Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Bad Weather



I’ve been doing a bit of work on my ‘Shakespeare’ project again this week.  Whether it will ever become anything is still unclear and may remain so, but I enjoy working at it when inclement weather keeps me indoors.  Today when I turned on the radio before getting out of bed, I heard that the weather on the west coast was the big news.  The ferries were not running because of high winds and parts of the Vancouver area were preparing for floods.  Talk of bad weather made me think of the Philippines.  There have been warnings of the approach of Typhoon Hagupit for quite a few days.  I asked Jay about it when we talked yesterday morning, and he confirmed that it was passing through the area in the south that was devastated last year by Typhoon Haiyan.  May’s family in Manila isn’t in any danger.  I began to wonder about the names of these typhoons and looked them up on line.  Interestingly enough, I discovered that ‘Haiyan’ is merely a girl’s name.  But the typhoon of that name last year was devastating while the name of this year’s rather mild typhoon, ‘hagupit’ means ‘stroke of a whip’ or ‘a thrashing’ in Tagalog.  So you can’t tell a typhoon by its name.  As Juliet would say:
            What’s in a name?  that which we call a rose
            By any other name would smell as sweet;

My bird feeder and suet square are attracting quite a few purple finches, chickadees and flickers to entertain me while I eat my solitary meals. 

Bill and Miriam are picking me up again tonight to take me with them to another University Women’s event, an evening of poetry with 3 local poets.  The very idea makes me cringe, but I’m going to give it a try. 

In an attempt to brighten a dull day, I will now include some light-hearted pictures.

Jay and May taking an 'selvesy' with the 'go go gadget arm'

New tech. in old tech. in Seoul

A mom's and tot's toilet in Seoul 

Three girls from the Philippines on a ferry of Incheon

A Filipino feast at Jay and May's

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