Friday Music

Composed by the songwriting duo Lou Adler and Herb Alpert (who knew?) this was released April 1960 by Keen Records.  It had been recorded during an impromptu session a year earlier during Sam Cooke's final recording session at Keen.  By the time 1960 rolled-around Cooke had signed with RCA Victor and the previously unreleased cut was released as a competitive single.  Cooke subsequently revised the lyrics to make it his own.

The song ended-up performing substantially better on the charts that several of his early RCA singles becoming Cooke's biggest single since You Send Me (1957).  The single peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number two on Billboard's Hot R&B chart. 

Nice cover of Wonderful World by Richie and the High Street Rockers.....

Whata Treat

Likely I haven’t enjoyed this since traveling somewhere. It’s been awhile. 

 
Clockwise from 6 o’clock:  Salade César, baked tater (butter, sour cream & scallions) and locally-sourced lamb. Medium to medium rare.

A special treat.

Cheers!

Winter Hunter Returns

Beginning last month and through February this constellation can be found traversing the southern night sky.  

Orion - a familiar image situated on the celestial equator - is one of the most recognizable constellations in the night sky.  Finding Orion's Belt is the easiest way to locate the Orion Constellation. Orion's Belt is formed by three bright stars; Alnilam, Mintaka and Alnitak. 

Named for Orion 'The Hunter' of Greek mythology the constellation's brightest stars are blue-white Rigel and red Betelgeuse. The most noticeable part of Orion is Orion’s Belt – with the alignment of three stars sure to catch your eye.  Hanging from The Hunter’s belt is a sword identified as three fainter stars. The central star of the sword is actually not a star at all – it is the Great Orion Nebula.

In the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere this time of year Orion appears to be lying on his side – with the Belt stars pointing upward – when he rises in the eastern sky.

click on the image for a closer look

This photo was taken a couple weeks ago with my iPhone 14 Pro at midnight, from the porch, looking south.  The unusual brightness is the timing of the photo with the December Cold Full Moon.  A larger and brighter Super Moon.

As the story goes - Orion hunted along the river Eridanus along with his ever-present dogs – Canis Major and Canis Minor.  With his dogs Orion stalked various celestial animals including Lepus the rabbit, and Taurus the bull. In the mythology of the ancient Greeks Orion was in love with Merope - one of the Seven Sisters forming the constellation Pleiades.  Alas, Merope spurned Orion’s advances. Tragically, the heartbroken Orion met his end when he was stung by Scorpious the scorpion.

Nevertheless, the gods were kind and they consequently fixed Orion permanently in the heavens with his two dogs. The creatures he hunted were placed in the sky as constellations as well. With foresight the gods exiled Scorpius to the opposite side of the heavens so that Orion would forever be safe from harm. 

Visibility peaks this month and January.  Raising a toast to cold, clear skies and star gazing.   

Cheers!

The Speech

I watched the president this evening and have two immediate takeaways.  Inflation is the low-hanging fruit.

That was singularly the longest run-on sentence I've ever heard.  Great discipline on the teleprompter however.

Recent inflation is not the worst ever in history.  The president is either uninformed, confused or a liar; you pick. 

 

Wiley Coyote

From time to time I have discussed the interactions of red fox and coyotes if their territories overlap and share the same turf.  It's generally not collegial.

I cannot speak to the nature of their coexistence around here inasmuch as I have no evidence of it being good, bad or inconsequential.

Here are some coyote trail camera images and video retrieved from the most recent batch.  This afternoon I'll publish fox imagery taken from the same batch and same time span. 

 

 

Between you and me Old Wiley has probably robbed that loose cat around here of a couple of her lives....

Repurpose

If you are on the receiving end of several inches of overnight snow and have a leftover stale baguette laying around; here's a tip for a snow day breakfast.  

 

Cut your baguette in half inch slices and soak in a batter of two beaten eggs, a splash of milk, and a couple dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg.

 

Fry in butter to make miniature French toasts.

 

 

I like mine with a drizzle of maple syrup and it occurred to me I should have added a dash of vanilla extract.  A FB friend suggested almond extract.  

 

If I hadn't done this that baguette might have gone to the birds. 

 

Either way it was repurposed..... 

Crossing The Line

 

I 've been thinking about this off and on for a couple of days and initially concluded that drawing any further attention to this perversity was a waste of valuable bandwidth.  But after 24 hours of observing a (thankfully) small number of my MAGA acquaintances using Face Book to ghoulishly bask in the reflected glory of the murder of an Hollywood  liberal this is my conclusion. 

I take no issue with satire, sarcasm or general snarkiness; I use it myself.  Nevertheless, I was raised to not gloat about murder or another family's very personal tragedy.  It is inconsistent with expectations of a Christian. Trump's Tweet is not tone deaf; it is wrong.  And while I personally consider this over the line and unpresidential; I fully expect more of the same from Donald Trump.