The last class for this semester – I continued to play with water-color pencil.
Water-color
I tend to draw the heads too small . . . or . . . another way of “looking at it” . . . I make the bodies too big. Then again, he is a big guy.
The uneven jaw line is reflective of his beard and mustache.
Bob Blobfish sez: ” Until art classes start again she can practice drawing larger heads by drawing me in the nude”
Bob the Blobfish has been a regular on this blog for years. His commentary is broadly heralded by readers as being bold, beautifully brash and brilliantly blunt
“In 2013 The blobfish was voted the “World’s Ugliest Animal”, based on photographs of decompressed specimens, and adopted as the mascot of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, in an initiative “dedicated to raising the profile of some of Mother Nature’s more aesthetically challenged children”‘
_____________
Time to crank up the blog searches! Yes! It’s time for a fish post!
If you’ve not been following CreativitytotheMAX for awhile you aren’t aware that the single largest word searches on this blog is for “fish”. So periodically I delight in sharing my fish research with you to keep the fishy hits hitting.
Zuvys appeared in the word search count. ZUVYS? I was apprehensive it was X-rated, or worse. Sounded like slang for a part of the anatomy that we can’t explore in public, or a new form of bacteria that eats the flesh eating bacteria after the flesh eating bacteria eats us. Zuvys?
Turns out it’s neither X-rated nor life-threatening. It’s Lithuanian!
Lithuanian!!!!! Who knew? The Republic of Lithuania is a nation in Northern Europe. The country spans a total area of 25,174 sq miles. The population of Lithuania is over 3 million, which makes it the 133rd most populated country in the world. The per capita nominal GDP of Lithuania is $10,605. The official language is Lithuanian and the word for fish is ZUVYS.
Jurgis Zuvy
Want to see what you’d be called if you lived in Lithuania? You can call me KĘSTUTIS
|
Lithuanian names |
|
|
AUSTĖJA f Lithuanian, Baltic Mythology
Meaning unknown. This was the name of the Lithuanian goddess of bees. DAIVA f Lithuanian
Created by the Lithuanian writer Vydūnas, who possibly derived it from a Sanskrit word meaning “destiny“. DARIUS m English, Lithuanian, Biblical, Biblical Latin
Roman form of Δαρειος (Dareios), which was the Greek form of the Persian name Dārayavahush, which was composed of the elements dâraya“to possess” and vahu “good” EMILIJA f
Feminine form of Aemilius ILONA f Hungarian, German, Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech
Possibly a Hungarian form of HELEN LINA (2) f
Short form of names ending in lina. MILDA f Lithuanian, Baltic Mythology
Meaning unknown. This was the name of the Lithuanian goddess of love. RŪTA f Lithuanian
Means “rue” in Lithuanian, the rue plant being a bitter medicinal herb which is a national symbol of Lithuania... SAULĖ f Lithuanian, Baltic Mythology
Means “sun” in Lithuanian. This was the name of the Lithuanian sun goddess. VALDAS m Lithuanian
Short form of VALDEMARAS and other Lithuanian names containing the Germanic/Baltic element wald “rule”. VYTAUTAS m Lithuanian
From the Baltic elements vyti- “chase, drive away” or vyd- “see” combined with tauta “people, nation” |
|
Needs and wants are perhaps even more significant a topic at this time of year. Every year I am faced with getting my husband both birthday and Christmas presents. This strains my brain to figure out what he “wants” or “needs”.
Gifts of need or want?
never knowing what to buy
A strain on my brain
Then yesterday I received this comment from a “linkedin” friend:
“You seem like a lady who has everything?
I wonder…what do you want for
Christmas?”
At first, I wondered what I had said in a post or comment to give the impression that I had everything?
Humph, All I want is water
Then I wondered if I really take the time to think about the distinction between what I need and what I want.
Then I thought about Ida who has to weigh this question daily since she is, out of necessity, forced to survive on the bare minimum.
Susan Gammage wrote an excellent post on the topic. It’s too long to repost but here’s how it starts:
“Recently I was listening to a podcast on our relationship to money by my favorite minister, Jeremy McClung of the Muskoka Community Church, which left me asking the question: When is enough, enough? This is an important question to ask especially at this season of excess we call Christmas.” “In his talk, Jeremy handed out index cards and asked us to write “stuff I have” on one side and to write “stuff I want” on the other. We were to make a detailed list of everything we own (land, cars, houses, clothes, electronics, appliances, toys etc)”. “What surprised me was how much was on my “want” side! Even though I have everything I need, and more, the list of what I wanted was longer than the list of what I owned. This was profound! I urge you to take out a sheet of paper right now and do this exercise for yourself.” “My income comes from a small disability pension, supplemented by some paid work, and I live in a small one bedroom apartment in a “geared to income” building. Some people look at my lifestyle and long for me to be better off financially, and sometimes I wonder if they’re right. My well-wishers see the transformative path I’ve been on for the past couple of decades, and how far I’ve come in ridding myself of the anxiety and depression that robbed me of my life, and they think it’s time for me to get back into the “real world” and get paid for all the work I do.Susan citing the following REALLY got my attention:
If you could fit the entire population of the world into a village consisting of 100 people, maintaining the proportions of all the people living on Earth, that village would consist of:
Humph, Zero fish?
Humph, One Blobfish left high and dry
If we looked at the world in this way, the need for acceptance and understanding would be obvious. But, consider again the following…
Dear Linkedin Friend, Thank you for asking.
My greedy little ego will probably never be satisfied.
My soul tells me I have everything I need.
http://susangammage.com/when-is-enough-enough-a-bahai-perspective/comment-page-1#comment-1298
Humph, All I need is water.
Time to pump up the word search hits on the blog!
For those of you new to C2Max I get MORE word searches on “fish” than anything else in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD WEB.
It all started with the post Butterfly fish and the Single Scene. Don’t ask me why I wrote that post in the first place. My motivation is lost somewhere in the murky recesses of my mind.
To my knowledge the fishy people who google “fish” and land on this blog have never commented nor subscribed. They probably have posted warning signs somewhere not to come here.
However, I have now become fascinated with the denizens of the sea and I periodically share with you what I discover. (And it amuses me to get all those word search hits for “fish” – I amuse easily, ask my friends).
So with that, I introduce you to Shaggy FROGFISH!!!!!!!!
Instead of chasing their prey, frogfish have become the masters of the ambush. Most are patterned to blend with their surroundings,(I wonder what they would look like if they came ashore in Hawaii – leis around their neck and sunglasses?)
Frogfish lay quietly in waiting, enticing their prey with a “fishing pole” tipped with a piece of “bait” derived from the first dorsal fin spine. (That’s because they have no cleavage).
Without any teeth, they must use the “gape and suck” method to swallow their prey whole—dropping open their jaw to create a void of negative pressure. (At least it’s nice to know that when I lose my teeth I will be able to “gape & suck”. Now, the only way I know to create a negative void is to suck) In this manner, frogfish consume their prey faster than any other vertebrates, inhaling their food in 6 milliseconds.
Shaggy Frogfish photography courtesy of NGCHmph, She's undoubtedly genetically linked to Frogfish . . .
It’s Haiku Wednesday!
A BLOBfish is rare
lives deep at bottom of sea
Ashamed of it’s look?
BLOGfish are rarer
Live deep in Blogland with me
Ashamed of my look?
