Ragged Covid Look

When the pandemic and its associated lockdowns arrived, my hairdresser quit and I soon found myself growing a bit shaggy.  I always felt that proper grooming was important and during this time of uncertainty, I still wanted to look regal, being the king of the jungle and all that.  My hair is porous, and it tends to trap viruses in it, so the likelihood of me spreading it to someone else is very improbable.  I don’t feel sick and my temperature is normal, although I don’t know why they insist on taking that rectally.  Even if I did have the Rona, there is no evidence that I would be able to spread this virus to people.  My normal groomer was terrified of risking her health by coming in to work in the face this pandemic, so I have to suffer with this scroungy look till they can find a replacement and not many people want to get close with a lion.  The last thing that I want is anyone saying that I have a mangy mange.  I also need someone to trim my nails and brush my teeth, well at least I am still getting fed.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #153, where the Image credit comes from Arleen Wiese @ Unsplash.

The Center of Human Feelings

The process of bonding with a new baby is natural for most mothers.  Most new mothers will hold their baby close to their bosom, rock them gently, strive for eye contact, sing or talk to their baby and begin to nurse.  Often within just hours of birth, mothers report feelings of overwhelming love and attachment for their new baby.  The world can be a scary place, for an infant once they leave the warmth of their mother’s womb.  Luckily babies will find comfort being in the arms of their mother, as nobody else will be able to show them this much love.  A mother’s bosom is the best place for a baby to be once they leave the warmth and security of the womb.  Being in their mother’s arms will feel like the most natural place in the world for then to be, and babies will become docile when they’re held, as this will make them feel as if they are accepted when they are treated with great affection.  Every mother knows the joy that is found in the bond of intimate love that is created between a mother and her child.  When a woman wraps her baby in a blanket and holds her sleeping child close to her breast, against her bosom, sheltering him in the gentlest way, this is one of the most beautiful things that exists in this world, as this shows profound love and tenderness that can never be equaled.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #152, where the Image credit comes from Kelly Sikkema @ Unsplash.

Ancient Circular Altar

The villagers were making an offering to this mysterious powerful being, hoping that their god might be pleased with this sacrifice and return the favor by giving them a bountiful harvest.  The altar provided a table for the god to enjoy his banquet of blood that was sprinkled on it from the sacrificed animals.  Humans have always wanted reassurance that the gods would not be angry with them, so a blood sacrifice was routinely required.  A fire was always kept burning upon the altar, just in case it might be needed.  They didn’t want to be punished if the gods became unhappy with them, even if the gods were acting like complete a-holes.  Most of the time, the gods would bring droughts, wildfires, famines and floods to their village for no apparent reason.  It didn’t stop there as they would also go around stealing, raping, torturing, or killing pretty much anyone that they wanted at any time they decided to do this.  The gods would hold grudges, so if you pissed them off once, you were completely screwed.

When the people of this village decided that a sacrifice was necessary, they would grab a sacrificial goat and walk in a circular procession singing their praises to the gods as they made their way up to the alter.  The high priest always wore his special golden robe being the mediator between the people and the gods on this Day of Atonement.  The high priest would get high on peyote buttons, as a way of becoming closer to the gods.  When he reached the alter, the priest would ask the god to look down from heaven and give them a symbol to guarantee that this sacrifice was acceptable.  Usually this was done by the fire flaring up, as the flames suddenly become larger, or this could be accomplished by the sound of thunder being heard in the background.  The high priest was always able to interpret the signals that were sent by the gods.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #150, where the Image credit comes from Robert Lukeman at Unsplash.

My Dad is Black

I asked my mom why I am brown, and my brother is black, and she told me that I got my color from her and that my brother got his color from my dad.  She told me that ponies are not monogamous animals, and that after we mate, we do not establish lifelong relationships, so that is why I have never met my father.  She told me that my dad was just part of the heard that got lucky one night and hooked up with her.  Mom told me that she doesn’t mind at all that my dad is seeing other ponies, as she considers herself to be part of the harem and she will allow the most dominant male to take her whenever he desires.  This is not the life that my mom selected for herself, it is just the way things are done if you want to stay in the heard, thus where this alpha goes, the others follow.

Mom told me that my dad was an affectionate lover, who showed her plenty of physical affection by nuzzling her and they did some mutually grooming by facing each other and rubbing up against each other and nipping each other with their teeth.  She said that my dad stroked her sides with his face, blew on her, nibbled and otherwise teased her while she was poised to jump away.  However, she stood, and assumed a breeding stance by raising her tail thoughtfully cocked to the side, winked at him with her lady parts, and waited for him to get on with it and do his business.  My dad nudged my mom, to signal his readiness and to assess her firm stance response, before he mounted her from behind.  She said that overall, this was a satisfying experience for her, even though the whole act took less than one minute.  She especially liked it when my dad rose to the occasion, although she did get a bit jealous when she saw my dad mounting another pony just 10 minutes after they were done.  That is my dad for you, a stud that is able to charm the most difficult mare and then move on to the next.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #149, where the Image credit comes from Google.

Being a Bird

I made this lovely display so I could examine and understand what it feels like to be a bird.  I placed a bird’s nest outside a birdhouse that is holding four white and black speckled eggs.  I also put a bowl of water on my display, hoping that it might attract a thirsty bird.  I wanted to gain an insight into the kinds of emotional reactions that birds have with their surroundings.  I know that this is an unusual area of research, but my investigation might reveal things that no one has discovered before.  I have a hidden camera running 24 hours a day on my display, just in case a bird gets curious and decides to take up residence there.  I have to know what birds are doing and why they are doing it.  I am curious about the way they fly, nest, eat, sing and mate.  I want to learn how they are able to navigate by the Earth’s magnetic field.  Birds rarely stand still, especially near humans, so it is challenging trying to get up close to them and hopefully my display will help with this.

Everybody’s heard about the bird, as bird is the word.  Why do they scream at each other?  This is what it sounds like when doves cry.  Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singing.  Blackbird fly, into the light of a dark black night.  I’m as free as a bird now and this bird you cannot change.  Three little birds singing sweet songs.  Tweedle-lee-dee-dee-dee, tweedle-lee-dee-dee.  Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet he rocks in the tree tops all day long.  Hopping and a-bopping and a-singing his song.  When your bird is broken, will it bring you down?  Spread your wings and fly away, far away.  I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings.  Coming down is the hardest thing.  I make you laugh and you make me cry.  I believe it’s time for me to fly.  There’s a high-flying bird, way up in the sky now, you know I wonder if she looks down, as she flies on by?  She’s flying on the air so easily in the sky.  I can fly higher than an eagle, for you are the wind beneath my wings.  I wanna fly like an eagle to the sea.  Fly like an eagle, let my spirit carry me.  Take to the sky.  We’ll see what we can find.  Come away with me.  Take these broken wings and learn to fly again.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #148, where the Image credit comes from Tivasee @ Pexels.

Sweet Caroline

The spring became summer and Caroline was still missing, lost at sea, shipwrecked presumed to be drowned.  I searched relentlessly for her months on end, without letting up, or pausing for an instant, maintaining a persistent pursuit, while I still thought that she could be alive.  I took her out on a cruise on my 58-foot sailing yacht, and shortly after sailing into the ocean, we lost sight of the shore and became disoriented.  We did not know which way was home, so we started drifting further and further from land.  The sea can be an unforgivable place, as there’s no food, water, or shelter, and in every direction, the view is simply a glistening sheet of nothingness.  Worse yet is all of the dangerous predators that are lurking just beneath the depths.  You may wonder how in the heck can someone fall overboard on a ship, but going overboard is something that cannot be predicted, nor can it be stopped once in progress.

We hit a patch of rough water and the waves made our boat sway back and forth which cause Caroline to lose her balance.  Caroline being drunk at the time surely didn’t help matters.  The last thing I saw was her hand reaching out for me as the water took her.  I lowered a lifeboat and began to search for my love, but when I saw a group of sharks swimming around, I got back on the boat.  Times always seemed so good when we were together, and I enjoyed touching her just as much as she enjoyed touching me.  As I looked out at the night it seemed so lonely without her and I thought about her hands, touching my hands, reaching out, touching me, as I wanted to be touching her.  Sweet Caroline bah, bah, bah!

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #147, where the Image credit comes from Stromseeker @ Unsplash.

Love Fades

We have been married for 40 years and over time, the spark has faded, leading to a decreased romantic attraction between us.  We still love each other, but time has a way of tearing things apart and it has taken a toll on our marriage.  We are companions for life, but we don’t make passionate love anymore.  I am satisfied with my life, and I don’t want to meet any new people, or flirt with anyone, and I could never think about dating someone else.  We hold hands and hug each other and there may be an occasional kiss exchanged between us but being with the same person every day removes the mystery of the unknown, which takes away the excitement for intimacy.  There are many things that I don’t do anymore that I did when I was young, and it is just not possible to maintain the emotional excitement of romance that I once felt for being in love.

I took her on a cruise this spring to the Caribbean and we visited a very romantic island, but the whole time I was there, I was worried about getting Covid.  The other day she complained that don’t bring her flowers anymore and I guess she has a point, but have you seen the cost of roses lately?  She said that we hardly talk to each other, and she wanted me to sing love songs to her like I used to.  I remember there was a time when I came home from work and I walked through the door, that I couldn’t wait to make love with her, and I used to hate to leave her.  Now in the rare occasions that we do make love, when I am done, I just turn out the light and roll over and go to sleep.  It used to be so natural for us to talk about everything all night long and share all our thoughts with each other.  The other day I saw this work of art, so I purchased it for her, hoping this would keep her from saying that I don’t bring her flowers anymore.  I realize that it would have been better if the artist used my arms in the artwork instead of a female’s arms, but mine are all hairy and these look a lot better.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #145, where the Image credit comes from Marti Alonso @ Unsplash.

Working on a Rap Song

I didn’t understand what my great nephew was singing about in his Hip-Hop videos, so I decided to write him some lyrics for a new song which I titled ‘Zoomers’.  In case you didn’t know Zoomers are the people classified as being Generation Z, the successors of the Millennials and they precede the Alpha Generation.  It is not perfect, but I gave it my best try, however I am not sure what my great nephew thinks about my lyrics.

Endless fun every day
Good at eat, sleep and play
We be rebellious, unconventional searching for identity
Screaming out obscenity looking for amenity
Gen Z’ers new kids in town
We don’t take it laying down
We get up from the knockdown
Give you a beat down
Surprisingly brilliant, original creative intellect
Never checked, often wrecked, no respect
Survivors of the pandemic
Prophetic, energetic, sympathetic, non-hallucinogenic
Never without social media children of the internet
Student debt, no sweat, take what we get, gonna jet
Netflix, Prime and TicTok
Zip lock, pop top, never stop
Always had a cell phone
Clone, drone making Joan moan
Suffering from FOMO
Anime Hashimoto, no show, don’t know

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #143, where the Image credit comes from Google.

Fluid Physics

When water is splashed out of a glass, it can achieve liftoff, just like an airplane.  The splashing is dependent on the amount of water and the speed it has or momentum when it leaves the glass, but since you won’t get a splash in a vacuum, the surrounding atmosphere has a lot to do with it.  There’s some complex science behind a simple water splash, and the origin of what causes water to splash still remains a big mystery.  Scientists think that they’re coming closer to understanding what happens during a splash at the microscopic level.  The flow of fluids is one of the most complex, beautiful, and amazing things in physics.  Slow motion pictures of drops landing on water or of two fluids mixing can be simply gorgeous.  Even more amazing, the basic physics of fluid flow, or fluid dynamics was worked out way back in the 19th century.  Those equations still hold riches that are being uncovered today.  Fluid flow has many aspects which are usually defined with opposite pairs, like steady and unsteady flow, uniform and non-uniform flow, laminar and turbulent flow, compressible or incompressible, viscous or non-viscous, rotational or irrotational and it often lies between the extremes.

Water that is flung out of a glass should take a round shape due the equal amount of atmospheric pressure exerted by the air from all directions on it, but there are other external factors to consider like gravity, velocity, viscosity, temperature which all come into play.  The momentum of the water droplets will compete with their surface tension, and as the momentum tries to force the drop to spread out at a speed governed by the mass of fluid and the speed at which the drops are traveling, the surface tension will try to pull the droplets back together, resisting the spreading motion.  Hence, droplets will rapidly expand to some radius where the forces are in balance.  Surface tension is a kind of elasticity in water, which makes the surface of a liquid act like a flexible membrane and some people refer to this as a skin, because it holds droplets of water together.  Water will always try to form into the smallest shape possible, which is a sphere.  Water molecules inside of the drops will cling to each other because of cohesion, but the outside water molecules that are in contact with the air will create the surface tension that holds them together.  When water is flung into the air from a glass, the pockets of air will have to move out of the way and moving air will speed up any time it encounters an obstacle, so air pressure and viscosity will also affect the shape of a splash.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #140, where the Image credit goes to Avis @ Pexels.

The Good Little Boy

Kevin is a very observant boy who is curious about everything, and he loves to learn from reading books.  He was surprised by what he just read and he shouted at his mom telling her, “I know everything about babies and they don’t come from storks.  There are still a few things that I am still not clear on, but from what I just figured out, I have enough information to tell all the other fourth graders about conception.  Not only are the storks just folklore, but God doesn’t make babies either, as people make babies.”  Cynthia told her son that they needed to talk.  Cynthia said, “Remember last year when you found out that there isn’t any Santa Claus and I told you not to tell your friends about this, because it would spoil their fun, well this is sort of like the same thing.  Your friends will all learn in time at their own pace and just because you are a little bit smarter than some of your other classmates, that doesn’t make you responsible for teaching them certain things.”

Kevin said that he understood and he promised not to tell anyone about this.  Cynthia said, “It is amazing how smart you are, because I didn’t learn any of this, till I was in the sixth grade and it wasn’t until as recently as 1875 when human conception was figured out by Oskar Hertwig when he discovered that fertilization needed a sperm and an egg.  Before that people did not know, they may have assumed that a baby has only one father, as it has only one mother.  They did not know why babies resemble their parents, and sometimes one parent more than the other.  Humans have really come a long way and I will be more than happy to explain anything to you that you don’t understand yet.”  Kevin said that the one thing he wasn’t sure about was when he read that the baby grows in a special place inside the woman called the womb or the uterus.  Cynthia said, “That is part of the female reproductive system, but I don’t think that you are old enough to learn about this yet.”

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #139, where the Image credit goes to Ben White @ Unsplash.