My Virtual Reading Room

A message in a bottle that traveled 3,200 miles helped heal a Maryland boy’s grief

The message in a bottle that Irish couple Ciaran Marron and Rita Simmonds found in early January while vacationing in Donegal, Ireland. It was tossed in the waters of Ocean City in 2019 by a Maryland boy with the help of his friend, who died last year. (Rita Simmonds)

For years, bar patrons bought beers for Betty White hoping she’d come claim them. The funds are now going to animal charity.

Boy and Squirrel
by
Juliana Horatia Ewing




Oh boy, down there, I can't believe that what they say is true!
We squirrels surely cannot have an enemy in you;
We have so much in common, my dear friend, it seems to me
That I can really feel for you, and you can feel for me.

Some human beings might not understand the life we lead;
If we asked Dr. Birch to play, no doubt he'd rather read;
He hates all scrambling restlessness, and chattering, scuffling noise;
If he could catch us we should fare no better than you boys.

( Fine ladies, too, whose flounces catch and tear on every stump, /What joy have they in jagged pines, who neither skip nor jump? )

( 5 more: )

...With the drawings and writing still intact! Do take a look:

in this article from UpWorthy

(How strawberry milk is made from www.samuelism.com, by Cindy Gish)

To Norman Forbes-Robertson
[Early June 1885]                [16 Tite Street]

Dear Norman,

Thanks for your congratulations. Yes, come tomorrow. The baby is wonderful: it has a bridge to its nose! which the nurse says is proof of genius! it also has a superb voice, which it freely exercises: its style is essentially Wagnerian.

[...]

(from "Selected Letters of Oscar Wilde") 

The poet and the baby

How's a man to write a sonnet, can you tell,--
How's he going to weave the dim, poetic spell,--
When a-toddling on the floor
Is the muse he must adore,
And this muse he loves, not wisely, but too well?

Now, to write a sonnet, every one allows,
One must always be as quiet as a mouse;
But to write one seems to me
Quite superfluous to be,
When you 've got a little sonnet in the house.

Just a dainty little poem, true and fine,
That is full of love and life in every line,
Earnest, delicate, and sweet,
Altogether so complete
That I wonder what's the use of writing mine.

(Paul Laurence Dunbar)

Many thanks for the link to this vid to elenbarathi--I'd not heard this song before.

Warning: if you're easily grossed out, don't watch this video! ;)
~~

A silly song that makes humor out of the exaggerated perception that the whole world could possibly be against one person. It includes gross descriptions of eating worms. It is a favorite kid song.

Here's an older version:

More about this story here: http://sisters.littlethings.com/latkovski-sisters-dance

Dear Miss Manners • I think it is so ugly to hold up your pinky while drinking tea. Do you consider it good or bad manners?

Gentle Reader • It has been both in its day, as Miss Manners recalls.

When tea was first imported to England from China, it was wildly expensive and kept locked up. It was drunk from Chinese cups, which are very thin and, for reasons best known to the designers, have no handles. Therefore, tea drinkers held the cups with as few fingers as possible to minimize scorching, especially of the pinky, which is apt to have fewer callouses than the others and thus be more sensitive.

Because it was a luxury of the rich, that gesture came to be associated with them, and not in a nice way.

As we now have our own teacups with handles, the once-practical gesture is absurd, and only the association with wealth and, by implication, snobbery, persist.
~~

Dear Abby • While driving with my son when he was in fifth or sixth grade, I spotted a bumper sticker on the car ahead of us at a stoplight. It had the “My child is an honor student” message with his school’s name on it. I said to him, in a not-too-subtle hint about his grades, “I’d like to have a bumper sticker like that to put on my car, too.”

I realized he was developing a wicked sense of humor when he replied, “I’ll see if I can steal you one.” It’s one of my favorite memories. — Oh, the Memories in LaGrange, N.C.

Dear Memories • Funny! And what has he become? A lawyer, a politician or a comedian?

(from the Paris Belle Epoque FB page)

Do take a look! Quite a variety there--astronomical, sad, tender...

National Geographic's "After Midnight"--readers's photos

A more lighthearted poem on the topic of marriage than the one posted this morning...;)
~~

If No One Ever Marries Me

If no one ever marries me,—
And I don't see why they should,
For nurse says I'm not pretty,
And I'm seldom very good—

If no one ever marries me
I shan't mind very much;
I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,
And a little rabbit-hutch:

I shall have a cottage near a wood,
And a pony all my own,
And a little lamb quite clean and tame,
That I can take to town:

And when I'm getting really old,—
At twenty-eight or nine—
I shall buy a little orphan-girl
And bring her up as mine.

Laurence Alma-Tadema (1865 – 1940)

found via poemsdaily

...to everyone celebrating today; and even if you're not celebrating today, do take a look at the cards below, some of them really are hilarious...and some are sweet;)
~~
Here's one of them, and you can see 14 more cards in this link

Originally posted by levkonoe at Тюльпаны, веселая компания и летний дождь