No Post today…Of course I can, it’s my website…You are not the boss of me…What makes you think you can tell me what to do?

Well Dean Wormer, I am invoking the little know codicil in the Faber College Charter.  Let’s just say I am on “Double Secret Probation!”

While most fruits have seeds on the inside (such as blueberries, tomatoes, watermelons), the strawberry is unique in that its seeds are on the outside of its surface. The truth is that the small “seeds” on the outside of the plant are actually the fruit itself, each containing an even smaller seed of their own. The large red part of the strawberry that we commonly consider the “fruit” is an overgrown receptacle tissue. This is the part of the plant that connects the flower to the stem.

As with us humans it takes a certain kind of intestinal fortitude for a fruit to scoff in the face of convention and be a trailblazer, someone or thing that dares stand out far from the madding crowd. (I do turn a phrase, even if it is someone else’s phrase!)

Strawberries, a nation in need of a new hero salutes you!

While fear of the dark is most common among children 3-12 years old (affecting nearly 3 out of 4 kids, according to one study) many adults are also prone to fears of darkness.  An estimated 11% of adults were already struggling with this fear before the pandemic, and experts say COVID-19 has made matters worse.  “Fear is triggered by a real or perceived threat. The global pandemic has evoked much uncertainty in different aspects of all our lives,” said Gifty Ampadu, a psychologist for the Montefiore Health System.  And because research shows that fear of the unknown compounds other anxieties, fears of the dark and other phobias have increased exponentially.

My guess is that #2 greatest fear is that s straw headed scarecrow from Palm Beach, Florida, will win his second presidential elect and America will be dead.

Graying hair is an inescapable part of growing older for most.  The first strands of silver appear to sprout for many people in their mid-30s — and by age 50, it’s not unusual for half their hair to be gray.   Known by scientists as canities or achromotrichia, the graying of hair is a long-studied phenomenon that has a variety of causes but the number one cause is so obvious it has been verified without scientific research:

Your children!

Of the 73 species of Kangaroos in the world 48 can be found in Australia.  And of the 48 only four can be harvested commercially, (nice way of saying meat wrapped in cellophane at the local market so you can throw a Roo Burger next to the shrimp on the barby; yum!).  The four edible species that have a total population in excess of 50 million are>

• Eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
• Western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus)
• Red kangaroo (Osphranter rufus)
• Common wallaroo (Osphranter robustus ssp.) whose coat color varies from shades of brown to a very dark, almost black, shade of blue.

Scientists believe that when the other species heard about the harvesting legislation they began dying their coats bright red so that hunters can easily and quickly identify them as inedible and refrain from blowing their heads off for commercial use.  A definite Win-Win!

“Legend has it that Sir Isaac Newton formulated the gravitational theory in 1665 or 1666 after watching an apple fall and asking why the fruit fell straight down rather than sideways or even upward. According to Martin Rees, a former president of Britain’s Royal Society, which was once headed by Newton himself, Newton showed that the force that makes the apple fall and that holds us on the ground is the same force that keeps the moon and planets in their orbits.”

Yet, as with all laws of nature there are exceptions.  As you may know I have been pondering the wonders of The Road Runner these days.  Why does his anvil always hit the mark when dropped on Wile E. Coyote and yet when Mr. Coyote responds with an item equal in weight and circumference, it suspends above the Road Runner and never causes any damage?

Explain that Mr. Big Shot Gravity Man!

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” – Walt Disney

I am with you on this one Walt.  There are so many dingbats stuck in a cycle of lies in Washington, the perfect thing to get our government working again would be to line up all the politicians, (ladies first Marjorie), and give them each a kick in the teeth.  It would certainly be a great thing for me!

“Oh no, he’s advocating a violent attack on our representatives.  Somebody call the FBI and Secret Service!” 

(Listen up. I was only talking about a metaphorical kick in the teeth.  I would use a harmless implement…like the Road Runner’s anvil.)

Trick question!

If you had an actual answer to that question you need to take a time-out and do some self-reflection.  Are you seriously taking advice or even interested in what a faceless dipsy-doodle butt-munch on the internet has to say?  Do you really want to listen to some pompous, self-absorbed twaddle-spewing doofus or follow a link to a cutesy named website and read what a weary, people-hating Deepak Chopra wannabe has to say about life?  Is that your idea of a value-added activity?  
Stop going to weird-ass websites and reading what some nut-bag has to say…Uh-oh.

I believe I just discovered a minor flaw in my thinking.  Never mind.  Just move along and go make the world a better place!

(Awesome!  That is a record ten (10) grammatically correct hyphenated words in one paragraph.  Bet you never saw that in any writing by Shakespeare, Dickens or Steinbeck!)

…the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
I’m not sure but one thing is certain,
I’d be screwed!

The website Aish.com published an article saying “In all likelihood Leonardo da Vinci was only half Italian. His mother, Caterina, was a Circassian Jew, abducted as a teenager and sold as a slave several times in Russia, Constantinople, and Venice before finally being freed in Florence at age 15. This, at least, is the conclusion reached in the new book Il Sorriso di Caterina, la Madre di Leonardo, by the historian Carlo Vecce, one of the most distinguished specialists on Leonardo da Vinci.”

The discovery gives credence to the oft repeated legend regarding the origin of the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s most famous painting.  It seems Mona Lisa was a Circassian Jew as well and, like his mother, a very strong willed and independent woman.  Mona Lisa was royalty trapped in an unwanted marriage with a domineering husband who treated her like a kitchen slave.  He demanded she cook elaborate meals and every evening he would return home and sneeringly ask “What have you made for dinner?”  In the iconic portrait da Vinci captured the sly smile that formed the moment she decided to shift the marriage power paradigm and take control.  When her husband returned that evening and asked what the newly assertive Jewish-Italian Princess had made for dinner, she would reply with one word: “Reservations!”**

(** Editor’s Note:  If you don’t get it, call a Jewish friend who will be happy to explain.)