Bizarre question Thursday slightly postponed until Sunday

I know, I know. I don't usually post on Sunday. But I love the bizarre, weekly question that Holly and Jo are asking, so I swiped it, and postponed it. Before I answer though, I must stop and wish Mustang Man a happy Birthday.
Alright. Thats done, off I go with the question

there you are, sitting with your cup of [insert drink of choice here] and [insert treat of choice here], settling into a good night's reading. behind you, a fight breaks out on your bookshelf. which characters are slugging it out [from which books] with each other, and how do they resolve their dispute? what was the argument about?

So there I am, sipping my Irish Breakfast tea, eating a scone, (Yes, those are really two of my favorite things) when all of the sudden the books on my shelf start shaking and quaking, some of them jumping off the shelf in fear for their own lives!
It seems that the "Little Women" have started in on each other, that Jo was always struggling with her temper. It is bad enough that she burnt Meg's hair that one time, but now, now they were fighting over something sisters should never fight about, a Man.
Hearing their fight, the Boleyn sisters had to join in the fray, for they were always on the lookout for a new man. Anne was, at the moment, quite happy with her Henry, but she longed to get her sister Mary out of her book, and in to one of her own.
The man in question, however was not to interested in either the Boleyn sisters, nor the sisters March, who were at this moment furiously throwing things at each other. (that's what I get for putting knick nacks on my book shelves.) MM's pewter Wizards were doing what they could with their magic wands to protect things, but those girls were crazy!
Anyhow, the man in question, Jay Gatsby, had problems of his own, namely, Daisy, who was watching the fight in amusement and disbelief. "If only they knew how he really was" Daisy was thinking to herself.
Eventually, the fight wound down, Jo's temper cooled off, Meg suddenly remembered she was married to Mr. Brooke, Anne went back to Henry, Amy got distraced by Candy, Mary Boleyn decided to retreat for her own safety, and Beth? She died. We all knew that, right?
And Jay Gatsby shook his head at the mess, thanked the pewter wizards, and walked away....

Story Saturday

Paddy scanned all the packages he was to deliver for the day, and stopped, at one particular one.
"Jo Beaufoix" he muttered quietly to himself. "Jo". Squinting, he looked at the last name again, and wondered why on earth the woman was using a frog name in the place of what he considered to be a perfectly good English name.
"To each their own" he thought to himself, curious, but not overly concerned about it. Ensuring the package was tucked in a safe spot in his mail truck, he sped away, off to do the job that he loved so dearly.
See, Paddy had not always been a mailman. Back in his hometown of Dublin, he'd been a factory worker. His father had sent him to the factory at age 13. "School isna for you, lad, we need the income" his father had said, over the ever present pint of Guiness that lived in his hand. "We need the income so you can keep buying pints" thought Paddy morosly. He loved school.
As a consequence, he had forgotten nearly everything taught to him in the few years that he did get to go to school. He rose every morning at 0430, and did not get to bed until at least midnight, after finishing work, then running all the errands and doing all the work his mum needed done. More often than not he'd had to go fetch his sodding father from the tavern, too drunk to make it home.
Paddy's father died when he was twenty, liver just up and quit on him. His mother died soon after, and Paddy found himself, suddenly free. Unlike the other Irish families he knew, his parents had only had one child, himself. His mother had been bitter and angry about that for years. Paddy had dreams, now that he was on his own, of traveling the world, learning all he could. He had one small problem, however. He'd forgotten how to read. So, he continued on at the factory, too ashamed to seek help.
Until one day. On his way home, he stopped, and purchased a newspaper, hoping, as he did, every day, that he could somehow, magically, read it. Squinting at it, he tried to make out one word, any word. He failed to notice the lovely read headed woman who was watching him, until she was at his side.
"Are you having trouble reading that?" she asked, kindly, her blue eyes bright in the dusk of the evening. Caught, Paddy, swallowed hard, pink streaking up his cheeks in embarrassment. "I seem to have forgotten how" he admitted, shocked at his own admission.
"Well lets remedy that" she said, very matter of factly.
They met every night, for weeks and weeks, months and months. Slowly, surely, Paddy learned how to read. He delighted in reading, and was a very good student. He soon did not need the help of the generous read headed lady, but as she was fond of him, she kept coming. Soon, she was teaching him maths and history, as well.
Then, one evening, she was gone. A note was sent round, explaining to him that her time with him was over, she'd had to move on, she had found someone else who needed her help.
Not soon after that, Paddy had decided to move away from Dublin, and, now able to read, picked a nice sounding town in England. Soon after arriving, he'd gotten his job at the post, and delivered the mail every day. Able to do so because a nice, red headed lady named "Jo" had taught him to read. And now, on his postal route, was another lady named Jo. He smiled every time he got to say the name...

Friday Mieography

Did we ever really think that a little tiny Jewish woman would be the one who unabashedly went on the TV and Radio to talk about sex?
Responsible for opening up the subject without hesitation, and, educating Americans about many, many things, today, we are going to learn a little bit more about Dr. Ruth.

She was born in June of 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany, the only child of Julius and Irma Siegel, Orthodox Jews, whom were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Her name was Karola Ruth Siegel. Her mother and Grandmother sent her to Switzerland in 1939 after her father was taken by the Nazi's. She was placed in an orphanage, where she stayed until she came of age. Any communication from her parents stopped in 1941, she learned later that they had been killed, probably at Auschwitz.
Once she was old enough, she immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. She joined the Haganah, in Jerusalem, where, even though she was only 4'7, she was trained as a scout and sharpshooter. She was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during the 1948 Israeli war of independence. It took several months before she could walk again.
In 1950, she moved to France, and both studied and taught psychology at the University of Paris. In 1956 she made her way to the US, specifically, Manhattan, the Washington Heights area, where she still lives to this day. She belongs to two synagogues, the YMHA (young mens hebrew association, of all things) and enjoys the large community of Jewish German refugees who still live there. She is also multi lingual,speaking English, German, French and Hebrew.
She has two degrees, a Masters in Sociology, and an Ed.D, both from Columbia University. She completed her post doctoral work in human sexuality at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
She has written several books on that matter, including Sex for Dummies. She teaches courses and seminars at varied places, including Yale and Princeton. She has also been on multiple television shows, including David Letterman, and her own show, "Sexually Speaking". The Wall Street Journal described her as "a cross between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse". Recently, she has actually been on a PBS children's show, called "Between the Lions" as "Dr. Ruth Wordheimer", who helps anxious readers and spellers. In the January 2009 55th anniversary of Playboy, she was # 13 on the list of the 55 most important people in sex from the past 55 years.
She's been married three times, but her third marriage to Manfred Westheimer, is the one that stuck. They have two children, and many grandchildren. He passed away in 1997. I am guessing he was a very happy man.

Thursday Thirteen

This week, I tortured my brain to pick thirteen historical things I'd have liked to have been a fly on the wall for....

1. The creation of Penicillin. I would love to have seen the bread he grew it on...

2. Orville and Wilbur Wrights first flight. I bet the look of astonishment, and fear on their faces was priceless.

3. The discovery of Chocolate. Who decided that? They deserve a medal.

4. The head chop of Anne Boleyn. Call me morbid. And curious. I want to see if she was all she was cracked up to be.

5. The Emancipation Proclimation. It would be awesome to see live and in person

6. Constantinople, back in the "day". The harems, the bazaars, the people, and all the odd things that supposedly existed there. But only for a short while.

7. I'd love to have tea with Nostradamus.

8. The first photograph. What inspired it? I wanna know

9. The completion of the Great Wall of China. What a feeling....

10. Napoleon and Josephine. I bet he melted like butter in her hands.

11. Watch Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa. Then I'd know who the hell she was, and I would tell him to paint it bigger so that people in the crowded Louvre could see it better!

12. The first climbing of Everest.

13. And who is the genius who first decided to ride a horse, and how long did it take them? Seriously....

Alrighty. Thats my weekly thirteen. For more, go here. Ah dang it this computer won't let me link! Go to http://www.thursday-13.com.
I will link properly at home. Sigh.

Wordless Wednesday

*early morning edit

I just read a news article about Kurt Warner, the QB for the Arizona Cardinals. It seems that when he and his family go out to dinner, they pick a table, and quietly pay for their meal, as well. It's a family tradition, because his wife used to be a broke single mother whom could seldom afford to eat out. Before the Superbowl, he and his wife were at the Cheesecake Factory, and they actually bought the meal for a table worth of 20 Pittsburgh Steelers fans. I call that pretty classy, and had I read this story before the Superbowl, I may have actually rooted for Arizona, because now I think I like their QB better than that ding bat Ben Roethlesburger who makes me a little bit ill. (Sorry Pittsburgh fans, but he kinda irritates me.)

ever have one of those days?

well this is one for me. I should have probably stayed in bed.
I did sleep in, because I am scheduled to work the next three nights, and most of the time when I want and need to nap, I can't sleep. So I just try to make myself sleep in.
So I got out of bed, hung around chatting with MM a bit. Decided to go to the store and get a few groceries so we'd have choices for dinner this week.
I got to the store fairly un-eventfully, despite the traffic rolling around. It was IN the store where things started to fall apart. Over in the bagel section, I leaned in too close, trying to determine age of said "fresh" bagels and somehow managed to whack my OPEN eye on the sneeze guard. WTF? THAT, my friends, takes TALENT. I think I deserve an award for that.
SO I wander the store, blinking my watering eye, wondering what it looks like, and come away with my groceries. Home is probably about 6 miles from the store. But to get out of the parking lot it is a left hand turn. So I pull forward a bit to see if I can go and see a HUGE line of cars coming in both directions. Figuring I should back up a wee bit, because, well, some of those cars are going fast and stupid, and I like my Jeep in one piece, thanks very much, I look in my rear view mirror, and not seeing a whole lot, proceed to back up. What I Didn't see was the little shitty car that was so close to the ass of my jeep I still could not see it in any mirror or blind spot check. NO I didn't hit the little shit car, they honked. But they need to learn not to crawl up someone's tail pipe.
So here I sit, winking my eye, not willing to go anywhere. Hoping that I can be on call tonight....

weekend wrap up

So it's Monday, and it seems to have been a very interesting weekend here on my little blog.
First, I want to say that I went and looked at the website that Kolekona suggested, and I have to tell you MM and I were both rather impressed at the proposal on it. For those of you who didn't go, the link is still in my comments, but what I surmised is this:
For those who choose to be donors, there are "perks" offered, not money, which would be like selling an organ, but things like credits towards health insurance, and education. That, to me, is smart. AND, to continue to receive these perks, the potential donor needs to maintain their healthy status, with routine MD visits. This encourages people to be proactive about their health. I can fully support that. AND this program does not decide who, if anyone, gets the organs first. Organ's are distributed the way they are, NOW, based on the NEED. That is the important thing.
AND, another important comment was made, about the fear that some may have about people who are potential donors not receiving as aggressive of treatment because they are donors. That, they are let go a little sooner. Let me reassure any of you who think that might be the case. Most of the time, we don't even KNOW someone's donor status until after they have been declared brain dead, or dead. And if we do know? It doesn't matter. Because that person is someone's loved one, a mother, a sister, a brother, a father. A friend. Never in any hospital have I worked at have I ever thought that we didn't fight hard enough to save someone, because they are a donor.
Bottom line though, all I really wanted to do with my Thursday 13 was encourage people to donate their organs. We are dreadfully short.
Alright. Enough donor talk.
How about those Steelers?
The Super bowl was really good this year, a real nail biter. Just the kind of game that I like. The 3D commercial was a let down, but other than that, I thought it was great! It would have been better had I been more rested (worked the night before) but still.
Go Steelers.
alright I am brain dead and have millions of things to do, happy Monday everyone