in a powder form, but if you take it in a tablet, make sure that you chew it thoroughly before swallowing.
Written for FOWC with Fandango – Nebulous and for Di’s Three Things Challenge prompt words – Tablet Husk Hair.
They blow down the slopes of mountains, plateaus, and hills at this time of year and by happenstance, I was in the middle of this. This seasonal weather pattern containing the katabatic winds occurs mostly at night, when the highlands radiate heat and are cooled. I was lucky to be alerted that the Santa Ana winds were coming again, but nobody had to notify me about the danger of these hot, dry winds, contributing to wildfires. I remained aloof to all the political news, but when it came to weather, I always paid attention, so I could evaluate if I needed to evacuate.
I was out in the woods with the new drummer and we were eating spicy tapioca pearls which my grandmother made for our breakfast. The drummer just moved to California and his greed to perform in front of an audience made him great, but his incessant drumming was turning me into a basket case.
Written for Sheryl’s Daily Word Prompt – Notify, for Roger Shipp’s Daily Addictions prompt – Basket, for the Daily Spur prompt – Audience, for FOWC with Fandango – Aloof, for Melodye Shore September show-and-tell – Seasonal, for September Monthly Writing Prompts – Katabatic winds, for Ragtag Community – Happenstance, for Sara’s Closet Full Of Notebooks Prompt – Lucky, for Paula’s Three Things Challenge prompt words – Drummer Tapioca Greed, for GC and Sue W Weekly Prompt – Evaluate and for Word of the Day Challenge Prompt – Spicy.
Nature had always been a big part of his life, ever since he read the book Walden by the American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. Rick was not able to elide his thoughts about camping out in some green fields and picking some fall fruit, while spending his aurora nights in the land of the midnight sun. He was fervid about the upcoming trip and he was not about to let anything spoil his decision to go, no matter what the overtones would be made by his younger brother. This time he had to bring Jack along, who just became a teenager, and he knew that Jack would try to banalize the significance of communing with nature.
Youthful Jack was a sweet boy, as long as he was home playing his computer games, but he was not built for the rough outdoors. Shakespeare said, “The earth has music for those who listen” and Rick enjoyed the listening every time he was able to make it back to nature. Rick was a real outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing, climbing, hiking and his passion drove him to rise before the sun and catch his own breakfast. Rick had eaten many different types of prey and he was not one to flinch if he saw a cougar or a snake coming after him. Rick might remain motionless, or he could wave his arms around if he saw a giant bear.
Jack was not a fussy eater, as long as he had some zucchini as a side dish, he would basically eat anything. Rick woke his younger brother up and told him they were having rabbit for breakfast. Jack sighed and said, “How could you kill that poor defenseless animal?”, and Rick responded by telling Jack that the rabbit accidently committed suicide. He said that when the rabbit saw him, it went into reverse and ended up falling off a granite cliff trying to get away from him. Jack told his brother that he knew he made up that royal lie just to make him feel better.
Written for Sheryl’s Daily Word Prompt – Giant, for Roger Shipp’s Daily Addictions prompt – Camping, for the Daily Spur prompt – Royal, for FOWC with Fandango – Reverse, for Melodye Shore September show-and-tell – Fall Fruit, for September Monthly Writing Prompts – Aurora nights, for Ragtag Community – Fervid, for Paula’s Three Things Challenge prompt words – Granite Zucchini Lie, for Word of the Day Challenge Prompt – Youthful and for Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle #149, hosted by Yves where the prompts are Elide Green Spoil Decision Banalize Rough Flinch Overtones Back Sweet Motionless Prey.
Um… that constant beep, beep, beeping is driving all the cats crazy, as when the batteries in the smoke detectors get low enough, they demand to be changed. I don’t like being told what to do and this becomes even worse when a machine starts dictating things like “turn left at the next corner” to me, although I understand that this is being done in a judicious manner. I like to think of myself as an open minded person that can be persuaded by logic and I know that “to err is human”, but I feel that machines can also make mistakes, because they are programmed by humans. Let me clarify this a bit, machines only process information that they have the ability to decipher, so if the road ahead is closed and my navigation system tells me to “turn left at the next corner”, I will need to use my better judgment and not rely on tunnel vision.
It has been steaming hot since Dorian passed by and I am looking forward to some cool weather which should eventually arrive. I am honored today as Irene from My Slice of Mexico dedicated her latest post to me, because I don’t like onions. I don’t have anything planned for dinner yet, but my food desires are now leaning toward Mexican. I was thinking about putting on my traditional Buddhist meditation monk robe, which you might call a gown and then practice some Zen enlightenment through meditation, if I am lucky enough to find some mythical moonbows. The gown actually belongs to my brother and it is only a lender, as I have to return it. I am going to end this post with the most ameliorate (make something that is bad or unsatisfactory better) song ever written and I hope that you enjoy it.
Written for Sheryl’s Daily Word Prompt – Clarify, for Roger Shipp’s Daily Addictions prompt – Bit, for the Daily Spur prompt – Being, for FOWC with Fandango – Judicious, for Melodye Shore September show-and-tell – Cool Weather, for August Monthly Writing Prompts – Mythical moonbows, for Ragtag Community – Ameliorate, for Sara’s Closet Full Of Notebooks Prompt – Food Desires, for Paula’s Three Things Challenge prompt words – Lender Gown Tunnel, for Rachel Poli I Read I Write I Create – Time To Write – Sentence Starter – Um… and for Word of the Day Challenge Prompt – Zen.
Since a ship can be designed to right itself if it capsizes or becomes out of balance, so that it will sit perfectly upright in the water again, this made me think about the possibility of making a post that could write itself. I would have to input all of the prompt words and create a program for it to search the internet and find appropriate stories and then group them together in a coherent manner. I dabble around with this every day and although this may seem like an unlikely idea for a computer to do this under the current standards of technology, it is very likely that someday this will become the future of writing. If a machine writes a post, does that mean the post is writing itself? The first post that is written this way will seem like magic.
This could be a real opportunity for an ambitious person to instigate a new method that will change the world. They already have a computerized oven that knows how to cook your food for you just the way you want it. Computers are great when it comes down to achieving accuracy and they don’t require a cozy spot to get things done. They have already become useful for reading documents and they have the ability to reason about the task for which they are trained to perform, but they have not reached the point where they have something that resembles general reasoning power yet. They keep getting better, but they don’t really understand things the way people do. Stories are out there and they are looking to be told, but a computer is not capable of being able to reel any of them in yet.
Machines lack emotions and although in the Terminator and Matrix movies, they both featured computers that became evil, this is probably not going to happen, as it will be a cold day in hell before a schism emerges between man and computer. My computer has been acting sickly lately and it is easier for me to get a new one than send mine to the computer hospital. My old computer has lost its magic.
Since I am writing about computers today, I want to respond to Fandango’s question which asks, “Do you believe in magic? Define magic any way you wish and explain your belief about magic.” Computers are machines that basically sit around doing nothing all day, that is unless they have code installed inside of them. I worked with a lot of computers and they need to be told what to do, before they will respond. People who do not understand code often think that computers are magic, which in a way they are. Computers influence our lives every day, but they don’t use any mysterious or supernatural forces to do this, so they are not magic, even though a computer is capable of creating an illusion that most people are not able to explain.
Dragons can be viewed as volcanic devils, and since they can breathe fire they are magic, but Puff the magic dragon originally wasn’t magic. He was developed from a poem and he hung out with a little black kitten named Ink, and a little grey mouse called Blink, a little yellow dog who was sharp as Mustard, but since this dragon was a coward, he was called Custard.
Written for Sheryl’s Daily Word Prompt – Dabble, for Roger Shipp’s Daily Addictions prompt – Could, for the Daily Spur prompt – Accuracy, for Fandango’s Provocative Question #39 – believe in magic, for FOWC with Fandango – Instigate, for Melodye Shore September show-and-tell – Cozy Spot, for August Monthly Writing Prompts – Volcanic devils, for Ragtag Community – Schism, for Sara’s Closet Full Of Notebooks Prompt – Opportunity, for Paula’s Three Things Challenge prompt words – Reel Oven Hospital, for GC and Sue W Weekly Prompt – Reading and for Word of the Day Challenge Prompt – Unlikely.
Those who have gone across the divide beyond life just might be in touch with us again someday, according to the harvest veil theory. Spiritism is a spiritualistic philosophy started in the 19th century by the French educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, who, under the pen name Allan Kardec, wrote books on the nature, origin, and destiny of spirits, and their relation with the corporeal world. This belief says that the living can contact the dead and speak to someone in the unseen world through a medium. The Bible strongly condemns this practice saying that no one should employ divination, practice magic, look for omens, talk with a sorcerer, bind others with a spell, consult with a spirit medium or a fortune-teller, inquire about the dead and according to a recent Fandango post, this also includes reading Harry Potter books, but I am not sure if he was being sincere.
Korach ben Yitzar the Levite was no ordinary rabble-rouser, as he lead a mutiny against Moses and Aaron with two hundred and fifty men challenging Moses’ leadership and Aaron’s priestly authority. A test was devised between Korach and Aaron to see which one would offer the most pleasing sacrifice to God. Aaron used mercurial incense, the quicksilver of spiritual entities to provide a medium for the manifestation of God. The divine response was unmistakable, as the earth opened her mouth and swallowed Korach and his household alive never to be seen again. At the same time, a heavenly fire consumed all 250 of the rebel’s followers.
A plague soon stalked the camp, quickly consuming tens, then hundreds, then thousands. God commanded Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the people, but Aaron ran to the midst of the congregation, where the plague had begun so he could offer incense. He stood between the dead and the living until the plague was checked. Not many people would show that kind of devotion, putting themselves in harm’s way, ignoring God’s instructions, to stand between the dead and the living, restraining the angel of death from killing more Israelites.
The Hebrew Exodus from Egypt was beset by horrendous natural conditions. Miriam and Aaron said bad things about their brother, because he married a woman from Cush after his first wife Zipporah died. God set them straight making sure that they knew Moses was His prophet and that he carried God’s fire from the electric sky. God thought that Miriam was being wicked, so He made her skin suddenly turn color to something between ochre and that of watermelon snow. Moses prayed for God to rectify this and he cured Miriam, but only after she was banished from the camp for 7 days.
The 40 years spent in the desert was harsh as food, water and shelter were all lacking and it was scarce to find even a leaf growing. In the spring, the Israelites discovered echinacea, which they mixed with lilac to make tea and this helped them to knockout colds. It was not rare to see a jackal running through camp and seeing these small canines would mess with their melatonin levels and affect their sleep cycle. At first, the Israelites did not have a vault to carry the Ten Commandments around in, so the two stones could not be protected from a burglar. God gave Moses instructions to build a box of acacia wood, overlaid with a gold ornate top, so it did not look like common scrap. God gave Moses a specific geometry to follow, so the Israelites could carry it while they were still wandering the desert. The high priests that were assigned to carry it wore an outfit that resembled a tutu. They looked silly wearing this costume, so they were all given a self care day, and they were allowed to relax in the hot springs.
“I liked the rush, I liked the crunch. Never did look back at the fallout”, said Sonny. As Hurricane Dorian strengthened and slowed over the warm Atlantic Ocean, atmospheric scientist Sonny Daye came up with a plan to divert it toward Brazil to help put out the forest fires that were ravaging the country. Sonny heard that Trump wanted to nuke the hurricane to dissipate it before it reached Florida, but he knew that doing this would just make it radioactive. Sonny was working on a method to manipulate the temperature, moisture, and wind inside of the hurricane, so that he could steer this storm in a different direction. He invented these giant tubes that were filled with dry ice and cooling aerosols that would create crystalline structures in the upper atmosphere to freeze the storm. The idea was to drop this mixture into the eye of the storm to take away its intensity. This would also make the eye grow wider and help to collapse the storm and then it could be pivoted to a new direction.
The South American continent is rarely affected by tropical cyclones, but right now the Amazon is burning at an alarming rate as tens of thousands of fires lay waste to the world’s largest tropical rainforest. There have been more than 74,000 wildfires across Brazil this year, up 85% over the same period in 2018, and about 40,000 of them are burning in the Amazon, so it really needs a good soaking. Sonny is the leading expert on cloud seeding and the Twomey effect and he also spent a lot of time in Brazil researching how to prevent rain from ruining the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Sonny conducted a computer animated test and then he directed the aircraft when to launch and what direction they should follow. After they dropped their loads, and all they could do was wait. Then radar detected that the cloud’s water particles were getting bigger and the storm had reversed direction, but it was not heading to Brazil, it was heading back to Africa where it came from. The news media found this to be funny and that did not bring any comfort to Sonny, as in his view he saw them as being churlish. Florida lifted the emergency warnings and they began gathering essential supplies to be sent to the new victims of the storm. They collected tons of rice and thousands of wax candles which should clear customs with no problem. The revised belief was that the storm would hang off the coast for a few days before it made landfall. When the storm finally hit, it picked up a hippopotamus with a raspberry nose and wonky whiskers and this became the front page story.
Written for Tyler M Deal 5 Words Prompt – Raspberry Found Customs Essential Rice, for Sheryl’s Daily Word Prompt – Animated, for Roger Shipp’s Daily Addictions prompt – Funny, for the Daily Spur prompt – Hang, for Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie First Line Friday hosted by Dylan, for FOWC with Fandango – Churlish, for August Monthly Writing Prompts – Wonky whiskers, for Ragtag Community – Emergency, for Sara’s Closet Full Of Notebooks Prompt – Belief, for Paula’s Three Things Challenge prompt words – Comfort Wax Hippopotamus and for Word of the Day Challenge Prompt – View.
