WORLD OTTER DAY

I love World Days. Today, May 30, is World Otter Day.

When my children were small and we made weekly visits to the zoos in and around our state, they always made a beeline to the otters' hangouts, which were streams and other aquatic gymnasiums.  They seemingly, to me, spent their days swimming, playing and eating raw fish. Not a bad way for homo sapiens to spend their days, either. Their family is the Lutrinae.  Other members of this family are honey badgers (earthworm eating stink bombs, sorry badge). martens (cute tree huggers), minks (slinky minky), polecats (Polecats!) and wolverines (I thought they belonged to the woo-woo myths of gothic horror).

From Wiki, that know-it-all site: 

An otter's den is called a holt or couch. Male otters are called dogs or boars, females are called bitches or sows, and their offspring are called pups. The collective nouns for otters are bevy, family, lodge, romp (being descriptive of their often playful nature) or, when in water, raft.

The feces of otters are typically identified by their distinctive aroma, the smell of which has been described as ranging from freshly mown hay to putrefied fish; these are known as spraints. (By any other name, they still stink.)

Until the next World Day catches my fancy, 

Best to all, 

Gerrie Ferris Finger

Author of twenty novels, seven in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Series.

Just out #7: WOLF'S CLOTHING

http://ow.ly/Sydk30kgavg

WORLD BOOK DAY

I missed World Book Day this year. It was in May. Little late, but last year's offering has not changed. 

For me, books have been an enduring pleasure. Reading transports me to other worlds and makes me laugh and cry, has horrified and comforted.

Also reading made me a writer. Not that I thought I could create better stories and characters than writers I enjoyed reading, but as an avenue to create my own worlds.

Here are quotes gathered from Brainy Quote, FlavorWire and Good Reads.

 “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”  — Jane Austen

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.” — Mark Haddon

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” ― Groucho Marx

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” ― Charles William Eliot

“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.” ― Cassandra Clare

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” — Ray Bradbury

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” ― Stephen King

“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.” ― J.K. Rowling

Happy Reading!