Bonus garden pic, courtesy of faithful correspondent Marvel:
Just wanted to share a snapshot of our wood peony — this critter sat around with an unopened blossom for three weeks. The regular peonies are starting to bud-up like crazy, but the woody one…well, it only had one bud and it was lovely & all, but c’mon!
FINALLY, it bloomed yesterday. It’s gigantic — the petals are like lovely, fluttery pink hankies.
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birthday of Bartolomeo Cristofori, the man who invented the “piano-forte” (soft-loud) harpsichord (“gravicembalo col piano e forte”). Trust Google to be infatuated with technological innovation! (/smile)
And Big Bird’s — well, Carroll Spinney’s — autobiographical documentary is opening on Wednesday.
Throughout his 46 years playing Big Bird on “Sesame Street,” Caroll Spinney has always stood apart from the show’s other puppeteers.
For one thing, the full-body costume means he can’t easily interact with cast members. For another, it means he can cry without anyone noticing.
Those tears — as well as plenty of smiles — are explored in the new documentary “I Am Big Bird,” opening Wednesday at the IFC Center. Fans will see how Spinney, now 81, evolved from being a kid bullied for playing with dolls to developing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch when “Sesame Street” debuted in 1969. It’s a bittersweet ode that’s also the love story of Spinney and his second wife Debra, who met on the show…
Spinney and the president of the United States share a distant great-grandfather, Josiah Cook, making them ninth cousins, twice removed. The puppeteer got the news via a cousin who had a genealogist trace the family’s history.
“He gave me a whole family tree that proves it,” Spinney tells The Post. When Michelle Obama came to “Sesame Street” for an appearance, she said to Spinney: ‘Well, cousin, at last we meet.’”…
Apart from daydream believing, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
Major Major Major Major
Still pimping The Fish, Part 7! I wrote it and you didn’t :P
I start Krav Maga class #2 noonish, we’ll see I guess.
Mustang Bobby
@Major Major Major Major: Good, and best wishes from one writer to another.
Patricia Kayden
That’s a sweet story. I grew up on Sesame Street many many moons ago and still watch the classic episodes on DVD when I hang out with my nieces.
Steeplejack
I went to bed early (for me) last night—before midnight—so I was awake early this morning, a little after 5:00. The housecat thought that was excellent news for John McCain and talked me into feeding her early. So here we are at dawn at the workstation, and she’s getting an early start on her morning nap on her heated throw. Her tail tip is twitching on the keyboard to let me know she’s staying involved.
It’s 49° here in NoVA, going up to 85° later—another beautiful day after a beautiful day yesterday.
Off to do the crosswords and catch up on the threads.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: You’re going to pay dearly for leaving me alone with Little Boots last night.
Mary G
That is gorgeous, Marvel. I’ve always wanted to grow peonies but I probably never will.
Steeplejack
@BillinGlendaleCA:
You guys were en fuego. And no Lynn Anderson or King Harvest anywhere. Gonna have to put you in the rotation more often.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack:
You are evil; very, very evil.
JPL
Peonies have always been a favorite of mine. Thanks for sharing the picture.
satby
Beautiful picture Marvel!
I’m happy that 3 of the 4 new peonies I planted last year are coming back, because they sure didn’t look like they thrived last year. I took down some dead butterfly bushes yesterday with more that need to come down this week. And pulled all the remains of the morning glory vines off my deck: I love the cascade of flowers but hate how invasive and overwhelming they get by fall.
And my lilacs are all starting to bloom. 6 well established bushes, with two more small ones started a couple of years ago. Apple trees are in bloom too, so here’s hoping we don’t have any more frosts!
I just love spring!
Baud
The Today show this morning is far below Today show standards.
Not good.
Steeplejack (phone)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It takes a village . . .
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: That’s a really low bar, possibly shorter than I.
tjmn
Pre-ordered “I am Big Bird.” As I grew up with Sesame Street, I am going to cry tears of joy when I watch this documentary.
dmsilev
So I was doing some literature searches last night for a paper I’m co-authoring. If I’m looking for something specific, I’ll generally start by searching on the author’s name and year of publication. If the name is even vaguely common, there will be multiple hits. Which is why I now know, and am sharing with you, that in 1986 one P. Nash co-wrote a paper entitled “PEPPERMINT OIL DOES NOT RELIEVE THE PAIN OF IRRITABLE-BOWEL-SYNDROME”, which has amassed nearly 50 citations in the technical literature since then.
Apparently this is a matter of controversy in medical research. Who knew?
Mustang Bobby
@dmsilev: Depending on how it’s applied, I would think peppermint oil would make one’s bowels downright cranky.
raven
never mind
raven
I posted a picture of my finger on my facebook and it’s funny reading the comments! “Did you have a hand surgeon do the stitches”, “check out this herbal remedy”! Like I could pick who stopped the bleeding at the ER on Sunday afternoon of a full moon!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Taking down the stairs?
Ramalama
I have to talk to my car insurance company this morning. Apparently I’ve been kicked out of the club for paying at the very last minute of an overdue bill. Has anyone got advice for how to get insured again w/ the same company? I’m always late but I’ve got a sick mom I’m helping out with in another state in the US.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I wish. After I finished the stairs I was carrying a plate of chicken to the grill. Tripped and, when I braced with my left for the impact, my pinky was sliced open at the base. I was pretty lucky, 7 stitches but motion and feeling tell me that it didn’t go deep enough to do serious damage. This finger was completely dislocated playing ball about 10 years ago so it’s bent anyway.
Tommy
@Steeplejack: Oh I have a heating pad and my cat, loves that thing more than anything else in the world. When I do actually need access to it, well it is hard to come by without a cat.
Tommy
@raven: Oh that sucks. But as you said it could have been worse. My cat likes to follow me down the stairs in sync with my speed. I tripped on her a few weeks ago, and face planted it at the bottom of the stairs. Broke my nose and two terrible black eyes. The rug burn on the side of my face was the worse.
A few feet to the left and I might have hit my head on the end table I use to put my wallet, keys, and stuff when I enter my house. Since I live by myself this freaked me out a little, cause the only help if something like this happens is coming from myself.
The cat and I had a talk about this, which was not fruitful :). But now a motion detector light so I can see her at say 3 AM when I am getting a late night glass of water.
raven
@Tommy: Ugh! Lil Bit loves to be underfoot in the kitchen when I cook and one of these days. . .
Steeplejack
@Tommy:
The housecat is 15 years old, small and skinny, so she has a microfiber throw wrapped around a cheap heating pad on the desk. I vary the heat according to the weather and the ambient temperature, and it’s her go-to spot all day.
It cuts off automatically after an hour, so I got into the habit of setting a timer on my phone to remind me, because I would be working on something and suddenly notice her sitting up and staring fixedly at me: “Fix the heat, hu-mon!”
I’m slightly appalled that I have a cat that has First World problems.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: After I finished the stairs I was carrying a plate of chicken to the grill.
Have to say, that made me laugh. Had a vision of the chicken on the plate attacking your hand just as you were trying to put it on the grill.
I once knocked a glass off a shelf and the whole time it was falling my brain was screaming “NO, DON”T DO IT!!!!” but I did it anyway and cut a finger to the bone (and cartilage, but no tendons miraculously enough).
Anyway, full function is nice to have. Glad you retain it.
raven
Joe is explaining that McDonald is in jail and didn’t even break the law!
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: You do go into slow-mo don’t you? I went from both hands under the plate to, when trying to cushion the fall, to the hand on top of the plate when it shattered! They also picked up something on the xray that they want to have checked out to make sure it’s not cancer in my wrist! That would be my luck, wrist cancer!
Tommy
@raven: My cat is rarely more than a few feet from me at any given moment, if not in my lap. Of all the places for her to be underfoot, it is really only on the stairs.
Rarely in the kitchen when she wants “wet” food and I am in the fridge, but that is rare. She normally just sits where I put the bowl and looks at me like I am Hilter or something for not feeding her.
Of all the places for her to be literally underfoot, on the stairs is like the last place I’d want. So of course, that is what she does :)!
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: I have hummingbirds with first world problems. When the feeders are empty they come to my window and stare at me until I get up and refill the damn things.
raven
@Tommy: I hear ya. Lil Bit does like to tuck in on the stairs and I have to be really careful with that.
Tommy
@Steeplejack:
LOL. I had not thought that in any given days the most upset my cat gets at me is that I am not addressing her “First World problems” fast enough. My little girl won’t eat any “wet” food. I’ve tried every kind. She will only eat Tuna out of a can.
This wasn’t an issue because tuna in a can, well the generic brands are cheap per can than the actual cat food.
But Mather will ONLY eat StarKist. Not even Bumble Bee works for her. I know, I bought like a pack of 12 of Bumble Bee. She wouldn’t touch it. I figure a few days and she’d break. Nope.
She “broke” me and she only gets StarKist.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: You just reminded me of my youngest’s adventure while Q’ing chicken just before we went down to BR for our visit. He was pulling the chicken off the grill when it slipped out of the tongs. Without thinking he grabbed it before it could hit the ground. One of the ugliest burns I have ever seen, 2nd and 3rd degree. My wife insisted on buying him every burn med we could find as well as 4000 ft of gauze as they were too poor at the moment to afford it.
MomSense
I can’t wait to see my peonies again, if it ever warms up enough for them to emerge.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Dang!
Baud
@raven:
Political prisoner!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Oh and fingers crossed on the ‘C’.
Baud
@raven:
Holy cow. I didn’t know that was a thing. Best wishes.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: Burns suck. Back in high school I went on a tubing trip in MO. I got burned so bad I had blisters. Some the size of ping pong balls filled with puss.
Almost all above my elbows and my chest.
I did not scar at all, but I have NO hair on those parts of my body, and that happened 30 years ago.
The pain was off the scale and I got huge abilities to deal with pain. I have a high threshold. I didn’t pick at the sores, thank god. Burns suck and I am so anal now about protecting myself.
raven
@Baud: They just saw a little mass, I’ve broken and bent about every part of me so I’m not sweating it.
Germy Shoemangler
I check the morning headlines and what do I see?
Texas Senate Votes to Abolish Renewable Energy Programs
Tommy
@Germy Shoemangler: Yeah because that makes sense. The state to the left of me, Iowa, is working on three huge data processing warehouses.
For IBM, Apple, and Google. You know the “Cloud” thing ….
They all have wind farms. Maybe Steve King is a total loon, but the state is quickly become a wind powerhouse (go Google it). Texas has to be shit all stupid to do this. These are the things firms are looking for, so cut them off Texas and lets see how that works.
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: I had a motion detector installed as my light switch by the apartment door a few years ago. One day the Maintenance Dept Chief was checking something in my apartment and, upon leaving, saw the light switch work. He stopped and asked me about it. Two years ago, motion detectors were installed in our mail rooms. I’ve wondered if seeing the one I have started him thinking about where they could use them in the common areas.
WaterGirl
Marvel, I bought a tree peony last week that looks exactly like that! it had only one flower, too, but it was crazy big like that, too. I kept trying to take a photo but no matter what angle I tried, my photo just couldn’t capture the magnificence of the bloom.
Do you happen to know the name of yours? Mine came with a generic tag which wasn’t much help!
Germy Shoemangler
@Tommy: “Liberals like renewable energy? Then we HATE renewable energy!” That’s texas logic.
Also, your cat sounds like our cat. We have a gas stove downstairs. Her favorite place to stretch out in the winter. She loves the warmth. Even when it’s off, the pilot light keeps it toasty enough for her. She also likes to snuggle on the stairs. And she blends right in. If nothing else, she keeps us alert.
We have motion-detector lights in the stairway and hall. At night she wanders and activates them.
JPL
@raven: Wow!
Tommy
Tree question. I have this space in the front of my house where I have nothing other than grass growing. I have about 65 inches left to right and 170 vertical. I go past that I start to get into four large windows. I like sunlight.
What is a smaller kind of tree I could plant there?
Germy Shoemangler
Next door neighbors just adopted a new puppy. His play area is right in front of her favorite window. She watches him like a hawk. I always know when he’s outside because her tail puffs up fatter than her whole body.
Even when he’s NOT outside, she will sit and grimly stare out the window. “He’ll be here soon. Confound him!”
He’s tinier than she is, but that won’t last long.
Germy Shoemangler
@Tommy: Why not some kind of flowering shrub?
rikyrah
because this is all they know how to do. they slowed down the economy’s progress due to the all the cuts on the state level with public employees. so now, they want to do it with federal employees. It’s about the sabotage to the economy
……………….
GOP budget plan envisions $194 billion in cuts to federal workforce
Joe Davidson May 1
Federal employees should be wary, but not surprised.
The House and Senate Republican budget plan announced this week would continue hits on government workers, as expected, with cuts that could lighten their wallets by up to $194 billion.
It oversees federal employee issues in its broad portfolio. But the agreement gives no instructions on reaching the budget savings. Just where the ax might fall remains to be seen. Given the committee’s oversight, however, federal pension benefits and the Federal Employees Health Benefits program are likely targets.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/05/01/gop-budget-plan-envisions-194-billion-in-cuts-to-federal-workforce/?tid=hpModule_14fd66a0-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239
TaMara (BHF)
Oh, how I love peonies. I didn’t realize there were wild ones, too. Great photo. And lucky you.
Tommy
@Germy Shoemangler: I just like trees. I live in the house I grew up in and the last place my father got sent off for the military. I’ve planted every tree in the yard.
The elm I got as a sprout, Arbour Day at school. I planted it in the early 80s and it is now 175 feet tall :). The two Cherry Blossoms, I dug out of my grandparents A Framein the late 80s, to bring them home to my backyard.
These two new trees I planted out front. When an old growth tree came into my house after a storm, well those two newbies are growing so well to replace things.
rikyrah
Elijah Cummings praises Baltimore response to Gray death
By Ben Schreckinger
|
5/3/15 10:36 AM EDT
Rep. Elijah Cummings on Sunday praised Baltimore’s response to the death of Freddie Gray and the state’s attorney who charged six police officers in the incident.
“We did pretty good,” said the Maryland Democrat, whose West Baltimore congressional district has been the center of unrest in the wake of Gray’s death in police custody.“We had a lot of problems on Monday, but overall it’s been a lot of peaceful protests, and that’s a good thing
The hopelessness felt by many Americans, he said, was encapsulated by a young man who recently said to him, “Mr. Cummings, I feel like I’m in my coffin trying to claw my way out.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/elijah-cummings-praises-baltimore-freddie-gray-death-117573.html#ixzz3ZB8j4PX9
NotMax
@Tommy
Perhaps a flowering quince.
J R in WV
@raven:
My physical therapist says when clients get x-rays or some other type of scanning image, they always see things that might be problems that have never caused a symptom. In other words, we are not that consistent inside, and it isn’t a problem, mostly.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
Consider the sugar plum (Amelanchier canadensis).
raven
@J R in WV: Yea, I’ve taken a beating all over so I’m not very upset about this. I’ve had everything from a shattered leg to a broken back and a damn bump from using a mouse!
Origuy
My mom used to grow peonies along the edge of the lot, next to the road. We lived in a corner lot and idiots would lose control and drive off the road, running over the bushes.
JAFD
Today is the 45th anniversary of the killings at Kent State.
Someday, may the victims, finally, rest in peace.
Marvel
@WaterGirl: The peony m-i-g-h-t be called “Pink Cloud” — it’s a beaut!
WaterGirl
@Marvel: Late getting back to the thread, and you’ll probably never see this but…
I had never even heard of a tree peony before – I just saw this amazing flower and just bought it on impulse. I have sun, sun, sun in my back yard now that the big tree is gone and plenty of empty places where stuff was destroyed when the tree crashed, so I think this will be a good addition.
opiejeanne
That wood peony is WOW!!!