Esme

Esme Tupelo Clegg
my new baby cousin
b. 3/11/16, 11:05p
ETC!

pronounced Ezmay:
It's from JD Salinger's short story: "For Esme, with Love and Squalor"
(which I just read, along with the rest of '9 stories')
         from the interweb-
"Esmé is a sophisticated, distinctive, and charming J. D. Salinger name, from his classic 1950 story For Esmé, With Love and Squalor. Related to the French Aimee, which means beloved, and to the concept of esteem, it was originally a male name exported from France to Scotland via a member of the royal family.  It was first recorded in Scotland, being borne by the first Duke of Lennox in the 16th century."

Tupelo is a city in NE Mississippi, named after the Tupelo tree
Van Morrission sings about "Tupelo honey;" youtube link
and it's where Elvis Presley was born
(he had a stillborn identical twin, named Jesse)

and, (thanks, google!)
Clegg Name Meaning. English (chiefly Lancashire and Yorkshire): habitational name from a place in Lancashire named Clegg, from Old Norse kleggi 'haystack', originally the name of a nearby hill.Manx: variant of Clague.

Congratulations, parents Erin and Dan, grandparents Jim and Vicki and Lizzie and Ant, and uncle Patrick!

 

3:16

The Good, and The Evil

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” 

On this day in 1968 (March 16th, 3/16), U.S. soldiers in Vietnam killed up to 500 unarmed villagers in the hamlet of Mai Lai, considered a stronghold of the Viet Cong.

Senescent space-ghost vampire:
Eternal life, I have to say, could be heavenly, hellish, or just like average everyday life.   What if you were immortal, but aging?  You'd eventually lose all your senses.  Or a ghost?  Where's the fun in that?  Or you live billions of years (just getting started!), and end up floating in space, after the earth is swallowed up by the sun?  How boring.  I saw a bumper sticker "ELF" (everyone lives forever).  If I outlive my death (!), I hope my immortality remains vital, interesting, varied, enjoyable.   Vampires are immortal.  Do Christians become vampires?  They drink the blood of Christ.  What a joke, if you ask me.  The two 316's (John 3:16, and 3/16/1968) can be united by the phrase from Dracula, "the blood is the life."  Eternal bloodshed sounds true, and biblical, enough.

Animal Religion

what's going on here?

Protestant ant
Catholic cat, papacy pussy
dogma dog
presbyterian byter
muslim muzzle
sects in insects
mosque like fly (mosca, in spanish)
  (mosquito means 'little fly')
gnostic tick
beatitude, bee attitude
penance ants

not quite:
ewe in jewish (you wish)
bible, papal bull, cow-ncil (of tr-entomology)
rabbi is awfully close to rabbit; b is hop (bishop) (hoppy Easter!)
heaven has ave, close to avian ('ave' is bird in spanish)
    (holy trinity of va-toucan, cardinal, hen)*
mormonkey!

and unrelated, but still fun:
Haydn Sikh!

*"We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another." -Luciano De Crescenzo (a bit more romantic than heaven= ave hen, lol

Books, etc.

goal: book/day

i've fallen off of my disciplined start to the year, but I've still been reading:

8 books:
Steve Jobs (biography), by Walter Isaacson (finished today, large print)
Easy Origami, by John Montroll (I've made most of the book's ideas)
2100 Asanas, by Mr. Yoga (Daniel Lacerda) (purchased)
Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut (found/purchased at a thrift store)
Outsider in the White House, by Bernie Sanders (with Huck Gutman)
Life is Good (the book), by Bert and John Jacobs
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (i haven't seen the movie)
It's not me, it's you, by Mhairi McFarlane

and (only a small bit, of course)-
 -Encyclopedia Britannica
     (on disk! i wonder if it has everything the library set has)
 - also started reading Bill Bryson's 'One Summer' (narrative non-fiction about America in 1927)

also,
I've attended 3 different religion's services, lately (my idea of fun):
1.unitarian
2.christian science
3.ephesian church of god in christ
         they were ALL trippy!  the black church, especially (last weekend)
          (i was the only white person attending)

other nuggets-
i had mediterranean/lebanese food with Sara
i visited the apple store, fixed my ipad mini (tablet)
i saw beach blanket babylon
i interviewed for possible employment as a WAG dogwalker
i did gardening at Mission San Jose, visited my aunt
got a new phone, an iphone
bought a chess set (still haven't played anyone)
was diagnosed with "runner's knee"
saw the Revenant (movie w/ LDC)
    (that could mean leonardo dicaprio or less developed country)
met someone for coffee from okcupid
had a sushi burrito with my cousin Patrick
went to a phone bank event for Bernie Sanders
won a McDonald's gift certificate

and
the usual daily gym/library/music/email
         and weekly kaiser/dogwalking
         and monthly free food

tomorrow:
my cousin Erin's baby daughter is due. 
and i might get a haircut, myself.