I can usually tell from the first line if a poem is not for me. The simpler it is the better. The Writer’s Almanac shared this one by James Laughlin today, called “Her Sweet Deceit.”
Love has many joys
and best are the
surprises as when
you changed the col-
or of your hair to
make me think you
were someone else
not that you fooled
me with your sweet
deceit I had only
to hear you laugh
to know both girls
were you & that I
loved you both alike.
Have any of you eaten a DURIAN? It was in yesterday’s puzzle: “Spiky fruit with a noxious odor.” Here’s what they look like:
The smell is so bad that it’s banned in some hotels and on buses and trains in Southeast Asia. But it tastes delicious — a custardy, almond taste. I don’t recall ever seeing or tasting one. You can get durian chips on Amazon for about $12 for a 2.3 oz bag.
Today’s puzzle hit the grid running with the exquisite ELSA Pataky right up there at 1 across. (“Pataky of the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise.”)
Elsa was born in Madrid and will be 47 next Tuesday. Her birth name is Elsa LaFuentes Medianu, but she goes by Pataky to honor her Hungarian paternal grandmother, Rosa Pataky. She has appeared in the “Fast and Furious” films and has been on the cover of Maxim. She’s married to actor Chris Hemsworth and they live in Australia with their three children.
Don’t mess with her: She won €310,000 in a lawsuit in Spain against a group that published topless photos of her taken with a long lens while she was changing clothes during a photoshoot for Elle magazine. Da Noive!
Sticking with beautiful women, a special Owl Chatter mazel tov goes out to Rikkie Valerie Kollé, who just won the contest to represent the Netherlands in the 2023 Miss Universe pageant. Rikkie is the first trans woman to win in the Netherlands, and the second overall. (A trans woman represented Spain in 2018, Angela Ponce, and was a finalist.)
“I’m going to be an open book,” Kollé said, and she has already gone public with her experiences as a child and her treatments as a teenager and her gender-transition surgery. To no surprise, this has subjected her and her family to a great deal of hatred, abuse, and insults.
“The ideal winner of a Miss Netherlands competition must have an impressive presence and make heads turn when she walks into a room. She also needs a message that can inspire others,” Monica van Ee said, the pageant director. “Beauty comes from the inside.”
Ms. van Ee said that Kollé had been the strongest contender. “Throughout the whole process, she was the most beautiful woman.” “I was chosen for who I am and my story,” Kollé said, “and not because I’m a trans woman.”
Nice shot, Phil — a real stunner.
A female sea otter off the California coast near Santa Cruz, has been taking surf boards away from surfers and showing off her stuff. Seriously — surfing like a pro.
She is called Otter 841 and is five years old. Last month, Noah Wormhoudt, 16, was catching some waves with a friend off Cowell’s Beach in Santa Cruz when 841 swam up. “I started paddling away trying to avoid it but it kept getting closer and closer. I jumped off my board and then it jumped onto my board,” he recalled.
The young surfer watched from the water while the otter stayed atop his board as the swell rolled in. “The otter was shredding, caught a couple of nice waves,” Wormhoudt said. (Shredding is a surfing term for riding a wave in a “graceful, skillful, and flashy” manner.)
The problem is the story is not always as nice. 841 has been unfriendly at times, has damaged some boards, and is viewed as a risk to surfers. She also poses a risk to herself because if she does bite a person, she will have to be put to sleep (she has sharp teeth and very strong jaws). So the California Fish and Wildlife people are trying to capture her and resettle her safely in an aquarium. So far she’s been managing to elude capture. California sea otters are endangered — there are only 3,000 left. A ban on hunting them has been in place since 1911. So we don’t want to lose 841.
Let’s let these fellas play us off tonight. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 