Here is installment #23 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
This bite bites.
The cluster clustered at the bottom of the bowl.
The draft drifted in the draft.
The descent descended, making their way around the tree trunk.
Here is installment #22 from my eternal blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
They gammed about the gam’s lack of gams!
Sometimes a pounce pounces.
A vagrant vagrant member is all alone.
Is a deceit deceitful?
A sord is not sordid.
The posse shot the posse – and ate it.
Answers:
Vagrant vagrant, Loro Parque, Tenerifa
Gam of whales [1] [2]
Pounce of cats
Vagrant of sea urchin
Deceit of lapwings
Sord of mallards (in flight)
Posse of turkeys
Pounce, Nga Phe Chaung Kyaung Temple, Inle Lake, Myanmar
As 2018 begins I present to you Installment #21 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
The flock flocked together.
She dug up a clot of clats.
A flock of these solitary creatures would be one big flock!
The husk wasn’t particularly husky.
The wreck covered the wreck.
An audience for the audience, please!
Flock member, Mission Beach, AustraliaClat, Silk showroom, Bangkok, Thailand
Happy New Year, Everyone!!! My gift to you is Installment #20 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
Man, a flamboyance is flamboyant!
See the run run.
Is a zeal zealous?
I saw a rainbow rainbow!
The route kept to the route.
Did you find the bazaar at the bazaar?
Answers:
Rainbow part, Khao Yai National Park, ThailandRainbow part, Khao Yai National Park, ThailandRainbow part, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
Here’s the annual round-up of my blog offerings. I grew insanely prolific this year, and went from biweekly posts to once a week. Happy Holidays and we’ll meet again in 2018. —Jadi
Nature: I went nuts writing a thread dedicated to my father. It began with The Animal Kingdom: 1 and so far 19 (!) posts have gone live. Since that wasn’t enough for me, I wrote special posts concentrating on individual critter families, such as A Clowder, A Cluster, A Cornucopia, and A Brood. I wrote a post on natural disasters, too: Houston, We Have a Problem
Take a look around and see if you find old friends or stumble upon posts you may have missed. I like to think that these blog posts are my gifts to the world. As always, I welcome any and all feedback. See you next year!
Patiently waiting for the full moon to rise, Hampi, India
India is good for a surprise around any corner and on any street. We once passed a band of musicians blowing horns and banging drums, marching nonchalently down the middle of the road. Cows, of course, are sacred in the Hindu faith and go wherever they damn well please.
And on our way to the airport near Bhopal, our taxi driver asked if we wanted to halt and watch a truck feed the passengers.
They were transporting a brood of hens to market. [1] Properly defined, a brood is the family produced at a single hatching. This group had to be several broods. [2]
Unbuckling the passengers, so to speak….Hey! Are we there yet?Everyone likes a chance to stretch their legs
We were bemused by how healthy the hens were, and how agreeable to being transported together in baskets. They promptly headed for the field and their feed – and then back to the roadside to be placed again in baskets.
Chickens can’t fly (although they will get a running start and stay airborne for a second or two). There are more chickens than any other bird. According to Wikipedia, “[t]he domestic chicken is descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus).” They’re a gregarious species, and chicks are both incubated and raised communally.
The brood didn’t brood long with lunch being served [2]
We didn’t witness any of the usual pecking order. Maybe these hens were too hungry.
What’s for dessert?
Later that night over dinner (no, I don’t recall if I ordered a chicken dish) we talked about animal husbandry. The fowl transport truck seemed to both of us much less cruel than an industrial chicken factory.
Hard to believe, but this is installment #19 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
Ooh, how the glaring glared when I started up the vacuum cleaner.
The ostentation was ostentatious for sure.
A sleuth sleuths slowly.
Touch an electric fry and you’ll fry.
The posse shot the posse and ate it.
The sedge hid in the sedges.
Answers:
Glaring member, Kanchanaburi, ThailandOstentation, Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia
It’s time again for the Weihnachtsmärkte. Stuttgart’s Christmas Market runs from 29 November to 23 December. Uwe and I always go to drink a glühwein with friends. You should, too!
The Christmas Market began as a short winter market. [1] Europe has held seasonal markets for centuries. Vienna, Austria’s Dezembermarkt dates all the way back to 1294/1296. But a Weihnachtsmarkt is special, and signals the beginning of the Advent season leading up to Christmas. This tradition is found in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Alsace region of France. [2]
The Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt
Medieval guilds tightly controlled who could produce or sell wares, so each city market was unique and had a distinct, regional flavor. This remains true today. At a German Christmas Market, you’ll find these items for sale at open-air booths:
Tin, blown glass, wooden, and straw ornaments
Round wooden presses or molds for cookies known as Springele
Nutcrackers
Gebrannte Mandeln (candied toasted almonds)
Magenbrot and Lebkuchen gingerbread (Lebkuchen is often sold in beautiful and reusable decorative tins)
Eierpunsch (eggnog)
Candles
Clothes, including hand knit hats and gloves and scarves
Hot sausages and
Glühwein: a magical drink of mulled wine served from huge brass vats, with a shot of liquor added if you want to get extra-warm [2]
Our city of Stuttgart’s Weihnachtsmarkt is famous for its decorated booth roofs.
The market attracts more than 3,000,000 visitors each year! Tour busses pull up and unload shoppers from all over Europe. The Weihnachtsmarkt takes over several piazzas downtown; the 3x weekly Wochenmarkt for fresh produce and flowers moves to the Königstraße, the main pedestrian street.
A huge carousal, lit up and spinningThis larger-than-life nutcracker eats a constantly revolving nut
I try to go a couple times each year. I head for the weekly market for fruits and vegetables and then meet a friend for a Bratwurst and a Glühwein. Or I arrange to meet Uwe after work.
We wend our way through rows of booths, enjoying hearing so many different languages along with the local Schwäbisch dialect.
NOTES on NOTES: [4] ….and nothing is better than a starry winter night, a hot mug of Glühwein, snow gently falling as you stand with your sweetie, the sounds of talk and laughter of other Weihnachtsmarkt visitors all around you as carolers sing in the courtyard of the 16th century castle across the plaza. Prosit, und Fröhe Weihnachten!
Go to my earlier post A Guy Goes to a Christmas Market to read an excerpt set in the Stuttart Weihnachtsmarkt. Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.
Uwe and I spent a recent holiday in southern Spain. My first trip to Andalusia took place when I was barely 17, and the memories that flooded me so many years later are all from deep recesses in my senses.
We traveled by bus between Granada and Córdoba, and later to Sevilla. I didn’t remember a thing about what Sevilla looks like. Memories came back anyway. In Granada they involved spatial proportions; in Córdoba, infinity and water. In Sevilla, my recollections arrived with sound.
Parque María Luisa
We strolled through the lovely Parque de María Luisa to the Plaza de España.
Plaza de España
The Plaza was constructed in 1929 when the city of Sevilla hosted the Ibero-American Exposition World’s Fair. A building façade curves, with lovely tilework depicting each Spanish state. Uwe took photos while I admired the details.
I heard an insistent, rhythmic clacking: a young man with castanets stood in the plaza. Near him a guitarist played as a dancer’s heels pounded out a hypnotic dance.
She was astonishingly poised, with the self-confident grace required of flamenco dancers. Her skirts swirled as she dipped and turned. Her dance in the square the pluck of guitar strings the click clack click clack clack clack clack of castanets…. I was thrust back in a relived moment so deeply entrenched that I cannot tell you when or where it first occurred.
For as long as I recall, flamenco always moves me to the edge of tears. I never understood why until my mother told me that she’d developed a short-lived taste for flamenco guitar music when she was pregnant with me. After I was born the craving promptly disappeared. So do these relived audio memories come from the womb? From that first trip abroad so long ago?
I had my coins out and ready when the dancer came around with a hat. I was surprised to see how young she was under her make-up. She might have been 17… just the age I was when I first visited this beautiful region.
Uwe’s camera always captures the exquisite details
We began our trip to southern Spain in Granada. When I stood inside Granada’s Cathedral, I suddenly – and very vividly – remembered what and how I’d seen it 40 years earlier. At the Alhambra, my memories were blurry remembrances of running water.
A few days later in Córdoba, I had a further experience with spatial imprinting. We spent a half day in the Mezquita, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The outer wall to the Mezquita, CórdobaA door to the Mezquita, Córdoba
The Mezquita was first built in the mid-6th century as a Visogoth church, built up in the 780s as The Great Mosque of Córdoba, and finally re-dedicated as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción) in 1236. The Mezquita’s altar incorporates and blends Catholic iconography and design into the original Moorish structure.
The early Muslim prayer hall is filled with rows of arches in colored bands of stone. They seem to stretch into Eternity.
This hypostyle hall (meaning that the roof rests on pillars) contains a grand 856 columns of finest jasper, marble, onyx and granite. These columns are topped with the arches, which are futher topped with more arches.
No, this is not a repeat of the earlier photo. This angle gazes in another direction in the prayer hall
If Granada’s Cathedral is all soaring heights, the Mezquita in Córdoba is an endless repetition of forms. Gaze in any direction and turn your body in a slow circle. The repeating arches always bring the viewer back to the beginning again.
I didn’t know until later that Uwe had photographed me, standing quiet in awed delight
The repeating patterns are beautiful. They’re haunting, too; it’s no accident that what I recall best from my first trip to Andalusia are deeply buried memories of graceful forms in plaster, stone and tiles.
What would I say if you were to ask me to select one thing I remember most after my first visit to the Mezquita as a teenager, all those years ago? I’d say: A sense of wonder.
Islamic architects and artists are masters of geometric decoration. Their patterns’ deeper purpose is to bring visitors and viewers to a sense of another, underlying reality. Maybe it’s just the beauty in the world. Perhaps it’s the presence of God. I’m perfectly fine with either explanation.
The mihrab niche. The Mezquita’s mihrab ((Arabic: محراب miḥrāb) is exceptional because it points south rather than southeast and to Mecca
I rediscovered the whimsical and the wondrous as I gazed at repeating, interlocking, intertwined squares, circles, triangles, flowers, tessellations and stars.
Artwork both secular and sacred is woven into every stroke of calligraphy that embellishes gorgeous walls and doorways and niches at both the Alhambra and in Córdoba. The effect is one of standing in a house of mirrors or an echo chamber with lights and patterns extending on and out into Forever.
No single detail stayed. Just… a fleeting glimpse of the Divine.