Two of my favourite things

Jesus and vintage. Though the aforementioned is a Person, of course, and what a Person. I especially love the image/statue of Christ the Redeemer as he appears in Rio, Brazil.


I want this!! (Cough, Mother's Day is coming... cough). Available at Amazon.

Just how desperately do I miss Nordic Thoughts?

This desperately. I've taken to visiting Danish blogs. And Swedish blogs, and any blog that can give me the same feeling of sublime beauty that Nordic Thoughts and A Polar Bear's Tale once did. Don't bother searching those names: the blogs have been removed and the names have been taken over by other bloggers. (Cue soft and pathetic weeping.)

One such blog is NORDINGÅRDEN

One of the lovely photos at
NORDINGÅRDEN

The blog's subtitle is: LIVET PÅ LANDET I TVÅ TORP-INREDNING, TRÄDGÅRD, MAT & VIN
Which roughly means: "Country life in... decorations, garden, food & wine" (Well, I had figured out the "Vin" part without Google Translate. Thanks, Latin!)

Country life, Decor, Garden, Food and Wine--check, check, check, check and check. I can't speak Danish, but I can look at the pictures.

I also like this Nordic Design blog. And I occasionally watch travel videos from Nordic countries. I hear they are very expensive to visit, but I think it would be tremendously cool (metaphorically) to spend a holiday in one or more of these places. You can keep your Las Vegas. I want to go to Iceland. 

Vegetable Oddities

I'm almost tempted to make this a category by itself (and not just because I've asked Mrs. Beazly to write a short story with that title). It's because nature can be so strange, and when you do vegetable gardening (as we have been, for decades), you see lots of funny veggies. 

Though I don't care for kohlrabi very much, Mr P plants it in our garden nearly every year.  "Kohlrabi" apparently comes from the German words for cabbage and turnip. And yep, that's how it tastes. I don't care how anti-carcinogenic it is-- I can only handle so much in a season. 

For those not familiar with this rather homely vegetable, this is what kohlrabi is supposed to look like: 

The green kind

The red kind 

(though for some odd reason, I call it "purple")

To quote one kohlrabi blogger-enthusiast: 

It’s never been a supermarket staple in the U.S., and ten years ago you’d be hard pressed to find it even at a farmers market. But now kohlrabi has exploded from home gardens into markets across the country.

Buddy, you said a mouthful. Below is a specimen Mr P found in our garden this year. Note: it's ONE kohlrabi, not five fused together. 'Exploded' indeed. 

The next time you have a bad day

Or if you ever feel dissatisfied with your figure, face, hair, arthritic hands, or even (as I did the other day) whine that you don't like having to wear reading glasses... pray for the courage that this woman has.

Nash jokes about sometimes feeling like a science project.

But the 61-year-old daughter of an Air Force veteran said she gets real satisfaction out of letting the doctors use her for research, and sees it as an opportunity to help wounded soldiers and 'do something good out of all of this bad.'

God bless her, and the amazing medical team who continues to help her. 

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Time for my post-blizzard photos

Mr. P and the kids and I went out today to play in the snow.

This used to be a street, but now it is, shall we say, closed until further notice. 

The same street, but facing the opposite direction. 

Then, it was off to the research farm, where Mr. P. works. These were all taken in a large parking area.

This brings back memories of snowstorms in the 70s, when we used to walk up the snowdrifts and onto the roof of the chicken coop. No chicken coops here, unfortunately. 

I wish our cousins from Australia were here right now, so they could play with us in the snow! (and our Ottawa cousins too, of course, but snow is much less of a novelty for them...)

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If this is not science fiction from The Onion

Then I want one. Wrist MP3 player. But I'm wondering how you'd keep from losing those earbuds. Or what kind of crazy, brain-tumor inducing batteries they contain. I guess you wouldn't wear them whilst strolling through an alfalfa field.

See, the Mayans just wrote the wrong year for the end of the world.

Just like you'll be writing '2012' on your checks for a while.

“Comet ISON appears on course to achieve sungrazer status as it passes within a solar diameter of Sun’s surface in late 2013 November. Whatever survives will then pass nearest the Earth in late 2013 December,” NASA astronomers explained in a posting.

via SDA
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It better be flippin' huge

if it's going to reach that far.

I just hope that all this "fierce competition" doesn't result in something like this:

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Wow, it must smell REALLY bad by now.

Hide one of these in your buddy's car for a great April Fool's prank.

I love stories like this. They really fill one with a sense of awe at how mysterious and unknown so much of our natural world remains.
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I thought a week-long labour was tough!

Not that I ever had one (my personal record is a wimpy 18 hours), but I know someone who did. But this mom's ordeal tops them all:

A Polish woman endured what's being called "the longest labour ever" to ensure that her premature babies would survive. And they did.Joanna Krzysztonek spent 75 days in labour lying nearly upside down in an effort to save her two unborn children after the third, born at 22 weeks, died.

Wow. That's dedication. Good on her--and good on her doctors for supporting her and helping save her children. Some doctors would have told her it wasn't worth it, and she should just "start over". May she and her family thrive.
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Can a printable kitchen be far behind?

If this video wasn't made by The Onion, this is incredible.
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Where no Lego man has gone before

Master Beazly the younger was just wondering yesterday what to do with his Lego when he gets too old to play with it.


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Have you ever heard of Andy Mynarski?

If you're tired of reading about "adults" who will not take full responsibility for their choices, even as they are supposedly apologizing for them, here is the story of a young man who made better choices in far worse circumstances. There were, and are, such men in this world.
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Simply amazing

The world can once again put a face to the name Dallas Wiens. (Previous post here.)

God bless him and his caregivers on the road to recovery.

"Strip us, Lord Jesus, of our former selves...."

That is from the  Lenten meditation for the Tenth Station in The Way of the Cross by Clemens Schmidt. This man has been stripped of his former self, in a most violent and painful way, and yet he apparently remains hopeful, ready to let God mold him anew. He declares that it was "worth it" to gain "a joy he never knew before".

Last week he underwent surgery to further his healing. Whatever face they have put on him, it will be a brave one.

Mrs. Blurn, this one's for you

Enjoy.

OOOPS!! Wrong Richard Armitage! Ahh, here we go:

Mrs. Beazly gets credit for this joke, having pulled it in a recent email to me.

It's bloody well amazing.

At least someone isn't just screwing around at the lab.

I can hear the conversation now:

"Yeah, we turned skin into blood. It could revolutionize cancer treatment! What's going on at your research facility?"

"Uhhh...we got people to look at meat."

StatsCan should ask them how they got the squid to fill out the long form.

'Census of Marine Life' celebrates survey success