Petfinder Post: Monday Was Ginger Cat Day

So today we celebrate ginger, orange, red, yellow, or marmalade cats (and matching dogs). 

Do they bring bad luck? Well, although they can be female, the majority of ginger cats are male. If you think that's bad luck, this web site hopes it's the worst luck you ever have. Many people love their "Ginger Toms." 

I used to share a house with one who started out as William the Conker (Because He's Chestnut) (colored), but usually answered to "Willy." He was a very nice, cool cat. He purred and snuggled up beside his human, ignored me, and did not make the house smell bad. If they love you, they can learn.

This web site remembers Cat Sanctuary graduates and visitors...

Little Al 

Bounce and Pounce 

Bisquit

Little Mo

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/09/lonely-social-cat-bonds-with-dog.html

Trumpkin

Borowiec

and Diego

Now the living, adoptable ginger cats (and matching dogs):

Zipcode 10101: Franklin from NYC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/franklin-29459150/ny/new-york/anjellicle-cats-rescue-ny488/

...is cluttered with irrelevant kitten photos. Yes, he was a cute kitten once. Now Franklin is an older cat. He has a chronic medical condition that is managed with medication, which his former humans say they'll pay for if you'll take over the responsibility of keeping him. He is described as quiet, almost never meowing, and affectionate, more likely to touch people than to meow when something needs their attention. 

Zipcode 20202: Favorite from DC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/favorite-78046007/dc/washington/lucky-dog-animal-rescue-dc20/

Siblings First, Forrest, and Frisky didn't show up on a search for orange cats. If you're not looking for a companion for a lonely only kitten, you should ask about them. Serena says all kittens need other kittens to play with. "Humans scream too piteously when you give them a good satisfying chomp" seems an accurate translation of her nonverbal comments on this subject. Anyway, Favorite is his foster humans' favorite of the litter, a typical bouncy-pouncy kitten who will probably learn to get along with everyone in the house. The adoption contract includes neutering before the end of January. 

Zipcode 30303: Clementine from Marietta

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/clementine-77765590/ga/marietta/friends-of-shelter-animals-for-cobb-county-ga50/

Don't those eyes just say "Get me out of here, I've done nothing wrong"? Clementine was found living on the streets. She is undersized, possibly an effect of having been an alley cat. However, she's friendly with humans and was probably a pet kitten once. She is thought to be two years old. 

The phrase "orange dog" does not refer to a dog. It's a common nickname for the young Giant Swallowtail butterfly, which eats orange leaves. Orange Dogs don't kill their host trees but they are among the largest, most startling caterpillars in North America. Anyway here are some red and brown dogs in search of good homes:

Zipcode 10101: Jacob from NYC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/jacob-in-ny-to-meet-and-greet-76206316/ny/new-york/miracles-for-satos-rescue-ny1518/

The adoption fee is on the steep side. Haggle, but some sucker might pay the full amount. Jacob is a mutt whose ancestors probably included Collies and German Shepherds. He is about five years old and could live another five years. He is housebroken and leash-trained.

Zipcode 20202: Milo from DC

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/milo-78053187/dc/washington/k-9-lifesavers-dc19/

Keeping his curly poodle coat clipped really brings out its copper color. Milo is still a puppy. Things he hates are said to include "when you stop playing 'fetch' after only 87 throws." Things he loves include "zoomies at inappropriate times" and "dramatic flops in the middle of walks." His looks attract a lot of attention and he's said to love it and hate not being the center of attention. His adoption fee is on the ridiculous side because he looks like a fancy breed, but they do include more veterinary care than a healthy-looking shelter dog usually gets, and shelter staff are counting on him to help pay the cost of rescuing ordinary-looking dogs.

Well. I thought youall needed to see that gorgeous coppery coat, but I think Milo sounds high-maintenance myself, so here is an alternate DC dog:

Cassidy from DC

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/cassidy-77953708/dc/washington/city-dogs-city-kitties-rescue-dc22/

They admit they don't know much about her, except that she's about a year old, weighs almost 50 pounds, and may grow a little bigger than she already is...but have you seen a prettier retriever? She'll make anyone look like a real Maryland country gentleman or -woman. Retrievers are notoriously easy to train to dive into water and fetch things, to play gently and enjoy being petted...and very hard to train to walk at heel, avoid diving into water, or remember what more advanced commands like "sit" and "stay" mean. They're easy-care dogs, easy to love, as long as your definition of an easy life includes long brisk walks and lifting a large, wet, wiggly, but very cooperative pet. (Lifting them tends to be easier than telling them to stay in a crate, a pen, or the back of the car.) 

Zipcode 30303: Flan from Houston 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/flan-78034860/ga/atlanta/waiting-under-the-willow-foundation-wuwf-rescue-tx2467/

Six months old and eight pounds when photographed, Flan is a perky little puppy, showing more Chihuahua than anything else, still learning to make puddles on pads at a designated location rather than all over the house. She is hardly bigger than a cat and might live as long; up to twenty years. Chihuahuas' big selling point is that they don't need huge amounts of food or long walks. They can get their exercise just bouncing around the house. They will, however, sound the alarm if anything goes wrong just as effectively as a big dog would. 

Web Log for the Labor Day Weekend 2025

Microsoft being determined to continue DOWNgrading my laptop, I spent the weekend making essential technological upgrades--getting an Internet-free desktop computer running again, digging out a typewriter, and ordering a laptop with Linux. I also spent some time connecting with real-world people. Not much time online. And if Microsoft deliberately foul up that router that was deliberately chosen to maintain a connection for Microsoft that's not connected to the company the sponsors pay, again...I might get another phone and do some telemarketing in aid of a Microsoft Electronic Waste's Immediate End campaign, urging people to refuse to buy computers with versions of Windows later than 7. If Microsoft wants to remain part of the Internet, We The People can force them to work with the versions of Windows that actually worked for us. And NO "updates."

By "worked for us" I mean that computers should obey ONLY keyboard commands while they are in use (any "security updates to the Internet access codes" blah blah can wait till the computers enter hibernation mode) and that all standard keyboard commands should be obeyed at the speed at which people type. A command like "print all of the documents in the Downloads folder" might be expected to take a few minutes, but "open file," "save document," "copy and paste," etc., should never take so much as half a second. And Microsoft should agree to be bound by a contract under which they owe us serious money, which they can of course recover from anyone who loads Windows down with spyware, if even commands that take time to complete take longer than an eye-blink to be clearly recognized. Windows worked at the speed people typed twenty years ago; Windows should be required to work at the speed people type now.

Mental Health 

Mona Andrei on successful writing and single-mothering...I particularly like the tip about grocery shopping with friends. And, as a Senior Citizen, may I add: Some stores have "senior discount days." If you are a young single parent, you might be tempted to feel that that's discrimination against you. It is not. It is encouragement for intergenerational connections. It helps non-drivers, whose same-age friends lists include more non-drivers every year, to find car pools. Here's how it works: You give the senior shopper the approximate amount of money you intend to spend. You put your purchases in the same cart with the senior shopper's. You pay attention when person asks for the total for your purchases and pays that first. If you go through the checkout line together like good car pool buddies, you can say "Do you have enough cash?" and settle any differences on the spot, without anyone having to run out to the car or put something back or write a check or otherwise inconvenience people waiting in line. After shopping, you settle any differences between the amount you intended to spend and the amount actually spent. You get the 15% discount on everything. Somebody like me gets the free ride to the store. Everyone wins, even the store.

It is perfectly legal for aunts, uncles, or grandparents to buy a child's entire school outfit, if we so choose. Many aunts, uncles, and grandparents don't look at all like our nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. Skin colors and primary languages don't have to match. 

https://moxiemona.substack.com/p/that-time-the-mailperson-was-my-social 

Minneapolis Update 

He didn't do it because he'd tried "transitioning to female" and failed. He didn't do it because he was "a loner." He didn't even do it because he was a Christian-phobic bigot with Trump Derangement Syndrome, although he was and although that influenced his choice of target. He did it because homicide-suicide is the way some people react to antidepressant drugs, which are handed to "trans" people and "loners" as if they were aspirin. This story is becoming so familiar as to be tedious. It's a side effect the SSRI drugs have for some people. When those people don't have access to firearms, they find other ways to act out their homicidal-suicidal-delusional drug reaction syndrome.

https://www.beckerbrief.com/p/minnesota-church-killers-mother-takes

She might just possibly have a case against the doctor or the drug manufacturer or both. It would be a kind of progress if she actually prosecuted such a case; it would be such a relief from the tedious "debate," always pressed by our foreign enemies and always welcomed by firearms dealers because it stimulates sales, about the supposed "need" for unconstitutional bans on firearms.

"Oh but can't we ban this kind of gun because it was used in a murder..." makes as much sense as "Oh but can't we ban this kind of car because the driver killed himself and/or another person, or persons, driving it," or "Oh but can't we ban escalators because a person who fell down one was horribly mangled before person died," or "Oh but can't we ban mint candies because some people choke on them." Objects do not get up and kill people all by themselves. And whatever our foreign enemies may wish were the case, we have a Constitution that says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, we have a clear majority of the population who uphold the Constitution, and we need to have a law imposing fines on the tools of foreign interests who keep babbling about gun bans. You want gun bans, you go to a country that has them; you stop marketing the objects you claim to hate and fear so horribly. We need to stop debating about this.  

And I think decent human beings know that people with mixed DNA have enough to deal with already, without our confusing Prozac Dementia with "transgender"-ing as such. It's the drugs. Those who cling to the idea that homicide-suicide is a "trans" thing are ignoring the history of homicide-suicide and may be doomed to repeat it. Possibly at the hands of their children, who were never given the chance to explain that they felt bad about going to school because they'd dropped a cafeteria tray and people had laughed at them, but instead were fed drugs they didn't need until the homicide-suicide thought pattern set in.

North Carolina Update 

You thought those people had gone back to work now, and all the rest of us needed to do was to be good tourists and help pay for rebuilding, right? Wrong. Once again, although FEMA backed leases for flood survivors to be sheltered in apartments through next March, a small group of survivors are facing eviction this week. Texas had its flood problem this summer and is looking at more potential floods approaching, and FEMA want that money back. This administration can hardly authorize raising taxes to cover both flood zones' needs. What they gonna do, what they gonna do...FEMA gonna white-eye, that's what. They're gonna flake off like cheap paint. "We said we'd pay your rent through March but we're going to stop in September. Because we can. Because we're the unelected bureaucrats who are being allowed to make decisions without consulting Our Sovereign Lords and Masters the Taxpayers, that's why."

Wouldn't it be great if North Carolina people rallied to the cause and told FEMA to stuff the money up their noses? They still owe the money, and they should still pay every penny...but wouldn't it be awesome if that whole group of survivors just moved into people's rental properties, or basements or attics if need be, and FEMA had to pay them cash? 

I know the logistics can be problematic. There are probably reasons why this has not already happened. In my neighborhood we have had since the 1960s, when rocks and earth were packed in across the existing road to support the four-lane highway, a miniature flood plain. It's not enough land to park a trailer on. It's enough to raise a few vegetables on, enough to leave an old shed that made an adorable playhouse for children, but people never have taken the risk of storing anything like boxes of winter clothes in a building that, in case of very heavy rain, may be under water. Until this summer. Now people are living in it and keeping animals around it. And they seem acceptable as neighbors, nice people who try to rescue as many of the most difficult dogs and flea-bitten kittens as they have room for, but guess who has the floor space to keep them if their house is under water? Your Auntie Pris has. And the humans smoke like bad chimneys. And the dogs are still difficult. Aaaack. 

Sometimes people just have to grit their teeth and do the right thing. Find homes for the flood survivors privately, for now. Be prepared for more bad news from Texas, and for the usual hurricanes in Florida and fires in California. Stuff happens. This year. And next year we let Trump tell FEMA they're all fired, and when those people apply for unemployment benefits or retirement pensions we let those government departments tell'm, "What goes around comes around. Taxpayers are not funding any benefits for white-eyes. Whatever role the Taxpayers vote to allow the federal government to have in emergency response, it is for people who keep their word." 

You might call me a dreamer, but wouldn't it be grand?

(I waited and waited and waited for updates on Twitter about this story, which was reported by a NBC-TV news broadcast. No word.)

Poetry 

It's a metaphor of course. Please, if any Seventh-Day Adventists are reading this, don't feel the need to explain church doctrines about precisely what happens when spirits are released into the air.

https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/189713.html

Book Review: Spells and Spaniels

Title: Spells and Spaniels

Author: Christine Pope

Date: 2023

Quote: "I was....the woman who would come in and patch things up if the relationship between a familiar and their witch went sideways."

In the fictive world of this novel, witches are real, though most of them have only minor powers. All of them can fly on broomsticks but some, like our narrator Charity, prefer to drive. All of them are female; talents are passed from mother to daughter. In the course of the story Charity learns that witches can have sons, though they use magic to prevent it if possible, because magic powers always go wrong if inherited by males. Witches usually have to marry human men to have children, but some get the opportunity to marry into different varieties of humanoid magic users--one of Charity's friends married an Ice Elf and uses magic power to keep people from seeing his pointed ears.

So Darla, a strong but not very likable witch, leaves her spaniel dog with Charity, and the next thing Charity knows, Darla's reported dead. Milo the spaniel helps Charity solve the murder. Both Milo and Charity are in some danger, but readers know they'll survive.

If this kind of plot amuses you, you're sure to like this book and will want to read the volumes that come before and after it in a series.

Book Review: Loving the Monster Within

Title: Loving the Monster  Within

Author; Cassidy K. O'Connor

Date: 2016

Quote: "I believe we are all beautiful disasters and deserve to find someone to love the monster within each of us."

But the metaphor her writing group chose for this pleasing thought goes farther onto the dark side than many readers want. Penelope falls in love with a gargoyle. We see gargoyles as silly cartoon-type figures, and some recent fiction about them presents them that way, but Penelope's gargoyle imprisons the spirit of a long dead Frenchman who sold his soul to a demon and spent years in Hell where he was forced to torture other lost souls. In order to keep him Penelope will have to climb into bed with the demon. Will she do with him what she's spelled out in graphic detail having done with the ex-gargoyle, already, before marriage--or can she kill him?

If these metaphors for working through the problems in a relationship don't put you off, then this book might be for you, and yes, there is the obligatory series of sequels. My feeling is that couples already know that we all have monsters within us, and can tame those monsters more efficiently by learning effective ways to communicate to each other's Outer Adult without triggering the monstrous Inner Child. We weren't tortured by demons, or even criminally abused by older people; we just learned the wrong approaches to what we want to accomplish. More than we need to fantasize about torture, prostitution, or murder, we need to realign our expectations of each other and practice better language behavior. And scrubbing bathroom floors after standing over toilets. And giving adults a reasonable time frame to accomplish a task rather than fussing and clucking and nagging until they're locked so firmly into rebellion-through-procrastination that the task never gets done... Maybe that's just me.

Butterfly of the Week: Common Veined Graphium

This week's butterfly takes its name from two characters in ancient Greek history: Leonidas of Sparta, a war chief, and Leonidas of Epirus, a tutor of Alexander the Great. 

Photo by Gcochrane13. The angle of their wings to the sun (and to the beholder) determine whether they look black and blue-white, or brown and tan. 

Despite the distinction of the men called Leonidas, Graphium leonidas is common in southern Africa. According to ABDB-Africa, it can be found in: 

Angola; Benin; Botswana; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Congo; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Equatorial Guinea; Eswatini; Ethiopia; Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Ivory Coast; Kenya; Liberia; Malawi; Mali; Mozambique; Nigeria; Rwanda; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; Sierra Leone; South Africa; South Sudan; Sudan; Tanzania; Togo; Uganda; Zambia; Zimbabwe.

It's so easily found and photographed that its life story can be told with photos from Inaturalist alone. In English it's called the Common and/or Veined Graphium, or Swordtail, or Swallowtail, or even Lady. Since its hind wings don't have tails, this web site endorses Common Veined Graphium as its name.

Photo by Name_name_name, taken in Nairobi. In the right light, they can even seem to glow. 

Males and females look very much alike. The general rule for Swallowtails is that females are larger and have darker, less contrasting, better camouflaged colors. Some photos of couples show this tendency; some don't. Butterflies recognize each other by scent and male Leonidas have good-sized scent folds on the insides of their  hind wings.

Photo by Ecodec_benin_org. Where wings and legs join the midsection (thorax), the undersides of the wings show a reddish flush that persists furthest into the wings along the veins. The red color shows alongside the wings more than on them, because butterflies' blood (or haemolymph, a word of Greek origin meaning "stuff that serves as blood and looks like lymph") has no color.

Photo by Surfnbird. The size of the pale spots relative to the dark background varies. 

Adults tend to fly in early summer, which in their territory is December and January. Caterpillars tend to crawl in late summer and autumn, January to May. They have multiple generations and can be found at any time of year, but are most active in January. They can eat any of several food plants in the Annonaceae family; some may be healthier for the caterpillars than others.

They are usually found at low altitudes. Their food plants grow in relatively "open" woods and fields, but are sometimes found in rain forests. Male butterflies, especially, can be found along logging roads, perhaps attracted to the petrochemical residues some male Swallowtails help to break down. Photo evidence shows that adult butterflies don't feel a need to be the only one of their sex and species in a neighborhood; small groups of males sometimes hang out together at puddles, but they seem to prefer to be the one, or one of two or three, Graphium leonidas in a mixed flock. When not puddling male Leonidas like to claim a territory and "defend" it, flying at anyone who crosses through it. 

Graphium leonidas has been divided into subspecies. By far the most common is the nominate subspecies, Graphium leonidas leonidas. A good half of photos online are clearly identified with the nominate subspecies. There has been some debate about whether some of the subspecies names were scientifically valid. Subspecies like zanzibaricus may have been documented during years when they had been removed from lists, then reinstated on newer lists. Subspecies pelopidas, santamarthae, and thomasius are recognized at Funet, but most sources don't seem to bother about subspecies. 

In addition to the discussion of pelopidas and zanzibaricus linked, I found a description of the subspecies thomasius that said that the Graphium leonidas found on Sao Tome island have rounder wings, white bodies, and no reddish tint around the wing joints. 

For historical interest, however, other subspecies names that have been proposed (though not recently used) include cymoides, djema, interniplaga, leucosina, mathieui, melusina, obliterata, omidale, petiveranoides, plagifera, subobliterata, umanus, vreuricki, and vrydaghi. There may be more. Most of these variant forms are now regarded as aberrations rather than distinct subspecies.

https://metamorphosis.org.za/?p=articles&s=Details&i=50

Its image has appeared on postage stamps and inspired all sorts of arts and crafts.

This stamp can be purchased at https://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/variant/316709 .

This one is for sale at https://www.stamp-store.com/catalog/graphium-leonidas-west-africa-ghana-2017-8 .

Photo by Max Baumgarten. Although males do some composting, both sexes are pollinators. 

Photo by Desireedavis. Males get some safety benefit from joining large flocks during the hours they spend in open sunlight, sipping brackish water that contains the mineral salts they need. Other Swallowtails that share Leonidas' range are bigger; other butterflies in the flocks may be much smaller.  The average wingspan for Graphium leonidas is only about three inches. By African standards that's small...about the size of our Tiger Swallowtails, as distinct from our Giant Swallowtails.

Photo by Bartwursten. This little fellow appreciates a sweat-soaked sock. 

Photo by Sydneybirding, taken in January in South Africa. The larger, stronger female is holding this male in mid-air. His wings are free if he needs to use them; his legs are tucked in.

Photo by Tomaschipiriburuwate. The species is not terribly toxic to birds. Many photos show butterflies with beak marks on the edges of their wings. Some lucky butterflies seem to have been grabbed by birds, and escaped, repeatedly. They fly for about two weeks, if lucky; by the end of that time some have had more than half of each hind wing torn away.

For Swallowtails these Graphiums look very similar to our Monarchs, and they are sometimes said to mimic a butterfly in the Danaid family, Tirumala petiverana, which is more toxic to birds. If they do, however, the birds don't seem to be deceived.

Photo by Zakari_Yao. Females lay eggs on the smallest, newest leaves. 

Photo by Desiredarling, taken in January in Gabon.

Photo by Pieterkotze, taken in February in South Africa.

Photo from ABDB-Africa, taken in Ghana, by Szabolcs Safian. Any right-minded bird ought to see this as a scary face. Unfortunately the caterpillars aren't toxic enough to birds to back up their bluff.

Photo by Colin Hutton, taken in May in Ghana. Simple cryptic coloration, or does it look like a mantid to birds?

Written descriptions and photos of eggs, caterpillars, and pupae start on page 63 of this PDF:

https://metamorphosis.org.za/articlesPDF/1040/009%20Genus%20Graphium%20Scopoli.pdf

Book Review: Tame Your Thoughts

Title: Tame Your Thoughts

Author: Max Lucado

Date: 2025

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

ISBN: 978-1-4002-5624-2

Quote: "Thoughts begin to bray when we wake up and refuse to shut off until we sleep." 

Fair disclosure: I received a free advance review copy of this book, the document before the final editing and publication, in exchange for an honest review. So here is an honest review.

It's Lucado. Christian readers have probably read at least one of his books. At telling stories and polishing phrases that turn our thoughts back to God and Christ and Salvation, he has no living equal. He is one of those authors whose books don't need to be reviewed. They're announced. A new one's coming out this fall! You'll like it! 

You will, too. But the odds are against your learning anything from it that you didn't already know. 

For the very young, the idea of taking control of thoughts may seem like a novelty. That's because, for my generation, it was so completely run into the ground in the 1980s that publishers haven't wanted to touch it in recent years. 

This book contains fresh new stories and some updated language but it's basically a recap of what we all heard (and did or did not learn) in the 1980s. If we want to focus on our emotional "feelings," trying to control our conscious thoughts, to filter out what produces unwanted "feelings," may help.

May help. Helps some people. Does not help others. Totally does not work for others.

By the mid-1990s neurological science had an explanation for this. Our brains route electrical impulses around different circuits of neurons. Some thoughts are routed around parts of our brains that process emotions. Consciously thinking logical thoughts does not  stop these thoughts running through our brains. Other thoughts are routed through parts of our brains that process facts, numbers, physical structures, etc. Our emotions don't engage closely with these thoughts.

In some cultures, processing more of our experience through the facts-and-figures circuits in the left brain is prized as a sign of "maturity" (these circuits are better developed in older people, poorly developed in children). In some cultures, it can be seen as masculine and disliked when it develops in women--"She's so detached. She has no 'feelings.' She's cold, judgmental, obnoxious..."  Both of these cultural patterns are present in the United States today. This has been cited as one reason why so many women feel "depressed."

Thinking rationally about how to deal with a situation, rather than curling up in the fetal position and screaming, is something mothers do. It is not "masculine." Neither is it "feminine." It is something men like to believe they do more effectively than women, though statistical measures clearly show that women do it more effectively than men: Men are more likely to abandon children, run away from what they call "failing" marriages, quit jobs or fire employees, get drunk or use drugs, have heart attacks before age 80, take to fisticuffs when they're not "winning" a quarrel, and do many other things that nonverbally scream "I CAN'T DEAL WITH THE WAY I FEEL ABOUT THIS!!!" than women are. Women are more likely to cope with situations even if they say they feel "depressed" by them. 

One of the situations in which "taming our thoughts" can help is when women persistently tell themselves, "I don't need A's, B's, and C's approval." They may want those people's approval, but if they want to be free from "depression," or to finish works of art, or raise healthier children, or earn higher salaries, or whatever else more than they want those people's approval, they'll be just fine until A, B, and C come around. 

However, regardless of gender, reacting to more and more situations logically rather than emotionally is something people learn to do more efficiently as we grow older. 

The gender connection may have some tenuous relation to some biological facts, but it seems to be primarily a learned behavior. In many (not all) cultures, boys learn that they're expected to suppress emotions associated with feeling weak or less competent--fear, sadness, frustration, regret. Girls learn that they're expected to suppress emotions associated with feeling empowered or more responsible--anger, determination, impatience, lust. Somewhere between age 5 and age 25 most people learn to stifle the set of emotions they're expected to stifle. In cultures that have different expectations associated with gender, or with other traits, most people learn to stifle the emotions they're expected to stifle there.

Is this all bad? No. One of the ways we learn to route our thoughts through the logical rather than the emotional parts of our brains is by learning skills and using tools to deal with situations. A toddler who comes to a locked door has no way to deal with its feeling of frustration better than lying on the floor and bawling. Older children don't even think of lying on the floor and bawling when they come to a locked door; they know how to use keys. When we feel less of the emotions we did not enjoy feeling as children, only rarely are we suffering from blocked emotions that needed to be expressed. There are still a few men out there who would feel better if they let themselves cry about things like the loss of their grandparents, and some women who would feel better if they gave themselves permission to say "This is what I"m paying for and what I insist on" or "This is what I want to do in bed," but most of the time, most of us aren't feeling the emotions children would have felt because we've learned the logical, physical, mathematical ways to solve the problems that make children so emotional. Instead of feeling frustrated by our parents' rules about when lights should go off and what music should be played, we have our own homes with our own rules. Instead of feeling fear that we won't be able to swim across the pool or make an effective speech, we've learned the skills that allow us either to do those things or to avoid situations where we'd be expected to do them. Instead of spending money on impulse and feeling bad when we run out, (most of us) have learned to make a budget and stick to it. 

But for some of us this leaves some areas where neither thoughts nor emotions seem to be serving us well. Lucado discusses some of the common ones: anxiety and worries, paralyzing guilt, lack of joy, obsessive lust, a sense of being "overwhelmed," physical or emotional pain, fear of rejection even by God, general discontentment. 

Can we tell ourselves things that help dispel these thoughts? Some of us can. 

For others, self-talk doesn't work. We may be feeding the recommended self-talk in through the logical part of the brain, but our consciousness is still bouncing around the same emotional circuits, unimpressed by pep talks from ourselves or others. 

One thing that may help young people, or young souls, or the young at heart, is allowing time for the corrective thoughts to work. We can form better mental habits. We can let a passion for ice dancing or wood carving drive out obsessive food cravings. We can mature from a teenaged "pistol" who pops off at a glance or a word, into a wise elder who thinks things through and rarely says or does anything on an impulse. We can mature from lust-raddled omnisexuals into peaceful, productive postsexuals. But these things don't happen overnight. Building a cerebral circuit that actually routes brain activity onto a bypass above those emotional circuits from the past may take a year or two. The immature student who seems stuck in a habit of crying and giving up rather than thinking things through and learning has a problem. The immature teachers who expect that problem to be solved this year have a more serious problem. 

Another thing that is likely to help is the rule: FIX FACTS FIRST. FEELINGS FOLLOW. Unwelcome thoughts are likely to come from situations where we're trying to fix feelings without fixing the facts. It can be productive to think of unwelcome thoughts or unwelcome feelings as symptoms of the physical conditions that really need to be fixed. Are anxious thoughts a symptom of a nutrient deficiency? After the initial exhaustion and muscle stiffness have been broken through, does physical movement restore energy and joy? How much do confession and restitution do for thoughts of guilt and unworthiness? While addicts, their pushers, and pharmaceutical companies cling to the fantasy of a quick chemical fix for thoughts and moods, real cures tend to be gradual. Some celiacs feel an intense "high" just from relief from gluten reactions, as soon as we've eliminated gluten (and glyphosate) from our bodies, but the complete recovery from celiac disease that flips the celiac trait into a super-power may take a year or more.

Whatever thoughts Lucado's readers want to tame, more has almost certainly been learned about that specific kind of thoughts than Lucado has taken the trouble to read or write. This first book may cheer and inspire them, which is well worth doing, but it may also be irritatingly inadequate. 

If you're looking for well-turned phrases and fresh, pithy stories, this book is well worth buying. If you're looking for help to tame specific thoughts that trouble you, this is at best a first book, an overview of the material you may want to study. If you're looking for help for a friend or family member, you need to be aware that, if Lucado's thoughts do help person tame those troublesome thoughts, taming thoughts tends to take longer than taming a wild horse.

If you're a Christian who has not found fellowship in physically attending church, this book is, like other books by other Christians, a letter from a classmate. It's a mistake to think of other Christian writers as teachers; they are fellow students trying to understand and apply what we've been given by The Teacher. Their books are no less valuable for that reason. Although I suspect I've read quite a lot more on this subject than he has, I still thank Max Lucado for this book.

Book Review: Arbor Day Can Be Deadly

Title: Arbor Day Can Be Deadly

Author: Ryan Rivers

Date: 2021

Quote: "Cherry Blossom Cafe Cooks Up Texas Favorites with Japanese Flair."

When Sho Tanaka goes to visit his sister, Jenny, the proprietor of the cafe, he finds himself mixed up with corrupt local government, stolen money, and the growth of his own drug problem...and a murder? With his sidekick Levi Blue, who appeared with him in an earlier volume, he'll solve the mystery and come to grips with his felt need to supplement Zoloft with other things not prescribed by a doctor. 

This pre-chatbot novella is well enough written to keep readers guessing through a few hours of wait time. If you like wholesome cozy mysteries, you may want the rest of the series.

Bad Poetry: Living with Parity

This was provoked by the Poets & Storytellers United prompt to use three innovative words in a poem.

Can men live without oppression?

Fight that urge toward regression!

In this age of equal rights, men can survive,

Without those systems of repression 

That cause female-type depression.

(Losing those will help a man's "love" life to thrive.)

Now, one thing you must not do

Is indulge feelings that you

Are more competent than women in this life:

Each objective factual measure

Took away more of that pleasure,

So if you don't understand it, ask your wife.

Long as half of humankind

Feel restricted or confined

By the other half's propensity for violence,

Your "equality" is fiction;

What you feel about that's addiction,

So control your anger, listening in silence.

Nobody believes he's wise

If a man ever even tries

To dispute that women know what we are saying.

Pictures in our minds aren't hazy

If a man says "She is crazy"--

We can guess the sordid truth he is betraying.

So if you think she's delulu 

Then, dear brothers, what can you do?

Very quietly and quickly walk away!

Unless women feel disgusted

By her falsehoods, you're distrusted,

And so nothing's quite the best thing you can say.

If she tells you that your lewk's 

One of those unfortunate flukes

That occur when haberdashers in despair

Ask designers to drive sales

Of their buyers' greatest fails,

Silently make your own choice of what to wear.

Broligarchy must come down;

Never should have left the ground.

(If not done by women, should a thing be done?)

As each decent person hates

Even once-admired Bill Gates,

Jobs men dominate will never again be fun

Save, perhaps, for the young Real Man

With his muscles and his tan

Showing heavy labor's what he most enjoys.

In those jobs men still excel,

And those jobs must be done well,

So the future's bright for active, healthy boys.

But the geeks who would be god?

Leave them lying on the sod,

Drugs or STDs devouring each one's brain;

Let economies of debt

Crash, caught in the Internet,

While we and our husbands build one that's more sane.

(I call my favorite young people, collectively, The Nephews because a majority of them are nephews, as distinct from nieces. I love my nephews. I want their lives to be wonderful...at no expense to the nieces' lives.)

Book Review: The Vintage Charm

Title: The Vintage Charm

Author: Mia Montell

Date: 2023

Quote: "We found a body in the alley behind your store this morning."

The body belonged to a young woman who left her journal in the store. Can Tiffany use the journal to find out whodunit? Of course she can. Will doing that put her in danger? Read on...

This short and simple murder mystery conforms to the traditional rules. There's no magic, no romance, no comedy, just a straightforward story where the question can be answered by paying attention to logical clues. Those who love detective stories should like it. 

Eighties Nostalgia?

Recycled, or more likely reprinted, 1980 presidential campaign T-shirts? Seriously. People are wearing them. 

https://pjmedia.com/chris-queen/2025/08/26/from-84-to-gen-z-why-reagan-bush-tees-still-rule-the-conservative-wardrobe-n4943047 

I question whether the real reasons have been adequately explored:

1. Some people made up their minds in 1980 and have not used them since...sort of like the way my husband made up his bed, in the 1990s, and then announced that for his back's sake he was reclaiming his Indian heritage and sleeping on the floor. Except that that decision was good for my husband's bed and back. Minds need to be used and changed.

2. Seriously, some of us felt better about voting in 1980 than we have ever felt since. W Bush was cracked up to be the candidate most likely to restore the good things about the Reagan era, but nobody seriously believed he had a hope--nor had he. I'm not sure whether even a majority of Trump voters like Trump. I don't know how many Clinton or Obama voters really liked them, either. But Reagan just had too many unfair and unbeatable advantages when it came to being liked as a President. He aged well; he looked and sounded like the grandfather every family needs. He embodied the wit and physical courage and other good things we celebrate about being Irish. He presided over a period when every young American who was willing to work or study could get a job or go to college, often at the same time, conceivably even using the job to finance the college. And he was blessed with the chance to preside over the end of the supremely boring Cold War. It was impossible not to like Reagan and, in some ways, he could even be said to deserve his popularity. Nobody will ever crack jokes about his own near-fatal medical conditions, nor shed a tear of sympathy about someone else's untimely death, so well again.

3. Prior to 1980, political campaigns weren't advertised on T-shirts. If there had been Eisenhower or even Herbert Hoover T-shirts, some people would want to wear them.

4. People who voted for the first time (or two) in 1980 (or in 1984) were in demographic fact part of a baby bust, not of the baby boom itself. Some of those people identify as freshman or sophomore class baby-boomers, some as early Generation X, depending on how old our parents were and whether we spent time with older or younger siblings. As the image of baby-boomers now looks like the age of people who were born in 1946, some people who are currently between ages 55 and 65 want it to be known that we were the very last of the baby-boom generation, and came of age in the Awesome Eighties. Of which an iconic image was the Reagan campaign T-shirt.

Pooh. The message T-shirts I owned in 1980 said "Shape Up, Shape Up, Shape Up, Super Shape" and "The Best Girls Are From Gate City, Virginia." (I had outgrown a handed-down Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fan shirt, and my brother didn't want to wear it because I'd been seen in it.) I might still wear those but I will not be buying a reprint Reagan campaign shirt. Though my first presidential vote was for Reagan. 

Not everything about the Sixties was terrific nor was everything about the Eighties awesome. The Eighties were, for example, the years when millions of us naively threw away the good old boring Ekco can openers that had been in our homes for fifty years, and bought new, trendy-looking can openers instead. Little did we know that the reason why these horrid objects looked so new and trendy was that they weren't built to open even a hundred cans before they stopped working. 

The Eighties were also years when women who were actively aggravating their cramps by wearing high-heeled, pinchy-toed shoes transitioned, in just two or three years, from furiously denying that their job performance suffered in any way at an particular time of the month to furiously demanding that everyone else tiptoe around their disabling PMS. Those were interesting years to be a husband, child, or even parent of one, not to mention actually being a young woman.. 

Also, for part of the Eighties, nobody knew exactly what caused AIDS or how to avoid it. The Eighties were the decade when we lost Arthur Ashe. The decade when it took real physical courage for Dr. Fauci not only to study AIDS but to admit that the disease interested him because he was "gay." Because he'd been brave some people wanted to imagine that he was either honorable or intelligent. In some places it still took fortitude to claim friends on the other side of the color war, too.

Name a period of time in history, whether a decade or an afternoon, and if anyone remembers it that person will be able to feel nostalgic about it. Oh, the Thirties, when so few people had any money and your parents weren't among the few, but your family were rich because this one, that one, and the other one were still alive. Ah, the nineteenth of December of 1976, when a bundle of loud noise with a wet diaper on it started to grow into Tracy Smith. And sigh, at this time last week I was admiring a huge flock of female Blue and Tiger Swallowtails, with a few hangers-on from other species, flapping around a field of thistles, and realizing that this rare and lovely sight was a consequence of declining male populations of both species; these female butterflies had time for a kind of lekking behavior because they weren't finding mates and laying eggs. This sort of thing is natural and proper as long as it doesn't interfere with enjoying, and improving, the present.

"Say not thou, 'What is the cause that the former days were better than these?', for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this."

Web Log for 8.26.25

I didn't spend a lot of time on the computer...

Animals 

Clue alert: When they look like this, they're not homeless. Offer treats if you want them to keep visiting, but about a cubic centimeter of treat on any given day. Obesity is not good for cats. 

Ganked from Messy Mimi's blog. I don't know who posted it first. Anyway, it's worth finding out whether a visiting cat is all about extra food. My experience is that they're more interested in the cats than in the humans, but sometimes they do know when someone on their circuit could use a purr and a cuddle...

Same source, same day.

Good News 

No link, because it's private...In town I met an old acquaintance who had been very concerned, when I was seeing more of him a few years ago, about his children. Daughter lived nearby and was always promising to do little extra-pair-of-hands things for him and not doing them; apparently too busy taking drugs with a housemate who sounded as if person needed some jail time. Son lived far away and only ever called to report needs for money. Neither seemed to be a Christian. We used to pray for them.

So, as I was walking in the direction of Compuworld with a freshly cashed paycheck to bail out my working desktop computer, old acquaintance offered to drive me out there. (I had not really expected to walk all the way. It was still an August afternoon. I'd been planning to walk slowly for a few hours and let someone know where to meet me after work.) Just to chat and catch up on news. Some projects were going well. An older mutual acquaintance had died. 

We had collected the computer and stopped at the Wal-Mart nearby, and a call came in on the person's old car phone, which almost never picks up a call. It was the far-away son. He was working. He had gone into the same skilled trade as his father. He wanted advice about a job. 

"I'll have to call from your sister's house and get her help to explain that," said the father, quietly, looking at some very technical stuff the son had sent through the phone. To me he said, "Let's stop for food and drink and wait for her at her house." 

So we had supper in his car in daughter's driveway. The house looked tidy. If the dopey, messy housemate was still there, person must have been out on a job. Animals were socializing across fences between large, well-kept dog space and horse space. All of them looked well kept and eager for human company. Clearly this was the home of a responsible adult. 

Daughter came home, still sounding impatient and full of herself, but she took time to help her father and brother use her phone. A horse had been nonverbally talking with me across the fences while we waited. That horse was due for a good walk with its human and didn't want to wait. It pawed the ground and pulled horse faces, plainly saying "Hurry up! I want my human now!"

Father and son talked for more than an hour. When the phone battery started to run down and the daughter pried them apart, they expressed love for each other. It is always such a delightful feeling to see that one's life experience has done someone else a bit of good. 

It was evident that the father's Christian influence had done his children quite a lot of good. He is a cheerful old fellow, but after that talk with his son he was radiant.

I love to see young people behaving well, making their parents radiate joy!

Music 

Even as Celtic dance tunes go, this one is "A Wild Rumpus." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBeg4_DZEmQ

Poem, Exposition of 

Earlier in the month I wrote a "blitz poem" about the times when the most important step to take is the step back:

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2025/08/bad-poetry-step-on-back.html 

I'm not sure whether any of the generation of poets who survived the Blitz in the 1940s would count this as a poetic form. But it does work in real life.

Other years, in August, I've been annoyed by spiders spinning big webs right across the path through the not-a-lawn. Going anywhere in August meant having my face and hair festooned with cobwebs.

This year, the signs of the seasons came early and it was still July when I saw a great beautiful web, freshly made, shining in the morning dew. Right across the path, as usual. The spider was at the top, looking down. 

Instead of impatiently tearing down the web, I took time to admire it. It was about two feet square and seemed perfectly symmetrical; nothing had blundered into it yet. "What a fine job," I said. "You must have been working on it all night." And I carefully turned it to the side of the path.

And there, Gentle Readers, it has remained. For their size spiders have much more in the way of brains than other cold-blooded animals; I'm convinced that this one understood that a compromise was being offered, and accepted it. 

Meanwhile I've enjoyed the rewards of stepping back: web-free hair.