I'm going to quick run out and dig my garden bed and plant my seeds and seedlings. I was minding my own business, watching the news, and I saw the weather for the Twin Cities. The weather from the Twin Cities almost always ends up in our neck of the woods and it's raining in parts of the Twin Cities right now. Actually, it's a pretty safe bet that it will rain here in Wisconsin in the summer...usually on weekends. The weathermen of the midwest pretty much just have to get up in the morning and tell everyone that rain in one form or another will be falling somewhere in the midwest. Come to think of it, Arizona weathermen find themselves in a similar rut. The Arizona weathermen get up in the morning and tell everyone that it's going to be hot and sunny. At least the weathermen of the midwest get to enjoy that nifty Doppler radar. Anyway, I'd better be quick and get the garden planted before it rains. I found two cliches which don't necessarily fit my blog but seem to fit the news.

Cliche of the Day

Movers And Shakers. Influential people; decision-makers. Used separately, mover and shaker (of heaven and earth) were words that alluded to God. George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad (1611) says: "Thou mightie shaker of the earth." Shakespeare, in King Henry VI (Part II) puts the king at the side of Cardinal Beaufort's deathbed. The king says: "O thou eternal mover of the heavens, look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!" When the two words were joined to intensify the thought is hard to say, but the term was known to the poet Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy in the 19th century:

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams...
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams.
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.


Moving Finger Writes. Time is passing; the record of your life is accumulating; your destiny is taking shape. It is from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translation by Edward Fitzgerald (in 1859) of the 12th-century Persian:

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: Nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.