Maniac Mondays: My Absence, My Apology and My Parallel Worlds!

We here at Meady's Musings would like to apologise for no blogs on Tumultuous Thursdays for the longest while and also for no Funtastic Fridays post last week. It's not for want of thought I can tell you that...I had the whole Funtastic Fridays blog conceptualised in my head and everything and had also planned to blog last Thursday but it's that wormhole you see! It keeps getting to me! And it usually hits on a Thursday is why Tumultuous Thursdays have been so infrequent! It tends to pull me into some Parallel World or the other but usually spits me out by Friday so I can do a Funtastic Fridays post but this week it kept me longer I was jumping portal to portal just like on 'Sliders' but just couldn't get back in time! So we apologise today as part of our Maniac Mondays post and sit back and view a clip of the intro of 'Sliders' and hope to deliver on a Tumultuous Thursdays and Funtastic Fridays blog this week!:)

Maniac Mondays: To Have a Prehensile Tail?

For weeks and weeks as mad or wacky as it sounds (hence its entry under Maniac Mondays!) this Meady's Musings author has been wishing to have a tail and not just any ole tail but a prehensile one! LOL! It's the craziest thing and it wasn't just a thought in my head I'll have you know but I felt it in my body in my bones...my muscles...I was walking around almost missing it like a 'false limb'! And also walking as if it was right there coming out of my back and curled up over my head...I even postured my body as such!:)

And nope I'm not one of those people who want to be those people from the Avatar movie uh...uh no sirry! This is totally different from being 'a Navi want to be' since to be honest I find the film highly overrated and I didn't need James Cameron to tell me what was already going on ever since just check my UCP blog for heavens help! :)Plus I'm strictly vegetarian thank you so no Navi hunting and growling for me...I'm no cat!

But the prehensile tale...I WANTED IT! :)

Now as curious as this may sound it gets even curiouser cause guess what? Unlike tiggers I'm not the only one! I'm found on a google search for prehensile tail that others want it as well! And I'll bet you long before Navi fame! Check this out! or here!

Now I'm no cat lover and would you say they really have the prehensile tail? Tails yes but prehensile? For sure my muse...the baby manicou that many of you may not recall but I present below...he has such a tail for sure...so perhaps it is he who is again with me?


But dunno my tail it didn't feel like a manicou one neither! It felt like a very humanoid prehensile tail like I was very firmly upright back straight as a pin...in true homosapien style...no neantherdal slump! LOL! And as I said the tail grew out of my back and then curled above my head. What a tale about a tail?

I wish I could accurately draw what I felt...but I'm not much for doodling right now...

But what did all this mean when the feeling? Funny thing is my need, feel or visualization of the tail...well it was purposeless...more I wanted it like to feel proud strutting about with it! I also knew I wanted for it to be prehensile but guess what I had no intention in my visualization of using it! I just wanted to show off with it...now that's mad ego for you!

And it has left me wondering "What the tail is wrong with me!!!"

All I can think of is perhaps I'm being inspired by my beloved UCP friend then?

Image re-published from here.

Funtastic Fridays:Platonic Love?

Our current global society is pretty mixed up about this whole love business so no doubt it's also mixed up about this whole platonic and platonic love (spelt with lower case) or Platonic love(spelt with upper case)business as well...

We here at Meady's Musings would like to say on this Funtastic Friday that love is...and really then it is simple...we just choose to express it in several forms and fashion...operative word CHOICE! But there is no need for adjectives then...and we think that to be honest is what Plato meant to say too...we just went off on it and started to use a dead man's name without his permission in all the wrong adjectives!

However Plato's name becomes convenient for all to use in today's world since it is filled with manipulation and games...competitiveness, greed, cheating, scams...you name it! From the board room to the bedroom to unfortunately as innocence continues to get lost even in the sandbox! But then of course none of these things are love anyway...

So what we are wondering here on Funtastic Fridays (which seems to be overlapping into the realm of Maniac Mondays and Tumultuous Thursdays as well)...

Is the purest form of love between a man and a woman in today's society best borne from platonic roots? That is have a good friendship first and then have something romantic? Or should it be the other way around as most dating rituals in society portray it? Have a romance and then if the relationship lasts long term...out of it realise you are also good friends so that if you didn't even have romantic feelings you'd still be friends? Or perhaps the best approach is a mix of the two? We're not 'love gurus' so we will leave it up to you to decide and after all this was suppose to be a Funtastic Fridays post not therapy! LOL!

If you ask us though as a whole society could do with way lot more...LOVE! It is perhaps the root of all our problems today...as naive as it may sound...you see the need and longing everywhere! So we cue this song...as cheesy as our readers may find it! :)

And what we will also say is that we believe who really had love in its purest form down pat was Rumi of Sufi mystic fame! Check him here...



Of course it doesn't mean that people shouldn't be in sexual relationships that meets the approval of all concerned whether it be marriage and all...we're just really asking...

WHERE IS THE LOVE?! LOL!

Maniac Mondays: To Be a Leader Again! Follow a Tree?!

We've pondered about being a leader here on Meady's Musings before but we've never dug into what it is to be a good or a bad one. And for good reason! And we still hold firm to the fact that a thing is only good or bad depending on the viewer's perception...it depends on where you put your eyes!:)However I guess generally speaking societies define things as good or bad through I guess their collective societal eyes and perhaps as a globe we have certain universally accepted things that we consider good and bad...similar to how on my sister blog we can engage in UCP-Universal Collective Prayer! So here here to that! All the same I will still not explore good or bad leadership but instead explore this thing call leadership some more!

However before I go on I'll have you know that the reason I'm discussing leadership at all here on Maniac Mondays is to do with the fact that I'm about to launch a new festival over on my sister blog UCP-Universal Collective Prayer! You see as of tomorrow the Spring Navratri or the Vasant Navratri kicks off and in fact it's already started over in India! It's a nine night festival, 'nav' meaning 'nine' in Sanskrit and 'ratri' meaning 'night(s)'. And well I concluded my festival of Shiv on UCP in Feb and all through that festival the female universal form of God (Shakti) in Hinduism was sitting quietly next to Shiv (the male form)in her incarnation as either Parvati or Sati. You see Hinduism is not only a religion of exploring both the big and the small at the same time as I pointed on during my festival of Shiv it is also good at exploring the male and the female forms of the divine, by themselves, side by side and even as a collective in the ShivShakti form!

However my festival of Shiv was mostly about Shiv as the male form. So as Vasant Nav Ratri dawns upon us I felt the need to celebrate the Divine Mother once again on UCP i.e. the Universal form of God as female. And then it dawned on me as I myself am female and have been contemplating my leadership duties quite a bit of lately and well hear this some more...Well in the United States the month of March is declared Women's History Month also the UN celebrates World Women's day on 8 Mar every year. So I was thinking women...women...women...leadership...the divine form. It dawned on me too that we were in the Catholic season of Lent and I thought the Divine Mother in Catholicism...The Holy Virgin Mary...and well so on and so on...

So I came to the point where I felt I wanted to do a series on UCP about the Divine Mother in Hinduism and Catholicism but in particular focus on her role as a leader and how these religions view her in leadership roles...

But you see before I did that I had to explore women in leadership and before that leadership as a whole...I had explored it before as I said in my opening paragraph but I felt I wanted to do it some more...I have to say I don't see the need to spilt it as women in leadership versus a man in leadership...because just like nothing to me is good or bad only thinking makes it so...well I don't really see the difference between a man or a woman...I mean yea there is the biology the good ole Y chromosome is present or not and some different biological roles...But that's just the mortal coil and to me leadership in its real and true sense or for that matter anything in its real and true sense doesn't come from the mortal coil but from a higher place. In fact if we go back to this blog I wrote about all of us being little pods that feed into this big universal mother or let's say father fluid (to be fair now) well then we are all just part of one and so not separate at all...so what's in a chromosome?! In fact in that thinking we are just popping our little mortal heads or faces out to see what's going on to feed it back to the great big mother/father fluid...just checking things out for information! Momentary pearls of the Universe are we!

However we all must wear the mortal coil and be those momentary pearls however we are formed...so as we wear it and live in this material and mortal world I'll call it as I should and we will celebrate the male sometimes the female sometimes the Divine Father sometimes the Divine Mother...but having said that let's get to the heart of the matter and talk about leadership already! :)

What is it about? Well I was wondering and wondering you see and then I looked at a tree...seriously! I did...and there it was...the very epitome of leadership for all to see...if they at least thought like me?! Right there in my front yard a majestic peepal tree or as some called it the sacred fig or the banyan fig or lo and behold the bodhi tree ...that famed tree of Buddha englightenment fame!

The particular tree has been in my family's yard for >60 years and has itself rejuvenated and reincarnated itself, since almost 2.5 decades ago before the death of my maternal grandmother it had become very dry as if it too was ready to die...it was up to that time a very tall sprawling tree...and then it was cut to that of a trunk and its dried wood used to make the funeral pyre of my grandmother. Said tree eventually sprung afresh from the trunk but most amazingly when it regrew it only remained a certain size...a size that made it such that no one needed to prune it from reaching electricity and phone lines....nor was it big and branching to harbour weeds and snakes...and it remains like this to date! What amazes me more is in this current incarnation this tree although the island is experiencing drought is ever freshly springing new leaves...you see its roots run deep...very deep...as large as the giant tree it once supported that now looks small...and in viewing this tree and its story of growth, death, re-birth and never ending (hopefully) rejuvenation...it made me realise it had all the properties of a good leader...and now I'll tell you how...

It can be big...but it can also be small...
Its roots run deep to a strong foundation make...
While its branches need not be very sprawling and large but it can be large too if need be...
It knew when to die and when to be re-born...but most of all it knows how to adapt...
It restructures to fit the needs or the space it is allowed...
In times of hardship it digs deep to get what it needs to stay alive...
But most of all it does all of this while staying sturdy and still!
And last but not least it knows how to propagate itself...
Because like any good leader it knows how to mentor and teach...
So that if this tree one day dies it would have left its little underlings to carry on its legacy to carry on its line!

Funtastic Fridays:Fishbone Diagram Behind It!

Click on diagram to see in full size

All week long we here at Meady's Musings Production have been busy like a bee and working like a dog to take a few phrases out of this week's Maniac Mondays post! Not on creative stuff here but at our full time day job as an engineer. The most interesting and marvelous thing happened though...while working on a Fishbone diagram to do Root Cause Analysis (RCA) as part of our job as an engineer...well we got a bit carried away...our creative juices that weren't being blended out here on the blog instead went into the day job's project and well it was like engineering meeting art! And while we are hardly yet Da Vinci nor have we developed the Pushpa-Viman of Hindu fame well we can say we have been having a lot of fun!

So while we contemplate perhaps being off to see Alice in Wonderland again this weekend but this time in 3D! Well we thought we'd share the Fishbone diagram showing the Root Cause Analysis for Funtastic Fridays! :) Hope you enjoy!

Maniac Mondays: As Mad as a March Hare or maybe a Hatter!

This installation is the first Maniac Mondays installation for the month of March as we at Meady's Musings Production have been busy as a beaver at the full-time day job! And so here we are for the first time posting an installation on Maniac Mondays and it makes us feel as mad as a March hare! :)

You see we are just fresh out of the cinemas after seeing Disney's and Tim Burton's latest take on Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland(aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and we feel as mad as a hatter and a March hare all rolled up in one! Oh Dear! Seriously it was an interesting movie and a fun enough ride all the way...and we didn't even see it in 3D or IMAX just plain ole Dolby Surround Sound LOL! I think!

For sure the film to us adapts the tale for the modern day audience, making Alice the kinda girl we think Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Caroll would have wanted Alice to be had she lived in today's world and had to go back in time and stand up to a 19th century English aristocratic crowd...you see she always questions things you see...and it gets curiouser and curiouser...so we think if Lewis Caroll saw the movie today with its own spin and twist on his 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' tales he would have quite frankly liked it!

Which brings us on Maniac Mondays today to explore this funny English thing...the concept of saying...

As 'x' as 'y'

Oh My! Why?! :)

Well...there you have it as in our title lines...

As mad as a March hare!

As mad as a hatter!

And then right after in our opening lines I said:

As busy as a beaver.

But what else...what else?

As busy as a bee.

As quiet as a lamb.

As quiet as a mouse.

As quiet as a Church mouse.

As quiet as a lamb.

As quiet as mice.

As soft as silk.

As white as milk.

But now before we really turn into a Mad Hatter we will tip my top hats and bid you adieu until another Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays, Funtastic Fridays or Slumbering Saturdays installation we might write! :)

And on this Maniac Monday...don't forgot to have a cup of tea while considering six impossible things before breakfast! Here are some we'd consider:

1.That animals can speak!
2.That plants and trees can speak!
3.That we can fly!
4.That we'd one day meet a real March Hare that would then speak to us like in impossible thing #1! :)
5. There will be no more countries just planet earth!
6. And that we would all one day live as one! :)

And if you like go see the real Mad Hatter if you please on 3D, IMAX of just plain Dolby like us! But watch out for the appearance of that sneaky Cheshire Cat! OH DRAT! Nothing can prepare you for a cat like that!

Funtastic Fridays: The New Rain Dance!

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This is a late edition of Funtastic Fridays really done on a Slumbering Saturday but I decided to back date it as after all it wouldn't be a Funtastic Friday if the post date reads Saturday!:)

A bit of explanation to the cartoon for those who may not know all the cartoon characters off hand or the issues being discussed...especially the Bollywood overtones and who is Sri Sri?

To be honest I've only myself heard of Sri Sri a few years now and only when doing this cartoon did I research him some more...you see I have to also petition Pratish Mistry whose Hasta Milan website only allows me to make cartoons with Bollywood types and one or two others like Sri Sri! So when I decided to use Hasta Milan for making this cartoon...well it probably serves me right since Hasta Milan is actually a 'Portal providing free messaging services for Indian matrimony, online dating, shaadi relationships advice for Indian singles worldwide' and not primarily a cartoon making site. Although you can do it for fun too, perhaps to meet people over cartoons? So yep I was a bit restricted...to props and persons for dating themes and celebrity fantasty dates! LOL! But I felt it was an easy way to get the cartoon I wanted to do and perhaps if I impressed Pratish Mistry I'd get to graduate to being a full fledged cartoonist and get to use the tools on Wonkie Cartoons with more panels and options and everything...LOL!

But really I've been wanting to do a Rain Dance...I've been contemplating it all week long...even had it up as my personal Facebook status...and found that other women have tried it before like here. But ahmmm...I can't say I am willing to go that far...but it's really not rained all February long and not a March Moisture in sight in Trinidad! And then I thought I'd make a cartoon of our Prime Minister here in Trinidad and Tobago and another MP in his party-Colm Imbert doing the rain dance but out of fear of political persecution and for other reasons I deflected from the funny thoughts of good ole Colm dancing in a hula skirt...LOL!

So there it was the cartoon I ended up with...and for the record here is some more information about things and persons mentioned in it:

1. Sri Sri: you can read more about him here. But many say his claims to work with the UN are exaggerated or taken out of context but it made him a fitting character as a result.

2. By now most people must have heard of the IPCC and they have a working group III (wg3) and they do most of the well...work of the IPCC that focuses on the mitigation of climate change but you can read more about them here.

3. And well my fascination with rain dances and my restriction to characters of Bollywood fame made me recall their obesession to well not really do dances that bring rain but to dance in the rain! But this one by Raveena Tandon in the movie Mohra to me always epitomises 'the Bollywood Rain Dance' and perhaps a dance like that can bring rain! So here it is to add to the Friday fun to see what I'm talking about...


And on a closing note Raveena Tandon got married in 2004 or there abouts and like most Bollywood actresses have stopped acting or gone on a go slow...can't see her doing this dance again though...so it will remain as a rain dance classic! She currently says she will only do roles that are fitting to her age and won't embarass her children! But dunno I guess maybe Sri Sri can convince her yet if it is a matter of saving the world for her children...