Wild Bill

The other day, I received a $20 with a strange message: You Have Found A Wild Bill... Track Me at www.wheresgeorge.com So I Googled "Where's George?" and found this on (of course!) Wikipedia:

Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency trackingUnited States.^[1] websites (of which Where's George? remains the most popular by far), sites that track other objects—such as used books—and it has been used in at least one research paper to provide statistical patterns of human travel in the United States.

The site was established in December 1998 by Hank Eskin, a database consultant in Brookline, Massachusetts.^[3][4] Where's George? refers to George Washington, whose portrait appears on the one-dollar bill. In addition to the one-dollar bill, 2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, 50- and 100-dollar denominations can be tracked. The one-dollar bill is by far the most popular denomination, followed by 20-dollar bills.^[5]

To track a bill, a user enters the local ZIP Code and the serial number and series of any United States currency denomination. Users outside the United States are also able to participate using an extensive database of unique codes assigned to non-American/Canadian locations. Once a bill is registered, the site reports the time between sightings, the distance traveled between locations, and any comments from the finders (called "user notes"). The site does not track bills older than series 1963.

Where's George? is supported by advertising, sales of memorabilia, and by users who pay a fee for extra features.^[3] Users who pay a $7/month fee are entered into the "Friends of Where's George?" program, which allows these users to access the website free of advertisements; access certain features that others cannot, and refresh reports on the user's entered bills.^[6] Eskin states that the "Friends of Where's George?" program will always be optional and payment to use the site will always be at the individual's prerogative.^[6]

The website does not encourage the defacement of U.S. Currency.^[10] In October 1999, Eskin was interviewed for the New York Times, where he commented on why the Secret Service has not bothered the webmaster over the defacement of US Currency. Eskin replied "They've got better things to do. They want to catch counterfeiters counterfeiting billions of dollars."^[11]

In April 2000, the site was investigated by the United States Secret Service, which informed Eskin that the selling of "Where's George?" rubber stamps on the web site is considered "advertising" on United States currency, which is illegal under 18 U.S.C. § 475.^[12] The website's administrators immediately ceased selling the rubber stamps and no further action against the site was taken.^[3] At least one spokesperson for the US Secret Service has pointed out in print that marking US bills, even if not defacement, is still illegal for other reasons^[13] under 18 U.S.C. § 475; however, the general view is that using Where's George? rubber stamps on currency is not illegal per se.^[14] One Secret Service spokesman in Seattle, Washington, told The Seattle Times in 2004: "Quite frankly, we wouldn't spend too much looking into this."[3]

I think this is all quite fascinating - I love seeing little secret messages in unexpected places - so I took a photo of my "wild bill" so you can be on the look-out for it as it travels onwards and upwards, doing its part to boost the economy!

I'm trying not to spend it - but I plan to report its current location before releasing it back into the wild...

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

Vacation Pix

There are so many photos - I find it difficult to wade through them all

But they are all beautiful - and these are just a few - I'll try to post more soon

And they depict some, if not most, of what we experienced during our cruise

As I said earlier, we sailed on a wonderful ship called the Monarch of the Seas owned by Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

The people who work on the ship were just lovely - very nice and so accommodating

The color of the water was beautiful and came in every shade of blue

The sky was clear and also blue but not as variable as the sea

We visited Atlantis (the resort, not the mythical sunken city) and they would not let anyone inside unless you were a hotel guest - we were only allowed to visit the casino, which none of us cared about

We drove around Nassau in a van and saw some sights (including this interesting parking sign)
In case you can't see it, it reads: Princess Parking Only All Others Will Be Toad (that's right, toad - get it?)

Here is some data, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Bahamas officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets (rocks). It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States (nearest to the state of Florida). Its total land area is 13,939 km² (5,382 sq mi), with an estimated population of 330,000. Its capital is Nassau. Geographically, The Bahamas lie in the same island chain as Cuba, Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands; the designation of Bahamas refers normally to the commonwealth and not the geographic chain.

Originally inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people, The Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonized The Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 to 1648, when British colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.

The Bahamas became a Crown Colony in 1718 when the British clamped down on piracy. Following the American War of Independence, thousands of pro-British loyalists and enslaved Africans moved to The Bahamas and set up a plantation economy. The slave trade was abolished by the British Empire in 1807 and many Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy in the were settled in The Bahamas during the 19th century. Slavery itself was abolished in 1834 and the descendants of enslaved and liberated Africans form the bulk of The Bahamas's population today.

By the terms of GDP per capita, the Bahamas is the fourth richest country in the Americas (following Bermuda, the United States and Canada), the richest one that lies south of the Mexico - US border, as well as the richest one in the world whose population is predominantly of African origin.

The people were very sweet and friendly and didn't seem to mind sharing their country with thousands of tourists on a daily basis

There are lots of places to visit during a lifetime and the Bahamas is definitely one of them

My Latest Toy

I don't get to buy myself many toys - well, I don't count buying beads and findings and stones and crystals, although I probably should - but I am just really jazzed about this, so I'll share with you...

A FaceBook friend was sharing some photos he was calling his "Hipstamatic" prints - they were so colorful and vintage-looking - so I investigated and found out that there was an iPhone app called Hipstamatic for $1.99 and other cool add-on apps for $.99 - I learned how to redeem an iTunes gift card that my wonderful husband gave to me for our second anniversary (that was an adventure in itself) and eventually I was able to download the app plus one of the add-ons

I LOVE this app - it lets you play with the colors and the flash and the lens and - well, I only started taking pictures last night but already you can see how neat it is...

More about this in future posts - plus more about the cruise mentioned earlier when I get around to it - and more, I hope, about world events and creative attempts and life as we know it.

Love to you all, peace to the planet - TJBG

Happy 90th Birthday, Winnie

My mom was born on April 6, 1921 in Kentucky. She had two loving parents, two healthy children and two feisty husbands. Now here she is - an orphan and a widow with two kids in their fifties - celebrating her 90th year. How does one mark such a momentous occasion?

My husband and I decided to take my Mom and my brother on a four-night cruise on the Monarch of the Seas to the Bahamas. We didn't do as much as we could have (there were at least a thousand college kids on board, since it was the beginning of spring break - however, except for having a little too much to drink a couple of nights, these kids were exceptionally polite) but I think we did enough.

We took a tour of the island in a van with six other very nice people. We listened to music. We were waited on by a wonderful waitstaff. We bought souvenir t-shirts. We were yes-ma'am'd and yes-sir'd by everyone who works for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. Our cabin steward was one of the sweetest and helpful people I've ever met. We watched the beautiful blue ocean go by. We even sailed through a school of flying fish.

We celebrated my mom's birthday. The young people applauded her. We made sure she wanted for nothing. And I think she enjoyed being surrounded by the ocean, something that she was not able to experience during World War II, when she was young and patriotic and joined the U.S. Navy. Now she can say she has sailed the ocean blue.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Think Spring!

Ostara ~ Spring ~ Vernal Equinox

Hail, and welcome!
Green life returns to the earth
blooming and blossoming
once more from the soil.
We welcome you,
goddesses of spring,
Eostre, Persephone, Flora, Cybele,
in the trees,
in the soil,
in the flowers,
in the rains,
and we are grateful
for your presence.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ostara (1884) by Johannes Gehrts. The goddess flies through the heavens surrounded by Roman-inspired putti, beams of light, and animals. Germanic people look up at the goddess from the realm below.

Old English Ēostre (also Ēastre) and Old High German Ôstarâ are the names of a putative Germanic goddess whose Anglo-Saxon month, Ēostur-monath, has given its name to the festival of Easter. Eostre is attested only by Bede, in his 8th century work De temporum ratione, where he states that Ēostur-monath was the equivalent to the month of April, and that feasts held in her honour during Ēostur-monath had died out by the time of his writing, replaced by the "Paschal month". The possibility of a Common Germanic goddess called *Austrōn- was examined in detail in 19th century Germanic philology, by Jacob Grimm and others, without coming to a definite conclusion.

Linguists have identified the goddess as a Germanic form of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, *Hausos, some scholars have debated whether or not Eostre is an invention of Bede's, and theories connecting Eostre with records of Germanic Easter customs (including hares and eggs) have been proposed.

Who is Bede, you may ask?

Bede (pronounced "Bead" ; Old English: Bǣda or Bēda; 672 / 673 – 26 May 735), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede (Latin: Beda Venerabilis), was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow (see Wearmouth-Jarrow), both in the Kingdom of Northumbria. Bede's monastery had access to a superb library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius among many others.

He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History". In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of theological significance; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy). Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons.

In Greek mythology, Persephone ( /pərˈsɛfəniː/) in modern English—also called Kore)^[1] is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter, and became queen of the underworld when she was taken from her mother by Hades.^[2][3]

The myth of her rape represents her function as the personification of vegetation which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence she is also associated with spring and with the seeds of the fruits of the fields. Persephone as a vegetation goddess (Kore) and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In tablets dated 1400-1200 BC found at Pylos, the "two mistresses and the king" are mentioned; John Chadwick identifies these as Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.^[4]

In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed. She may be carrying a sheaf of grain; in Latin, she is called Proserpina.

In Northern Europe, Easter imagery often involves hares and rabbits. Citing folk Easter customs in Leicestershire, England where "the profits of the land called Harecrop Leys were applied to providing a meal which was thrown on the ground at the 'Hare-pie Bank,' " late 19th century scholar Charles Isaac Elton theorizes a connection between these customs and the worship of Ēostre.^[12] In his late 19th century study of the hare in folk custom and mythology, Charles J. Billson cites numerous incidents of folk custom involving the hare around the period of Easter in Northern Europe. Billson says that "whether there was a goddess named Eostre, or not, and whatever connection the hare may have had with the ritual of Saxon or British worship, there are good grounds for believing that the sacredness of this animal reaches back into an age still more remote, where it is probably a very important part of the great Spring Festival of the prehistoric inhabitants of this island."^[7]

Some scholars have linked customs and imagery involving hares to Ēostre and the Norse goddess Freyja. Writing in 1972, John Andrew Boyle cites commentary contained within an etymology dictionary by A. Ernout and A. Meillet, where the authors write that "Little else [...] is known about [Ēostre], but it has been suggested that her lights, as goddess of the dawn, were carried by hares. And she certainly represented spring fecundity, and love and carnal pleasure that leads to fecundity." Boyle responds that nothing is known about Ēostre outside of Bede's single passage, that the authors had seemingly accepted the identification of Ēostre with the Norse goddess Freyja, yet that the hare is not associated with Freyja either. Boyle writes that "her carriage, we are told by Snorri, was drawn by a pair of cats — animals, it is true, which like hares were the familiars of witches, with whom Freyja seems to have much in common." However, Boyle adds that "on the other hand, when the authors speak of the hare as the 'companion of Aphrodite and of satyrs and cupids' and point out that 'in the Middle Ages it appears beside the figure of Luxuria', they are on much surer ground and can adduce the evidence of their illustrations."^[13]

This is exciting news - as you may recall, for my last blog post I used an image depicting a woman driving a cat-drawn chariot but I did not know the artist's intent - now I realize it must be Freyja!

Cybele ( /ˈkɪbəliː/; Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubeleyan Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis), was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia (the "Earth"), or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals (especially lions and bees). Phrygian Cybele is often identified with the Hittite-Hurrian goddess Hebat, though this latter deity might have been the origin of only Anatolian Kubaba. The Greeks frequently conflated the two names, the Anatolian "Kubaba" and the Phrygian "Kybele", to refer to the Phrygian deity. Her chariot is drawn by two lions (and Freyja has to rely on a few poor little kitties...)

My friend Jen discusses the mythical Flora in her WordPress blog, Random Acts of Writing + Art (with a name like Flora it's pretty obvious how she fits in this time of year!)

randomactsofwriting.wordpress.com

And so I wish you a Happy Spring/Ostara/Vernal Equinox - next time I will post something that I actually took time to write myself!

Celebrating Imbolc

This is the time of year, halfway between winter and spring, that I get a little antsy, especially this year after everyone's seen so much snow and "wintry mix" - this change-over is much more subtle in the southern half of the country - by February, new leaves can be seen on the trees and everything starts to wake up - up north, however, Nature often takes her sweet time sweeping winter out the door - I want to begin planting herbs and flowers, open windows, see green and blue instead of white and brown, but I must wait a little longer...

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about this midway point of Imbolc (or Imbolg) and Candlemas:

The holiday was, and for many still is, a festival of the hearth and home, and a celebration of the lengthening days and the early signs of spring. Celebrations often involved hearth fires, special foods (butter, milk, and bannocks, for example), divination or watching for omens, candles or a bonfire if the weather permits.

Imbolc is traditionally a time of weather prognostication, and the old tradition of watching to see if serpents or badgers came from their winter dens is perhaps a precursor to the North American Groundhog Day. A Scottish Gaelic proverb about the day is:

Thig an nathair as an toll
Là donn Brìde,
Ged robh trì troighean dhen t-sneachd
Air leac an làir.

"The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground."

Imbolc is the day the Cailleach — the hag of Gaelic tradition — gathers her firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she intends to make the winter last a good while longer, she will make sure the weather on Imbolc is bright and sunny, so she can gather plenty of firewood. Therefore, people are generally relieved if Imbolc is a day of foul weather, as it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter is almost over.

On the Isle of Man, where she is known as Caillagh ny Groamagh, the Cailleach is said to have been seen on Imbolc in the form of a gigantic bird, carrying sticks in her beak.

Fire and purification are an important aspect of this festival. Brigid (also known as Brighid, Bríde, Brigit, Brìd) is the Gaelic goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft.

As both goddess and saint she is also associated with holy wells, sacred flames, and healing. The lighting of candles and fires represents the return of warmth and the increasing power of the Sun over the coming months.

Brigid is said to walk the earth on Imbolc eve. Before going to bed, each member of the household may leave a piece of clothing or strip of cloth outside for Brigid to bless. The head of the household will smother (or "smoor") the fire and rake the ashes smooth. In the morning, they look for some kind of mark on the ashes, a sign that Brigid has passed that way in the night or morning. The clothes or strips of cloth are brought inside, and believed to now have powers of healing and protection.

In the modern Irish Calendar, Imbolc is variously known as the Feast of Saint Brigid (Secondary Patron of Ireland), Lá Fhéile Bríde, and Lá Feabhra — the first day of Spring. Christians may call the day "Candlemas." Long celebrated as "the feast of the Purification of the Virgin." Since Brigid represents the light half of the year, and the power that will bring people from the dark season of winter into spring, her presence is very important at this time of year.

Okay, so this year on Feb. 2, I dutifully tied two long white ribbons outside as a signal to Brigid to bestow her healing blessings upon me & mine as she passed by on her journey - I also burned a red candle (to symbolize the hearth fire's eternal flame) and thought about how I would honor what Brigid represents (water, fire and, um, smithing?) and figured that I am really ready for spring to show up so I can water my struggling indoor plants and new ones I will be planting out-of-doors, and perhaps lighting a candle as I meditate or work on new projects (or even turn on the new paper star light I recently bought) or, even more ambitiously, light up my little corner of the world by creating new things and helping others by being a good person... the smith-craft will have to wait, though!

Still, it's all very comforting for me (in an ancient, instinctual sort of way) to think about these rituals reaching back thousands of years, when people had to rely on the natural world for everything - they had no grocery stores, no refrigerators, no microwaves ("no phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury...") just planting, harvesting and storing food, hunkering down to wait for winter to end so they could do it again, and making sure they gave thanks to their deities in the hopes of ensuring they could repeat it year after year - this must be how the world's religions began, with these rituals as the people's way of showing gratitude and hope and reverence for the way the natural world works and our roles in it...

And if you're curious about what a bannock is (see above) here's what Wikipedia says about it:

Bannock is any of a large variety of flat quick breads. The word can also be applied to any large, round article baked or cooked from grain. When a round bannock is cut into wedges, the wedges are often called scones. But in Scotland, the words bannock and scone are often used interchangeably.

Yum - talk about comfort food!

OH, and I wanted to clear up the confusion about Groundhog Day (mostly because I am very happy about this year's prediction!) so here's part of an article from The Washington Post:

By LEE POWELL

The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 2, 2011; 8:00 AM

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. -- To the relief of the winter-weary, the world's most famous groundhog predicted an early spring Wednesday.

Punxsutawney Phil emerged just after dawn on Groundhog Day to make his 125th annual weather forecast in front of a smaller-than-usual crowd who braved muddy, icy conditions to hear his handlers reveal that he had not seen his shadow.

Including Wednesday's forecast, Phil has seen his shadow 98 times and hasn't seen it just 16 times since 1887. There are no records for the remaining years, though the group has never failed to issue a forecast.

The celebration took place on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in Punxsutawney, a borough of about 6,100 residents some 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.

SO:

I wish you Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/Mid-Winter/Almost Spring

(and St. Valentine's Day is right around the corner - another good excuse to make bannock!)

P.S. I'm not sure what the illustration (by Donn P. Crane) is depicting - I just thought it was pretty - and I'm sure Brigid must have been a cat-lover...

E.T. Knows Best

have you ever noticed when you go on a road trip that the signs you see showing the names of towns would make great names for characters in a novel? here's what i mean:

Ayer Littleton

Webster Sturbridge

Preston Ledyard

Sterling Moosup

Jewett Griswold

and my favorite - Cudworth Shrewsbury

yeah, they just get weirder and weirder, don't they?

it has long been a secret fantasy of mine to write a short story that incorporates these strangely impossible names for its fictional characters - i suppose there is a remote chance that there are people somewhere who actually answer to names like these... very, very remote

i think it would be more difficult to come up with these random names in a region where there is an abundance of, say, Native American place names (tahopakaliga? econolockahatchee? penobscot? hammonnassett? it would be tough to make names out of those incredible words, right?) it would probably also work with Spanish- or German-sounding names, or even where other languages like French and Scandinavian were prominent - but for now i'll stick to English words that i am able to join together to make credible-sounding names...

yeah, this is what i do for fun when i'm looking out the window at road signs - even more fun than those silly South of the Border billboards!!

and that's my thought for today, the first day of february... happy FEB, everyone!