e-Quips

Quip–a witty remark.  E-Quips (think e-book or email) is hopefully a witty blog  – dedicated to word play such as parodies, puns, and word parallels and stories about libraries that you may not have heard before. It has also expanded to include a few book reviews, nature and observational essays and poems,  stories about military and veterans, and tips about writers and writing. It has evolved into an online journal.  I also include select re-blogs to admire or inspire.

 

Hope you enjoy the ride and the fun.

Please let me know if there is word that deserves a riff or a library that has a story to share.

Thanks for joining me in the blogosphere.

Pat

 

 

 

 

Mother’s Day Donkey Update

Last Friday we went to visit Buddy and family. We decided to get some great burgers in the store before feeding Buddy. The cook/waitress/cashier warned us that the family was still in the back pasture and Buddy might not appear.

We went out. Bob hee-hawed several times. Buddy hee-hawed hawed back but that was all we got from him. Bob hee-hawed a few more times without any replies from Buddy.

Emmett and Holly in honor of World Donkey Day and Mother’s Day

Enjoy a gorgeous short video of a baby donkey courtesy of Monica: https://monicaganz.com/2024/05/12/happy-mothers-day-a-baby-donkey-was-born/

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The Rituals of the Sunday Drones

The rector droned his homily
While the drone was a very  busy bee
He repeatedly did his waggle dance
The droning rector didn't stand a chance
to hold my attention in the evening heat
while the drone kept moving to his inner beat

What is the bee dance pattern?

Waggle dance - Wikipedia
Figure-eight-shaped waggle dance of the honeybee (Apis mellifera). 
A waggle run oriented 45° to the right of 'up' on the vertical comb (A) 
indicates a food source 45° to the right of the direction of the sun outside the hive (B). 
The abdomen of the dancer appears blurred because of the rapid motion from side to side.

This described what the bee was repeatedly doing about three feet above and in front of me.

Government Solutions and Problems

Groaner Puns

From a forwarded email.

I once dated a guy who broke up with me because I only have 9 toes. Yes, he was lack-toes intolerant.

I’ve started telling everyone about the benefits of eating dried grapes. It’s all about raisin awareness.

I’ve started investing in stocks: beef, vegetable, chicken. One day I hope to be a bouillianaire.

If you boil a funny bone, it becomes a laughing stock. Now that’s humerus.

I accidentally rubbed ketchup in my eyes. Now I have Heinzsight.

Did you know muffins spelled backwards is what you do when you take them out of the oven?

Scientifically, a raven has 17 primary wing feathers, the big ones at the end of the wing are called pinion feathers. A crow has 16. So, the difference between a raven and a crow is only a matter of a pinion.

I was walking in the jungle and saw a lizard on his hind legs telling jokes. I turned to a local tribal leader and said, “That lizard is really funny!” The leader replied, “That’s not a lizard. He’s a stand-up chameleon.”

I tried to come up with a carpentry pun that woodwork. I thought I nailed it but nobody saw it.

Just spoke with Bill Withers and told him “Ain’t No Sunshine” is bad grammar. He said, “I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.”

Singing in the shower is fine until you get soap in your mouth. Then it’s a soap opera.

The Black-Eyed Peas can sing us a song but the chick peas can only hummus one.

Then there was the time Fruit of the Loom took Hanes to court… it was a brief case.

How much does a chimney cost? Nothing, it’s on the house.

My friend said she wouldn’t eat cow’s tongue because it came out of a cow’s mouth. I gave her an egg.

Once upon a time there was a King who was only 12 inches tall. He was a terrible King but he made a great ruler.

Ran out of toilet paper and now using lettuce leaves. Today was just the tip of the iceberg, and tomorrow romaines to be seen.

My friend Jack says he can communicate with vegetables. That’s right…Jack and the beans talk.

I want to tell you about a girl who only eats plants. You probably have not heard of herbivore.

I was struggling to understand how lightning works and then it struck me.

Six cows were smoking joints and playing poker. That’s right. The steaks were pretty high.

I went to the paint store to get thinner. It didn’t work.

My Car is a COW

COW- Computer on Wheels

I bought a new car last year. The car is reliable, the electronics are not.The first time I left the car sitting for a week while we were on vacation, the radio worked fine when I turned it on in the morning. In the afternoon, the radio had no sound in either FM or SXM mode. I turned the car on and off several times but nothing prompted the radio sound to work. I got home and the car set for about 20 minutes before I took it out to get gas. Sitting the 20 minutes allowed the car to reboot so that the electronics worked.

The next time we went on vacation, all of the electronics worked when I first turned it on. When I went to go home, I got a notice that the emergency response was not working. This concerned me more than the earlier problem with the lack of sound in the radio. I took it to the dealership the next morning. (After the car set all night, the emergency response no longer showed the not working sign.) The dealership could not find any problem with the electronics but reset the system hoping that this would clear up the problem. They also sent me a lovely video showing the complete outside of the car. This made no sense because it was an electronics problem and not a problem with the exterior.

Irregularly the sound on the radio will still not come on, unless I stop the car for several minutes (going in for lunch seems to be enough time the system to reboot itself upon restarting the car.) I thought I had resolved the radio problem by not turning it on until the navigation map appears in the car, but that tweak is not as reliable as turning the car completely off long enough for the systems to reboot themselves.

I used to be a systems librarian where the first thing the help desk would ask me was ”Did you reboot the computer?” In fairness to the Geeks, you had to turn off the computer, do a slow count to 10 before turning it back on. Hitting restart, rather than off, w-a-i-t-i-n-g about 10 second and then turning it on, usually did not reboot the system. Guess my COW has the same philosophy.

“Singapore Cows” by T100Timlen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Patient Fisherman

Patient fisherman
Waits. Spies. Dips. Stabs. Pierces. Gulps.
Swallowing fish whole.

Digesting food and 
thoughts as his reflections skim
along water's edge.

Butterfly By-Way

Sharing the highway,
a butterfly by-way
or should I say fly-way:

Jubilant butterflies,
Tiger-swallow tails,
state insect of Virginia,
eubilliently zigzagged
across the road
or caught the slipstream
sliding easily and safely
over my car.

The dappled roadside
sun and shade
mirrored
the yellow and black
stripes on their wings

The sweetness
of that country ride
provided the nectar I needed
while butterflies
sought nectar from the
many flowering bushes
and trees.

Reblog: May: Military Appreciation Month

MAY | MILITARY APPRECIATION MONTH

GP did his usual stellar job of honoring our Military. He also included Hal Simmons in his Farewells this week.

In Remembrance, Hal Simmons, 1932-2024–Navy Vet and Beloved Shipmate

Interview with Hal Simons, Honor Flight Recipient and Midway Library Volunteer

Interview with Hal from 2019.

By Eloisa Bordador

Cooked Green Sandals?

Cooked greens were tough.
Maybe the vegan
 sandals weren't boiled enough.

Reblog: Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo! 🌮🌵🌶

Party safely!

Nerd Dictionary

From a forwarded email.

1. ARBITRATOR: A cook that leaves Arby’s to work at McDonalds 

2. AVOIDABLE: What a bullfighter tries to do 

3. BERNADETTE: The act of torching a mortgage 

4. BURGLARIZE: What a crook sees with 

5. CONTROL: A short, ugly inmate 

6. COUNTERFEITERS: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets 

7. ECLIPSE: What an English barber does for a living 

8. EYEDROPPER: A clumsy ophthalmologist 

9. HEROES: What a guy in a boat does 

10. LEFTBANK: What the robber did when his bag was full of money 

11. MISTY: How golfers create divots 

12. PARADOX: Two physicians!! 

13. PARASITES: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower 

14. PHARMACIST: A helper on the farm 

15. POLARIZE: What penguins see with 

16. PRIMATE :  Removing  your spouse from in front of the TV!! 

17. RELIEF: What trees do in the spring 

18. RUBBERNECK: What you do to relax your wife 

19. SELFISH: What the owner of a seafood store does 

20. SUDAFED: Brought litigation against a government official

Some of these are repeats.

World Labyrinth Day–4 May

https://www.worldlabyrinthday.org/

Every year on the first Saturday in May thousands of people around the globe participate in World Labyrinth Day as a moving meditation for world peace and celebration of the labyrinth experience. Many “Walk as One at 1” local time to create a rolling wave of peaceful energy passing from one time zone to the next, and there are additional ways to participate. Read more!

World Labyrinth Day is an annual international event founded by The Labyrinth Society (TLS) in 2009. World Labyrinth Day in Educational Settings was initiated by the Australian Labyrinth Network (ALN) in 2019 in collaboration with TLS.

In 2021, TLS and ALN also partnered with Veriditas and Legacy Labyrinth Project to bring together engaging events, labyrinth-based research, helpful resources, and a vibrant new website dedicated to World Labyrinth Day.

Two of us walked the labyrinth
today at 1 
in hopes of adding to world peace
Gaza Strip, Haiti, Ukraine
Protests in many countries
Governments by the rich
for the rich
of the rich.
Who represents the poor
and besieged?
If you can not make peace
without pace,
the Labyrinth walk may help.
It certainly cannot hurt.

Janine’s Team Mission 107

We have a 78th and two 100th Birthdays for May – one of which is a Navy WAVE!!   Scroll all the way down on this email to see pics and notes from missions that were recently completed. We’ve got lots of new photos and notes from recipients and their families! 

See the video recap of our first 100 missions on facebook or on instagram. There are a number of photos from past missions here as well.

Who Wins?

We re-tarred the slab
to place the labyrinth on
Nature refused 
to be anyone's pawn 

The very next year 
Weeds appeared in the crack
Nature advancing 
and on the attack

From Heroine to Zeroine

She rose to fame, a heroine
but was shot down in flames, a zeroine.
The  higher their hot air takes them
the further the fall will break them.

Who is she?

Relying on Others to Do Right

Conman games the system
relying on others 
to do the right thing
until
they finally do it
when
he squeals unfair.

Conman swings both ways
gaming the system
proclaiming it swell
until he is a possible perp
when the system
becomes unjust

Kool-aid drinkers
refuse to acknowledge
how shifty
the conman is

Misinformation vs Disinformation

When he/she/you misspoke, was it accidentally or on purpose?

Misinformation is simply false or inaccurate information — nothing more, nothing less.

Disinformation, however,is false or misleading information peddled deliberately to deceive, often in pursuit of an objective.

He said he won
when he did not.
Is it truth 
that he has sought
or the outcome of a battle
already fought?

The stories flew faster
than a Covid contagion
Was it mis or dis
information?

Elvis Has Entered the Building

On the last day of April, Bob heated up some sweet potato medallions and packed up the last of the home made oatmeal raisin cookies, flavored with Paxxito wine for us to deliver to Buddy. We were also eager to learn if Holly had had her foal yet.

When we got to the Store parking lot, a vehicle’s theft detection was blaring. We sat in the car until it finished, figuring that Buddy could not hear the Hee-Haw chow hall if he were in the back pasture.

Once the blare ended, Bob hee-hawed several times, with no response from Buddy (not even a hee-haw in return that he had heard us). We both entered the store to find out if Buddy was a father yet.

We were pleased to see David behind the counter so there would be news.

“Has Holly had her foal yet?” I asked David.

“Yes it was a week ago yesterday,” he replied. (That would have been Monday, April 22)

“Did you she have a foal or a filly?”

“It’s a boy and we are calling him, Elvis.”

“Is it shaggy like the last two?”

” I don’t know where that last one came from, but this one looks exactly like Buddy.”

“At least we don’t have to wonder who the father is this time.”

David grinned at that remark. “Elvis is not doing as well as I was expecting so I called the vet about getting him a Vitamin B shot. I’ve also been grooming him and he walks up to me as soon as he sees me. I’m hoping to switch them out to the front pasture, but he’s not ready for that yet.”

Once we got back outside, Bob hee-hawed Chow Call one more time. Still no Buddy so we decided to have the sweet potato for dinner. Just as we were about to get into the car, Bob noticed a thin, quiet Buddy ambling toward the fence.

Buddy immediately perked up as soon as he saw the plastic trays of sweet potato medallions and cookies. Bob had almost emptied the tray by the time I got my camera to the fence line, because Buddy was grabbing food out of Bob’s fingers as fast Bob could grab another bite to feed him.

As soon as Bob went in to fetch more cookies, Buddy got moody. He wanted to be fed because he was in a hurry to get back to Holly and Elvis. I petted him a few times and tried to tell him he was an international rock star, but he kept looking at me as if I had food hidden behind my back or he deliberately turned his back on me.

After Bob returned with a pack of fig newtons and a pack of peanut butter cookies, Buddy was agreeable as long as the food lasted. Once the food was finished and we got in the car, he was already heading for the back pasture.

Merriam-Webster’s 13-Letter Words Quiz

Unless you are Triskaidekaphobia, you may find this quiz easier than you anticipated. This multiple choice quiz offer four choices for each of it’s thirteen 13-letter words. I guessed wrong on one (but did really know the answer to) and guessed wrong on two others.