October?

 

Okay – it really is October – right?  I haven’t opened my door and stepped out to some alternate reality.

 I ask this because it’s 90° outside today.  Summer!  We are back to having summer.  Ugh.

 I am trying to channel October and Fall/Autumn/Cooler Days/Chilly Nights. 

 

And here’s just a little October stuff –

 Today is the last day of Mystery Series Week.  Why read a series, you ask

 

A single hit-and-run story doesn’t have the nuances of a serial sleuth, a career caper, or a mastermind detective. When the mystery ends, so does the mystery and the trail goes cold.  Mystery series continue to baffle. Just when one “who-done-it” is solved, another one is already baffling local authorities.  Then, arrives Sherlock Holmes, Phillip Marlowe, Hercules Poirot, Nancy Drew, Alex Cross, Miss Marple, Jack Reacher, China Bayles, Harry Bosch, Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, along with many others.  So try some Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Lee Child, Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child, Donna Andrews, Susan Wittig Albert, Margaret Maron etc, etc, etc.

 Today, October 10 is also

 Squid & Cuttlefish Day

World Porridge Day

 Who knew there was a day for squid and cuttlefish?

 

Below the thunders of the upper deep,

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous and secret cell

Unnumber'd and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the lumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

— "The Kraken" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1830

And, World Porridge Day – so Did You Know?

 Porridge-like preparations of grass-borne cereal grains, pseudo cereals (like quinoa and buckwheat), and other crops have a long and varied history as meals. Quinoa, for example, “has been used in porridge for more than 3,000 years,” while congee, a rice porridge prepared throughout Asia, has reportedly been eaten in China “since 2500 BC.  Researchers have found evidence that hot, cooked mush began earlier than that— as early as 12,000 years ago—and it would go on to spark the Neolithic Revolution and our exit from the Stone Age.  Gruel (a watered down version of porridge) was briefly thought to act as a medicine for infants and ill persons (easy on the stomach). 

 

Hey!  You might need to know this stuff at your next exotic festivity!

 

So remember this picture?  Cute little (oh, 18 lbs or so) kitty peeping out from behind the books . . . .

 

This was the end result . . . .

 

Well, that’s about all for today.  I should be thinking Halloweenie thoughts, scary stories, interesting costumes, jack-o-lanterns, COOLER WEATHER.  It’s hard to do when you’re wearing shorts and tank tops and looking for the sunscreen!

 Next time.

 

10 Oct 2020