Today In History...

July 19, 1799…The Rosetta Stone, a tablet with hieroglyphic translations into Greek, was found in Egypt.

In July of 2000, when Corey and I went on vacation to England, one of the things we did was visit the British Museum.  What a fantastic place and somewhere I'd love to go visit again some day.  While there one of the things we got to see on display with The Rosetta Stone.

Corey standing in front of the "Rosetta Stone".  It was the key that unlocked the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphics.  Napoleon's troops discovered it in 1799 near the seaside town of Rosetta in lower Egypt and it eventually made its way into the British Museum.  It is a slab of black basalt dating from 196 BC inscribed with ancient Egyptians with a royal decree praising their king Ptolemy V.  The inscription is written three times, one in hieroglyphics, one in demotic and one in Greek.  From this meager starting point, Egyptologists eventually managed to read most everything that remains of the Egyptians ancient writings.

The Rosetta Stone

Even in England, Corey managed to "chat up" a girl who just happened to attend Georgia State University.

It's National Toilet Paper Day

...I always feel so "wiped" out! Ha, Ha, Ha. Let's just plunge in and flush the reason behind celebrating this day shall we? Are you bowled over by the fact that there is such a day?

Toilet Paper Day is celebrated every year on August 26 keep reading and I'll explain WHY?!? Grab a seat - maybe even in the: reading room. the throne, the powder room, the can, the head, for some appropriate ambiance - and let's whoop it up!

Let's start with a statistic. Market research has said that there is a 98% Household Penetration Rate for toilet paper in the United States. That means that 98% of U.S. households buy toilet paper. I'll give that a moment to sink in...ninety-eight percent of U.S. households buy toilet paper... So, what on earth are the other 2% using?? Ewww...!!! Nasty!!! I don't think I even want to go any further with that at all!

But, let's not go too crazy just yet. Perhaps that rebel 2% are instead using all those catalogs that clog your mailbox almost daily. Maybe they are taking recycling very, very seriously. (Remember recently that Sheryl Crowe, the singer, said we should only use one square at each sitting)? And, you may recall (or if you're not old enough, you may recall reading about) the alternate use put to the old Sears & Roebuck catalogs? Or maybe you're more familiar with one of the spinoff catalogs that made the rounds: Rears & Sorebutt.

I can remember going to my Grandmother and Granddaddy McGhee's home located on the top of the hill when I was younger. I can remember that when Mother Nature called, the answer to the flushable toilet was the outhouse. It's a wonder that I didn't develop some type of kidney infection while visiting at her house from not using the outhouse as often as I probably should. When I finally did utilize the outhouse, I was always so afraid I would fall in, so my hands stayed firmly planted by my sides until it was time to acquaint myself with "the catalog" since there was no toilet paper. I also remember spending the night at Aunt Rachel's home with my girl cousins and sisters. Aunt Rachel did not have an indoor toilet either. Being a "city girl", if I needed to go to the toilet at night, everyone went. Hey, I wasn't some dumb, crazy fool who was just born yesterday. It was dark outside and things might get you. After all, we were out in the country and I do mean country. The only light outside was hopefully a bright moon and the stars. So here we would all go creeping out into the dark with a flashlight. Using the outhouse was even worse at night because once you sat down with your butt hanging over that black hole, visions of other things started entering your mind about what might be down there. Consequently, you did what you needed to do quickly. Besides, if you sat too long over that big, black hole during the summertime, you were most certainly guaranteed to have multiple mosquito bites on your derriere. Well, Gmom and Gdad McGhee finally got an indoor toilet in 1961 when I was 9 years old, if I remember correctly. Darn it all, no more outhouse. I seriously think that neighbors and friends probably came for a visit just to see and use their new plumbing.

Sorry, I strayed about the celebration of National Toilet Paper Day. The use of toilet paper is important (being kinder to one's behind, and all), but it's also very important how it's used. Or, more specifically, how it comes off the roll. That's right: the dreaded Roll Dispenser Controversy. Forget about how you squeeze the toothpast...marriages may have ended due to squabbles over how to hang the toilet paper! When one installs a roll of teepee on the dispenser, should the paper dispense from over the roll or from under it? I say it should be over-the-roll. However, Joe holds the opposing view, insisting - not through word, but through dispenser-filling deed - that the correct installation is under-the-roll. I say nothing to him, since I don't want to point out his mental deficiency about this, but quietly and with authority, I make the correct change. If it was meant to go under-the-roll, designs would never have been invented. I personally think the designs were invented to help the over-the-roll challenged persons hang it incorrectly. Why do you think they invented "quilted" designs? It was to help even those with bad eyesight hang it correctly. Think of it as "braille toilet paper". (So Joe should have no excuse on how to hang a roll correctly other than maybe he's afraid that if it hangs over the top, he will catch the end of the roll in the top of his pants. Ever see "Smoky and the Bandit" when Buford T. Justice walks out in the restaurant dragging the toilet paper)?

Other personal toilet paper facts:

(1) The strangest toilet paper I've ever used was while I was in England. It was almost like a thin waxed paper. I've never seen anything like it. It was so unusual that I even brought a sample of it back to the States with me. Hmmm, I'll have to see if I sill have it around somewhere.

(2) One of the first Japanese sentences I ever learned was: "Benjo wa doko desuka?" Translation: "Where is the bathroom?" I learned this in school before we headed out on a field trip. Japan did not have segregated bathrooms. So you took your life in your hand when using a Japanese public toilet.

(3) The funniest toilet experience was one I had with Corey. When I took him with me to Europe in July of 2000, we did some sightseeing in London. We were outside the Tower of London right next to the Thames River when Mother Nature called. I had seen pull chain toilets from previous visits to England, but Corey had not. The look on his face was priceless when he came out of the bathroom. He had almost been afraid to flush the toilet for fear the tank might come down and then there was the sound of the toilet flushing up there!

(4) I hate using the toilet on an airplane. I swear it feels and sounds as though your butt is being sucked away from your body!

And now, as our little celebration comes to an end, I'll leave you with a teepee claim to fame and why we celebrate National Toilet Paper Day. In 1867, brothers Edward, Clarence, and Thomas Scott began selling a type of toilet paper from a pushcart in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The end result all these years later? A thriving paper product business, with grateful (and clean) behinds everywhere. (Well, at least 98% of them anyway...).
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How many men does it take to change a roll of toilet paper? We don't know - it's never happened.

"I've learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes!" -- Andy Rooney

Museum Hopping

I love museums! I could spend entire days in them. I love the opportunity to view pieces of original work by some of the world's greatest artists. I love seeing pieces of history that have been collected from all over the world.

I've been very lucky to have been to some of the greatest museums in the world - The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; The Louve in Paris and The British Museum in London (along with Corey); several museums connected with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC; The Philadelphia Museum of Art (that's the one that Rocky ran up all those steps in the movies); The Field's Museum in Chicago (the tyrannosaurus rex named "Sue" was on display at the time); Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo, Japan (along with Mom). My two favorite are the British Museum which opened in 1759 and The Metropolitan Museum of Art which opened in 1872.

When you arrive at "The Met" and purchase your admission ticket, you are given a lapel pin to wear. I've always enjoyed great art and while there I got to see original works by Rembrant, Winslow Homer, Stuart Gilbert, James McNeil Whistler, Van Gogh, Monet, etc. I got to see the original painted portrait of George Washington and the one of "Washington Crossing The Delaware". I'd always thought that painting was rather small because of pictures I'd seen. However, it's a very large painting that takes up almost an entire wall. When you view the entire picture, you see things that you don't normally get to see in books. It's kind of like the difference between looking at a 9" television set vs. a large screen television. There are chairs or benches in the center of many of the rooms so that you can see and really look at the paintings.

My favorite painting of all times is the one shown above and it's big - 100 x 110 inches big. It's entitled "Joan of Arc" painted in 1879 by french painter Jules Bastien-Lepage. It depicts Joan standing in the garden of her parent's home. She was born into a bleak moment in French history when France and England were entering into the Hundred Years’ War. The French countryside was bearing the brunt of a century of fighting, depredation, and the Black Death 75 years earlier. At about age 13, Joan began to hear voices. Eventually, she said the voices were those of St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Margaret of Antioch, and the archangel Michael and began to see visions. At her trial before being burned at the stake, she said: “I saw them with these very eyes, as well as I see you.” By the time she was 16, her heavenly counselors had become more insistent and specific. She never recounted her visions. The painting is so mesmerizing. I sat down in a chair for a very, very long time and marveled at how beautiful and amazing the painting is. It is painted so perfectly that it almost looks like a photograph instead of a painting. I hope to go see it again one day.

The British Museum is wonderful for me in that they have the most fantastic collections from all over the world. I especially love their Egyptian exhibit with their mummies and sarcophagus's, including Roman ones. Their collection of Greek frescoes and statuary is unbelievable. Unfortunately, the day we went to the museum Corey was suffering from an earache and not feeling well so we didn't stay as long as we'd like. I definitely want to go back there and spend more time.

I've had a love of art as far back as I can remember. I loved coloring and knew how to shade my pictures by using various pressures to make color lighter or darker. I understood about blending colors. I remember I loved drawing horses especially. My love of art continued until I was in 7th grade when we were living in Japan. That is when my love of drawing and sketching was literally crushed. I was taking art classes in school and had an art teacher who permitted no freedom when it came to drawing. We were allowed no free expression. I recall that we were using pastel chalks as our medium and I was not drawing as he wanted and he belittled and criticized my work. I do know that that was when he broke my spirit and my desire to continue drawing and painting. But, he never broke my appreciation for beautiful art, especially the Old Masters. I must confess that I do not enjoy modernistic works or expressionism or artists such as Salvador Dali or his peers. I must have inherited part of my love for art from my mom. She even took art lessons while living in Japan and was really quite good.