Thursday Thirteen

1.  Recipe discussion on root vegetables:
    Friend: So you could roast those beets or . . .
    Me: I can't do that. I don't have live beets. I have dead beets.
    Friend: . . .


2. Two separate headline stories seen on AOL on May 23: Nine brains found on NY Street. Hot dog man gets fired.

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5. I am currently listening to The Gold Finch, by Donna Tart, and reading The Paying Guest, by Sarah Waters, and while the two books are drastically different, they have the same feel about them - heavy and literary. One has a male protagonist and the other is female, and I find I am confusing the books even though they are nothing alike.

 

6. According to this story, in Virginia a person needs to make $21 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. I don't know too many people who make that much an hour in this state.

 

7. I confess I have to wonder if the statistics above aren't skewed because Virginia is essentially split into northern and southern Virginia. Most of the money lies to the north, near D.C. Virginia has a split personality. I wonder if it is Gemini.

 

8. Have you heard? One of our spacecraft, New Horizons, is scheduled to intersect with Pluto on July 14. The spacecraft is already sending back interesting photos of the planet (non-planet?). You can see them here.

 

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This is the article that ran in the newspaper about my high school graduation on Friday, June 5, 1981. I was a student speaker at the event. I graduated 5th in my class of 210. Not bad. Everything and nothing has changed in the ensuing years. Congratulations to all of the graduates this year. Move forward.

11. Music makes your brain dance, according to this. I just know it makes the rest of me dance, and sometimes it makes me smile. Sometimes it makes me cry.

12. “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that the life experiences that we have on the purely physical plane will have resonances within that are those of our own innermost being and reality. And so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive, that’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves.” - Joseph Campbell

13. Another day to cut the hay. All hail the grass, and the growing season.
  
 
 
 Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 397th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.