Four Dozen Butterflies

 

Insulting people is a dying art:

“He had delusions of adequacy.” – Walter Kerr

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” – Forrest Tucker

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” – Jack E. Leonard

Pineapple

 

We had these Sunday, with cheese burgers. Honestly, they’d be a great accompaniment with any grilled meat.

 

Marinated White Beans

 

2 (15-ounce cans) white beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs (I chose fresh basil.)

2 roasted red peppers, finely diced

1/3 cup finely diced shallot (Out of shallots; substituted red onion.)

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

 

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least two hours; preferably overnight. Will stay fresh in the fridge 3 or 4 days.

Four Dozen Pine Trees

 

More thoughts about a 13-month year: If each month had only 28 days, some holidays wouldn’t fall on the same days they do now. New Year’s Eve, for instance would happen on the 28th of the month – either December or March, depending on which came at the end of the year. Thanksgiving would always be Thursday, November 25. Valentines Day would always be a Sunday, like Mother’s and Father’s Days. I’ve read the Kodak company used a 13-month calendar from 1924 to 1989. Their extra month was called Sol, and it came between June and July. Leap day, when it happened, was December 29, and it was an extra weekend day. For years, George Eastman (Kodak’s founder) tried to promote worldwide acceptance but was unsuccessful. I’m not awfully surprised. We’ve been trying for ages to do away with Daylight Saving Time; something absolutely EVERYONE hates. Yet here we are, still adjusting all our clocks twice a year.

Four X Blocks

 

“Each Sabbath we invite all to come worship Jesus Christ in the community of His restored Church. In the sacramental ordinance, we covenant that we are willing to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, always remember Him, and keep His commandments. He promises we can always have His Spirit to be with us. As we witness and remember Jesus each week, we abide and walk with Him. Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus ask Jesus to abide with them, Jesus Christ promises to abide with us. In the Gospel of John, chapters 14 and 15, Jesus teaches His disciples and us how He can remain, belong, walk with us. His faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death. When we have a question, problem, or joy, Jesus Christ says, ‘I am your answer—your way, your truth, your life.’” – Elder Gerrit W. Gong

Four Bird Houses

 

Antoine-Joseph “Adolphe” Sax was an inventor and musician from Belgium. Adolphe was the eldest of eleven children, only three of whom survived to age 13. He studied flute, clarinet, harmony and solfège at the Royal School of Music in Brussels, but he abandoned a career in performance to create musical instruments in his father’s workshop. Adolphe made changes in the design of the bass clarinet that are still in use. His most famous invention is the saxophone, which combines elements of both woodwind and brass instruments. Adolphe designed a massive family of saxophones in 14 distinct sizes, from the tiny sopranino to the massive contrabass. Only four sizes are commonly used today: soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. The saxophone may be made of brass, but it’s classified as a woodwind instrument because it generates sound with a reed. Adolphe also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, but somehow, none of them caught on. 

Twenty-Five Leap Frogs

 

Every year should have thirteen months. With thirteen months instead of twelve, every month would have exactly four weeks instead of 4.257. We could stop memorizing “Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, All the rest have thirty-one, Save February at twenty-eight, But leap year, coming once in four, February then has one day more.” Months would start on Monday and end on Sunday. Friday the 13th would disappear. I propose our 13-month year should start April first, the way it did until 1582. We’d still need an occasional leap day. It could happen at the end of March, and be an extra weekend day. The thirteenth month could fall between August and September, so September, October, November and December would go back to being the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months, as their names imply. The new month could have the Latin name for 6th month: Sextilis. Or, we could name it for some Roman god.

Five Gold Stars

 

Samuel Augustus Maverick was born in South Carolina in 1803. Because he was christened with his father’s name, his family called him “Gus.” At Yale University, he was known as “Sam.” Sam dabbled in law and in politics. He owned a gold mine and a plantation, then he bought a lot of land in and around San Antonio, Texas. Sam was involved in the siege of the Alamo, and he was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Sam served in the legislature, as Bexar County Chief Justice, and Mayor of San Antonio. He refused to brand his cattle. He said he didn’t want to inflict pain on the animals, but his neighbors believed he just wanted to collect and claim any unbranded cattle as his own. Because of Sam, the word Maverick – meaning a person with a stubborn streak of independence, and also any wild, unbranded range animal – became a part of the English language.