My First Mistake - Grammar

My first mistake was opening up the grammar book.  Now I know how bad I am.  Here are the differences between using parentheses, commas and dashes to isolate words in a sentence.

You use parentheses to relay information but tone it down.  It's the grammatical equivalent of mumbling.  I won the (35th place) ribbon for my turnip pie recipe!

The comma is neutral.  You don't care one way or another what the reader thinks.  I was dancing, in my purple pumps, to the polka stylings of Jimmy Sturr.

And the dash is your attempt to make words stand up and yell Read Me!  That brown dog - you know the one - jumped over a fox again.
Isn't this fun?  Learning is hilarious.  Check out:
Painless grammar / Rebecca Elliott

Toothbrush Re-Purposing

Ah, The Old Farmer's Almanac.  You can always count on it to scare you right out of your socks.  Has your toothbrush lost its minty-freshness?  Use it to clean between the teeth of your chainsaw.  Hang an empty hornet's nest in your house to bring good luck.  To keep venomous critters out of your room leave Solomon's seal around the floor.  Don't give your new neighbors a knife when they move in, or they will be your foes. These last three are superstitions, and yet they give me the heebie-jeebies.  It's tough being timorous.

The Old farmer's Almanac

Sharp as a Dorothy Parker Poem

Sharpening! 
"Honing a Skew Blade with a Veritas Jig"  Where to begin?  Such a delicious string of words, ending with two you would ordinarily never think of pairing.  I would tell you what it all means except that I don't understand the explanation.  "Side rabbet planes" are alluded to.  Grit stones and vices are thrown in, I know those words but how does it all fit?!  Aaaah!   Fortunately I don't have to sharpen anything.  And if you do, we have many fine books on the subject.

Dorothy Parker Sharp:  The last 4 lines of 'Epitaph for a Darling Lady'
Leave for her a red young rose,

Go your way, and save your pity;

She is happy, for she knows

That her dust is very pretty.

Source:   The poetry and short stories of Dorothy Parker

Tool Sharpening Source:  Taunton's complete illustrated guide to sharpening
And Other Sharpening Books

Closed Today, Open Tomorrow

All six locations of the Des Moines Public Library are closed today.  Normal library hours will resume tomorrow, Saturday November 26.

The movie Black Friday appears on the DVD The Bela Lugosi Collection.   In it, Boris Karloff transplants part of a gangster's brain into that of Professor Kingsley, Karloff's dying friend.  Does the gangster brain assert itself?  More importantly, does it know where the stolen money is?  Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Closed Today for Thanksgiving

All six locations of the Des Moines Public Library are closed today in observance of Thanksgiving.

A turkey joke:

Question:  Why do turkeys go 'gobble, gobble, gobble'?

Answer:  Bad table manners.

Eat nicely and enjoy, gentlepeople.

Closed Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. Plus Turkey Notes

Only in Davenport.  Just as Des Moines has the fine tradition of demanding that Trick or Treaters produce jokes before they get a treat, Davenport has Turkey Notes.  No treat involved but the activity is unique to Davenport.  Essentially Turkey Notes are short poems one shares with a friend, not unlike a handwritten valentine.  And, as with valentines, appearance counts.  The traditional turkney note is rolled up and the edges are snipped so as to form a frill.  Like the paper frills placed on turkey legs at a fancy dinner.  So clever!  Here is a sample:

Turkey brown
Turkey done
Turkey time
To have some fun!

Oooww!  That's so lame it actually hurts.  Enjoy your holiday!

Fascinating with a High Ick Factor

Zombie Insects!
There is a virus that attacks gypsy moth caterpillars and forces them to behave in a self-destructive manner. A healthy moth moseys out onto the leaves to munch during the night and wanders back into the main area of the tree during the day so as not to get eaten.  Once the virus gets its claws into the critters they not only stay on the leaves during the day, they climb as high on the tree as they can get.  How does this fulfill the virus' nefarious plan?  By the time the caterpillar manages to get pretty high it's just a virus with legs.  Then the legs go, the 'pillar disintegrates and the virus makes its way down the tree to land upon a plethora of potential hosts. Yikes. On the other hand, gypsy moths are seriously destructive when it comes to Americas hardwood trees.  I don't know wish the virus on other animals so I'm not saying it's karma, but ...

Source: Zombie Insects, by Kuehment, Anna

Scientific American, Nov2011, Vol. 305 Issue 5, p22-22
as accessed through EBSCOhost.  DMPL card and PIN required for access.

Keep Your House Clean and Your Cat Healthy

Did you think about this before you got a cat?  If you mop your floor with a cleanser that is not good to eat, it could poison your cat!  Not that your cat would lick the floor (although who knows?).  But your cat will walk across the floor and pick up the cleanser on its paws.  Your cat will most certainly lick its paws.  So after you clean your floor, don't let the cat in until all the cleanser residue has been wiped off.  I used the phrase 'your cat' four times in the space of 6 sentences, not counting this one.  It's hard to think of a snappier way to say it.  'Thine feline'?  The cleanser info is a tip from:

Your new cat : an expert answers your every question by Kim Campbell Thornton.

G. K. Chesterton and Turkeys

What did turkeys ever do to G. K. Chesterton?  Must have been intense, because this is what he had to say about them:

“A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished."
Dude.  It's a bird.  An ugly one, but still.

All Things Considered by G. K. Chesterton.