Tag: Funny

Major North American rodeos

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. It’s desert, for one thing, where nearly everything has to be irrigated, for another. Quite simply, it’s a lot like Yakima, in the middle of Washington state, a place that has some fine rodeos, like the one at Ellensburg, up the canyon, or out in White Swan on the reservation.

This list started out to be the biggest ones, but I’m finding even that can be tricky, depending on the varying measures. And then there are the Best Lists, which laud smaller events like the Reno Rodeo in Nevada and the Pendleton Roundup in eastern Oregon.

So here’s a list anyway. Giddyup!

  1. Cheyenne Frontier Days, Wyoming
  2. Calgary Stampede, Alberta, Canada
  3. National Western Stock Show, Denver
  4. Ponoka Stampede, Alberta, Canada
  5. Fort Worth Stock Show, Texas
  6. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, Tucson, Arizona
  7. Williams Lake Stampede, British Columbia, Canada
  8. Festival Western de St. Tite, Quebec, Canada
  9. World’s Oldest Rodeo, Prescott, Arizona
  10. Parker Ranch Fourth of July Rodeo, Hawaii. Oops, not North America but still in the USA.

~*~

Ever been to a real rodeo?

Big things about a tiny honeybee

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Buzz!

  1. It’s about 700,000 times smaller than the average human.
  2. It has 960,000 neurons, compared to 86 billion for a human.
  3. It has six articulated limbs, each with six segments.
  4. It has five eyes. Two of them are compound eyes made up of 6,900 lenses and cover about half of the face, These two mega-eyes sees the world differently. Red looks black, and the three primary colors are blue, green, and ultraviolet. It detects motion intensely but outlines are fuzzy and images, blocky.
  5. Its other three eyes detect only changes in light, as a warning of danger.
  6. Its four wings move at 11,400 strokes a minute.
  7. The wiggle dance tells other members of the colony where a nectar supply is within a five-mile radius of the hive.
  8. Of 20,000 species of bees, only four make honey.
  9. Around 80 percent of all American fruit, vegetable, and seed crops are pollinated by bees.
  10. Its straw-like tongue extends far beyond the jaw but has no taste buds. Instead, specialized hairs sense the chemicals that brush up against its exceptionally hairy body.

– from an article by Natasha Frost at Atlas Obscura

Things that make me happy

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Savoring those rare moments when I don’t feel an inner compulsion to be moving on from whatever I’m actually doing. That is, when I’m free of that old weight of duty kicking in.
  2. As happens in Quaker worship. As well as Orthodox Easter and other feast days.
  3. The North Atlantic.
  4. Birds at the feeder. Or sighting an eagle or osprey anywhere, even hawks or hummingbirds.
  5. Fresh tomatoes or asparagus. Along with other things straight from the garden.
  6. Lobster, scallops, mussels, crabs. The joys of living so near the ocean.
  7. A good poem or novel, especially by an unknown writer.
  8. Musical performance that breaks free of convention while remaining true to the score.
  9. Arriving at a mountaintop by foot.
  10. Loving someone special. Especially.

~*~

Your turn.

What you should know about Dungeness crab

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. It’s desert, for one thing, where nearly everything has to be irrigated, for another. Quite simply, it’s a lot like Yakima, in the middle of Washington state. But it’s also close to fresh Dungeness crab, a shellfish with a heavenly taste all its own.

What you should know.

  1. It draws its name from Dungeness, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula.
  2. It’s not King Crab, mind you, an Alaska specialty, but it is threatened by ocean acidification.
  3. It has five pairs of legs. (I haven’t counted the ones on a lobster.)
  4. It is found largely between Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and Santa Barbara, California. But don’t overlook that Washington state connection, right in the middle.
  5. About one-quarter of the crab’s weight is meat. One crab usually satisfies one person, though sometimes it will be shared by two.
  6. It has a delicate flavor and a slightly sweet taste. Don’t ask me to compare it to chicken or anything else. Not even lobster. It’s as different as cod is from salmon.
  7. It’s the State Crustacean of Oregon. What else do they have?
  8. If you go out at night trying to find one with a strong light focused in the water, you can likely rake up one right next to a decaying starfish.
  9. You really can’t get it here, wherever that is, outside of the Pacific Northwest.
  10. If you haven’t guessed, I really do miss them. They don’t travel well.

Mottoes to live by

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Dunno if this counts as a motto, but I still like it: “Duma Luma!” From a private cartoon to me, evolving into an earlier incarnation of my novel Subway Visions. Here are ten more.

  1. “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free” – Nikos Kazantzakis, “Japan, China,” 1963
  2. “Abide in me”– Jesus of Nazareth
  3. “Jesus is the unseen guest in this house” – as inscribed over a Quaker family’s doorway in Belmont County, Ohio, followed by, “He listens to every conversation.”
  4. “The closer we get to our hopes, the closer we get to our fears” – artist Lita Albuquerque
  5. “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for mankind” – Horace Mann
  6. “Mind the Light” – old Quaker counsel
  7. “I make dreams … I don’t see clothes, I see the world” – Ralph Lauren
  8. “Everyone wants to reach for something a little higher. … Part of Ralph’s genius is he understood life’s aspirational”  – Michael Gould, Bloomingdale’s buyer
  9. “Randomness invites the universe to speak” – James Bartolino
  10. “You better be good to toads,” Cassia in What’s Left

~*~

Yay!

We’re all ears for any you might want to share.

 

A few things that are factually untrue in my novels

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Naturally, you invent some things when you’re writing a novel, and you bend some others to improve the fit.

But some other elements deliberately stretch reality, hopefully with good reason. Besides, that’s why it’s called fiction.

For example:

  1. There were no elders in my dorm, they just didn’t care. Or in most hippie circles. The ones who tried to be leaders are a whole other disaster.
  2. Swami wasn’t a guy in my experience, but readers couldn’t accept a woman in the role. Besides, I couldn’t nickname her Big Pumpkin, could I?
  3. No boat trips in a commercially open Arkansas cave. Maybe someday?
  4. No place on the Ohio River in Indiana is only an hour away from Naptown. I applied a bit of fantastical geography to better match the feel.
  5. No hitchhiking in any subway system I know of. Subway surfing is another matter.
  6. Kokopelli never left the Southwest, and I doubt he was in trouble the way Coyote would have been.
  7. Goodwin didn’t open up the family purse as liberally when it came to upgrading the paper.
  8. Kenzie’s sex life wasn’t this good. He had only one Summer of Love.
  9. I can’t actually prove or disprove what was going on in the university president’s bedroom.
  10. Small-town newspaper columnists don’t have contracts. Or anyone acting as their agent.