Famous First Words: You'll always be a part of me...I'll See You Again (Westlife) ~~Noel Coward's Motto Song
It is Philip K Dick's birthday! Dick is the most paranoid writer I have ever encountered. I, myself, am not paranoid. I'm just acutely aware of all the things that can go catastrophically wrong in life. / She was both paranoid and annoying. I call her Karenoid.
..........Lighting candles by the sea.........Tom Lehrer …..Hanukkah in Santa Monica
This is the season when people of all faiths are pushing back against the planetary dark. We string bulbs, ignite fires, and light candles. And we sing. --Anita Diamant
It is a cold (28°F) Friday morning. I have been to the doctor. This sounds so simple, but the street in front of my doctor's office has been under reconstruction since June and is not yet half finished. So it is through a sea of orange cones and closed intersections that I made it. He said we all have had flu and hot showers would help clear the crud from our lungs. Other than than, I'm fine. I am home now, brewing a pot of my new Christmas Coffee called Nuttin' but Kisses. It smells wonderful and I can hardly wait to taste it. A Thank You Shout-Out to the Ohio ePistliers for that. Oops, there's Puck barking at the door because even critters with fur coats aren't interested in staying outside. I slept through the night without coughing myself awake, the sun is shining from almost as far south and it can go, and the weather promises to make it up to freezing. December in Kansas – who can resist it.
Hope your weekend lights up your life, ePistliers.
First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Today I'm going to give it my some. --Submitted by INRITH
Paranoia has reached absurd stages: I sneezed in front of my computer and the anti-virus started a scan all on its own. / How many paranoids does it take to change a light bulb? Who wants to know?
..........Put on your yarmulke.........Adam Sandler …..The Chanukah Song
Trivia Questions: It is Barbie and Barney Backlash Day !
- ^ How old is Barbie these days?
- ^^ For that matter, how old is Barney (the children's tv dinosaur)?
- ^^^ What animal was Barney slated to be?
- ^^^^ How many Barbies are there altogether?
- ^^^^^ In the 1965 “Slumber Party Barbie” what book was included?
Big Hello: Ndeewo – Igbo (Nigeria & Equatorial Guinea) https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Netflix should have a category called: Easy to Follow while Knitting. --Rebecca Hains
Image of the Week: Pink Cadillac Menorah
Fake Library Statistics of the Week: 98% of books with a green cover are unavailable until January as they're being used for the library's book tree. https://www.facebook.com/FakeLibStats/?fref=ts
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. / I don't know whether my paranoia is getting worse or whether that's just what they want me to think.
..........I am confused about all those N's and K's..........The LeeVees …..How Do You Spell Channukkahh
Moonbeam: Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. --Jane Austen
Meditation of the Week: Why is there anything at all? --Ludwig Wittgenstein
Puzzle of the Week: From Joseph Young of St. Cloud, Minn. who runs the website Puzzleria! Name a symbol punctuation mark on a computer keyboard. Anagram to get the brand name of a product you might buy at a grocery, in two words. What is it?
Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Instead of repaying my student loans, I'm returning my diploma. It didn't work. --Stahler --Submitted by bc of tx
Paranoia is so intense, we've started arming security cameras with weapons. / The influencer was diagnosed with paranoia because she believed nobody was following her.
..........Oh, I'll really end up in a royal stew..........Debbie Friedman …..The Latke Song
^ Barbie was born March 5, 1959; so she is 63 years old.
Almanac: It is Friday, December 16, 2022. The moon goes to the last quarter today and is in Virgo. It is National Chocolate-covered Anything Day, Barbie & Barney Backlash Day, and Free Shipping Day (Some years). In Bahrain it is National Day and México celebrates Posadas Days/Lodgings. Nepal commemorates Constitution Day (1962). Because it is the third Friday it is also National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day and Underdog Day
Among those born on this day were Catherine of Aragon (1485), Giovanni Maria Casini (1652), Georg Weimar (1734), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770), Jane Austen (1775), E.E. Barnard (1857), Walther Meissner (1882), Noel Coward (1899), Margaret Mead (1901), Arthur C Clarke (1917), G Randall Garrett (1927), Peter Dickinson (1927), Philip K Dick (1928), Liv Ullman (1929), Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top, 1949), William "the Refrigerator" Perry (1962), Benjamin Bratt (1963), and Billy Ripkin (1964).
On December sixteenth England's Henry VI crowned king of France (1431), English Parliament adopted the Bill of Rights after Glorious Revolution (1689), the Boston Tea Party was held (1773), the Republic of South Africa formed (1880), Dvorak's New World Symphony premiered (1893), Variety was first published (1905), and President Clinton named his Labrador retriever, Buddy (1997).
Night Sky, 12/16: The little Pleiades cluster shines high in the southeast after dinnertime, upper right of Mars by about a fist at arm's length. How many Pleiades can you count with your unaided eye? Take your time and keep looking. Most people with good vision can count 6. But with sharper eyesight, a good dark sky, and a steady gaze, you may be able to make out 8 or 9. Binoculars show several dozen. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/sky-at-a-glance/
Fraternal Picture of the Week: Christmas Elves ~~Elf Ollie is wearing dinosaur camo while Elf Max is sporting tan lines
This Week: Saturday, December 17 – Clean Air Day & Wright Brothers Day
Sunday, December 18 – First day of Hanukkah & Answer the Phone Like Buddy The Elf Day
Night Sky, 12/18: Have you ever watched a Sirius-rise? Find an open view right down to the east-southeast horizon, and watch for Sirius to come up about two fists at arm's length below Orion's vertical belt. Sirius rises sometime around 8 pm. now, depending on your location.
Monday, December 19 – I have no holidays for December 19th this year. FREE DAY
Tuesday, December 20 – Games Day & Mudd Day & National Sangria Day
Wednesday, December 21 – Winter Solstice & Humbug Day & World Peace Day
Night Sky, 12/21: Mercury and Venus glimmer very low in the bright afterglow of sunset. Try for them with binoculars 20 or 30 minutes after sundown, just above the southwest horizon. Venus is by far the brighter of the two at magnitude –3.9. Mercury, 5° or 6° to Venus's upper left all week, is only mag –0.6. They both get a little higher and easier day by day.
Thursday, December 22 – Be A Lover of Silence Day & Forefathers Day
Thank you for calling the Paranoia Help-line. Please hold while your call is traced. / The opposite of paranoia is thinking you are following someone.
..........Dreidels to play with and latkes to eat.........Glee Cast …..Hanukkah, Oh, Hanukkah
^^ Barney first appeared April 9, 1992 and is 30 years old.
Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. --Arthur C Clarke
Moonbeam: Extraordinary how potent cheap music is. --Noel Coward
Video of the Week: MC Flow – Pot In The Latkes ~~I was so damned high I felt practically biblical~~
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. --James Keller
A man walks into a library and asks the librarian for books on paranoia. She whispers, “They're right behind you.” / My partner just left me because of my anxiety and paranoia. O, never mind, she just came back from bowling.
..........You got your macca-macca-bees.........Shira Kline …..Chanukah Bamba
^^^ Barney was originally intended to be a bear. After Sheryl Leach's son, Patrick, went to a dinosaur exhibit, the character became a dinosaur.
Antepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Parents: Make sure to give your children all the attention they need, so they don't grow up to be Kyrsten Sinema --Jeff Tiedrich --Submitted by rhb of ks
Weird Word of the Week: Sabermetrician – a person who studies baseball statistics. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-sab1.htm
Dragon of the Week: Hanukkah Dragon
Wacky Uses for Common Products: Break in a baseball glove. Rub the center of the glove with Barbasol shaving cream, place a baseball in the glove, fold the mitt around it, and secure with rubber bands. Tuck the glove under the mattress overnight. https://www.wackyuses.com/wacky/barbasol.html
Talk about paranoid, he reads the fine print on money. / I called the paranoia hot line and they asked me how I got their number.
...........Nights and days, days and nights.........Indigo Girls …..Happy Joyous Hanukkah
^^^^ There are more than 170 Barbies with different skin tones and hairstyles for children to choose and see themselves in.
Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Some people couldn't be nice even if a unicorn shoved a fairy wand up their a** while Judy Garland stood there singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. --Submitted by RHOZ
Science Fiction Convention of the Week: Stranger Fan Meet 6 (17-18, Paris, France) Dedicated to Stranger Things https://comic-cons.xyz/event/stranger-fan-meet/
Actual Science Conference of the Week: International Conference on Science Technology and Management (15-17, Queens County, NY) Connect, Meet and Build a Strong Network. https://10times.com/icstm-new-york
Answer to Puzzle of the Week: Semicolon → Molson Ice
Congratulations on being justified in your paranoia about being laid off. / No, the real question is why aren't you paranoid?
..........that's small and made of clay.........Matt Stone …..Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel
^^^^^ In 1965 Mattel included the book “How to Lose Weight” with their Barbie.
My Own Writing of the Week: I fell in love with the Limey at first sight. Taller than me but not Apollo tall, he was lean and ginger-haired. I fell even before I heard that lilting accent. His thinning hair was almost orange and his skin was so white it was nearly opaque. I was standing behind him at an elevator and could not take my eyes off of the hair hanging down the slope of his back which was hidden behind a t-shirt. The shirt was blue and empty of wit or advertisement. It wasn't until the next morning that I discovered his delightful voice, he was in my SQL Server Training class. As we were all getting to know each other, he seemed to be shy ... class, lunch...not quite so shy, happy hour ...a little looser...dinner... my room, all shyness gone. He shed coat, tie, shirt, undershirt, pants, and briefs and was nude but for socks almost before I got the door secured and he had me down to my garter belt and dangling hose before we got to the bed. In memory it seemed like he never stopped kissing me while he managed this but I think that is not possible so I must remember it wrong.
He was also given to victory dances which were kind of fun and floppy. And he certainly was not at all shy about asking me to do things that I might have once thought I was too shy to do. We spent two wonderful nights together and then the class was over and we never saw each other again.
If I had been rich, I would have had beautiful young men sitting around my house all the time playing music or painting or reading. I wouldn't care much what they did, really.
From Always Surrender by Christine Smith
By the Way of the Week: So, last week, I put the ePistle on the Blogspot page and Blogspot told me that it was putting a “WARNING” to readers on it. It was late, I was sick. It took me a couple of days to get back to it. I changed a single word, replacing a uc with asterisks. The site reviewed it and let it stand even though there were graphic references not connected to a single word. So in the future you may find asterisks in the writing but the juice will still be there.
Quote of the Week: A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. --Herm Albright
Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I can't tell if that ugly holiday sweater is hurting my ears or my eyes.
Today's Peace of History, December 16, 1969: "War is Over! If You Want It, Happy Christmas from John & Yoko" posters begin appearing. https://www.beatlesbible.com/1969/12/15/john-lennon-yoko-ono-war-is-over-poster-campaign-launched/
Me: Librarian, where are the books on paranoia? Librarian: Who wants to know? / Why are there never any good side effects? Just once I'd like to read a medication bottle that says: “Caution, may cause extreme sexiness”.
..........And a bag of chocolate coins.........They Might Be Giants …..Feast of Lights
Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle December 16, 2022, What ePistle? Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. 2511 Morningside Dr. Lawrence, KS 66047
Moonbeam: I was wise enough never to grow up. --Margaret Mead
Cost of War:
- As of 12/16/22 State Department War Costs since 2001: $195,033,808,489.
- As of 12/08/22 State Department War Costs since 2001: $194,453,743,807.
- As of 12/16/22 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $1,103,853,171,352.
- As of 12/08/22 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $1,102,233,023,167.
- As of 12/16/22 Homeland Security since 2001: $1,123,553,932,213.
- As of 12/08/22 Homeland Security since 2001: $1,122,923,853,082.
- As of 12/16/22 Veterans Care since 2001: $2,792,751,051,326.
- As of 12/08/22 Veterans Care since 2001: $2,780,470,817,901.
- As of 12/16/22 Military Costs since 2001: $2,997,796,117,289.
- As of 12/08/22 Military Costs since 2001: $2,996,565,946,855.
- As of 12/16/22 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $8,212,991,023,476.
- As of 12/08/22 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $8,196,649,357,096.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
The proper response, as Hanukkah teaches, is not to curse the darkness but to light a candle. --Irving Greenberg
Famous Last Words: Such ihn über'm Sternenzelt. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9
..........And we march on.........LeeVees …..Goyim Friends
My therapist says I'm paranoid. He didn't “actually” say that, but I know he was thinking it. / Paranoia is reality seen on a finer scale.
May Peace comfort you
And Joy sustain you
prairie mama
christine
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