Sunday, August 25, 2013

10:12 AM Have watched the morning news and read over this whole blog. That's a lot of writing for such a short amount of time. I'm really enjoying writing this. I will keep it, hopefully, forever. I have diaries going back almost ten years on this computer, sometimes faithfully written and sometimes not, but I have read over some of them and found things that when I read them I remembered, and I can hardly believe so much time has passed. As far as events go, this is probably going to be a plateau in my life, since I won't be working anymore and my activities will be simple. If I am lucky enough to continue to have good health, most of the events in my life now will be internal and a matter of spiritual, emotional or intellectual activity. That's one reason I need the Internet, because as I read these various books I run across words or concepts that are new to me and I want to research them. I should go to the library and check out books on non-fiction subjects, though, rather than depending solely on Wikipedia for information. I have done some of that already, especially biographies and want to continue. If I don't keep thinking and learning, I will lose the ability to do it as I age, and I am now at that point in my life. Already I don't remember things as easily as I did as a young person.

I just watched a segment about Florida panthers on Wild About Animals, with Mariette Hartley. Panthers are down to the hundreds in population in Florida, and were so inbred that the kittens were turning out with serious illnesses and malformations. The authorities brought in a number of healthy females from Texas and turned them loose in Florida to provide a new blood line, and Hartley said that the impact was immediate, in that the very next year the kittens found were mainly healthy and whole. They showed the scientists capturing adult panthers with hounds after anesthetizing them. Generally they are found up a tree with the dogs barking underneath. They use a safety net to catch the cat as it falls out of the tree, examining it and maybe giving it vaccines, because I saw them give the cat a shot. I hope they vaccinated it for rabies, since there are cases of rabies every year here even within the city limits of Jacksonville, especially among raccoons and foxes. Then they give the cat a number and put a collar on it, probably so the scientists can track it electronically, and record it in a record of the population. I have seen a Florida panther in the Jacksonville zoo, and they aren't very big, though they say they can bring a deer down and kill it. They are shy and don't aggressively go after humans, though I have no doubt that you wouldn't want to have to fight one. They are absolutely beautiful to me, smooth sleek fur and well-rounded muscles, with graceful movements. They showed some kittens, which were spotted and were spitting and growling as they were handled. I really love cats, for their spirit and power as well as for their beauty, and the wild ones are no exception.

I'm going to wash and curl my hair now. I am still experimenting with the new curlers to get the curl the right degree of tightness. I got too large a curler the last time I did it, and my hair was, as my Mother used to say, “woofy”, which means just barely curled and flaring out from my head. The style was too much like “big hair” for my tastes and I had to keep brushing it down. It is growing out and is at an awkward stage right now. I did trim off the thin layer of fringe at the back of my head on my neck so that it is almost a blunt cut now. That is what I want to keep because it makes a smooth look, and I want to let it grow to about shoulder length. I'm hoping to go back to a pageboy now. I don't want to have to pay for hair cuts at $25.00 each anymore. When it is shoulder length I can trim it myself.

12:29 Reading now. On the Internet, Midsummer's Eve, adapted by the Christian Church as the birth of St. John The Baptist, but celebrated by pre-Christian rites including bonfires to ward off evil spirits and rolling a wheel down a hill to symbolize the movement of the sun. Midsummer Day is the longest day of the year, though the holidays were not always celebrated on the actual longest day. It varies from country to country.

The novel – Hugh de Luc has been hired as a jester in the court of the wicked Baldwin, who Hugh thinks is the lord who kidnapped his wife. He is being helped by the cook, whose cousin Hugh rescued from robbers on the road to the castle. She has him take the food to the prisoners, where she thinks his wife may be, but when he gets to the woman in question he sees that it isn't his wife. He goes to his room. Later he runs afoul of Norbert the evil knight who he is convinced has killed his wife, since she isn't at the castle, and gets thrown in a cell in chains. He escapes from the chains by a trick he has practiced beforehand, and is helped out of the jail by the old jester who is in love with Bette the cook. Before he goes out of the castle he makes his way to Norbert's bedroom and finds him there. They fight and Hugh finally kills him with not his sword, but a knife he had hidden in his belt. Norbert dead, he leaves the castle and goes into the deep woods to escape. He's on the run now.

Hugh went back to the Lady Emillie and was taken on as Jester while the old jester recovers from illness. He is in a safe position until the Lord of the castle comes back from war. He is afraid the Lord will send him back to Baldwin to face a trial for killing Norbert. I'm stuck in the middle of the story and it's too late to keep reading. It's time to eat. Good night.