Age Old Question Unscrambled!

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Which came first??

People have debated this provocative question for many many years. Now, finally, there is an answer! Well, rather, there is a very strong theory. You see, according to CNN* and How Stuff Works**, genetic material cannot change inside an already living breathing organism. But.. if two organisms come together and both produce a mutation into an egg, then that mutation could hatch and become something other than the parents, hence before there were chickens, there were creatures that produced eggs. One such egg contained mutations from both parents and produced the very first chicken like creature.


"Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken."**




And there you have it! I just know that you are very glad that I have answered this age old question that you have been worried about for such a long time.


*http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/
** http://science.howstuffworks.com/genetic-science/question85.htm

Our "New" Couch (or sofa to some)...

The reason I put new in quotation marks is because it's new to us. I love thrift stores. That is my favorite place to purchase furniture, well usually. Occasionally I buy some sort of put together thing at Wal-Mart, like the computer desk, tv stand, and several etcs. Anyway, there are some who think our couch is, um, well strange might be one word to use. But we like it. It matches the yellow walls of our living room. My grandson's favorite color is green and the couch is green. As I said, we like it. We love it. And it was cheap. Can't beat that combination of positives.

While I was raking leaves....

Often when I'm out doing yardwork, whether it's mowing the grass or raking leaves, I find objects that are not native to my yard or landscaping. Always I find rocks. How do so many rocks come to rest in my yard? I also very often find acorns and black walnuts and sometimes even an english walnut. There are no black or english walnut trees or oak trees anywhere close to my yard. I think I know though how those items end up in my yard. Crows. The crows carry the acorns or walnuts, then drop them down onto a road or other hard surface. The nuts crack open and the clever crows come down and pick out the meats. Sometimes they miss the road or the nuts slip from their grasp and they then end up in my yard. Some of the other things I find are candy wrappers, gum papers, sometimes a soda can, sometimes a beer can. Perhaps it's because I'm getting old, but I seem to be seeing an ever increasing population of disrespectful people emerging, more and more smart assed, uncaring, spoiled, selfish, not very nice children and so called adults. Depending on who you're talking to, many different theories abound as to why this is happening. But in fairness there are a great many nice people also. Anyway, that's another story. Today while I was raking leaves I found something different. I found a fork, a regular dinner fork. I am still quite curious as to how such an item made it's way to the middle of my yard. I considered making a poster and taping it up on the mailboxes, "Found fork, describe to claim." Hmm. Maybe not..

Nursery Rhymes...

Got to thinking in the night last night, does anyone recite nursery rhymes anymore to their little children? I don't know. I have my doubts that many do or maybe the young parents themselves don't know many nursery rhymes. I use to recite them to my kids. My daughter, when she was only two, had so many memorized. My friend was amazed and would often ask her to recite one or another. When I was little I had a few I especially liked, but this one for some reason was my favorite. I can still hear my Mom reciting it for me, I hear the inflections in her voice and the places she would pause, etc. Of course in writing it here I can't incorporate those things into it. But I will write it here anyway. One note, in later years she would also recite it to her grandchildren. She would sit them on her knees and bounce her knees up and down as she said it.


I had a little hobby horse.
His name was Dapple Gray.
His head was made of pea straw.
His tail was made of hay.
He could gallop.
He could trot.
He could carry a mustard pot,
all around the gum stalk.
Whoa... haw... gee...
I sent him upstairs to make up his bed.
He kicked up his heels as high as his head.
I sent him in the cellar to get me some beer.
I found him in the cream pitcher clear to his ear.
I sent him in the garden to get me some sage.
I found him in the kitchen kissing the old maid.


Now, here's one more. As a child, well always I guess, I had curly hair, sometimes more curl than others, but always a bit of curl. The reason I list this next rhyme is because when my Mom would tell it to me she would take a few strands of my hair in front and bring them down to create a curl in the front. I was sure then that this rhyme was about me and only for me.

I had a little girl,
and she had a little curl
right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
she was very, very good.
And when she was bad
she was horrid.

And that's it for this morning. Hi de ho, and away I goooooo....

If I could only go back and do this...

We all say this. I've said it at times, "If I could go back I would go to college.", or do something else differently or something else. I especially, for vain reasons I suppose, use to wish I could go back and not go bicycle racing with Ginny Bell that day 57 years ago. Here we are on the little one lane road racing madly along, I on the outside, she on the inside. Suddenly we see a car coming toward us. She cuts right across in front of me to get out of it's way. I crash into her bicycle and go flying over the handlebars and smash my face on the road sustaining lots of scrapes and bruises, etc. I also chipped my front tooth and made it crooked. Right there in the front of my mouth for many years after was this ugly chipped and crooked tooth. I suppose it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, but since we were poor I couldn't get it fixed. It's possible this one thing altered my personality and maybe the course of my life. Silly you say? Maybe.

Have you ever seen the movie "The Butterfly Effect" starring Ashton Kutcher? It's about this guy that keeps going back over and over to change something that happened in the past. It isn't the greatest movie I suppose, but I have a penchant for quirky movies. I liked it a lot. I'm not totally sure (without doing a ton of research) where they got the idea for this movie. I read a short story by Ray Bradbury many years ago called The Sound of Thunder, and it seems to me it must be that story that gave the movie it's title at least. This story is ultimately about how the entire future of mankind was drastically changed by one person making one tiny change in the past.

So when you say, "I wish I could go back and....", remember that things are how they are because of all that has been. If you changed even one tiny thing, it could lead to drastic changes thereafter. Supposing for example that your prescence somewhere that you otherwise wouldn't have been would make one person leave from somewhere five minutes later than they had originally left and then that person's car is smashed to smithereens by a truck. And so it goes... My daughter tells me that every single thing that has happened so far has led to this point. Had her father and I not divorced, I would not have moved from my beloved mountains to this valley. She would not have met her future husband. Her little beautiful son would not exist. And so it goes.... Without all that has gone before, we wouldn't be where we are right at this instance. Maybe where you are isn't where you would like to be, but then again who knows where the alternate path could take you.

Today, my dears, is Saturday.

Saturday This day was called dies Saturni, "Saturn's Day", by the ancient Romans in honor of Saturn. In Anglo-Saxon: sater daeg. The early Romans, around the first century, used Saturday as the first day of the week. As the worshipping of the Sun increased, the Sun's day (Sunday) advanced from position of the second day to the first day of the week (and saturday became the seventh day). This information was gleaned from the following site:
http://www.pantheon.org/miscellaneous/origin_days.html
Are you not now properly amazed?

The sun is shining, a bit muted and through some haze, but shining none the less. I love sunshine. I most definitely have light affective disorder meaning when the days are gray for prolonged periods I become very lethargic and depressed. Sunshine dispells the clouds that otherwise try to envelope my being.

And that is the sum total of my eloquent postal addition for this particular day, the reason being is that my computer seems to be exceedingly slow and acting up. perhaps I shall come back later today to add another post, perhaps not.

And so my children, another day, another post, and so it goes.....

T.G.I.R.

I was going to say TGIF and everyone knows what that means, but hey, being retired, I see Fridays and Mondays and Thursdays and Sundays as all nearly the same, so my TGIR stands for thank God I'm retired which no longer necessitates the saying TGIF. Being retired you would think I have plenty of time to write on here, but it seems like the last couple of days I am nearly run ragged. I've been very busy doing this and that. So my apologies for not posting at all yesterday and depriving my readers of my ramblings.

The better part of today was spent at that gigantic corporate monolithic conglomerate better known as Wal-Mart. It is their lower than other store prices that call to me. And this is the reason small businesses fall by the wayside, deserted in favor of a few dollars saved. It is the way. For those of us who must count our pennies, and we are legion, the way is Wal-Mart. And so we, my daughter and myself, today browsed their multitude of aisles in search of bargains, and we purchased ingredients for meals for several weeks to come.

I must go think now of what I can post tomorrow that will be of such profound significance as to make you, the reader, stare in utter amazement at my wondrous writings.

Till then.........

Hey it's Wednesday!

Well, that's about it. Not much else to say. It's Wednesday. Yesterday was Tuesday. Tomorrow is Thursday. The sun is shining. Was beautiful today. I am off to find something for dinner. Chop chop. (What does that mean anyway?) Hi ho and away I go. Over and out. And that's a wrap. ...........

Boy did I do a dumb thing...

A couple of weeks ago I got a jury duty summons for today, Tuesday, Jan. 13th at 9:00 AM. I was suppose to call last night after 5:10 to find out if it was still on or had been postponed or cancelled. You know what I did??? I forgot to call!! How dumb is that? I didn't think of it till nearly noon today, totally forgot the whole thing. I then called the number I was suppose to call last night, and I put in my number like it said to do and it said it was cancelled, but I'm wondering if that was for sure true since it was past the time for me to go. Worrisome. A friend said when she was on jury duty awhile back that the jurors were talking and one asked what would happen if a person didn't show for jury duty and another said they would issue a warrant for your arrest. Perhaps I shall call again tomorrow and talk with an actual person and see what's what. I wonder what's up with this forgetfulness that plagues me. How does a person forget about jury duty? Duh to me.

On that note I bid you good night. TTFN and all that. Afterall, tomorrow is another day. :)

In The Beginning...

There was the internet, and it was a great void, and Suzanna said, "I shall create a blog." and she created a blog in her own image, and it was good. And thus begins "Intermittent Ramblings". Contents of this blog will vary depending on the various moods of the author.



disclaimer: The above blog entry is not intended to be offensive or to make light of the beliefs of anyone. It is simply meant to exist for entertainment purposes only.