Zoic ePistle

 Famous First Words: This Charter, together with all amendments, if any, --Charter of the City of Albany

It's National Zoo Keeper Week (17-23): I went to the zoo and I saw a baguette in a cage. I asked Zeta the zookeeper about it. She said it was bread in captivity. / Zechariah the zookeeper lost one of the elephants. He put a personal ad in all the local newspapers, but elephants can't read, so it didn't do any good.

.......wild-eyed pistol wavers who ain't afraid to die.........Don Henley …..All She Wants To Do Is Dance

The world is now too small for anything but brotherhood. --Arthur Powell Davies

It is a gorgeous Friday morning. The thermometer is currently at 76°F on its march upward. Today's sky is a restful slate blue with tiny wisps of clouds, or decaying jet streams, or parties of water molecules gathered together for a leisurely flight south. Birds are flitting about and I can hear them chirp but it is cicada humming that dominates the soundtrack. While the soil is beginning to crack under the foliage, the lawns and flower beds and gardens are green and lush. Puck coaxes me across the street to greet the cleaning crews that meet down the block before venturing into today's dirty houses. He sniffs the bag and it is only bottles of cleaning stuff so he moves on back towards home. And home feels cooler than the world and smells of coffee and incense. It is friendly and familiar. Puck drinks his saucer of ½ and ½ while I doctor up my decaf, Now he is curled at my feet sleeping off the vigorous exercise of a walk down the block and back. I sip the hot sweet liquid, mmuum. Even better, now I get to sit almost still and think about you.

Have a wise prinning weekend, ePistliers

First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Charcuterie is French for “I'd like a sandwich, but I don't have any bread.”

Zoey the Zookeeper works in the zoo's new replacement Pachyderm Palace. It was still brand new and only open to the public on Tuesdays. It's a periodic stable of elephants.

..........where the tree of life in eternal bloom.........Don Henley …..The Unclouded Day

Trivia Questions: Alex Trebek would have turned 82 today.

• ^ We all know that Alex was Canadian; in what city was he born?
• ^^ What was Alex's full name?
• ^^^ Do you know anything about Alex's higher education?
• ^^^^ What was Alex's early experience in broadcasting?
• ^^^^^ What other game shows did Trebek host?

Big Hello: Terve – Finnish https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm

Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: A tawny owl has taken over the kids' old paddling pool. Now it's a #hoottub

Max Picture of the Week: Spiderman Max plays the harp

Fake Library Statistics of the Week: 14% of librarians have an “emergency reading” book they use in high anxiety situations. https://www.facebook.com/FakeLibStats/?fref=ts

Zebulon the Zookeeper called the kitchen and said, “we're out of camel food”. And the animal chef said, “Alpaca lunch”. / Elephants at the Gage Park Zoo in Topeka are wrinkly because Zuzie the zookeeper refuses to iron them.

..........The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.........Don Henley …..Everybody Knows

Moonbeam: The energy of an electron after the collision is studied by determining the retarding potential which it can still overcome. --Gustav Ludwig Hertz

Meditation of the Week: How do you decide what is right and what is wrong? --David Hume

Puzzle of the Week: Write down the last names of two U.S. Presidents (6,4). Move a letter from the second name into the first one. You'll name a vehicle that's used for special occasions. What is it? --NPR Sunday Puzzle 7/17/22

Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Philosophy is when you add the term “itself” to anything you say and the more often you use it, the philosophier it is. – Immanuel Kant

Insult of the Week: Intelligent thoughts have always followed him but he was faster. --Russian

Zara the zookeeper lost her job at the San Diego zoo. She didn't think it was fair. There were signs everywhere saying “Do Not Feed the Animals”. So she didn't. / Ziggy the zookeeper could take his elephant on vacation because her trunk wouldn't fit under the seat in front.

..........Too many blessings, too little appreciation.........Don Henley …..My Thanksgiving

^ Alex was born in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

Almanac: It is Friday, July 22, 2022. The moon went into the last quarter last Wednesday (7/20) and is in Taurus. It is Fragile X Awareness Day, National Penuche Fudge Day, Rat-catchers Day, Spooners (Spoonerism) Day, and Pi Approximation Day (22/7) aka Casual Pi Day. In Poland it is Liberation Day (1944) and in Swaziland they celebrate the King's Birthday.

Among those born on this day were Philip the Handsome (1506), Gregor Mendel (1822), **William Archibald Spooner (1844), Emma Lazarus (1849), Edward Hopper (1882), Gustav Hertz (1887), Raymond Chandler (1888), Alexander Calder (1898), Robert Dole (1923), Margaret Whiting (1924), Orsen Bean (1928), Yuri P Artyukhin (1930), Oscar de la Renta (1932), Alex Trebek (1940), George Clinton (1941), Sparky Lyle (1944), Bobby Sherman (1945), Albert Brooks (1947), Don Henley (1947), and Willem Dafoe (1955). **Wise Prinning is a Spoonerism for Prize Winning

On July twenty-second the second Roanoke Island colony was established (1587), the City of Albany was chartered (NY, 1686), Cleveland was founded (OH, 1796), the 5th modern Olympics closed (Stockholm, 1912), Kerensky became Russian PM (1917), Caterina Jarboro sang Aida and became the first negro prima donna in the US (1933), Wiley Post completed the first round-the-world solo flight (1933), Jane Matilda Bolin became the first black female judge (NYC, 1939), Poland adopted its constitution (1952), Sonny Liston KOed Floyd Robinson (1963), Aretha Franklin was arrested for distrubing the peace (Detroit, 1969), and Venera 8 landed softly on Venus (1972).

Night Sky, 7/22: Bright Arcturus is still pretty high after dark, but as summer progresses, it moves down the western side of the evening sky. Its pale ginger-ale tint always helps identify it. Off to its right is the Big Dipper. Arcturus forms the bottom point of the Kite of Bootes. The Kite, rather narrow, extends upper right from Arcturus by 23°, about two fists at arm's length. The lower side of the kite is dented inward, as if some invisible celestial intruder banged into it. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/sky-at-a-glance/

Brothers Picture of the Week: Ollie and Max staring out the window of an airborne plane

This Week: Saturday, July 23 – Gorgeous Grandma Day & Hot Enough For Ya Day

Sunday, July 24 – Pioneer Day (Utah – This must be the place) & Cousins Day & Tequila Day & Tell An Old Joke Day

Night Sky, 7/24: Mars, magnitude +0.3 in Aries, rises around 1 am and hangs high in the east-southeast as dawn begins. It's about three fists lower left of bright Jupiter. Mars is still very small in a telescope, 8 arcseconds in apparent diameter.

Monday, July 25 – Carousel Day aka Merry-Go-Round Day & Hire A Veteran Day & Red Shoe Day for Lyme Disease

Tuesday, July 26 – Americans With Disabilities Day & Aunts and Uncles Day & Bagelfest Day

Wednesday, July 27 – Love Is Kind Day & National Korean Armistice Day & Take Your Houseplant For A Walk Day

Night Sky, 7/27: Saturn, magnitude +0.4 in western Capricornus, rises in the east-southeast in late twilight. It's highest in the south for best telescopic viewing in the two hours before dawn (4:19 am cdt). (Dawn begins now about 2 hours before sunrise.)

Thursday, July 28 – Buffalo Soldiers Day & National Waterpark Day

Zane the new zookeeper was killed at work. Moral: No lion on your resume / Zally the zookeeper couldn't remember what to call the elephants. Her boss said, “it's irelephant”

..........But you can't teach my heart to forget.........Don Henley & Dolly Parton …..When I Stop Dreaming

^^ He was born George Alexander Trebek.

Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Remember, I am under no obligation to make sense to you. --Submitted by Where My Demons Hide

Suggestion of the Week: We should start naming heat waves after fossil fuel companies. --Submitted by MMS ~~The first in line alphabetically is British Petroleum known as BP or beepee. Let's call this one Beepee.

Moonbeam: If you're hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You'll get the same kind of feeling and you won't have to pay. --Robert Dole

Video of the Week: Next weekend Little Feat is coming to KC on a reunion tour. Here's Little Feat doing Don't Bogart That Joint (the one minute version, not the ten minute one –you're welcome) Little Feat (Live) "Don't Bogart That Joint" (1978) - YouTube

Not So Late Night Snacks of the Week: What will we see next from the James West Telescope? The reason we don't know exactly how old the universe is, is because it's had work done. --Adam Burke Wait Wait Don't Tell Me 7/16/22

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. --Amelia Earhart

Zelda the zookeeper caught me smoking a camel. I told her I'd kill a giraffe too if she didn't keep his mouth shut./ Zamuel the zookeeper cared for an elephant with such a long trunk they called it a smellephant.

..........And I play it as it lays.........Don Henley …..The Cost Of Living

^^^ Trebek graduated from the University of Ottawa with a degree in philosophy in 1961.

Antepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: There are no white people in the Bible. Take all the time you need with this...

Weird Word of the Week: Yedsirag – foreman, crew head ...from Oxfordshire, England World Wide Words: Yedsirag

Ollie's Very Own Picture of the Week: Ollie meets the Hula Hoop

Wacky Uses for Common Products: Condition hair and prevent split ends and frizzes. Massage Aunt Jemima Original Syrup into dry hair, cover hair with a shower cap (or wrap your head in Saran Wrap_ for thirty minutes, then shampoo and rinse thoroughly. Aunt Jemima® Original Syrup: Wacky Uses

One of the jobs of Zachariah the Zookeeper was to groom the koalas. When Kelly the Koala saw her reflection in a mirror she said, “Eucalyptus!”. / Zuri the zookeeper was appointed curator of the Zoo's Tooth Museum because she's a multi-tusker.

...........You know the boys in the newsroom got a running bet.........Don Henley …..Dirty Laundry

^^^^ "I went to school (college) in the mornings and worked at nights; I did everything, at one time replacing every announcer in every possible job." He would eventually read the CBC national radio news and cover a wide range of special events for Canadian Broadcasting Company radio and television including curling and horse racing.

Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Absurdity is the state assigning you The Grapes of Wrath at 16 and tear gassing you at 26 for understanding it. --Aren R LeBrun

Science Fiction Convention of the Week: ConGregate 8 (22-24, Winston-Salem, NC) Speculative fiction convention in the Piedmont Triad region. ConGregate 8 (con-gregate.com)

Extra Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Collective Nouns: A large group of Karens is called a Homeowners' Association. --Submitted by rk of ks

Actual Science Conference of the Week: International Conference on Science and Technology (21-22, Tokyo, Japan) academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results International Conference on Science and Technology ICST in July 2022 in Tokyo (waset.org)

Answer to Puzzle of the Week: Carter, Bush --> Charter bus

The bear in our local zoo is losing his eyesight, so Zain the zookeeper decided to try some prescription glasses on him. It's quite a grizzly spectacle. / Zara the zookeeper was famous for her Pachyderm Float. 2 scoops of ice cream, banana soda, and enough elephant to fill the glass.

..........And there ain't enough whiskey in Texas.........Don Henley …..You're Not Drinking Enough

^^^^^ Alex has hosted The Wizard of Odds (73), High Rollers (75-76 & 78-80), Double Dare (not the one on Nickelodeon, 77), The Pillsbury Bake-Off (94), The $128,000 Question (98). He began hosting Jeopardy in 1984.

My Own Writing of the Week: I became convinced that any woman could enjoy sex and be good or bad for wholly other reasons. Many women enjoy sex and are good women, in spite of the allegedly morally corrosive nature of it. Why did society teach us not to enjoy it? If you enjoy your time in the bedroom, you might begin to want to enjoy yourself at work, in the kitchen, in your life in general. It could lead to women wanting meaningful jobs and adequate pay. My own sainted mother once said that while she didn't much like being pregnant she did like "making babies". (By the way, she said this when I was well into my adult years and had children of my own, not when I was a teenager and could have used a little direction.)

Among those of us trying to cope with this mess the most common response was to pretend to not like sex. Lots of women tried this; many had affairs later so they didn't have to pretend all the time. Some let their husbands in on the joke. But we still didn't talk about it.

Things haven't changed a whole lot, women on television today (comedy and drama) are allowed to be doctors and lawyers and pilots but the men around them, men who are doctors or lawyers are so totally disgusted by words like period and blood that they resort to noises and lowering their eyes. So we're still telling girls to be ashamed of their bodies. --Always Surrender: Memories, observations, micro-stories, fantasies, and lies from my life as an insurgent in the sexual revolution

Quote of the Week: This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. --Dorothy Parker in her review of Atlas Shrugged.

Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Pompeii Italy uncovered the ruins of the house Keith Richards grew up in.

Today's Peace of History, July 22, 1987: President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (named for a member of Congress from Connecticut) which provided emergency relief provisions for shelter, food, mobile health care, and transitional housing for homeless Americans.

Zookeeper Kevin failed so badly by letting the lions escape, he lost his pride. / Zephyr the zookeeper was trying to explain to her boss how the baby elephant fell into the pond. “What was the first thing that happened after he fell in?, she asked. “He got wet”, Zephyr replied.

..........to Six Flags Over Jesus.........Don Henley …..Little Tin God

Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle July 22, 2022, Zoic ePistle. Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. Lawrence, KS

Moonbeam: He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. --Raymond Chandler

Cost of War:

• As of 7/21/22 State Department War Costs since 2001: $183,344,217,996.
• As of 7/14/22 State Department War Costs since 2001: $182,758,771,043.
• As of 7/21/22 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $1,071,202,904,206.
• As of 7/14/22 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $1,069,567,707,119.
• As of 7/21/22 Homeland Security since 2001: $1,110,856,735,277.
• As of 7/14/22 Homeland Security since 2001: $1,110,220,810,080.
• As of 7/21/22 Veterans Care since 2001: 2,545,255,789,522.
• As of 7/14/22 Veterans Care since 2001: 2,532,860,725,142.
• As of 7/21/22 Military Costs since 2001: $2,973,006,161,059.
• As of 7/14/22 Military Costs since 2001: $2,971,754,259,362.
• As of 7/21/22 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $7,883,668,375,561.
• As of 7/14/22 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $7,867,175,351,792.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

Let us bring equality, justice, and peace for all. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. It is our duty. --Malala Yousafzai

Famous Last Words: See, brightly opens the sky, an endless morrow; there all unshadowed eternal shall glow! --Aida's final words

..........Your pain and your hunger, they're driving you home.........The Eagles with Don Henley …..Desperado

Last month Zander applied for a zookeeper position in Australia. Today, he received a rejection letter. They said he didn't have the right koalafications. / Zoolander the zookeeper was in charge of “enrichment” for the elephants. He invented elevision.

May Peace fill your heart

And Joy fill your mind

prairie mama

christine

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