Marilyn's Photos - July 29 2025 - It is Greek Yogurt for the Windows

 

There is another heat warning map on the Weather Network site today.  I prefer the radar map with the clouds and rain passing over. My greenhouse gets extraordinarily hot in the summer,  even though there's a tree next to it and shades part of it.  When the greenhouse was built, 100 years ago or more, it would have had a whitewash coating in the summer.  It would have been calcium carbonate-based chalk agents and mixed with water then painted on the windows.  I remember the brush strokes on the greenhosue windows of Niagara Falls.  The products are still available and it looks like some of the commercial greenhouses might have shading paint.   So I wonder what the headlines are that one should coat one's windows with Greek Yogurt.   Do you think it might attract insects and rodents? What about dogs - I expect Millie would bark at the smell and want to lick the glass. Do you think cleaning yogurt off a window will be easy?    This is just a silly hack, isn't it?  But it got me thinking about the cooling methods.  Because it is the roof that needs the shading, and that's way up there - 14 feet -  I guess this was just a thought today.  And looking into a silly hack.     Remember yesterday's Mingle Hill flowers?  Here they are as the starting point for a series of abstracts.  There's the original picture, a watercolour version that is abstracted and made high key (brighter).  Then there's an example ofo one of the results of  the Flaming Pear filters. Next are the variations using Diptic for the collage presentation, and one final version with further edits in photoshop with the French Kiss "brushes".   A great distraction for yesterday - another very hot day.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 28 2025 - Men Wearing Makeup

 

Melania Trump photos with no makeup. There was a headline that she was spotted without any makeup on.   It sounds like she's got no clothes on, doesn't it?  They refer to Trump that way too - he's the emperor with no clothes these days.  Here's a screen-clip from an article on "What Melania Trump looks like nearly makeup-free" - it is HERE at glam.com.  Compare that to now with her eyes covered in so much black stuff that they are slits in a sea of smoke.     I expect male celebrities all wear makeup, too.  And with the significant difference between makeup and no makeup, you wonder if more men now wear makeup compared to 20 years ago. Current estimates are 15% of (heterosexual) men between 18 and 34 wear makeup in the US.  I noticed how heterosexual included in there just to let you know. Here's a picture to show you the before and after.  There are many stories of men proclaiming that they are now wearing makeup.    Just like boy babies used to wear pink, it was the case that men wore makeup in earlier times.  The decline in the 19th century was due to that influential Queen Victoria who associated makeup with lower social status - vulgarity and immorality and femininity.  She's not been around for a long time, so now there is a growing interest in makeup - social media, male beauty influencers and more fluidity in gender roles - seem to be the influences. Is this possibly also an influence - Donald Trump wearing makeup? Or is the question how does he get so orange?  With all those photos beside Melanie with the smoked out eyes, orange skin fits in.   Here's one answer on his makeup: "I think it's some sort of fake tan or some sort of tinted moisturizer with bronzer, and he's then used powder with it. It's definitely some sort of cream product that he uses and has probably mattified it after because it's so orange," and added: "You can see the rim around his face. If you look closely at his hairline, it's very pale, and that's not from sunbeds; he's slapping some sort of cream product on." - professional makeup artist Safia Cox  That word - mattified - means reduce shininess of skin. Here's a pretty flower picture - flowers all ready to make pposies. This was at the Mingle Hill Flower Farm Festival yesterday and I went with Millie. There was a nice couple selling expensive homemade dog treats, so Millie got a bag.  She wanted to stay with the couple rather than come home.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 15 2025 - Never Retire

 

Never retire.  Bob Dylan is still touring at the age of 84.  That seems astonishing.  He's touring with Willie Nelson, and he's 92.   Paul McCartney is coming to the renovated Hamilton Colliseum.  He's 83 years old.  And the Rolling Stones Mick Jagger is 81 years old.  But they cancelled their UK and European tour for 2025 due to logistical challenges.  They are planning a 2026 tour.  What do I think these aged rock singers have in common?  While some of them never sang well, all of them don't sing well anymore.  I can't imagine listening to a concert of Paul McCartney with the quaver of the very old vocal chords.   Even worse, to my ear is Willie Nelson with a voice that has always been unpleasant.  He supposedly has a "songwriter's voice." That sounds like code for writes better than he sings.  Here's one Quora writer's take on his voice: "Like a wonderful blanket crocheted by your favorite relative.  The one you've had for 30-years. Oh sure, there are some tattered corners, mended holes and faded colors;  but all of these things are why you love it so…soft in all the right places." Another quote:  "Mannered.  He doesn't really sing as much as he "talks tunefull'. Does Bob Dylan have a songwriter's voice?  Here's one contribution to Reddit: "I've literally not met one person that likes Bob Dylan's singing. So is it that weird that I think he's a great singer?"   There is a lot of analysis on Bob Dylan's voice. My observation is that Bob Dylan doesn't sing in the key that the band is playing in.   And here's a joke in that reddit post:   "Dylan and Mick Jagger were arguing about who was a better musician. Dylan posited that Jagger could not have written Mr. Tambourine Man, but Dylan could have written Satisfaction. To which Jagger replied "Yeah, but could you sing it?"

Here's the result of yesterday's watercolour class.

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Mar 27 2025 - Do this every night

 

If you were in a contest and had to give advice on what things a person should do every night, what would you advise?  My only suggestion:   Brush your teeth.  Am I out of the picture on this. Other people have a whole lot more advice than this:  Prepare Your Breakfast. One of the biggest time-sucks in the morning is preparing breakfast Lay Out Your Clothes For the Next Day. You can save precious time in the morning by … Put Everything You’ll Need by the Door. Pack your bag or briefcase with everything that you’ll...  Review Your Day. You’ve probably heard that journaling for a few minutes is a good way to … There are 6 more things you should do in this top article.  There are 15 things that womensalphabet.com thinks we should do every night.  That's 5 more than the first article.   And which of the following  articles draws your attention? Remember to complete each sentence with "every night" 6 easy cleaning tasks 10 awesome things  12 super relaxing things 11 things successful people do 6 little things sleep doctors actually do 7 things men should do 7 stoic things you must do  5 movements to do  Once you wake up, then there are things you should do every morning: 5 things to do for an amazing day 15 healthy things 30 morning routine ideas for a happy 5 best should and neck stretches 9 morning routine habits for a happier start 10 things highlight successful people do  6 little things sleep doctors actually do  13 things the happiest healthiest women do So you went to bed doing these "n" things, got up and did these "n" things and now the day is underway.  Do these "n" things: 30 things you should do every day to make your life better 74 examples of daily activities 60 daily routines examples 10 productive things 7 life-changing exercises And Google?  It lists 250 articles out of a supposed153,000,000 results in the big cloud database. Its conclusion at that point "There are no results for do this every day during the day."

Orchids at RBG. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Mar 26 2025 - More Bad Portraits

 

How many selfies do you take each day?  Each week?  Supposedly, the world population takes 92 million selfies a day. There's a type of selfie named a .5 selfie.  That's the picture that is angled above one's head and the taker's arm uses up quite a lot of the space in the picture. It is a wide-angle lens picture so the photo will have distortions.  You could be very w-i-d-e.  Maybe it is previous generations who complain about how they look in photos and that they don't like getting their picture taken?  Looking at the headlines, it seems that if one has a "photogenic" face with symmetrical proportions, etc photography is a good thing.  And for the rest, too bad, lots of complaining. Besides the overall statistic, I wondered the "how many pictures could there really be" question.  Here are some answers from Pixsy.com - they looked at a getty Images data.    Donald Trump - 463,574 images Barack Obama - 336,823 images Queen Elizabeth II - 230,495 images Kate Middleton - 155,505 images Roger Federer - 149,576 images Prince William - 148,784 images Joe Biden - 143,412 images Hillary Clinton - 135,501 images Andy Murray - 132,295 images Prince Charles - 130,334 images Serena Williams - 125,257 images Elton John - 123,080 images Prince Harry - 119,379 images Jennifer Lopez - 107,997 images Paris Hilton - 101,438 images Jimmy Kimmel - 100,520 images Bill Murray - 92,194 images Rihanna - 86,247 images Jimmy Fallon - 82,464 images Camilla Parker-Bowles - 79,602 images Who would guess Donald Trump would show up as having the most photographs on Getty Images. Do a search for pictures of donald trump and click on the images view. The array is astonishingly awful.  His hair is prominently in all directions and then there's that orange makeup on his face. It seems uncanny how he seems to show up in so many places.

This is a close-up of a Gerbera flower - they always take wonderful pictures.    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Mar 23 2025 - That Turning Point Day

 

That 1963 turning point - the killing of Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.  The vast batch of documents released was poured over last week.  Can you imagine, as a JFK authority, getting access to more extensive information? And the turning point?  Three things stick out for me: The end of an era of optimism.  The cynicism towards government that gave rise to conspiracies, especially Kennedy's death.  And the switch to consuming   news via television..  So the release of these thousands of documents may or may not quell the conspiracy theorists.  There are so many things now that are "conspiracized" over.  (Yes, I just checked that there is this verb in the urban dictionary).   I wonder how many conspiracies were present in 1963?  Let's retrieve them: the "Paul is Dead" hoax. There's the landing on the Moon was staged.  There was a black helicopter theory that the United Nations would arrive in black helicopters to bring the US under UN control. Of course, UFO theories abounded - claims of government cover-ups and alien involvement.  And what are our prevalent conspiracy theories in 2025? What a question! This is a difficult area to research as it is now jam-packed with disinformation, misinformation, "spamouflage", deepfake videos, and more.  There's a new story every day that would fall into the decades-ago idea of a conspiracy theory.   It is a very busy area now - too many conspiracies to list.  Not like the "gold old days" when we could list 10 top conspiracy theories.

If we could vote for simpler times, I would be canvassing all over for that.  Here is a picture of Ranunculus - a spring pot plant for the porch. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

March 10 2025 - Fear for the Fearless Girl

 

Bing likes their top stories so much that they are repeated in pictures and headlines multiple times, even dozens.  The Fearless Girl story is one of these.  It goes with the removal of DEI initiatives in the U.S. The company that originally commissioned her - State Street Global - is under scrutiny for quietly distancing itself from its DEI programs.  The Fearless Girl is not at this location anymore - staring down the Wall Street Bull.  She was moved to the Stock Exchange.  Whether  she will be allowed to stay at its location is in question - it has a temporary permit.  Will State Street Global secure a 10-year permit?  That is the question, given the clear symbolism of the statue for women's equality.   There's a well-loved scene in  Monty Python's Holy Grail with a battle cry that American corporations are now using: "Run away, run away!" Scene 8:  Why No One Likes The French goes like this:  ARTHUR: Run away!  KNIGHTS: Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! That is the scene where the French Guard insults Arthur with: "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"   I am looking forward to the Witch Hazel blooming out front. It is one of the earliest bloomers and can unfurl its little yellow petals in February on a warm day.  This year, though,  it seems late.  In comparison, the snow is leaving early.   This picture is from a few years ago.

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Feb 22 2025 - Potholes vs Sinkholes

 

Pot holes have appeared by the score in our roads, following the big ice and snow storm.  They were filling them yesterday, trying to bring them into a semi-normal state along Highway 8.  I wonder what they'll be doing on the highway, as there are problems there, too. Compare that to sinkholes.  Look at the pictures of how wide and deep the sinkholes are in California and Florida.  Sinkholes happen when underlying rock layers collapse or erode and the surface gives way.  They become more common with extreme rainfall.  A burst water main or with sewer systems collapsing can also bring about sinkholes. Potholes on the roads are not covered in the Guinness Book of Records.  Natural, glacial ones are. But the biggest natural formations of this type are sinkholes and they are in the Guinness Book of Records.  The biggest is Xiaozhai Tiankeng in China and is 2,171 feet deep and 2,054 feet wide.  Its nickname is The Heavenly Pit.  The next is Sima Humboldt in Venezuela and it is 1,148 feet deep and 1,155 feet wide.  This gives me a queasy sense.   There is a National Pothole Day. We've missed it - January 15th. Just as well.  Who would want to raise awareness of the impact of potholes on motorists and advocate for better road conditions - considering everything that's happening in the world.  I was hoping for some pothole jokes.  There are lots and lots - but they shouldn't be listed as jokes.  There is a consistent and persistent joke from the UK: In the UK we used to drive on the left of the roads. Now we drive on what's left of the roads.

Here's a summer's garden.  It is only a week till March and a month till spring.  There likely are a few potholes to arrive before then.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 12 2025 - More Chocolate

 

Remember when I looked up all the large quantities of things that are for sale at Costco?  Last week someone told me they had to throw out an enormous jar of Mayonnaise because of how far it was beyond its best before date.  Doesn't that make for one of those creepy scenarios of  picnics with egg salad sandwiches baking in the sun? A culinary-themed horror movie. That won't be the case with chocolate - well, dark chcolate.  Chocolate lasts a long time on the shelf (not in the hands). So  the 1.3 kg jar of M&M's Peanut Chocolate Candy beside the 1.6 kg bag of Swiss Delice Milk Chocolates at Costco might be worthwhile.  That's if you look at the products by most viewed.  Go sort by most expensive to cheapest and there is $82.99 worth of Theobroma Chunkies. Most of the chocolate bars come in counts of 48 items.  But nothing pops out at $500 or so price point.  Like the caviar which is listed at $849 to $1,4999.99.  Costco just isn't into chocolate like cavier.  But then the products at Costco generally aren't the luxury items in the world.   For chocolate?  That would be: The To'ak chocolate from Ecuador is the most expensive chocolate in the world.  That's different than the most awarded in prizes.  Its website says it charges over $300 for a single bar of chocolate.  The public relations story of this chocolate is HERE.   They age their chocolate with wood barrels that have been used for whisky making. They also are experimenting with Cambodian Kampot pepper and Ecuadorian Palo Santo wood to extract aromas and create flavour. Their chocolate is aged up to six years.  You can store dark chocolate much longer than Mayonnaise, as there is no milk in it.   They list the experiments so far -  here.   These are things like French oak, ex-Cognac, American oak, ex-Scotch Whisky.  And the types of Ecuadorian Wood:  Spanish elm, Andean alder.  And then their other aging media - Madagascar Vanilla Bean - of course.  I am sure you can get a sample of something - at the bottom are featured products in the $15.00 USD price range.  I expect these are "flakes" of chocolate.  Still would be fun.

There are many plants with heart-shaped leaves.  These at Longwood were perfect. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 09 2025 - Cumberpunning

 

It crosses one's mind right away.  Is the name Cumberbatch "made-up" - as it seems whimsical or nonsensical.   "Why is he named Benedict Cumberbatch? Benedict is called Cumberbatch because that is his last name. His full name is Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch. He is a British actor known for his roles in films and television, notably as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series ``Sherlock'' and as Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe." '"English: habitational name from Comberbach in northern Cheshire named with the Old English personal name Cumbra (originally a byname meaning 'Cumbrian') or the genitive plural of Cumbre 'Britons' + Old English bæce 'stream in a valley'." I am not alone in amusement over his name.  I found this article in the Huffpost and here  is the start of it HERE: Benedict Cumberbatch Is Sick of People Using His Name as a Cumberpun   "I love you all, and cumberbless each and every one of you. But I have to get this off my chest -- I'm just a regular cumberboy. Every morning I get up from my cumberbed, eat my cumberbreakfast, cumberbrush my teeth and head to work.  But lately It's starting to really cumberbother me how a lot of you are cumberbantering about my name. I know, I have kind of an unusual name. But it's never fun to be the cumberbutt of the joke. This is in no way a new thing. I've been cumbombarded with puns my whole life. But since I became a huge actor this trend definitely got worse."  Hop over and enjoy this wonderful satire and play on word(s).  I found another icy fingers picture and thought the blue of winter vs the blue of summer would be a good comparison.

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Jan 07 2025 - The Ice Cube Trick

 

The ice cube trick, also known as the ice cube hack  - how many are there?   Burger: The recent on is to put an ice cube into a burger patty so that the patty stays moist while being barbecued.  And that's just the latest cooking use - reheat rice, remove fat from soups, clean blender blades...many more. Grounding:  This one is to calm a person down and reduce anxiety and panic - hold an ice cube or ice pack on the inside of the wrist or in one hand for 1 - 3 minutes. Power outages:  Keep an ice cube in a shot glass in your freezer to detect power outages. Double freezing:  to make ice last longer, double freeze them by taking the frozen cubes and put them into a freezer bag and freeze again. Wrinkles out of your laundry - throw a few ice cubes or a wet washcloth into the dryer with wrinkled clothes. Deodorize garbage disposal - pour ice into the sink and turn on the disposal then hot water. Remove furniture dents in carpet - Place ice cube where the dent is, leet it melt, blot up the wet spots and use the edge of a spoon to push the carpet fibres back into upright position. Remove chewing gum - Place ice on gum for 5 to 10 minutes - it will harden and loosen grip. Water your orchids - Place ice cubes in the plant pot to melt slowly. TikTok - ice cube trick for head on Bf (that's boy friend) it is HERE. This is for headache relief But once you are on TikTok there are dozens, maybe hundreds, and possibly thousands of ice cube tricks.  I don't want to find out how many.   And we haven't looked at science experiments with ice cubes.  Things like "How to pick up ice with a string experiment".   Or "how to melt ice cubes the fastest",  And what about setting ice on fire.  And we conclude with the Guinness Book of Records involving ice cubes.  What could it be?  Josef Koeberi stayed 2 hours 30 minutes and 57 seconds inside a custom-made glass box filled up to his shoulders with ice cubes.  There are ice cube eaters, ice cube holders, ice cubes in open mouths, and so on.

Here's Bodnant Garden in the spring quite a few years ago.  Good to see spring gardens as winter arrives.  It is just a few months away.

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