March 18, 2023 a thought for today, Just scales and full measure injure no man. Chinese Proverb

Here is another week end that the twins won’t be visiting here. There is a bit of a situation making it apparently more appropriate for them to be at a different house for the weekend. So it’s just Bob and I for the day. 

The first upload for yesterday was “a country road or a city street”. This city girl chose this one of many that I take of our city streets. 

We just got back from picking up the groceries. It amazes me that how smart and cognizant Sweet Pea seems to be of what is about to happen. I have noticed now that every Saturday when we are about to head out to the store she senses it and runs to get her angry bird toy to signal she is ready to go. I notice that we are making any different kinds of body language that signifies “Saturday” and “a car ride to the store is the destination”.  

The thermometer is reading one degree below freezing right now although the sun is bright and inspiring. The day after tomorrow is the first day of spring. I just checked the prediction for the rest of the week. It appears as though we will be above the thirty-degree space every day after tomorrow for the rest of the week. Maybe it is going to move in slowly.....and stay for a while.....I hope. 

The second upload for yesterday was “green”. In the winter in Ohio we don’t have a lot of green, at least not as much in spring and summer. But I did find this one .

After some work in the kitchen I will be done with projects for the day.....I think. Maybe I will get a couple of more little items done on the newsletter. Yesterday was make up day for me after the problems with the laundry on the day before so I didn’t expect to make any headway on anything except getting the photos done for a two-day period instead of the usual one a day. I had missed an upload on Thursday. I ended up having a little extra time and got a pretty good start on the newsletter then. 

The first upload for today is “your most comfortable shoes”. My most comfortable and well worn are slippers. They are on my feet at all time when I ma in the house. Two of my great grand children got them for my for Christmas two years ago so they are also my most favorite “shoes”. 

The word for today is emotion.  Old man — don't let's forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives, and that we obey them without knowing it, Vincent Van Gogh.  Our passions are true phœnixes: as the old burn out, the new straight rise up out of the ashes, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Though a man of quick temper, he possessed, as a counterbalance, a warm heart, Charles Gibbon. Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Plato. Whatever your heart clings to and confides in that is really your God your functional savior. Martin Luther.  There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed, Buddha. To give vent now and then to his feelings, whether of pleasure or discontent, is a great ease to a man's heart, Francesco Guicciardini.  Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. Robert Browning.   Life is a tram of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they proved to be many colored lenses which paint the world in their own hue. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Men decide many more problems by...emotion than by reason. Marcus Tulius Cicero.  Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.  Charlotte Brontë.  Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question. Lao Tzu.  When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master. Benedict de Spinoza.  Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all? Voltaire.   

The second upload for today is “animal (wild)”. We don’t have to many “wild” animals, as least ones that are readily seen, in day light hours. So I picked this one from my archives. It was taken on a trip to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

Here are some thoughts about a happening in this era of life.... “Software-generated chatbot”.  The article says that “ChatGPT is software that uses artificial intelligence to mimic human communication in supposedly revolutionary ways” and to some of us it is “eerily lifelike” or “creepy”. As the article goes on it mentions that every new form of communication, “telephone to texting” is meant to connect the people they choose....because it is efficient. But often we get a “machine voice” when we try making contact for information. As a difference, the article goes on, in person people look you in the eye and “read non-verbal cues and insist you meet their demands..... time-consuming.” So now, a lot of the time, we are on the phone calling for information or whatever, we are hearing “your call is very important to us”... despite all evidence to the contrary”. The author of the story said that, in wanting to talk about income taxes or washing machine repairs or a gall bladder problem he wants human contact not a machine. We have the need to explain small details of our concerns and to hear someone who seems to understand those concerns. He goes on to say that he leaves voice mails or texts in hopes of getting a human response. In the closing of the article he says as time goes by and our time in history is recorded we will be distinguished as turning over a majority of our communication to machines (artificial intelligence) because companies could save money....and these thoughts leave him “almost speechless”.  

We are having chili mac for dinner tonight. 

Joy

                                   no words