Today is a blogging milestone for me: This is my 100th post. I’m not sure anyone is as shocked as I am. I tried to think of a great way to celebrate. Of course, I’m revisiting one of my favorite topics: Mermaids!
Come celebrate at my new website. You can read the latest post about mermaid sightings. Sign up so you don’t miss any future posts, too.
Life-size self portrait of me as a mermaid
If you’re a native Texan, you know what I mean.
When Debra Kristi said that Thor wanted to tour the world, I jumped at the chance to show him my little piece of Texas.
Thor thought it might be nice to have one of these steeds go home with him.
The first thing he asked about was whether we had cows or horses. Uh, no.
But we have this lovely collection of model horses. They were more his size than the real thing. I lent him a hat to wear, too. It wasn’t exactly a cowboy hat, but straw hats are nice. He was afraid of messing up his hair though.
Real cowboys don’t worry about hat head.
Thor found himself in some trouble with the local law. When he saw his “Wanted” poster, he knew it would be best to leave the horses at my house.
Horse rustling is nasty business.
One day, I took him to work so he could hang out with Spidey-Spud and Darth Tater in my office. They showed him around my bookshelf and plants. They took turns trying to convince Thor that they could hold his hammer. They even offered up the light saber and web!
Thor wondered about the potato-shaped men….
Thor, being the responsible god that he is, chose to keep his hammer to himself.
“I said, ‘No!’ You may not hold my hammer, strange potato men.”
Even with those eyes flashing in anger, I think he was trying to keep the spuds from embarrassing themselves when the hammer wouldn’t let them lift it. Only one has the humility and integrity to wield it. Just saying.
Then he decided that he wanted potato salad for lunch.
In honor of his godliness, I took him to an NBA basketball game with two of my besties (the witch and the vampire). It was the Dallas Mavericks against none other than the OKC Thunder.
He took in the crowd and asked, “All these scantily-clad women and other mortals came here to see me?”
Uh, no.
The god of thunder cheered his team to victory.
I got worried when he complained about the OKC team’s uniforms. “How can they not include a bolt on the jerseys?” he asked. I told him that it was better than the other ones where “Thunder” was written on the back of their shorts. (Think about it.) The god of thunder was appeased when he saw so many lightning bolt shirts in the stands. He was even more pleased to hear those fans cheer when the Thunder played well.
He was a bit of a stinker during the game. Everytime the home crowed chanted, “Let’s go, Mavs,” he countered with, “O – K – C!” At one point, he was so thunderously loud with threats to strike the arena that I thought one of the ushers might ask us to leave. After a nail-biting overtime, the Thunder managed to win by two points. Thor claimed the victory as his own and hailed the Thunder players as the best in the NBA (they are pretty good). He taunted us on the entire drive home. No humility there.
As a gracious guest (or maybe he was still giddy from his team’s win), he thanked me profusely for the look at Texas, short that it was. I hope he wasn’t too disappointed that some of his wacky assumptions about Texans weren’t true or that he didn’t get to steal a horse. 😉
What would you do if you hosted a god or superhero? Who would it be? Come on….share!
It’s the holiday season, and people visit family and friends. How do you prepare for those…uh, distant relatives who come to visit? You know the ones I’m talking about. They are difficult to accommodate and have strange eating habits. Don’t even think about the Neanderthal-like hygiene practices. *shiver*
Where are these nine-feet (or taller, even) cousins going to sleep?
I think I’ll rig up an extra large hammock between the trees in the backyard. No, that won’t work because the winter seedlings are slowly working their way up. I wouldn’t want our guest to step in the garden. Maybe, we’ll have to borrow a huge tent.
If the thought of preparing meals for the crowd everyday starts to overwhelm, we can think about the edibles we have growing outside. I don’t mean the seedlings and baby broccoli which barely survived housing the offspring of negligent, flighty parents. (They could’ve at least waited for the caterpillars to hatch before they flew away somewhere to whatever it is butterflies do after they lay eggs on baby broccoli.)
No, these guests require a special diet. They don’t like any processed foods–everything must be natural. It’s a good thing that our yard has a variety of dandelions and clover. The neighborhood has lots of wild rabbits, too–our newest family members will feel right at home.
(Note to self: Warn the neighbors to bring in their cats.)
Put out the best towels. On second thought, hide the best towels and put out all the old ones, even the ones that we use to dry off the dogs.
(Note to self: Board the dogs at a kennel for the weekend.)
So who are Cousins George, Bob, and Fred that I fear for my furry kids’ lives?
Bigfoot.
If they are anything like Harry from Harry and the Hendersons, then I’d worry more about my house.
What a great holiday card!
These are the mythological creatures of forest wildernesses. They are our close relatives.
Their DNA proves it. Yep. Some scientists in Texas have sequenced the DNA of bigfoot. Their findings are controversial though. (Ya think?) They claim human females cross-bred with unknown primates. Some 15,000 years later, those descendants should have human rights.
Hmmm… Well, it seems we will have to wait for more conclusive evidence and test results before we need to give Fred, Bob, and George voting rights or a place at the holiday dinner table.
Their cousins from Everest are getting a lot of attention, too. It seems the Sasquatch is mighty elusive.
For other interesting ideas, go check out what Debra Kristi says about Bigfoot at her blog. There are other interesting links to read, too.
I’d love to see mermaids in real life, too–maybe from a distance. Oh, wait! Mermaids are half human. Does that mean….
Nevermind.
What do you think about Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti stories? Are they close relatives, stuff made of myth, or seriously clever creatures?
From Marvel.com
October 14 was Spider-Man’s birthday, so I’m celebrating with the second post devoted to Spidey‘s supervillains on TINSTAAFL TUESDAY. In the post last Tuesday, I explained that combining bad parenting with bad experiments creates really bad villains.
I covered eight of the villains who were created in the 1960s. I have six more dastardly dudes to tell you about. All were created after 1970. One in particular was created in 1971 after the Comic Book Authority changed some of the standard guidelines to include more types of crimes and creatures. (The CBA had that little seal on almost every comic book since 1954 until recently–but that’s another story).
(The 1954 code is an interesting read if you have the time or inclination. It reads a bit like the homemakers’ handbooks–all prim and proper.)
Villains sometimes got their own series. These are two from my collection.
Spider-Man’s villains run the spectrum from plain ol’ bad guys and powerless minions to the evil criminals whose power is political or technical to the supervillains who got transformed by their quest for easy power. Nothing is easy when it comes to power. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and these six miscreants prove that point. It’s worth noting that some of them had perfectly fine upbringings. Also, Marvel started giving the bad guys more redeeming qualities (even if they didn’t reveal them often) and character development.
Morbius, the Living Vampire
Yes, that’s right. Vampire. Before January 1971, the CBA didn’t allow them. February 1971: Enter Dr. Michael Morbius, who had a rare blood disease. In his efforts to find a cure, he and his assistant combined his bat serum and electric shock to see what would happen. It gave him blood lust, and his assistant lost a lot of blood. I don’t know how they didn’t see that coming.
He was the first of many vampires in comics. He was a sympathetic character–he really was a good guy, but his self-induced vampirism made him go for blood. At one point, he even promised to drink only bad people. The tortured, souled pseudo-good guy vampire isn’t as recent as people think.
Morbius, honey, I know you have a good heart beating somewhere in that chest of yours. Do yourself a favor and quit turning to the really evil villains to help you. Maybe a job at a blood bank would serve you better.
Hammerhead started out as a minion. He was beaten to a pulp and left in an alley to die. A surgeon (disgraced for good reasons, I imagine) decided to experiment on the gunman’s broken body. He replaced all his broken bones with steel, which gave his head the hammerhead shape. He remembered nothing from his past, except that he was a criminal and he liked it. He even got some other evil-doers to upgrade his steel bits to something even stronger.
Hammerhead, your one redeeming moment was when you tried to save your dying sister–when you finally remembered that you had one. However, you almost squandered your chance by drinking the special god-like serum yourself. A bit selfish, don’t you think? Leave it to Spider-Man to create a new batch to save your sister for you. He didn’t do it for you. Just sayin’.
Miles Warren had a normal family life. He was a brilliant scientist. Unfortunately, he didn’t have an ethical bone in his body. He created “people” from animals, until a Jackal-man killed his family. He fell in love with Peter Parker’s ill-fated girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, when she was his college student. After she died and his assistant caught him cloning her, Warren killed his assistant. He made himself The Jackal and then continued to torment Peter Parker/Spider-Man. He created more clones (Gwen, Peter, himself) that had various levels of humanity and lifespans.
Dr. Warren, you should have taken the medical ethics course more than once in med school. It’s sad that the only girl you could get to love you was a clone of the original Gwen Stacy. I read the second clone saga when you tricked Peter into thinking he was the clone. He was a newlywed no less. I hadn’t been married long myself, so I really felt for Mary Jane. I wasn’t upset when you fell off that roof to save your Gwen Stacy clone. I will be ticked off if that was really your clone. No more clones, please.
Spot
Dr. Jonathan Ohnn worked for the Kingpin to find a way to recreate Cloak‘s powers. Ohnn succeeded. When the power failed because of his experiment, he stepped into the destabilized portal. As a result, he gained the power to transport himself anywhere.
Your first mistake was to work for the Kingpin. You weren’t a very good supervillain. It would be handy to travel through portals, but I think it’s a bit odd that you wear them. You really should clean up your act.
Lonnie Lincoln was born an albino and was picked on in school. He grew up to be an intimidating guy and was a mean crook. A former high school classmate, Robbie Robertson, witnessed Lonnie commit murder, so he tried to kill him. Robbie got away with a little help from Spider-Man during a fight at the Osborn Chemical Plant. In the fight, Lonnie got doused with an experiment chemical, which made him superhuman. Great. He wasn’t already scary enough.
Hey, Tombstone, you aren’t a superhuman or a supervillain, you’re a super bully. Filing your teeth into points is not very good oral hygiene either.
All these villains paid a price when they transformed. Humanity, in some cases, had already been lost, and the transformations took care of the rest. I hope Spidey had a great birthday that was free of villains and battles!
Did you also notice that women supervillains still haven’t shown up in Spider-Man’s world just yet? The women start showing up soon after these guys in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I might cover them another time.
What do you think about these guys or other supervillains? Do you prefer the villains over the superheroes?
Odd news seems to attract my attention. Sometimes I read odd stories and shake my head in disbelief. Other times I think it would be fantastic if the stories were true. One thing that is always true: Some people take it all at face value and others are complete skeptics.
Who knows? Maybe these stories are true. They could be in a parallel universe. Or not. Now for some fun.
Nessie Lives!
Recently, I found this article about sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. Yes! Finally, someone took a picture of a creature swimming in Loch Ness. As usual, nay-sayers don’t believe it and the believers do.
In all seriousness, it’s a big lake. Humans have a lot of hubris, don’t we? Who’s to say there isn’t a creature that lives in that lake whose species has never been cataloged? (No, I do not think it could be a mermaid.)
We are discovering new animals and plants everyday. This possibly non-mammal, manatee-like creature could be next. They better name it after Nessie!
I imagine the Nessies are this cute.
UFOs Have Technology We Could Use!
In July, the UK government released UFO documents. Over 6,700 pages of data, most of which was explainable. Sort of. At least until an official said that it would be nice if we had the technology to move that way. Our planet is the only one in the infinite universe to have intelligent life? I can’t believe that.
I watched the TV show V (yes, both versions that aired) and the numerous other shows and movies that have portrayed aliens as probing, unemotional, human-eating, scary monsters. I’m not saying that’s not a possibility, but I’d like to believe there are life forms out there who feel and love as much as we Earthlings do.
Crop Circles Created!
Less than a month ago, a wheat farmer in Washington State discovered crop circles in his field. This crop circle and others have been discovered mostly without any witnesses or explanation. Some people call them hoaxes, others believe they are created by aliens, and still others think they are a natural phenomenon. I did a search on them and thought my head would explode from all the information that’s out there. I can’t explain them, but I think some are gorgeous. No matter how they were created.
Mysterious Shipwreck (or Something)!
When shipwreck hunters came across an anomaly at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they were baffled by the size and shape of the object in the sonar images–amazing imagesimaginations.
Who knows how they came up with this rendition (the Halloween movie-sounding music probably doesn’t help), but why does it have to be alien in nature? How do we know it’s not really ancient in nature?
Think about the things we’ll leave behind. What off-the-wall stories will our descendants create about the head of the Statue of Liberty in a million years when they find it at the bottom of the sea and there are no records to give them hints?
The statue was:
The mysterious is so, so, well, mysterious. *rolling eyes*
That’s what is great about these things. Everyone can have their own opinion, science, or conspiracy theory about them. Are they true? Did someone make them up and put them out there for other imaginations to believe and perpetuate? Or not? Do you have a favorite myth, hoax, or conspiracy theory?
I have a whale bone to pick with the world of history as written by men in relation to what women were capable of doing, knowing, or creating–especially when it’s about clothes.
Historically, men have made life-changing decisions for women and declared that’s how women must carry forward–as if men actually knew anything about what goes on in women’s minds or bodies. (Pantyhose is a perfect example.)
A recent discovery of a medieval bra has overthrown the long-held belief that the bra was invented only about 100 years ago.
Really? Just because there hasn’t been material evidence of bras before the torture device called a corset, people can’t fathom the idea that women might have been smart enough to sew fabric in such a way as to support their breasts comfortably? Thank goodness the Victorian Age is over!
by Steph Lawton from WANA Commons
Mary Phelps Jacob got the first patent for a bra in 1913 when she sewed two silk hankies together to wear under a new evening gown. I can’t blame her for wanting to pitch her stiff, tight, and uncomfortable corset. But that doesn’t mean she invented the brassiere for the first time ever in all of history. Sheesh.
Who did most (if not all) of the sewing for, well, forever? Women have be designing, creating, and burning their own undergarments for eternity. Wait, did I say burning?OK, that part isn’t true. In 1968, the myth of the bra-burning feminists was born at a draft protest. Even though it didn’t happen, the myth was perpetuated enough so that some women felt free enough to leave their bras at home. (Some really shouldn’t haveI could be a little jealous; others didn’t look any different.)
Honestly, there are so many bra options on the market now that women can wear anything from the barely-there sheer to the push-up bra. Don’t forget the all-in-one SPANX so no one sees the muffin top at the too-low waistline of our jeans.
Oh, no! We’re back to the torture devices again!
Women, have we learned nothing since the corset was thrown out?
In honor of the sometimes-matching partner to the brassiere, check out what Jenny Hansen has to say about the national day for underwear.
Just for fun–Answer this quiz to tell me your favorite. 🙂
Do you have a least favorite article of clothing? I’d love to hear from you.
It’s that time of summer when I start thinking about getting the kids ready for school. Instead of thinking about supplies, physical forms, and sleeping habits, something reminded me about the time when my older daughter was in fifth grade and our dog ate her math homework.
Really, he did.
He’s an adorable, yet precocious, Portuguese Water Dog with all the manners in the world (after A LOT of training) and as long as there are witnesses. As soon as he’s alone and sees an opportunity, he’ll scrounge for anything he thinks might be yummy.
He is allowed to stick his head in his own bags. He loves presents.
On this particular day, my daughter may or may not have had probably did have something that smelled edible in her book bag. It wouldn’t take much for this scavenger to think something smelled good. Heck, this is a dog that will eat a roll of toilet paper like corn on the cob when the mood strikes him.
When we returned home from an errand, we found math homework strewn all over the floor. It was mostly shredded. Teeth marks and slobber were evident. My daughter’s “little brother” had put his muzzle inside her book bag and pulled out the paper to get at whatever it was he was looking for. (Portuguese Water Dogs are smart!)
My daughter stood in the middle of the room and stared at her destroyed, half-eaten math worksheet. “What am I going to do?” she cried. “No one will ever believe that my dog ate my homework!”
It was pretty funny seeing the cliche excuse in action. But I was a good mom and didn’t laugh out loud until later.
The dog put himself in timeout in his crate. He knew when he was in trouble.
We collected the homework–every last shredded piece–and put it all in a zip bag to take to school. The evidence clearly showed that a dog attacked the paper. I emailed her math teacher and explained the gory mess we found and that she was terrified that he wouldn’t believe her.
He sent the nicest note back. He owned four dogs and wouldn’t be surprised by anything a dog did. No worries. What a relief! Fabulous teacher, too–one of my daughter’s all-time favorites. Now, it was safe to laugh.
In sixth grade, her new math teacher told the class that “my dog ate my homework” was a stupid (his word), non-viable excuse and that they should think twice before using it. According to my daughter, the students who had been in her fifth grade class started laughing. They knew that a dog really could eat homework!
What about you? Do you have a funny pet destruction story to tell? Do you have to do certain things to keep pets out of trouble, such as keeping toilet paper rolls off the holder? Share it in the comments below. I’d love to hear about it. 🙂
I had a different idea for my first post, but then I heard about the announcement that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made recently that “No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.”
Really? All this because Animal Planet ran a science fiction episode about what if mermaids were an evolutionary possibility? You can see their press release information for yourself.
I haven’t seen the show, but there were some viewers who thought the information was believable enough to contact NOAA to ask for proof. NOAA’s brief announcement was wise to point out the obvious that the question of the mythological creature won’t be answered by them.
No worries. Mer-mythology is still safe.
As a kid, I played mermaid games in the pool with my siblings and cousins. We kicked our legs together and pushed ourselves through the water. It was hard work keeping my feet in line and legs bending just right to get the best mermaid movement through the water. Aquaman had it easier and could communicate with sea creatures. I wanted that gift.
As an art major (very briefly) in college, I had to do a full-sized self portrait. I made myself a mermaid.
This is where my 14-year-old appropriates a quote from a Harry Potter character: “Are you sure that’s a real mermaid? Well, it’s not very good, is it?” (You can see why I changed my major.)
News alert: Diana Beebe is not a mermaid and never was a mermaid. This is only a photograph of an art assignment, not of a mermaid. No calls to NOAA or any other agency to check, please.
Does that mean mermaids aren’t real?
Even though archeological, biological, zoological, or any other -logical evidence doesn’t exist, the fascination and love of mermaids exists worldwide. It would take pages to list all the movies, books, and TV shows that include merpeople.
A friend of mine writes a blog about all things mer, including many people who have their own tails and spend their time working to protect our world’s oceans. Check out Cynthia’s blog and then tell me mermaids aren’t real.
I imagine that those people who contacted NOAA for answers after watching an episode of science theory feel a little bit silly chasing a red herring (sorry, couldn’t resist at least one pun).
What mythological creature would you love to see found, or not? Why, or why not? I’d love to hear what you think. Leave a comment below.
Following and sharing are welcome, too. 😉
Diana Beebe 