For A Prisoner of Love

Ever since February 1st 2016, in honor of Valentine’s Day prep, I have been sharing the stories (here and on Blogger as well as Fb) of an array of whimsical characters who have come to visit me during this time period. Since today is already February 10th and Valentine’s Day is only four days away, they will be leaving soon, and in anticipation of this, one of my whimsical characters has confided in me that he is a prisoner of love, and cannot seem to get the key to his girl’s heart. This character has apparently heard #Delilah on the radio as he knows she plays songs to help her callers to cope with their (mostly) love life situations. Because he could not get through her busy phone lines, he asked ME to play a song to help him understand his situation, and I thought of “Prisoner In Love,” the instrumental version by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster.

The Year of The Monkey

Happy Chinese New Year to you and yours, dear reader. I guess you know that in their calendar, tis The Year of The Monkey.

Perhaps Julius The Sock Monkey is happy about this news, for any time  it’s the year of a given animal, folks begin to think more about that animal type.

However, Julius The Sock Monkey may not need The Year Of The Monkey as an excuse to endear others to him. After all, he has notoriety from being the fictional character created by cartoonist and fashion designer, Paul Frank. And he appears in a variety of media today, including The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Remembering Bob Marley

Yesterday, in addition to it being eight days before Valentines Day, and two days before the onset of The Year of The Monkey in this 2016 Chinese New Year, as well as one day before the Super Bowl (which I know NOTHING about); it is the birthdate of Bob Marley. (He was born in 1945 and died in 1981.)

Mr. Marley is known for many quotations and songs, but one that is fitting for me at this time is "Three Little Birds."

"Perfect love sometimes does not come until after the first grandchild." REPRISED

Once upon a time, here on blogger, I pointed out that according to a Welsh proverb, "perfect love sometimes does not come until after the first grandchild."

And I stated that I "imagine perfect love probably comes with any grandchild, or child for that matter (although I have neither, and my maternal instincts are mainly exercised in the extreme care I offer in tending my terrace garden as well as tending to the needs of the birds that visit it). In any event, whether perfect love comes with the first grandchild or not, the fact that I am my maternal grandparents' first grandchild causes me to like to believe that the proverb is true! Not only am I my grandparents' first grandchild, but I was born on their wedding anniversary!"

In any event, my wonderful grandmother died a number of years ago, but before she passed, she said to me that I "should get back to writing,"  which I finally am.

And if she were alive today, I would certainly give her a copy of the book, "Words In Our Beak Volume One," which Cam, the cardinal  who visits my urban (NYC) garden, wrote with me.

If, dear reader, you are fourtunate enough to still have your grandmother, you might want to consider giving her the gift of Cam, which according to my "love birds" makes a wonderful Valentines gift!

Perhaps some of you are grandparents, and if so, you must know all about perfect love and grandchildren bringing it into your lives! Since children have also enjoyed Cam, you might want to consider expressing your love for your grandchildren by sharing Cam with them for Valentines Day.

The V day holiday is only eight days away so I'm just sayin....

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions)  of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

MY BOOK SERIES

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

News About SONIC!

Sonic, the hedgehog can be seen here, in a photo from bygone years where she is racing along the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade route!

And to think I nearly forgot that February 2nd's holiday of ‪#‎GroundhogDay‬ was Sonic's day too! She shares this day with a groundhog because the animal type she represents was the first ever to be given the task of predicting the onset of spring!

I spoke about this on Fb earlier this week.

But Sonic has other things to celebrate besides the commonality of hedgehogs and groundhogs serving as predictors of the onset of spring! 

Sonic the Hedgehog's media presence occurred on February 2nd, albeit a number of years ago, and this ultimately led to her likeness being rendered into a Macy's balloon!

Sending in the clowns...

Last week at this time, John Montone from 1010 WINS was calling out to Mayor De Blasio to "send in the plows," to areas of Queens that were still buried under snow from the ‪#‎blizzardjonasnyc‬jonas. Readers of this blog may recall that yours truly was interviewed by John Montone regarding one of my art exhibitions. In any event, I'm not sure if De Blasio heeded the call to "send in the plows," but and he did not even meet with ‪#‎StatenIslandChuck‬ this morning, in honor of #Groundhog Day to witness his prediction re the onset of spring for 2016.

And in spite of the fact that we had 28.5 inches of snow fall in parts of NYC on 1-23-16— Chuck "predicted" that spring will arrive early this year.

Maybe Chuck's a people pleaser, telling te crowds what they want to hear, as do some prophets. But as I said earlier today, in an entry on Facebook,"The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its prediction and disappears."

In any event, rather spring will come early or not, remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, ‪#‎ValentinesDay‬ will come in twelve days, on February 14, 2016.

Therefore, I am sending in the clowns (that are already visiting me for this upcoming holiday), to my Fb community as a reminder that there are not too many days to get the ones you love something for Valentines Day.

And I'm following the advice of some lovebirds who visited me yesterday! They suggested that folks give the ones they love the gift of Cam (via her book, "Words In Our Beak Volume One," for #ValentinesDay! Info @https://www.facebook.com/TheLastLeafGardener/photos/a.355589574490422.73015.247917655257615/930275623688478/?type=3&theater