THE EYE OF SAURON IS UPON US!!!!!

(Actually, it's a picture of a planet outside our solar system. I'm a lazy thing and didn't really read the article, but I could not resist the picture.)

Happy Halloween.

Soulie showed this to me today. She was most distressed in her poetry class today, as she is dyslexic, and this poem is written how she might normally see things on the page! It was interesting to see. Try reading it out loud to yourself and imagine the trouble she had. Poor Soulie!
~
May Swenson
"A Nosty Fright"


The roldengod and the soneyhuckle,
the sack eyed blusan and the wistle theed
are all tangled with the oison pivy,
the fallen nine peedles and the wumbleteed.

A mipchunk caught in a wobceb tried
to hip and skide in a dandy sune
but a stobler put up a EEP KOFF sign.
Then the unfucky lellow met a phytoon

and was sept out to swea. He difted for drays
till a hassgropper flying happened to spot
the boolish feast all debraggled and wet,
covered with snears and tot.

Loonmight shone through the winey poods
where rushmooms grew among risted twoots.
Back blats flew between the twees
and orned howls hounded their soots.

A kumkpin stood with a tooked creeth
on the sindow will of a house
where a icked wold itch lived all alone
except for her stoombrick, a mitten and a kouse.

"Here we part," said hassgropper.
"Pere we hart," said mipchunk, too.
They purried away on opposite haths,
both scared of some "Bat!" or "Scoo!"

October was ending on a nosty fright
with scroans and greeches and chanking clains,
with oblins and gelfs, coaths and urses,
skinning grulls and stoodblains.

Will it ever be morning, Nofember virst,
skue bly and the sappy hun, our friend?
With light breaves of wall by the fayside?
I sope ho, so that this oem can pend.

Kicks keep getting harder to find

Oh, me. Some days I wonder if I’m really mature enough to be graduating and going off to college next year. But then I remember what college kids are really like and I’m okay.

Today I was tossing around a tennis ball with my sister’s new puppy, Annabelle. (This isn’t her in the picture, but it’s the same breed.) The ball’s gotten kind of muddy and gross, so I tried to figure out how to wash it without:
a) Killing the washing machine
or
b) Letting the dog get a mouthful of soap. Yum.

So I pulled up my ol’ buddy Google and typed in “how to wash tennis ball.” Is this where I went wrong, or was it somewhere earlier in the process? We shall see.

I must say, the tennis players’ forum I stumbled across was most interesting. Apparently, one can wash tennis balls in the washing machine, but the forum educated me on a much greater level. I present the most informative (and highly entertaining) responses:

• “I'd say tolerate the dirty or new balls, washing them is not a good idea IMO.”
• hummer23

• “After washing, the balls may look a bit pale, bald, and even appear to shrink a bit. But the dryer really firms up the bounce nicely….this may lead to knocking the stuffing out of your balls, exploding [upon] impact. So unless you can tolerate exploding balls, may want to just wash your really dirty balls.”
• Ronaldo

• “The structural integrity will only be compromised if the balls are left soaking wet for some time. If they get wet, just leave them out to dry in the open.”
• jonolau

• “I've seen someone brushing his balls :o It wasn't a pretty sight, all the fur was being taken off.”
• carpetgrub

(Oh, look! Our good Ronaldo returns with an even better nugget of wise experience!)

• “After washing and drying my balls, they were a bit fluffy so tried to shave the fuzz off the balls. Ended up with hard bald balls that were tough to handle.”

I'm sure that problem is far more common than you think, Ronnie. Far more common.