The Lion and the Echo

The King of the Beasts, deep in the wood,
Roared as loudly as it could.
Right away the echo came back
And the lion thought itself under attack.


"What voice is it that roars like mine?"
The echo replied, "Mine, mine."


"Who might you be?" asked the furious lion,
"I'm king of this jungle, this jungle is mine."
And the echo came back a second time,
"This jungle is mine, is mine, is mine."


The lion swore revenge if only it could
Discover the intruder in the wood.
It roared "Coward! Come out and show yourself!"
But the fearless echo replied simply ". . .elf."


"Come out," roared the lion, "Enough deceit,
Do you fear for your own defeat?"
But all the echo did was repeat
"Defeat . . . defeat . . . "


Frightened by every conceivable sound,
The exhausted lion sank to the ground.
A bird in a tree looked down and it said,
"Dear lion, I"m afraid that what you hear
Is simply the voice of your lion-sized fear."
-Brian Patten

Marshmallows!

I've been wanting to make homemade marshmallows, and just haven't gotten around to doing it.....BUT! after surfing the internet looking at things of interest, I came across these delightful photos, and decided I'll have to do it soon. :)

Fly Me to the Moon

I really like the song Fly Me to the Moon. It's so simple and sweet! There are a lot of versions of it. Wikipedia lists a whole bunch of people who have sang the song. My two favorites are by Julie London and Jang Geun Suk.

                     

For Tom . . .

Happy Happy Birthday! You're an awesome brother-in-law!

I think most of you know by now that I have a thing for giraffes. :) I recently discovered a book by Roald Dahl called "The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me," and I sooo want to read it!

Yesterday I went to St. Louis with Mara Unni, Exie, and Havalah for Rachel's birthday. On our way to meet Rachel at the Container Store, we stopped at Whole Foods Market and stocked up on (delicious) vegan jerky! Per Rachel's request, we ate lunch at Jilly's Cupcake Bar & Cafe (the cupcakes were AMAZING!) and then went to the St. Louis Art Museum! At the art museum there was a painting of fishes swimming in the Hao river and a placard was beneath it with this dialogue:


Zhuangzi: "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"


Huizi: "You are not a fish, how do you know what fish enjoy?"


Zhuangzi: "You are not I-so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"


Huizi: "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish-so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"


Zhuangzi: "Let's go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy-so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."




p.s. pictures of the trip will be posted sometime next week, because Exie has the camera and is attending a horse camp!

Did You Know?

• A giraffe's tongue is purple(black) to protect it from the hot African sun! 

• MY PARENTS ARE GONE FOR THE WEEKEND AND WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A FOOD FIGHT IN THE HOUSE!!!!!! Oh. Maybe not. :')
• The average chocolate bar has eight insect legs in it. Ugh, that's hairy. 
• A study found that those who believe they are receiving undeserved injustices in their life are 55% more likely to have a heart attack. Therefore, the best thing you can do for you heart is to get over the idea that: "Life isn't fair."
• It is illegal to walk across the Minnesota-Wisconson border with a duck on your head. -Law of Minnesota
•  People do live underground!
• During World War II, the Navajo language was used as a code in the Pacific War by bilingual Navajo code talkers to send secure military messages over radio. This had the advantage of being an extremely fast method of encrypted communication. The code was never broken by the Japanese, who were mystified by the sounds they intercepted. Navajo was chosen as a code language not only because it is very hard but also because there was no published grammar or dictionary of the language and because native speakers were readily available. Nearly everything that a language must do is done differently by Navajo than by English. For example in English, we only mark one person on the verb--third person singular, present tense (I read --> he reads) with a suffix. Navajo marks all of the persons with a prefix on the verb.
• CHAR­GOGAGOG­MAN­CHAR­GOGAGOG­CHAR­BUNA­GUNGAMOG, Is another name for Lake Webster in Massachusetts. Carazy, right?