Friday, July 3, 2020

ePistle Alfresco


Famous First Words: An Act To authorize the President to consolidate governmental activities affecting war veterans... Veteran Administration Act July 3, 1930
July is Picnic Month! What's the difference between a philosophy major and a picnic table? A picnic table can support a family. July is also Watermelon Month! The watermelon got brown spots all over its skin when it contracted melonoma.
..........If you go down to the woods today you better go in disguise.........Rosemary Clooney …..The Teddy Bears' Picnic
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed... Declaration of Independence 7/4/76
It is a sunny Friday morning. The sky is a study of white fluff against a field of blue. There is just enough breeze to keep the willow branches shivering but not enough to modify the 77°F temperature. Birdsong fills the air, melodic chirping, staccato calls, and sparrow chatter blend into a morning sonata...interrupted only by the mechanic whine of a weed eater. Puck retreats rather quickly to the house and I follow. There the smell of new mown grass is replaced with the aroma of brewing coffee. Puck laps up a small bowl of milk I pour for him and settles by my feet under my desk. I sit with my freshly doctored coffee and take a moment the stop and relax and get ready to write to you.
Hope your weekend is a picnic on a whole lot of levels, ePistliers
First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Are we purchasing school clothes or more alcohol in August. Asking for a friend. --Submitted by RHOZ
A farmer kept getting watermelons stolen, so one day he puts a sign up that says 'one of these watermelons is poisoned' next day he gets up and goes out to work in his watermelon patch and sees another sign 'now there are two'. / By not grilling his supper's feet, the cannibal could picnic without mesquite toes.
..........One that's red and juicy when you pluck it.........Manfred Mann …..Watermelon Man
Trivia Questions: It is International Plastic Bag Free Day !
^ More or less, how many years does it take for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill?
^^ About how many marine animals are killed by plastic bags annually?
^^^ Which Asian country was the first to ban thinner plastic bags?
^^^^ Who invented the infernal thing to begin with?
^^^^^ What percentage of plastic bags are actually recycled?
Big Hello: Aang – Aleut (Alaska) https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Dear July, I don't want any trouble from you. Just come in, sit down, don't touch anything, and keep your mouth shut. --Submitted by inrith
Fake Library Statistic of the Week: 44% of the conversations overheard in a library are not worth the effort to eavesdrop. https://www.facebook.com/FakeLibStats/?fref=ts
A genetic botanist doesn't show up to the church picnic. Her concerned husband finds her in her lab working feverishly on a new pesticide resistant strain of maize. "Aren't you coming to the congregation picnic?". He asks. "Damn their impossible deadlines! They told me I have until today to get the corn bred!" / The two watermelons can't get married because they cantaloupe.
..........There'll be lots of time and wine.........Laura Nyro …..Stoned Soul Picnic
Moonbeam: You are free and that is why you are lost. --Franz Kafka
Naturally Occurring Mandala of the Week: Watermelon

Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: My wife just completed a 40 week body building program this morning. It's a girl and weighs 71ls, 12 oz. --Submitted by fnog
Week of the Week: Roswell UFO Days (3-6) --Scientists Decode the First Message From an Alien Civilization: Simply send 6 x 10 to the 50th atoms of Hydrogen to the Star System at the top of the list, cross off that star system, then put your Star System at the bottom of the list and send it to 100 other Star Systems. Within one-tenth of a Galactic Rotation you will receive enough hydrogen to power your civilization until entropy reaches its maximum! IT REALLY WORKS!
The watermelon is 50% water. The other 50% is melon. / Thanks to Uber Eats, ordering Chinese takeaway for a picnic is as easy as a wok in the park.
..........She dipped down spun around and doe-see-doed.........Tracy Byrd …..Watermelon Crawl
^ Normally, plastic items take up to 1000 years to decompose in landfills. But plastic bags we use in our everyday life take 10-20 years to decompose, while plastic bottles take 450 years.
Almanac: It is Friday, July 3, 2020. The moon will be full (Buck) on Sunday and is in Sagittarius. It is Compliment Your Mirror Day, International Chicken Wing Day, International Plastic Bag Free Day, Stay Out of the Sun Day, and Superman Day, while in Algeria it is Independence Day (1962).
Among those born on this day were Louis XI (France, 1423), Samuel de Champlain (1567), John Singleton Copley (1738), Apirana Turupa Ngata (1874), Franz Kafka (1883), George Sanders (1906), Earl Butz (1909), Dorothy Kilgallen (1913), Tony Curtis (1925), Pete Fountain (1930), Tom Stoppard (1937), Gloria Allred (1941), Geraldo Rivera (1943), and Jean-Claude Duvalier (1951).
On July third the city of Qubec was founded (1608), the first savings bank in the US opened (NYC, 1819), the first state normal school in the US opened (MA, 1839), the first pony express rider arrived in San Francisco (1861), Idaho became the 43rd state (1890), the Veterans Administration was created (1930), and the Jaycees were forced to admit women as members (1984).
Night Sky, 7/3: To casual star watchers or those without a good northern view, "Cassiopeia in July" might sound as wrong as Christmas in July. But already Cas has passed its lowest evening position of the year and is gradually gaining altitude in preparation for the coming fall and winter. Look for its flattened W shape low in the north-northeast. And the W is no longer quite level. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/sky-at-a-glance/
Max Picture of the Week: The Flying Max ~~FYI: Max is expecting a sibling already or any day now...

This Week: Saturday, July 4 – Independence Day & Indivisible Day & National Play Outside Day, O, yeah, and Independence Day
Night Sky, 7/4: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse 4:29 am UTC. Regions seeing, at least, some parts of the eclipse: South/West Europe, Much of Africa, Much of North America, South America, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and Antarctica. https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2020-july-5
Sunday, July 5 – Bikini Day
Monday, July 6 - World Kissing Day & Fried Chicken Day
Night Sky, 7/6: Venus wends its way slowly through the Hyades cluster and past Aldebaran for the next three weeks. The scene will be quite low in the brightening dawn. But every day the arrangement gains a little altitude, so the faint stars will glimmer into possible binocular view a little earlier in a slightly less bright sky
Tuesday, July 7 – Global Forgiveness Day & Tell the Truth Day
Wednesday, July 8 – Math 2.0 Day & SCUD Day (Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama)
Thursday, July 9 – National No Bra Day & World Body Painting Day
Does anybody want to buy 500 sandwiches and 250 sausage rolls? I misread the headlines and thought we were picnic buying. / What do you call a dog that herds watermelons? A Melon Collie
..........I think it was the Fourth of July..........Chicago …..Saturday in the Park
^^ It has been determined that approximately 100 MILLION marine animals are killed by plastics during the course of each year. 34% of all dead leatherback sea turtles are found to have ingested plastic due to the way that plastic bags resemble jellyfish causing in excess of 1,000 deaths per year.
'Nother Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Any zombie movie that doesn't have hordes of people running towards the zombies to deliberately get bitten because they're convinced it's a liberal hoax is going to look pretty unrealistic now. --SlothHammer --Submitted by ae of mo
Big Question of the Week: Anyone know when them black eyed peas we ate for good luck on New Year's supposed to kick in? --Submitted by sd of ks
Moonbeam: Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” --Tom Stoppard
Late Night Snacks of the Week: As we continue to live through the NyQuil nightmare that is 2020, it’s easy to believe that God said he was going out for a pack of cigarettes and then just never came home. --Samantha Bee / Trump and his allies on the right have very few tricks left in their re-election bag; they’ve apparently settled on a strategy of racist fear-mongering about Black Lives Matter protests, undermining the integrity of the election itself, and assuring you that the president’s right arm is strong enough to hold a glass of water. --Seth Meyers / My rule is, everything you think about Donald Trump is probably true. Because he’s not deep enough to get your socks wet in. He’s incredibly readable,” which is why when he ran casinos, “the house lost” . --Stephen Colbert / Instead of knowing black people and black culture, you’ve got white folks interacting with black people like they’re making contact with ET. --Trevor Noah / There are days when it can feel difficult to fully capture the gravity of the situation we’re in. But there are other days when you realize there are really no words to convey just how seismically, historically, earth-shatteringly stupid everything is right now. --Seth Meyers
Not So Late Night Snacks of the Week: If you've ever hung out with a bunch of Deadheads and thought, I'd like to smell like them, well, take a whiff of this. Grateful Dead deodorant comes in scents like working man (ph) and sunshine, which are probably references to Dead lyrics, but I don't want to have to go and listen to find out...a deodorant that lasts as unbearably long as a Grateful Dead song. Mo Rocca Wait Wait Don't Tell Me 6/27/20
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments... Declaration of Independence 7/4/76
When do you start on red and stop on green? When you're eating a watermelon! / What did the llama say when he was invited to the picnic? Alpaca lunch.
..........It's a fruit based love.........Tom Rosenthal …..Watermelon
^^^ In April of 2019, Bangladesh’s High Court ordered the government to ban single-use plastics in coastal areas and in hotels and restaurants in one year to combat pollution. In 2002 the south Asian nation was among the first countries to ban the use of plastic and polythene bags in an effort to stop them collecting in waterways and on land - although the ban has had little success.
Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Thou shalt wear a mask in public. --Hygenesis 3:16
Wicked Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Wearing a mask is not a political statement. If you need to make a political statement, write it on your mask. --NM Governor Michelle Luhan Grisham --Submitted by rhb of ks
Weird Word of the Week: Blatherskite – either a noisy talker of blatant rubbish or the foolish talk that such a person spouts. From t he old Norse Blether http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-bla1.htm
Wacky Uses for Common Products: Fix a hem temporarily. Reattach a drooping hem with a dab of chewed Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. http://www.wackyuses.com/wacky/wrigleys2.html
Antepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: The wind stopped blowing in Kansas once. We all fell down. --Submitted by abf of ks
Once there were three turtles. One day they decided to go on a picnic. When they got there, they realized they had forgotten the soda. The youngest turtle said he would go home and get it if they wouldn't eat the sandwiches until he got back. A week went by, then a month, finally a year, when the two turtles said,"oh, come on, let's eat the sandwiches." Suddenly the little turtle popped up from behind a rock and said, "If you do, I won't go!" / How are a train and a bicycle similar? You can't make watermelon juice with either of them.
...........And the livin' is easy..........Janis Joplin …..Summertime
^^^^ However, no matter how counter-intuitive it may sound, plastic bags were actually created to save the planet. That’s what the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who created them in 1959 says. Plastic bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, whose production resulted in forests being chopped down.
Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: COVID explained in gay terms; You and 10 friends are in your apartment getting ready for the Pride Parade. One has glitter. How many end up with glitter on them? --Submitted by ae of mo
Canceled Science Fiction Convention of the Week: Westercon 2020 (2-5) --Westercon has announced that this year’s event will not go forward, but will instead take place in 2021. Westercon 74 will take place in 2022.
Actual Science Convention of the Week: EMBL Drosophila Genetics and Genomics: 96/28-7/3) – Heidelberg Germany. --The fruit fly Drosophila has played a leading role in the discovery and dissection of basic biological processes https://www.embl.de/training/events/2020/DRG20-01/
Puck the Brave Episode of the Week: Here's our fearless Puck watching, always watching.

I have the head of a watermelon, the arms of two French baguettes, the chest of two pillows. What am I? Banned from the supermarket. / When I was a kid we were so poor we had to eat sitting on the floor. Every supper, mom would cook up another batch of filet mignons and we’d sit around on the floor eating them like a picnic. One day dad came home and said he’d taken a gamble and bought us a table. Ever since then, the steaks have been raised.
..........I was sittin' in Miami pourin' blended whiskey down.........Tom T Hall …..Watermelon Wine
^^^^^Only 1 percent of bags are returned for recycling.
Month of the Week: July is National Deli Sandwich Month – Noah's sons walked into a kosher deli and order sandwiches. “Sorry,” said the owner, “We don't serve Ham”. / My deli owner has a rye sense of humor.
Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I get most of my exercise these days from shaking my head in disbelief. --Submitted by inrith
Today's Peace of History, July 3, 1835: Children employed in the silk mills at Paterson, NJ, went on strike for an eleven-hour workday and a six-day workweek rather than 12-14 hour days. With the help of adults, they won a compromise settlement of a 69-hour week.
I think there's nothing cooler than being a lone wolf. Except at wolf picnics when I don't have a partner for the wolf wheelbarrow races. / A watermelon committed suicide because, it couldn't handle all the MELONcholy in its life.
..........At Rincon they're walking the nose.........Beach Boys …..Surfin' Safari
Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle July 3, 2020, ePistle Alfresco. Comedy, Calmness, and Clambakes! Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ . Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. 2511 Morningside Dr. Lawrence, KS 66047
Moonbeam: The more I know about men, the more I like dogs. --Gloria Allred
Cost of War: As of 6/25/20 Military Costs of War since 2001: $3,040,734,679,692.
As of 6/25/20 Military Costs of War since 2001: $3,038,724,931,912.
As of 6/25/20 Homeland Security Costs since 2001: $975,829,446,722.
As of 6/25/20 Homeland Security Costs since 2001: $974,463,609,751.
As of 6/25/20 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $776,414,259,818.
As of 6/25/20 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $774,697,206,494.
As of 6/25/20 Veterans Care since 2001: $332,094,168,684.
As of 6/25/20 Veterans Care since 2001: $331,703,928,773.
As of 6/25/20 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $5,125,073,335,938.
As of 6/25/20 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $5,119,590,433,362.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us... Declaration of Independence 7/4/76
Famous Last Words: ...you know how I love a party. --Rudy Vallee who died on July 3, 1986.
..........Baby, you're the end of June.........Harry Styles …..Watermelon Sugar
If I had a nickel for every watermelon I've chucked at my neighbors window. I still wouldn't have enough bail money for a vandalism lawsuit. / What did the ghost couple take with them to the park? A picnic casket.
May Peace bring the wine
And Joy fill the basket
prairie mama
christine


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