Retreat from a tasty retreat.

Hola Carolyn,


Yeah, it's finally here., he said in his best Eyore voice.  When you read this I'll be in transit north of the 49th coming back to see what trouble winter got the homestead into while I was away. It won't be with a totally heavy heart actually, since a month away is all the recipe called for. Plus, I'd be untruthful if I said there weren't times down in Merida when I wished I had my workshop to mess around in or other familiar haunts to retreat to. I would have made a barely passable Columbus because I'd have gotten a touch homesick about the time we passed the Canary Islands.

Anyhow, some observations about my first time away and in just one place for this long.  Of all my five senses the taste buds got the best of the deal. There are spices galore in my luggage. Now I really appreciate what Marco Polo and the Spice trade was about - it was taste buds, man! Some of this stuff has to be marginally narcotic, it's just too good.  Tough cuts of meat and humble greens or tubers can be rendered unimaginably delectable by the artful addition of these heady substances. I've never been a full-tilt evangelical foodie but I can now see how such a thing happens. When so much legal sensory gratification can be attached to the fundamental process of eating - that's gotta be a good thing, brothers and sisters!

What I still cannot get my head and taste buds around is the hot peppers thing. They're an absolute staple here. There are bins of them in the supermarkets like we'd find potatoes here in North America. I'm surprised they haven't found their way into breakfast cereals! What is the attraction of setting your throat on fire?? That's not a taste sensation. It's just pain - pure and simple. One more for the " Stuff I just don't get" list.



Yup, all in all a good time was had by all. We've asked to be pencilled in for a similar sojourn again in 2014. Here's hoping that nothing untoward intervenes.

Only shortcoming I can think of is that I didn't get any real reading done. I read a lot of Spanish, but that was for the purposes of living the life of an ex-pat for a few sweaty and delightful weeks. There was just too much unfolding in the immediate vicinity of my own senses to allow for the willing suspension of disbelief, or the careful perusal of lines on a page. That Stephen Hawking book I brought along and the 
various things I packed into my I-pad just didn't get any loving at all. The sheer novelty of being able to go out and about without insulation in February just took up all my time. There's a television here with lotsa channels in English even but it has 
only been on once, out of curiosity more than anything else. Sort of a pop culture high colonic.




I do agree with you, Carolyn, about the various cinema Bonds. Connery still seems to have the right combination of menace and panache. Moore was close in the first of his movies. Then it turned into some pretty cartoonish stuff.

 Brosnan was suitably suave but maybe a bit short on the ruthless end. The others had their moments but didn't usurp the role from good old chauvinistic ( and maybe even misogynistic) Mr. Connery. Daniel Craig does have that Machiavellian thing, for sure. The jury  is out on him still.



Okay, to the riddles we must go!

Mine from last time was sunset. I always understood that the sheriff said get out of town by sundown. 

I think yours is snow shovel. I hope not to consort with such things again soon.

here is the next one:

Boxes and operas

Soft and hard

Death to all things dirty

Always slips away in the indoor rain

.

P.S. Well, here I am at YYZ (Pearson International Airport) in my home and native land. We're on the ground but about to be snowbound it seems. Carolyn, your unselfish saving of the snow seems to have worked. At the moment it's here, big time. This kinda stuff is fine where |I live but here in " Tranna" about five inches seems to scare the you know what out of folks. I'm gonna post this and then take it from there.

The Bug, SkyFall and Sonrisa

I so understand “the long, deep and irreversible love affair with the original smart car”. The first car that I personally owned was a VW bug. And it was, for me, one of the most fantastic automobiles I’ve ever owned. I was crushed when we had to sell it; the body gave out, but the engine was still solid. The man who bought it dropped my engine into a newer body and I blessed him for that.

We were fortunate enough to be able to watch the movie SkyFall, the newest James Bond movie, this week. I enjoyed Daniel Craig as 007. He reminds me a lot of Sean Connery who was to me, the best James Bond. The Bond movies seem to set the standard for action films so I am thrilled that finally there is a return to purposeful violence, good script writing, masterful direction and acting. I’m also glad that sex was not the main key to the movie. Judy Dench,M, is one of my favorite actresses. She is cutting back on acting due to macular degeneration. Audiences will miss her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week we welcome a new writer to Wormhole Electric! Lisa’s science fiction fantasy is about forensic accountant. What an interesting thought that is – forensic accountant. I know that readers will enjoy her story is much as I have. We are in the process of editing her trilogy and will roll the first part out in June.

I received word this morning that Ariel Cinii’s book, The Organized Seer, is now available in hard copy through Amazon($9.95). The e-book is still available through Amazon ($3.99). She details her adventure of getting this book into hard copy in her LiveJournal blog. She also warned me that Mercury was in retrograde through St. Patty’s day. Mercury apparently influences technology and can be held accountable for many of the problems we had with technology last fall. Lets hope this period is quieter.

Thanks for the picture of the horse-drawn carriage and the driver with a cell phone. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it does have its drawbacks. Sorry to hear that some of those people traipsing through the ruins just could not put their technology down. I’m sure that they missed the sites. I have students who sleep with their technology devices under their pillows so they don’t miss a call – what a waste of good sleep. It makes “sonrisa” a bit more difficult in the mornings.


It was just confirmed that I get to judge again for sowrite.us.com! New contest is being announced this afternoon. Take a chance! Try it out! A few minutes of your time, maybe earn some unexpected income...

 Your riddle, once again, has baffled me. The only thing that comes to mind is “curfew”. After curfew outcome of the scary people; “be gone” be inside or get in trouble; “time to call it quits” – time to stop the party and go home. Am I at least close this time?

So here is my riddle for the week:

Long and slender

Light weight until the weather changes

A path creator

Have a great week everyone!
Don - I read ahead. Travel safe. We'll save you some snow, send it your way just in case you got homesick for the sound of snow blowers and cold north winds.

Carolyn

Sweet Rides and Connectivity

Hola again from the Yucatan Peninsula!


First of all an update of sorts regarding the end of the world that wasn't. I haven't heard  from down here at the source why the world is still here but I  did see, in one place downtown, a bunch of Mayan calendar covered stuff with big magic marker signs on it reading " Selecto Reduccion"  Methinks that's the closest thing to the give-away  bin you were talking about Carolyn.


 And speaking of steampunk and seemingly incongruous combinations or collisions of technologies, behold the distracted driver below literally at the reins of an age-old connectivity device and simultaneously mesmerized by a new one.

 That has to be one of the most ubiquitous sights observed in our time here - folks everywhere,  glued to their connectivity devices. It wasn't being practised by absolutely everyone but it was everywhere. I wasn't able to capture a shot of someone traipsing through the ruins surgically attached to their device, but I saw it more than thrice. I found myself more than once culturally teleported to that episode of Star Trek TNG a few seasons in entitled " The Game". Now, in the real world, time and technology have " made it so ".

And now, senors and senoritas,  for any other gearheads in the studio audience, behold a mini-gallery of local sweet rides. There's plenty more where these came from, too. I think I came as close as I ever have to driving my spouse to distraction with my constant stops to snap bug pics. Sorry, can't help it!  I have a long, deep and irreversible  love affair with the original "smart car". My first set of wheels, well, four wheels that is, was a sadder but wiser old beetle. We had an adventure or two, tis true. On the rare occasions I behold one back home I instantly get all goofy and nostalgic.

 I had four bugs over my motoring career before they got hounded off the roads of North America by the emissions control gestapo. They were dirt cheap, dog dependable and practically bulletproof. To drive one was to actually be in touch with the road you were travelling rather than floating over it inside some swoopy isolation chamber festooned with artificial wood and leather that was designed to deny its occupants the tactile joy of locomotion.

         

Even though they stopped stamping out the old beetle here in Mexico, and elsewhere on the planet, a decade ago they are still well represented on the roads hereabouts.  Some have character galore, like the last pic above.

 Oh, if those scruffy and sketchy body panels could only talk! 


So, Carolyn, about those manuscripts. I say bring 'em on once I get back since it appears from what I've been seeing about the climate back in my part of the Great White North  ( dang that connectivity thing anyhow! )  that the Bruce Peninsula is having a winter with cohones, for the first time in a few years. One of the things I'm starting to realize about Spanish is that its an expressive language figuratively as well as literally. The term for snowstorm, for example, is " tormenta de nieve" - couldn't have said it better myself!


 Another example of that colorful side of the language - in Spanish the word for smile is "sonrisa" - cool, eh!


Which just happens to bring things to last week's riddle. It was  "alba" as they say here, or  sunrise. BTW If you are seeing vampires by way of your cursor Carolyn, I believe you may need  more moments away therefrom.

Here's this week's:

Be gone or be in trouble with the law

Time to call it quits

Declines and Boulevards

Out come the scary monsters 

Don



   

Steam Punk and New Book Just Published and Bragging Rights

 

Writers! Wormhole is looking for manuscripts! Send me a synopsis of your story and your first chapter!  clv241@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Don, it sounds like you are having an experience of a life time! I had read about the new cultural center – it appears massive and very informative! Lucky you! And the pictures make it look warm!

We went to the Colorado Home and Garden Show - saw lots of beautiful gardens and water falls, met lots of people who wanted to sell us everything from gutter guards to hydroponic towers to solar cells, bathroom fix-it kits and steam baths. We were allowed gum; however, we could not take water into the expo - we had to buy theirs for $4.00 a bottle.

Your description of being close to a busy street and not hearing anything reminded me of the forts and castles we saw in Bosnia when we were there a few years ago – massively thick walls. Even the new apartment buildings are built along those lines – those good folks know how to build something that will withstand just about anything.

And now Bragging Rights! One of our writers, Colby Elliott has received the 2012 Halo Award for best short fiction audio book from Audiobook Heaven.com.
Colby's read "The Street That Never Was" by Clifford Simak. It's great that someone finally noticed Colby's most excellent voice!

Besides research essays, Steam Punk short stories and a syfy “build your own world” book have dominated my reading this week. The essays are completed (intense edit on my part) and the research on the whole was sound; I wish I could say the same for the “build your own world” book. It has been a tough read – the language is English, but the words used are defined only in the author’s mind. The reader has been left out. Not good. Another problem is that the four main characters have at least four different unrelated names. There are times I don’t remember who is talking and what their relationship is to other characters.  The book is rich in description, good sentence structure, good paragraphing; I’m sure the interaction between the characters is good in the author’s mind, but I can’t figure it out. It is one of the few times in my life that I might very well put this book in the give-away bin without finishing it. I’ll give it another chapter, but if it doesn’t start making sense, it goes. 50 pages of poor writing is about all I can take.

The Steam Punk stories are another story, so to speak. So far they have been clear, easy to follow even though some are written with Victorian English spellings. Not all of they take place in England, which I thought was a necessity for Steam Punk. Apparently not! Which is good! Both O’Ryan Jackson and Jepf Keir, writers for Wormhole, have created their own worlds using the Steam Punk formula without using Victorian England as the setting. In some ways, the genre reminds me of the Ewoks in Star Wars – tough bad guys with technology beaten by simple everyday folk.

Riddle: okay, I think the answer to your riddle, Don, is a cursor – the flashing line that signals it is ready to put words to the screen when I am and is just as capable of removing my mistakes (which for me are vampires).

Don, I still don’t have a riddle for this week, sorry. My mind is just coming up for air after grading, meetings, and getting our latest book ready for Amazon and the web developers. Just to let you know, I’m hoping you settle in well once you get back home – looks like we’re going to be busy with some new manuscripts! The FantasyCollection goes on sale through Amazon tomorrow! The sample pages won’t be available through the website until March 1. See what you’re missing! Editing and commenting …

It's not that I'm envious or anything...

Have a great week! Travel well, travel safe.

 OH!! I just about forgot! sowrite.us.com is having another contest opening up next weekend! Check it out!

Carolyn

 

 

 

 

Shakin' and bakin' in Merida

Hi Carolyn,

 

It would be a lie, pure, simple and barefaced. !

I wish I could say I was feeling down about not being back in snowy Ontario, Canada enduring the "record snowfalls" and "historic storms" that those folks on the weather network website are waxing on about. I just can't, though 

Anyhow a bit about the outlook from here.  First of all, those skeletal figures seen above abound as we head towards the season of Lent in this fundamentally Catholic region. They're  All Souls Day inspired and represent all of those  remembered and revered family members who have passed on and are now celebrated yearly at this time. If anything they are the antithesis of zombies. 

 We're spending the better part of February in the heart, or " Centro Historico" of the city of Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It's about a million people.  The place we're in has been standing for a couple of centuries. The city itself came to be in 1542 and this structure is in the area that sprung up on the site of an earlier Mayan community when the Spanish first came here. From the street it, and the area, remind me of the time I spent in Europe because, from the street, it's entrance is simply part of a wall along a street that was in use for centuries before cars and trucks replaced horses and it was built long before people could even imagine electricity.

 I'm tickling the keys, right now, in a room about 9 feet from a fairly busy street full of cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks  but separated from that and from adjoining structures by 18 inches of stone and mortar with a single front door for entry and exit. People raising young families are physically a few feet away but I can't hear a thing.  It's woefully small by our  21st century North-American bloated standards of what constitutes living space. Its design capitalizes passively on the abundance of heat and light that comes with the climate here, but attempts to keep out the rain that also comes as part of the deal for over half of the year. Plants just seem to jump out of the ground, I've been told. It really is a jungle out there! The Mayan ruins weren't torn down by conquistadors so much as they were worn down by centuries of hurricanes and aggressive greenery.



 And there are plenty of reminders,  beyond the language, of the forces that help drive the cultural wedge of colonisation here. The cathedrals are, like in medieval Europe, the dominant manmade features of the topography in the old city. But make your way outward from the centuries old city centre and religious cathedrals in the historic centro make way for the secular ones in the burgeoning outskirts - Wal-Mart, Costco, Sam;s Club, Home Depot and a whole raft of Mexican equivalents.  And the automotive miracle mile is here too. The American big three, Volkswagen, all of the Japanesse and Korean brands, and some from Europe that we here in North America have either never heard of or forgotten about  - believe it,  consumerism is the new religion out in the 'burbs here too! How do young upwardly mobile Merida residents spend Sundays - go on, guess. 

But rampant North-American style consumerism hasn't snuffed  out cultural pride and tradition among the Mayans anymore than the Spanish colonial tide did. Certainly not on the Yucatan Peninsula.

In our first week we, and our hosts, went to the just opened Mayan Culture Museum. It's huge, completely high-tech and awash with uniformed guards. It created wonder and awe as any museum should. It also gave us a moment of head-scratching.

 

  As we were making our way in,  one of the uniform folks accosted Karen , my long-suffering spouse ( and a  lifelong elementary school teacher ) from about  twenty feet away, in a large and very acoustically resonant area. He pointed at his mouth and then at hers and said in a stentorian voice that echoed like crazy in the cavernous entry hall,   " Chicklet, chicklet "

 

 We were all initially stunned because he was quite officious and loud. As we got closer he pointed at her mouth and wordlessly made that hand gesture that all teachers in the primary and elementary end of the education world do instinctively - pull out the gum and get rid of it !!  This was almost bizarre or surreal in a sense because he was just so unbelievably zealous and made her feel like she was smuggling crack or something. He couldn't have been any more over-the-top if he'd pulled his gun, knelt down, trained it on her  and yelled " Freeze, Slimeball !! "  There was not a sign anywhere to say no chicklets or ? !! 

 

 All part of the multi-cultural merry-go-round/roulette wheel, eh! 

 

 From now until forever she will be  " The Chicklet Woman  " in my mind's eye.

 

Anyhow, our time here is about half spent so there will be more later. Back to the tasty things. I got back to my riddle stash after arguing with a Wi-Fi setup that was temperamental and arbitrary at best, so here's the one for this week. I'd stick in two but I have taken up a good deal of real-estate here simply being Mr. greenhorn travel guide.

 

 

 

 

Illuminating and revealing

Signal to get busy

Hopes renewed

Vampires removed 

 

 

Don.

 

 

 

P.S.  I actually brought a paper book with me - A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking, and had time to briefly crack it open earlier today. It looks most interesting.

 

 

Vampire Bats, Big Foot and Tree Octopi

Scissors! Really?! How did I miss that? Argh! There are some weeks I just don’t seem to follow or get the riddle! Don, you are close – mine was couch – just long enough to lie down on, cover myself with a blanket and take a nice Sunday afternoon nap. Ah well, not today.

I have spent the majority of the last 3 days grading my way out of a pile of midterm papers. I finally got above the pile late yesterday. I don’t mind grading, actually. Even though it is not my favorite past time, I get to explore the world from the perspective of my students. The research topics I was editing range from the familiar Tattooing and green house effects to some that are more interesting: independent films, graphic novels, steam punk as literature, robots as maids, and cryptozoology.

You mentioned the Whoosh effect, Don. I had that – a paper on cryptozoology – jack-a-lope, bigfoot, tree octopus. The paper took me back to living in Wyoming, my mom playing bridge with the ranchers’ wives and the stories. I remember one rancher wife was late to the game. She drove up in her beat up blue Ford truck, stepped out dressed in heels, furs (this was back before it wasn’t politically correct to wear fur), tacked her shotgun into the rack hanging across the back window, took a shovel and lifted out of the truck bed the biggest dead rattle snake I’d ever seen. She hung it on the rack on the side of the truck, strode into the house and proceeded to play bridge. Apparently the snake had coiled up under the truck and she had to dispose of it before she could come play. While she played, she told us stories of how the jack-a-lope came to be, and that she’d have to look out for the snake’s mate as they had a tendency toward revenge.

One of my favorite exercises for my research class is to look into the tree octopus. It constantly amazes me how many of my college students believe that a tree octopus is possible. Actually, it is a bit scary…

Believe it or not, there is an International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine, and a cryptid zoo which studies actual animals like the giant vampire bat, the inflatable hedgehog, the okapi. It was interesting to note that most of their information is collected from people who have “happened upon” the cryptid in question. Their main focus is to analyze the date they’ve collected and decide whether or not the cryptid is plausible. Must be an interesting job…

 

Cryptozoology is the making of science fiction and fantasy. Zack is using it in his Captain Jackson series; I use it in my Tracker stories. And the current craze for vampires goes a long way to support the thought that this unappreciated science just might make good fiction.

I don’t have a riddle this week either. My brain is just now unwrapping itself and seems to be taking a long needed break for a day.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Noticed that sowrite.us.com has another 1000 word challenge going – check it out!

Carolyn

Don, watch the sunburn!

The B & T Effect !

Some months back,  when I  began reading The Hobbit  ( See Nov. 1st entry ),  I had an incident of cultural teleportation.  After Gandalf and the dwarves have pretty well par-tayed things out at Bilbo's,  Thorin comes clean on just why they pulled this home invasion on the befuddled Hobbit. He hushes the room and then, like any seasoned orator, begins  by buttering up the host:

“ Gandalf, dwarves, and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in this house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit … "

Whoosh !   I was instantaneously  sent elsewhere - into another story.

This wasn't a one-time thing either. Oh no....

  

 The first time I saw  “ The Matrix “ it happened as Morpheus was initiating the  virtual combat training  Neo needed to fully become “ the One “.  As Neo looks on,  Morpheus vaults effortlessly between two skyscrapers. Quick cut to Neo as Morpheus lands on the adjoining building - an incredulous look and a single utterance .....  “ Whoa “ 







Whoosh, I was back in that other story!!

 Since 1988 I"ve experienced instances of this  phenomenon when  I've see folks playing Battleship, or heard Iron Maiden, or George Carlin or simply heard the names  Billy The Kid, Beethoven, Joan of Arc, Socrates  (a.k.a. so-crates) or  Abe Lincoln  (it’s gonna spoil Speilberg’s movie for me, I just know it !) .  I clearly felt it whilst titling my Boxing Day  blog entry!

Yep, it’s the  B & T Effect  alright.   There's no known antidote. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey ( For me just segments of the same entity) exert  a strong effect over the weak-minded. 

 It's out  now , in movie-making land and on the web, that a third installment is being considered.  Bill and Ted 3!   Hmmm....   A lot of the stuff I've run into has been of the “why? " or "WTF “ variety. The gist is that it’s just a cash grab. Well , I'm here to proclaim that  B & T 3 would be fine by me. 

It's about perspective. These were not deep, provocative and game changing Sci-Fi flicks, like The Matrix  ( although a recent item I read included a short blurb from a CalTech theoretical physicist noting that B&T handled the  time travel trope in a manner that least insulted the potential plausibility of it all. ) 


Indeed, the B&T celluloid saga makes me smile more than a similar helping of most anything else out there in mindlessly therapeutic  diversion land. Note: Ferris is a microscopically close second!

 They're  send the cranium out for some R&R, comfort food movies,  pure and simple -                  ( although if you listen carefully you'll catch  an Ingmar Bergman reference, a nudge-nudge, wink-wink mention of Oedipal complexes  and the like, along with the sophomoric stuff - Mel Brooks would be proud !)



 I can watch them anytime. Case in point, a few years ago I was on a road trip with good friends in Serbia, on our way to Romania.  We stayed at an interesting and well past its mid-1950's glory hotel in Belgrade. It was a simple stopover. We were especially concerned about passing through Serbia as quickly as possible since it appeared that simply having Bosnian license plates on our vehicle brought hardened glares from many a passer by and even a gas station attendant while filling us up. Not much after sunup I awoke and idly switched on the old Tv in my cold war decor room while I dressed to leave. Whoa...  Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey with Serbian subtitles  - I was totally flabbergasted, dudes, and almost missed the departure. Maybe Wyld Stallyns  will bring about global glasnost! They have as much of a chance as anyone.

 They've contributed the odd verbal and visual catch-phrase, too. I pursue the spherical arts weekly in a mildly dingy pool hall with a cast of "shady" characters including our former Crown Attorney and a city councilor.  There aren't any " sticky tables and mangled door jambs with draughty doors" though, and very few bar fights.  Social  pretense plays poorly here - you're as good as your last game whether you came here in an Escalade or on the bus. The  B&T air guitar  move is my standard gleeful  response when a tough 8-ball shot nails it!

But I digress!

Don

BTW  Hola! -  from the Yucatan Peninsula. Got lots to relate about that state of affairs soon. What I don't appear to have at the moment is the technological wherewithal to get at my stash of riddles. So there will be two next time.

My guess for yours Carolyn, is, of all things, a recliner chair, Lay-z-Boy or as I've heard it called on occasion, a Barca-Lounger.  Haven't had time to mentally masticate on this one though, so I could be way out there again.

And lest I forget, my last riddle was scissors - those things you're not supposed to run with. Anyhow, will be back atcha.

Writers wanted

Writers! Wormhole Electric is looking for completed manuscripts of various lengths. Topics: action, adventure, syfy, fantasy. Check us out on http://www.wormholeelectric.com and contact Carolyn at clv241@gmail.com. I'm looking forward to reading your work!

 

 

 

 I’m running a bit late this week; just finished the judging for the sowrite.us.com writing contest. We hit a bit of a snafu – the judges were global – China, England, Northeastern Onterio, California and Colorado. While some of were judging, others were sleeping and vice versa. Isn’t technology wonderful?! Even 5 years ago this might not have been as easy. Slip on over to sowrite.us.com for the winners! There were a lot of good entries!  I’d like to see the story that comes with several of them!

Judging the writing contest made me very aware of how writers use words. I was amazed that 4 people (judges) could read the same story starts and each come up with a different blend of the top 5 stories. We all agreed on the top 5 – just not what order they should be placed in.  I’m hoping that I’ll be invited back to do more judging; I really enjoyed the banter with the other judges and deeply appreciated the story starts the many talented writers shared.

Zombies and vampires, Don. Have no idea why they are popular. Interestingly enough, many of the people who read that genre don’t have a clue to why they read it either. Good story? Interesting characters? Plot just beyond believable but not so much it hurts? Well written? As to tats, body piercings, gauges in the ears, and why grown men feel compelled to fight over a really small ball,  and how do owls rotate their heads like that? I have no idea! Enlightenment will have to come from another source. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are things in this world that I don’t understand and it is okay. There are enough other mysteries for me to solve in this world.

I had to laugh at your fellow instructor, Don, and his witty thought about educational administrators and policy makers. I think it is something most teachers of all levels feel has at least a little bit of truth to it. I wonder what he’d say about all those who come up with the latest and greatest “pedantic theory”?

 

I’m currently distracted by the woodpeckers combing our lawn. They are starting to beat on the flashing on the side of the house to attract mates – don’t they realize it is just barely February and we have at least 2 more months of snow and cold? And the magpies, starlings and crows are trying to drive an owl from the pine tree next door. What a racket! Don, I imagine you are experiencing wildlife that you don’t usually see this time of year. So how is Mexico? How are the ancient ruins and the warm weather?

You’re right, Don, paper was the answer to the last riddle – well, actually it was “scratch pad”. My guess for yours is the covered ramps that connect the airplane to the terminal – the ramps you walk down (or up depending on the direction you’re going) to get on or off the airplane. I know there is a specific name, but it is escaping me. I’ve thought about asking people several times this week, but I never remember while someone is around. It has been one of those weeks...

So my riddle this week:

Heralder of great comfort

Large pillow arms

A foot rest snaps out

Bring a blanket, stretch out

Nap time

 

Have a great week, everyone.

Carolyn