Good Morning From North Texas -- April 7, 2024

Locator: 46939ARCHIVES.

Texas eclipse: too bad the eclipse is not today -- beautiful, beautiful day -- sunny, bright, no clouds, balcony door wide open to let the air in; room temperature, 78°P; balcony temperature, 63°P. If I squint just hard enough and look northeast, I can just barely make out Abydos. LOL. Long story.

Scotch: incredible wonderful, if faint, aroma -- at first not sure where it was coming from -- faint hint of recent mulch that might have been applied to ground around trees; but, then -- an almost-empty small thimble-of-a-glass with a bit of un-drunk Scotch from last night.

Years ago, I spent one full year -- I talked about it on the blog, I believe -- researching Scotch. Another long story. But after years of reading about Scotch and then spending years in England and months along the Scottish border, I finally decided it was time to learn. It was a great year, and very, very rewarding. 

In our local area there are several incredible outlets with extensive Scotch offerings. My favorite Scotch from the island if Islay -- peaty Scotch. I really find any other Scotch quite boring. If peaty Scotch is "ranked" 1 to 5 with 1 being lowest degree of peatiness, I probably like Scotch with a peatiness of 3, possibly even 4. I've had a "5" and at the time it was too peaty for me, but I bet I would enjoy it now. Laphroaig: "la-frog" -- or I suppose, call it "leap-frog" which is now impossible to unread. LOL. Link here.

Breakfast: I bought a brand new waffle maker last week -- the old one finally died. This is a huge waffle maker! "Dash" brand if that means anything. And breakfast on the balcony. North Texas has six wonderful months. Three months are way too hot -- which I love for the pool -- and three months way too cold which I don't enjoy for any reason. 

Books today: lots of reading. Byron top of the list. The first chapter in the new book begins with the letter he wrote to "my dear Elizabeth." So many times I've wondered about the relationship among Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne (Biblical). Notes / graphics posted here. 

Genealogy: John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins of some sort, most likely not brothers, but that's a remote possibility. The bible only says their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, were relatives -- most likely aunt and neice, but even so could have been "of same generation." 

When Elizabeth's mother, Elisheba married Aaron, she united the two tribes, the Levites and the tribe of Judah. By doing so, she was the mother of the entire Levitical Priesthood.

Whom did Elisheba, the grandmother of John the Baptist marry? She married Aaron. Arron? A brother of Moses and the spokesman for Moses. 

Of all the tribes, the Levites were the only ones that did not receive land as their inheritance. Their inheritance: the priesthood. 

I'm sure others have their own understanding of the genealogy, and I could much of it wrong. That's fine. But this is nice scaffolding to help me understand the reason for the names of English queens. 

By the way, Anne? Nowhere in the Bible does it state whose Mary's mother was but sources that did not become part of the Biblical canon say that Mary's mother was Anne.

Does anyone ever wonder how "modern" -- or perhaps better stated, "western names" -- all these names sound? From Elisheba -- not modern -- but her daughter -- Elizabeth -- very modern. 

By the way: "El" -- God.

"Beth" -- home.

In Williston where I grew up and where my Dad lived out his final years, there was an incredible nursing home, Bethel Lutheran. I never thought about the name, Bethel, until later in life.

Back to Anne. I would have thought Anne was entirely Anglicized but this source suggests both "Anne" and "Hannah" were Hebrew names. These certainly are not Arabic or northern African names, or even the names we commonly come across in The Odyssey and The Iliad. Penelope? Priam? Achilles? Menelaus?

That's why I tell Sophia and her sisters: never quit reading. I'm reading Byron today, but I'm stopped at the very third word in the first chapter, "my dear Elizabeth." I'll never get through this book. LOL.

And speaking of never getting through a book, I am still reading Normn Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. I don't think a day goes by that I'm not thinking about the book and yet I haven't read any of it in a couple of weeks. My notes are here, so it's easy to bring myself up to speed when I start reading it again.

Okay, now to the news, but we'll post that in a separate stand-alone post.