Rose Anderson's Blog, page 29

Written in Stone

In yesterday’s post I mentioned the spark that started the French Revolution. Today’s post starts there too. While the sun was setting on the Sun King’s grandson, Louis XVI, a new star was on the rise — Napoleon Bonaparte. With the concept in mind that Egypt would make a fine French colony, and with Vive la République! simmering in their blood, they also had the vague idea to liberate the native peoples from the Marmluke caste (soldier slaves). Napoleon headed there.

In the town of Raschid lay a discovery that would change how we viewed Ancient Egypt — the Rosetta Stone. (Raschid was also called Rosetta) Today, July 15th, marks the anniversary of that discovery 215 years ago.

My morning research turned up several details on the discovery so I won’t put anything on my blog as a fact unless there are sources to back up the fact. Here are two versions:

A. French soldiers found just lying on the ground.

B. French soldiers were extending the walls of Fort Julien and found it then.

However it was found, the person who did the finding that July in 1799 was Pierre Francois-Xavier Bouchard, Napoleon’s officer of engineers. He sent the slab to the Institut d’Egypte in Cairo along with other antiquities turning up now and again. After Admiral Nelson won the day in the Battle of Aboukir Bay, better known as the Battle of the Nile, France left Egypt in defeat and the Rosetta Stone made its way to London in 1802.

What is the Rosetta Stone? 

The Rosetta Stone is a stone slab, a piece of a larger stele, inscribed with a decree from the time of King Ptolemy V (196 B.C.E.). The inscription was obviously meant for everyone living in Egypt at the time because the same information was written in three languages – Demotic (discovered to be a common document script), Greek (that every university student knew), and Hieroglyphic (a total mystery).  By comparing all three languages and leaning heavily on the understandable Greek, scholars realized the Egyptian pictures went in bunches or cartouches. These cartouches basically amounted to words. What made this an amazing find is up to that point, Egyptian hieroglyphs were seen as just a bunch of decorative pictures.

So many precious artifacts were plundered from ancient sites around the world by the people who occupied them in centuries past. Needless to say, Egypt wants it back.

More~

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/rosetta-stone.htm

The Rosetta Stone: translation of the demotic text

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés. There are 70 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Written in Stone

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Today our guest is Author Tessie Bradford

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and all the prizes go to ONE WINNER! http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

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The fuse to the powder keg

Unbelievable but true — the polar vortex is back. It doesn’t bother me half as much as it did during 2013-14 also known as the longest winter of my life. I think it safe to say people have watched the weather since people first walked the earth. As we never want to be out in bad conditions, it’s important to know what’s what to the best of your ability. Weather can influence many things for the good or bad.

Notable weather watchers

Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finance to Louis XIV urged the construction of the Paris Astronomical Observatory.  The idea behind it was to facilitate global exploration by studying weather. Completed in 1671, this Observatory has been keeping track of weather a long time. Here are some particularly interesting details of weather recorded in France in the late 1780′s:

April to July 1788~

The  growing season that year saw a ridge of high pressure throughout the region and with it a hot and dry period of drought. I should note that at this time the French peasant farmers were still farming using the same poor practices in use during the Middle Ages. Crop production was looking pretty bleak. By mid-July, the harvest of the meager corn had begun. (corn in this case was barley, oats, wheat, or rye).

The Paris Astronomical Observatory recorded that a devastating thunderstorm passed through the region. An observer to the day was Lord Dorset, the British Ambassador to France. Here’s what he had to say:

“About 9 o’clock in the morning, the darkness at Paris was very great… The hailstones that fell were of a size and weight never heard of before in this country, some of them measuring sixteen inches … and in some places even larger. Two men were found dead upon the road … all the corn and vines destroyed, windows broken and even houses beaten down … It is confidently said that from four to five hundred villages are reduced to such great distress the inhabitants must unavoidably perish”.

Holy cow — Sixteen-inch hail! 

I should add here that at this time 90% of the population of France was trapped in a feudal system that required them to pay dues to the nobility and the Church. If they went hungry doing it, so be it. It didn’t help that King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, and the rest of the French nobility they rubbed elbows with, continued living their lavish lifestyles.  It also didn’t help  that France had already bled the populace dry from supplying the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution. A side note: Marie Antoinette never said, “Let them eat cake” upon learning the peasants had no bread.  The phrase most likely came from the mind of Jean-Jacques Rousseau the philosopher.

Winter 1788-89~

That following winter was one of the harshest winters ever recorded in Europe. Thomas Jefferson, the American minister to Paris at the time, wrote this:

“there came a winter of such severe cold as without example … the mercury was at times 50 F below freezing … Great fires at all the cross roads around which the people gathered in crowds to avoid perishing with cold”.

Spring and summer 1789~

Food was scarce that spring and the high cost of what was available created panic throughout the population. Riots were common — 300 between April and July. This time came to be called “the Great Fear of 1789″. The  stark reality of starvation melded with the seething resentment of the uncaring nobility. It lit a fuse on a powder keg that July.

The angry mob

On the morning of July 14, an angry peasant mob stormed the Bastille. At first they were met with canon and artillery fire, but after several hours of this cooler heads prevailed. They organized and united and called themselves the National Constituent Assembly. They seized the weapons there and use them on the king’s soldiers. The storming of the Bastille was the beginning of the Reign of Terror. In the ten years that followed, thousands died by the expedient killing machine — the guillotine.

July 14th ~ Happy Bastille Day ~ the start of a French Republic

A macabre addition to this tale~

Following the executions of the aristocracy and insanity of the Reign of Terror, the bourgeois population made light of it all. Women cut their hair short (as was done to those getting their heads chopped off) and everywhere people tied red ribbons around their throats and on their clothing to commemorate and trivialize that violence. The Victim Ball was a popular party theme conceived by those in mourning for headless friends and family. They often consisted of funeral-style banquets served on top of a coffins and dished up on black dishes.  Weird stuff.

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 71 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Like a chicken with his head cut off

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Today is Author Marianne Stephens’ blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and all the prizes go to ONE WINNER! http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

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Fun Day Sunday!

If you’ve been here before then you know Sundays on my blog are all about wonder and smiles. In honor of mentally kicking back once in a while, Sundays are Fun Days! Each Sunday, visitors will find a fun, interesting, or unusual something here. I’m a nerd with a complex sense of humor and absurd wit. It could literally be anything.

I really love this one. Upon seeing this clip, I realized my dogs are moochie freeloaders.

Want more of this adorable pup? He has his own channel on Youtube

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 72 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Work like a dog

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My Saturday & Sunday Happenings

Sexy Snippets & My Sexy Saturday

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Seductive Studs and Sirens & Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

A Saturday Teaser

http://ifollowthemuse.blogspot.com/

Sneak Peek Sunday

http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday Snippet

**promo op for all romance authors**

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

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Today is Author Cindy Spencer Pape’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is a little behind schedule . It’ll begin any day now. http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

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The Thief of Bad Gags

Catchy title, no? A spin taken from Sheherezade’s stories of 1001 Arabian Nights, more accurately called The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night.  This is where we get the tales of Aladdin, Abu the thief of Baghdad, and Alibaba and the 40 Thieves.

Who was Sheherezade?

Scheherazade was the daughter of the vizier, the king’s high-ranking political adviser. She grew up in the palace a free woman and a well educated one at that. With access to the books and writings, she immersed herself in poetry, philosophy, the sciences, and the arts, and knew the history and legends of all the kings of many lands. Of the last, she was said to have collected a thousand books on the topic. Wise, witty, and well read, Scheherazade was also known to be pleasant, sweet, and polite. 

Because the faithless wife whom he had loved deeply had betrayed him, Shahryār, the Persian king, vowed he would not be betrayed again. But the law of the land said he must have a wife. To get around that sticky fact, he married, spent the night with, and then beheaded the next wife. And the one after her. And the next. Story has it that 1000 wives met a similar fate.

Now, Scheherazade knew the boy the king had been and had loved him the whole of her life. It troubled her that he was so unhappy. She was certain that whatever it was that led him to marry and behead 1000 wives must be a deep and unrelenting pain in his heart. So against her father’s wishes, Scheherazade volunteered to become Shahryār’s new wife. However, as intelligent a woman as she was, Scheherazade did not come to this union without a plan.

That night after their wedding, she started telling a story, a farewell story she had written for her sister. And the king was captivated by it. As the sun was rising on the day she was to be beheaded, she ended the storytelling at a suspenseful spot. Needing to know how it ended, the king allowed her to live another day. That night she continued the tale, and come morning she once more left him hanging. This went on for 1001 nights and over the course of that time, Scheherazade’s sweetness and the lessons in her stories encouraged Shahryār’s heart to heal. In fact, he’d fallen in love with Scheherazade and she became a true queen of Persia.

Lost in translation

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 – 1890) the famous English geographer and orientalist was known for translating some eastern texts into English. He translated 1001 Arabian Nights and the famous Kama Sutra. With the Kama Sutra he lost the point entirely and made it all about sex. A little known fact: The Kama Sutra has a single chapter on sex and a rather thin one at that. The book was about finding pleasure in the smallest things like creature comforts, perfumed scents, textures of fabrics, and sumptuous foods. But Sir Richard, captivated as he was by the erotic elements of one chapter, introduced the Kama Sutra to the Victorian world — a work taken out of context, thus making it something it never was.

A side note: The Obscene Publications Act of 1857  (Lord Campbell’s Act) was an obscenity law in Great Britain. Seeking to get around all that, in 1882, Sir Richard and his partner, Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, created The Kama Shastra Society –a secretive “educational” society.  They claimed their purpose was to “remove the scales from the eyes of Englishmen who are interested in Oriental literature.” While outwardly appearing scholarly, the Kama Shastra Society was about having access to erotica from the Orient.  But they only read them for the articles. lol

Just so you know The Thief of Bad Gags was a name given to that joke-stealing comedian and one-time vaudevillian, Milton Berle. Today is Milton Berle Day.  And this was my roundabout way of saying it.  :D

 

Tomorrow ~ Fun Day Sunday!

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Saturday & Sunday Happenings

Sexy Snippets & My Sexy Saturday

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Seductive Studs and Sirens & Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

A Saturday Teaser

http://ifollowthemuse.blogspot.com/

Sneak Peek Sunday

http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday Snippet

**promo op for all romance authors**

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

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My musings are still up on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by.

My Family’s Living History

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 73 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

To make a long story short

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Today is Author Gemma Juliana’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and all the prizes go to ONE WINNER! http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

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Cheeky fellow has his day

When I was involved with living history, a common belief among many was this curious thing about early Native Americans and the way they lived and hunted. It went something like this…

Before the colonials came, the natives lived in complete harmony on the land. When the natives hunted, they used every bit of the animal they killed. Nothing was ever wasted.

Hogwash. Societies  as we know them have never lived in complete harmony on the land. It’s always been about the exploitation of resources to ensure your own survival. If it needed to be drained, you drained it. If it needed to be cleared, you cleared it. When you exhausted your resources, you moved on. Likewise, if you needed to use the whole carcass you would. If you didn’t need to, you didn’t. People are people then as now — often wasteful and choosey. One only need to examine history’s midden piles (garbage dumps) to figure that out. 

Think about this — an adult buffalo can weigh 2000 pounds.  That’s a ton. The carcass wasn’t a Walmart of ready-made things. It had to be processed and processing took time. I’ve made leather from raw hides. It takes days just to do that part of the processing right. There are historical accounts of tribes killing whole herds of buffalo at once. How many women do you suppose it took to drag their one-ton haul back to camp? How could they possibly have used each and every carcass completely? The Native American spiritual belief said honor the spirit of the life that fed your family and allowed your survival. Everything else about this story just isn’t true.

This isn’t the only way we clean up the less than perfect details. You see it in books all the time — the abridged version.  It gets worse.

Today is Bowdler Day

Thomas Bowdler, (1754 -1825) was an English doctor of medicine and a philanthropist. As far as I know, he was known for two things: his book Family Shakspeare written in 1818, and the fact his name gave us the word bowdlerize.

Bowdlerize verb

to expurgate a written work by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

Bowdler felt the vulgar parts written in the Bard’s 37 works were only there to titillate and appease the vulgar crowds of the day. So Bowdler took it upon himself to censure Shakespeare. The man even changed William Shakespeare’s name for his book Family Shakspeare. How’s that for hubris?

Here’s a sampling of the sort of changes he took it upon himself to make to another man’s work:

Original

Lady Macbeth cries “Out, damned spot!” 

Bowdlerized

Lady Macbeth cries “Out, crimson spot!”

Original

Hamlet’s Ophelia commits suicide

Bowdlerized

Hamlet’s Ophelia dies in an accident

Original

Romeo & Juliet’s Mercutio says “the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon”

Bowdlerized

Romeo & Juliet’s Mercutio says “the hand of the dial is now upon the point of noon”

Part of the beauty of reading Shakespeare is discovering the grittiness. It’s the London streets, the stink of the Thames, the reek and coarseness from every corner of Elizabethan England. The Bard’s sense of humor and delicious innuendo are hidden between the lines.  I think William Shakespeare wouldn’t have appreciated this bowdlerizing censorship of his works. I think he would have punched ol’ Thomas Bowdler in the nose.

In honor of one of the greatest storytellers the world has ever known, I officially change Bowdler Day to Punch Bowdler in the Nose Day. If only he were here…  :D

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My musings are still up on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by.

My Family’s Living History

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 74 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Under the knife

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Today we host guest Author Marliss Melton

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and all the prizes go to ONE WINNER! http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

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Happy Clerihew Day!

Happy Clerihew Day!

I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts most people haven’t heard that before.

Born is 1875, Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a.k.a E. C. Bentley, was a popular English detective novelist and humorist in the early part of the last century. He’s credited for inventing the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics. Sort of like writing a humorous eulogy just four lines long and it rhymes. To me it sounds like a mini limerick.

Story has it Bentley dreamed the clerihew into being when he was a schoolboy. Instead of paying attention in class, he was doodling rhymes. Here’s his original boyhood stab at the little humorous verse that bears his name:

Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

That must have been a real side-splitter in it’s day. I guess you’d have to know Sir Humphrey and his eating habits. lol

My morning coffee and web hunt uncovered a few definitions to explain the clerihew:

Standard Definition: [noun] a witty satiric verse containing two rhymed couplets and mentioning a famous person.
In Poetry~

A Clerihew is a very specific kind of short humorous verse, typically with the following properties: It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; but it is hardly ever satirical, abusive or obscene; It has four lines of irregular length for comic effect. The first line generally contains a well-known person’s name.
Frances Stillman in The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary defines clerihew as ‘a humorous pseudo-biographical quatrain, rhymed as two couplets, with line of uneven length more or less in the rhythm of prose’. 

That last definition just flew right over my sleepy head.

But, I discovered if you desired to write one, you’d basically follow five classic rules:

Four lines in rhyming couplets of AA/BB.
A person’s name, usually in the first line and a bit about that person that brings a smile.
There is no fixed meter — similar to something Dr. Seuss might write. 
The poems are mostly used in jest but are occasionally critical.
When completed, the rhythm has a sing-song ring to it

I tried to write one but it’s just too early for this old brain. I’ll leave you with these four examples instead:

James Earl Jones,

His award winning voice, rough like stones

Darth Vader, Mufasa, stuttering Jubilee

When I die can he be the one narrating my eulogy?

King Henry VIII wed them

In order to bed them.

When they no longer suited

Had them executed.

Sir Isaac Newton

didn’t think gravity was fun,

when at the tree he did slump,

from an apple that caused a lump.

Edgar Allan Poe

Is he friend or is he foe

He wrote a great poem called The Raven

A sly bird known for misbehavin’

 

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My musings are still up on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by.

My Family’s Living History

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 75 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Rhyme or reason

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Today is Author R. Ann Siracusa’s blog day

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and all the prizes go to ONE WINNER! http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

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The elephant in the room

When I began this discussion about weather deities, I said I’d post as long as the bad weather and my interest held. When I went looking for a likely god or goddess this morning, I found I just wasn’t that into it today. My heart is heavy. I saw a news article about a poor elephant chained for 50 years and reduced to eating paper to survive. All I saw was the headline that said there was a daring rescue and he cried tears when he was free. How could I write an upbeat post after that?  As a sensitive person, I guarantee it won’t ever leave my mind.

I realize that for some this next bit will sound way out there. I’m speaking on a cosmic all-things-are-connected Hermetic as-above-so-below level. You almost have to wonder about our curious empathetic species so prone to heartless cruelty. We inflict it upon one another and the creatures we share the planet with and somehow the end always, always justifies the means.  We are a species whose blind consumption and locust behaviors puts us at risk for our own extinction. Yet we continue said behaviors. Why? I have no answer. We readily understand cause and effect. When you do A, you can expect B. Even a toddler gets that worked out pretty quick.

Is it possible there exists a larger link between all we do — a cause and effect payback for our lack of regard and stewardship?  Our headlines are filled with catastrophic weather, seismic activity, ocean die-off, icecap melting, sea levels rising, plagues, disease and resistant bacteria etc. There are some days where I can hardly bear to see the headlines for all the bad news. Long ago I stopped reading the articles.

Life is a web — each strand connected to the rest, and all of our existence on this planet depends upon this balance. You simply can’t continue to break these strands and not leave the others poised to cascade. Perhaps mother nature has finally had enough of us. And who wouldn’t? We’re the species who would see the last rhino killed for his horn just so some guy in Asia can have a rhino horn placebo to maintain his erection. We’re the species who would foul precious groundwater for a few more years of fracked gas and wonder why we’re thirsty. We’re the species who would bomb one another into oblivion over ideology and chain and abuse an elephant for 50 years. Perhaps the global warming et al is just one collective fever to fight the sickness on the planet — the dangerous microbes called man.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yes, it’s all daunting, but you do have a voice. Vote. Vote like your life depends upon it, because it does. You can also get involved in many worthy causes. Start here:

http://www.nrdc.org/

http://www.savebiogems.org/

http://www.foe.org/

http://www.sierraclub.org/

http://www.worldwildlife.org/

http://www.aspca.org/

http://www.greenpeace.org/

These are just a few organizations worth your time. I have more on Pinterest. In fact, I have a lot of very cool things on Pinterest. If nothing else they are a peek inside my mind should anyone wish to go there. Think of Pinterest as an online bulletin board where you pin all the online references to things you wish to keep. Pin + Interest = Pinterest.

http://www.pinterest.com/FollowTheMuse/

I have one Pinterest board where more helpful organizations are pinned. If you’re not on Pinterest, leave your email* and I’ll send you an invitation. Here’s the direct link to that board:  http://www.pinterest.com/FollowTheMuse/doing-good-things/

*It’s a good idea when you leave your email anywhere, that you do it like this:

myemail(@)whatever(.)com    or    myemail(at)whatever(dot)com

That keeps the email snatchers from stealing it and sending out spam in your name.

Online maliciousness is one more thing about mankind that just makes you scratch your head. For heaven’s sake why?

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My musings are still up on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by.

My Family’s Living History

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 76 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

What goes around comes around

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Book Hooks

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Horny Hump Day

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

Hump Day Blurb Share

(open promo opportunity)

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

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Today is Author Melissa Keir’s blog day

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and all the prizes go to ONE WINNER! http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

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Sibling Rivalry

It appears the Pacific ocean’s Neoguri typhoon dropped in wind speed from 155 mph to 125 mph…something to do with passing over warm water. Parts of the county still had 6 inches of rain. Japan isn’t in the clear just yet.

I’m stepping away from the Greek weather gods until inspiration tells me to go back. Today I’ll take a peek at weather mythology of Japan.

The Japanese pantheon is enormous. The Greek gods are just a handful by comparison. In the Shinto view there are millions of different spirits and deities and all possess Kami, the sacred power that imbues everything. In Japanese mythology, it is one of these that’s hammering the islands right now — Susanoo-ô — the sea and storms god.

I can’t find much about him other than he had a terrible temper and was the brother to Amaterasu the sun and Tsukuyomi the moon. According to myth, a long-standing rivalry existed between Susano-ô and his sister Amaterasu and it concerned his being unhappy with his share of the world. It was his own doing. Prone to rages, he destroyed the precious rice fields and caused destruction wherever he went. Susano-ô and Amaterasu had some sort of contest to prove who had the most power. The deal was… if Susano-ô won, he could stay in heaven forever. If he lost, he would have to leave. 

So the story has Amaterasu chewing up the metal of Susano-ô’s sword and spitting out the pieces. Three of the bits then turned into goddesses. Not to be outdone,  Susano-ô took her necklace, chewed it up, and spat out five gods. Determining the math was on his side, she conceded and allowed him to stay in heaven. From here, he resumed his fits of rage, at one point flaying her favorite sacred pony to death and hurling the carcass at her loom. So upset she was, she hid in a cave and plunged the world into darkness (remember she was the sun).

Desperate for Amaterasu’s return, 800 gods gathered to discuss how to coax her out of the cave. They eventually tricked her with a mirror dangling before the cave entrance. When she emerged to investigate, they roped off the cave behind her so she couldn’t withdraw again. Out in the open, her light shone and life returned to normal. Having had enough of Susano-ô and his rages, the 800 gods banished him from heaven.

He’s still throwing fits over that.

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My musings are still up on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by.

My Family’s Living History

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 77 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Green with envy

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Stop by the RB4U Today and discover that next great read. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and ONE WINNER will get ALL the prizes!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

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Montrous weather

In last week’s weather god series I mentioned those similar weather phenomena: hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. Their differing names have to do with their location. That’s the kind of word play that grabs my attention and thinking on that now, it just gave me an idea for a future blog series. Anyway…

Cyclones occur in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean. Hurricanes are seen in the Atlantic and the Pacific Northeast. Typhoons are seen in the Northwest Pacific.

This morning a typhoon is hitting Japan — a “super typhoon” named Neoguri with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, two inches of rain fall an hour, and who knows what impact the expected 20 foot storm surge will have. The maps are pretty dramatic. I feel for those people.

So the northern Atlantic got slammed by Hurricane Arthur recently, the Great Barrier Reef was damaged by a Cyclone named Ita this past April, and a typhoon named Neoguri  is poised to wreak havoc on Japan and parts of Korea today. Typhon, you snake-limbed, winged-skin, fire-eyed, monster, give it a rest.

Typon the Family Man

The story goes that Typhon felt like an outcast. Hmm I wonder why?  He was no less divine than the rest of his family so naturally he felt he should be allowed on Mount Olympus with the others.  Known for his peculiar temper he was feared. So when the other gods discovered he intended to stay, they all fled. Apparently Zeus took exception to this idea of him moving in and a battle with Typhon ensued.

Depending on what mythic accounting you read, the battle unfolds in several different ways. They all end pretty much the same — Zeus throws him into a cavern and slams Mount Etna down on top of him, forever trapping him under mountain. Interesting to note that Mt Etna is an active volcano. That goes with another story that says he also breathes fire. Every time he moves to free himself from his prison, he causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Before Zeus flung a mountain on top of him, Typhon had a romance with Echidna. Echidna was no beauty either, the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto (both primordial sea gods). Phorcys and Ceto had many notable and unfortunate-looking children in addition to Echidna. They spawned the Phorcydes: the hideous snake-headed Gorgon sisters (Medusa, Euryale, and Stheno), and the one-eyed/one-toothed Graeae (Enyo, Deino, and Pemphredo).

D’aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths

Passing on the monster genes, Echidna and Typhon spawned these notable offspring:

Chimera – the art-lion, part-goat, and part-snake omen of shipwrecks.
Sphinx – the half-human, half-lion lover of riddles.
Cerberus – the three-headed dog who guards the gate to Hades
Hydra – the nine-headed serpent with a talent of growing two new heads for every one that was cut off.
Nemean Lion – the giant lion with impenetrable hide (who later becomes the constellation Leo).
Ladon – the snake guarding the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides.

Some myths say Typhon fathered more. You might recognize some of the names. Several of these creatures played part in the Twelve Labors of Hercules (or Heracles in the Greek version)

 Tomorrow ~ more.

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My musings are still up on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by.

My Family’s Living History

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 78 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Beauty is only skin deep

 
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Today is Guest Author Karen Robards ~ a NYTimes/Publisher’s Weekly/USA Today’s Best Selling author. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is on and ONE WINNER will get ALL the prizes!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

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Fun Day Sunday

If you’ve been here before then you know Sundays on my blog are all about wonder and smiles. In honor of mentally kicking back once in a while, Sundays are Fun Days! Each Sunday, visitors will find a fun, interesting, or unusual something here. I’m a nerd with a complex sense of humor and absurd wit. It could literally be anything.

I just love this one. I have no idea what they’re saying or what it means, but you can’t get cuter than skydiving elephants doing synchronized formations in free fall.  :D

Tomorrow ~ more about Typhon.

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If you haven’t had a chance to see my July 4th post on

Romance Books ’4′ Us , do stop by. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-hard-won-ground-by-rose-anderson.html

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 79 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

The elephant in the room

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Saturday & Sunday Happenings

Sexy Snippets & My Sexy Saturday

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Seductive Studs and Sirens & Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

A Saturday Teaser

http://ifollowthemuse.blogspot.com/

Sneak Peek Sunday

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Sunday Snippet

**promo op for all romance authors**

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

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Today is Author Tina Donahue’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

The July contest is a little behind schedule . It’ll begin any day now. http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

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