Thread Drift

[Trek420]

Two years ago on this thread, I said maybe they were aliens, and Trek420 expressed some concern about my sanity, I believe.

I did? I don't remember that.

Where did I put those memory pills?

[Tuckervill]

Thanks, Tuck, but I'm not much of an alcohol fan either. No objections, just don't like the taste.

Captain Ron sounds like fun. He's kind of an interesting guy, Kurt Russell. He can do more than than the macho guy stuff--he did a great Wyatt Earp in Tombstone.

We're going to see the new Greek/Roman rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art next week, AND the new Museum of Art and Design.

I was just joshin'. My other response was knitting, but beer was funnier.

I don't drink much, either. Beer makes my gut gurgle too much, and I can't really afford the calories.


K.

[Zen]

Cute sweater!

On another topic, did anyone see the 2-hour MSNBC special on the Jonestown massacre 30 years ago?

I heard an interview on the Tavis Smiley show (radio). The author was a survivor.
Gotta agree on that "drink the kool-aid" phrase..

DoW, that is some fancy knitting!
I hope I can learn just well enough to make dog sweaters and arm warmers

[Biciclista]

what about DONKEYS? Who here has really never heard a donkey bray?


(I'm painting Donkeys tonight)

[pardes]

what about DONKEYS? Who here has really never heard a donkey bray?(I'm painting Donkeys tonight)

I absolutely ADORE donkeys. Here's an essay I wrote about a donkey that I know.

When Donkeys Fly

I know a donkey named Nellie who once demonstrated the intention of movement so artfully that it would have made you weep with joy. Nellie lived on the farm of a retired veterinarian who owned many championship thoroughbreds and kept Nellie as a "lawn ornament" who was required to do nothing for her keep but be a donkey. She had never been ridden or trained or even asked to walk across a paved road and therefore spent a lifetime flatly refusing to walk on pavement or gravel. With hundreds of acres of pasture, it was rarely an issue.

It's a haughty group of horse people that live in this area. Too much money, too much fox hunting, too much too much. Too haughty to even lower their eyes to mock the substandard confirmation lines of an aging donkey and an aging eccentric woman who came to the stables to visit a donkey.

You'd think a donkey so seemingly starved for personal attention would fawn and beg and bray and heehaw for the carrots, apples, and peppermints I brought. Not Nellie, proud Nellie so busy with living her donkeyness.

I have spent hours in the pasture reading, writing, napping, feeding Nellie all manner of delicacies from the farmers' market, brushing her, petting her, flipping her lovely ears like radar antennas. When I would laugh, she would bray. What gusto there is in a donkey bray! The whole body takes part and infectiously requires some kind of response from the universe.

Nellie moved very slowly and not before a great deal of deliberation went into the decision of whether to move, where to move, and why to move. This was fine with me. I'd hold a carrot in one hand while I read and eventually Nellie would find her way to it.

At the time, I was reading about Chi. All very interesting but I wondered where does chi reside when one isn't moving and in what form. When a dozen thoroughbreds thundered down upon us with flying hooves and tossing manes to steal the fruit and vegetable booty, it was easy to witness the life force coursing through their bodies. They are bred without a rheostat. They are either on or off and bred to run so swiftly that it takes the breath away to witness it and fires our carnal hedonistic desires to saddle up and ride that sense of abandonment so carefully choreographed as an almost out of control flight from gravity.

Yet it was a donkey never ridden that was chosen to bear a messiah into Jerusalem and it was an old testament donkey, not a man, not a thoroughbred, who saw an angel blocking the road and refused to move even when beaten, the same donkey who spoke to Balaam of his folly.

So lie down in green pastures with me and contemplate the chosen nature of a homely aging donkey and try to catch a glimpse of subtle chi as one slender burro leg raised itself off the ground and slowly came down again before another foot started to move and then the next foot and the next and then a pause of movement that was no longer an empty category or the mere absence of movement but a gathering of intention, a wisp of desire that existed with its own sense of purpose and humor.

As a myopic human who can't see angels in the middle of the road, I was not shown this feat of feet with just one step or two but dozens and dozen of graceful steps until I could match my breath to the slow cadence and realize that my own breath existed with its own consciousness, sense of purpose, compassion, and even humor. It made me laugh and dance with a donkey, and the donkey kept time and brayed.

[Trek420]

(I'm painting Donkeys tonight)

I don't know, Bici. Don't you think it's cruel to paint donkeys? They are beautiful just the way they are Why paint them?

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article...6&in_page_id=2

[Biciclista]

I don't know, Bici. Don't you think it's cruel to paint donkeys? They are beautiful just the way they are Why paint them?

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article...6&in_page_id=2

oh what a cute paint job!

Nice story Pardes

but notice, NO ONE answered my question!

[crazycanuck]

Snap-I think you can save the world Do you have a superhero name yet?

Mimi-what's a donkey Bray???

Yukon is not happy with us ..We went away on the weekend(can't take her to the campsite we went to..) and we put her in the (cool) kennel we normally use when we venture away. She was not pleased yesterday & had a pout. She's like a kid!!


This is..interesting...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7727136.stm

[Tuckervill]

It only took me both days of the weekend.

[snapdragen]

Isn't it enought that I have the cape and tiara, do I really need to come up with a name?

Donkeys shouldn't be painted, only cats.

[Tuckervill]

That cat matches my sock!

[salsabike]

That's just what I was thinking! And the sock is fabulous.

[crazycanuck]

Snap, you can't have a tiara & cape without a superhero type name..

[Pax]

what about DONKEYS? Who here has really never heard a donkey bray?


(I'm painting Donkeys tonight)

Our neighbor in Italy had two donkeys he used to pull his work cart, when they brayed, it was really loud! They were cute though, he used to let me pet them and feed them apples from our tree.

[Velobambina]

Are donkeys the same as mules?