How I Spent My Birthday

[unbibium]

I bought a memorial poppy pin at the newsstand today. Apparently it's a tradition, but I hadn't learned of it until this year. Is it because I'm in Canada, or because I've been watching BBC World News so much in my hotel room?

First, I saw the aquarium. The frog exhibit was amazing, and had this slow-motion video of frogs striking their prey, and you could control the playback with this little dial. Lots of PWN3D moments. No penguins, though, and I couldn't find the turtles in the rain forest. And, as usual, absolutely no mention of the extinct furry old lobsters of the northeast. But I did learn, and promptly forget, the names of a couple of categories of amphibian that I never knew existed. One's snake-or-eel-like, and another is apparently an alligator-like thing that people mistakenly buy as pets when they're young.

The seaplane was cancelled, but I had a good long walk through some rainy autumn woods, capped off by an expensive dinner at a seafood restaurant.

There were three women at the next table celebrating one of their birthdays. I didn't realize until they all left that, whoa, it's my birthday too.

Thanks for the wall wishes, Facebook Army. I return home tomorrow evening.

Comments

In Flanders Fields

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

    In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the dead. Short days ago
    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
    In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
    In Flanders fields.
    — Lt.-Col. John McCrae

Don't know how popular the custom was or is in the U.S., but it was a custom in all the allied countries, mainly because of that poem.

Re: In Flanders Fields

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

I can just remember the poppies still being common in the USA about the end of 1960s. IIRC a common type was made out of something that looked like waxed paper, made and sold by disabled WWI Veterans. My grandfather said people used to wear real poppies for Armistice Day.

Re: In Flanders Fields

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

Also there's the Captain Beefheart song "Veteran's Day Poppy", which is where I discovered the tradition.

It's about the mother of a fallen soldier who can't buy poppies on Veteran's Day, because they remind her of the son she lost, and she hurts forever.

Re: In Flanders Fields

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I saw BBC stories of veterans selling them, and the mixed results they were getting. As I said, I got mine at a newsstand, and I think they were offered in exchange for a donation. Even though it was morning, the coin box was already overflowing.

Re: In Flanders Fields

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Because Canucks carry more of their money as coins than we do.

Silly dollar coins. They hurt strippers the most.

Re: In Flanders Fields

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

It remains mostly in Dominion nations, UK/Canada/Australia, because it tends towards remembrance of WWI in particular-- initially it celebrated the Armistice that created the cease-fire. The US has transformed it into a day celebrating and recognizing Veterans.

Poppies seeds sprout when the soil around them has been disturbed by some mechanical means, and as it happened, the seeds of the red poppy were inertly scattered all over the scenes of the battles in Flanders (First Battle of Ypres) and probably other locations. And the shelling caused a mass bloom of red poppies following the battle, which was suggesting of the blood spilled.

But much of this was before the US official joined the war.

Re: In Flanders Fields

[notr.livejournal.com]

Note also that McCrae was Canadian.

[tamtrible.livejournal.com]

Hippo birdie two ewe.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Hippo birdie two ewe!

[tamtrible.livejournal.com]

Hippo birdie deer Nick.