Marilyn's Photos - Oct 21 2025 - Where will the calligraphers go?

 

The East Wing of the White House was partialy destroyed yesterday, making it the U.S. news story of the day.  Probably because the Blue Jays won the game and now are in the World Series, so the White House news flooded the headlines around the world. Every country covered the demolition.  Not much opinion written about the historical significance, maybe that will follow. So where will the White House calligrapher go?  That’s right, the White House has a chief calligrapher, responsible for designing and fulfilling social and official documents at the White House.  The East Wing used to be the place where the chief calligrapher and two deputy calligraphers worked.  I doubt the First Lady writes things, so no worries about her losing her office. The calligraphers create hand-lettered documents for official events, including invitations, place cards, menus, and proclamations. This team handles both traditional hand-lettering and computer-generated work to meet the demands of events like state dinners, holiday receptions, and other official functions.  Of course the British Royal Family has calligraphers.  Can you imagine the official Coronation Roll for King Charles and Queen Camilla being created in Comic Sans font and chugging out of a computer printer? Who else has such a tradition? Taiwan, Tunisia, and China are identified as the countries with official calligraphers.   No news on where the U.S. calligraphers have been rehoused.  Just like there’s no date for when the grand State Ballroom will be ready. Here’s a Fall flower interpretation of Asters and Goldenrod.

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Mairlyn's Photos - Cot 20 2025 - A Thousand Pumpkins

 

The Pumpkin Festival is on at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG).  I was there yesterday with the Lily Society’s bulb sale.  The entrance to the RBG had a display of over a thousand pumpkins, set on the ground in mosaic display patterns.  And there are so many colours and kinds of pumpkins now.  Is pumpkin hybridization recent or are we getting access to ancient varieties that haven’t travelled the world?  o be sure, tThe light gray and cream colours are very stylish now. The gray ones are the Jarrahdale pumpkin - an ancient eating variety. And what about the Peanut pumpkins with the warts on their skins - caused by sugar crystalizing within the pumpkin’s flesh.  They are considered exceptional flavourful and are a French heirloom variety.  Farytale and Cinderella pumpkins are the deeply lobelled and squat shapes - again a French heirloom variety.  I wonder if the French are the pumpkin hybridizing masters. Pumpkin varieties have wonderful names: Porcelain Doll, Casper (like the ghost), Goosebumps, Mint Prince, Batwing, Cotton Candy, and that wonderful Turk’s Turban.  Here’s a partial stroll through the Pumpkin Trail Festival yesterday. starting at the entrance, then into the Mediterranean Greenhouse, through to the Pumpkin Trail in the Rose Garden, with the giant pumpkin and the wonderful pumpkin house.

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 19 2025 - Ice Cube on the Burger

Do we know the ice cube on the burger technique?  It creates steam which adds moisture to the meat   I was wondering about this as we had a really great, moist burger at The Good Earth Restaurant on Friday and wondered if it was the chef’s touch or a different technique used this time. These headlines reveal it is considered “a hack”. Does the Ice Cube Burger Trick Really Work? The Ice Cube Hack for Ridiculously uJicy Burgers Every Time YouTube · Groark Boys’ BBQ -  I put an ICE CUBE in my BURGER and this is what happened ... In comparison, the ice cube technique is also used for the following Childbirth preparations - getting comfortable with discomfort and practice coping skills during childbirth Psychological grounding - manage dissociative episodes or intense anxiety, by holding an ice cube in the hand or mount and focusing on the intense, phsyical sensation of cold Laundry - remove wrinkles by throwing ice cubs in the dryer creating steam Skincare - to reduce swelling, redness by rubbing ice cubes on the skin to soothe irritation and make the skin feel fresh and glowing In Baking?  Put an ice cube into the hot Dutch oven when baking bread to generate steam and enhance the crust texture and put the frozen dark chocolate into the batter to make a Lava Cake. I recently found this picture of reflected colours on water in an aquarium in Florida.

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 18 2025 - David Attenborough at 99

 

David Attenborough is 99 years old and made history yesterday by winning a 2024 Emmy Award for his show Netflix’s Secret Lives of Orangutans. The article says:  “That makes Attenborough, 99, a hair older than Van Dyke, who was 98 when he won the Guest Performer in a Daytime Drama Series Emmy last year for his appearance on Peacock’s Days of Our Lives.” He’s 25 years older than me and still working.  How is that possible?  There’s always an answer these days. Google says: “his longevity is attributed to a lifestyle that includes a passionate sense of purpose, staying physically active, a plant-focused diet with less red meat, and maintaining a deep connection to nature.” There are many articles on this subject when he turned 99 in March 2025.  Probably we can go back five years and there will be a string of these articles.   He is a popular topic in the press. Other articles outline some medical issues - cardiovascular and mobility issues, including knee replacement surgery and a pacemaker.  We love to keep track of old, older and oldest, and the oldest person is a woman at 116 years old - Ethel Caterham.  It is a little to very late, but let’s all wish him Happy Birthday!

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 17 2025 - Jokes from Before

 

I had a thought about how many jokes there might be.  AI didn’t pop up with an answer at all.  In fact, google didn’t retrieve very much.  Given there are so many jokes on the internet on so many subjects, it seems unusual.  AI didn’t retrieve very much at all, as though humour, wit and jokes are not very interesting to talk about, only interesting to experience.  I decided to start at the beginning - the first book of jokes.  The Philogelos dates to the 4th or 5th century CE and is a Greek collection of 265 jokes.  The title translates into “the joker” or “the one who loves laughter”. I found a site HERE with a number of the book’s jokes reproduced in Greek, trasnlated into English and then interpreted in comic strip format.  So many thousands of years between us and our humour stays constant. Joke 22 An idiot bumps into a friend and says, 'I heard you had died!' “Well, as you can see,' replies the friend, 'I'm quite alive.' 'But the guy who told me is so much more trustworthy than you.' Joke 43 People tell a young idiot that his beard is coming in, so he goes to the front gate to welcome it. When his friend realizes what he's doing, he says, 'No wonder people think we're idiots -- how do you know your beard isn't coming through the back gate?' Joke 154 At a dignitary's funeral in Kyme, someone goes up to the officials and asks, 'Who's the dead guy?' One of the Kymaeans turns around and points. "The one lying in the coffin.' Joke 160 A Kymaean goes to visit a friend and stands out- side his house shouting for him. A neighbour sticks his head out of the window and says, 'Shout louder -- then he'll hear you.' So the Kymaean yells out, 'Hey! Louder!' i found some shipping container storage units in a Belleville park when we were there.  It made me wonder why they are painted different colours.  Do the colours have meaning in terms of the contents?  I found one article on storage units where light blue is used for hazardous.  This seemed appropriate to find this very moody blue with these letters.  Ode to Xi could be the name of the collection.  Here is the original and a collage image.

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