For all of those who were upset by the news about [insert hysteria of your choice] today ...

 

 

My writing cousin, Rusty!

One of the featured panelists is my double cousin, Rusty Mitchum. His father was one of my mother's brothers, and one of the funniest men I ever met. He had the Texas knack of telling a story that got better every time he told it and no matter how many times you heard it. Rusty's mother was one of my father's sisters, and she was a talented writer. Rusty inherited their gifts. The paragraph below the photo is taken from the program for the writer's conference in Tyler this weekend.

Rusty emails me his column each week. Hiss wife and I have been encouraging him to publish a volume of  his best columns. They are worth preserving and sharing.

 Rusty Mitchum

     

Rusty Mitchum is a long time friend of ours and the writer of a humorous column for several periodicals.  He also is an accomplished musician and song writer.  Always popular at festivals and events around Texas, Rusty is quite a character.  Do yourself a favor and make sure you make time to meet him and pick his brain on how he comes up with the hilarious columns he writes!

Walking in a flutter of white

When I went out the front door this morning to take some mail to the mailbox, I was surrounded by dozens of small, white butterflies or moths.  I went online to identify them, and while I found pictures of many white butterflies and moths native to Wisconsin, none quite matched up. At first, I thought they might be Small Cabbage Whites, but the markings on those are black and these are clearly rusty brown. I took this photo, which is a bit out of focus, but you get the idea. The wingspan is about half an inch.

Later in the summer, small yellow Clouded Sulphurs will cover the roads and fields for a few days. That was the effect these little whites had, but they are not Clouded Sulphurs.

Did you know that a group of butterflies is called a flutter? Or a flight, swarm, kaleidoscope or rabble. A group of moths is called an eclipse.
------------------
UPDATE: With more patience, I have tentatively identified this as a White Slant-Wing Moth -- Tetracis cachexiata.

Pre-Weekend Update

1) The little railroad got two conductor trainees (get it -- TRAINees?) this week and Tom has been showing them the ropes. The good news is that at this point it looks like they will both MAY be able to handle the job and Tom will not have to continue volunteering 60 hours of his time each week.

2) Peter is here for a few days. He had planned a camping trip with one of his good friends from the Dells, but that fell through. Since he had already signed up for time off, he decided to come up anyway and relax for a few days before heading back to work in Chicago.

3) I am bogged down with the novel re-write at the moment. Maybe it's the heat? I don't have much energy -- physical or otherwise -- for doing anything. (I realize the "heat" in Wisconsin is just in the low 80s and nothing much compared to what many of you endure.)

4) Speaking of my writing, it looked like I was going to go an entire month without a single book sale online, but yesterday someone bought copies of a couple of the titles. Not a stellar showing by any measure, but at least it's something.

Happy weekend, everyone!

My friend, the Disclaced Carmelite Latin Archbishop of Bagdad, Jeann Sleiman, on the current crisis

The international community should not intervene in the struggle against ISIS extremists in Iraq, according to the Archbishop of Baghdad, who says the priority is for Iraqi leaders to "work together" to overcome the crisis.

In an interview  with Aid to the Church in Need yesterday  Archbishop Jean Sleiman stressed that political "consensus" within Iraq was critical in overcoming the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which last week pulled off a series of military take-overs of key northern cities including Mosul, the country's second city.

Speaking from Baghdad, the archbishop described how many people were trying to leave the city, fearing an onslaught from ISIS amid reports of it pressing south towards the capital. He reported that, with many roads out of the capital blocked, departures from Baghdad's airport were fully booked until the end of the month.

The archbishop, who became Latin-rite Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad in 2001, said: "In responding to this crisis, the international community should think of the common good, not their own interests. They should think of peace."

Speaking out against intervention by the international community, Archbishop Sleiman said: "ISIS needs to be stopped... and it needs the Iraqi leaders to work together to stop it. That is more important than getting the international community involved." 

He added: "I hope Iraqi leaders will find a consensus about how to tackle this situation or there will be a tragic outcome. I don't know what will happen next. Of course the military will resist ISIS but who knows if it will be strong enough. It is a possibility that the terrorists will succeed but we don't know."

Stating that there was "a great deal of confusion" in the capital, he said numbers were down at yesterday's (15 June) Sunday Mass which he celebrated at Baghdad's St Joseph's Cathedral, down the road from where he lives.

The archbishop, whose Latin-rite Catholic community is much smaller than the Chaldeans – Iraq's largest Catholic community – added: "People I met after Mass were stressed by the situation."
He said that, with all roads north of Baghdad closed, and others to the south full of checkpoints and other obstacles, people's only option was to leave on one of the seven flights that depart from the capital everyday.

"What all this means is that you can only leave Baghdad if you have got money to pay for a flight. In any case, flights are booked until the end of the month."

Asked if he was considering leaving the city, the Archbishop replied: "I don't know if I should stay or go. I leave this problem to my angels."

He said people in Baghdad were "surprised" by the ISIS take-over of Mosul a week ago. He added that in the capital there was scepticism about the reliability of reports about the Jihadists' advance.

Archbishop Sleiman, a Carmelite originally from Lebanon, appealed for prayer for Iraq, saying: "We should all pray for peace and solidarity and for a solution to the crisis."

When I was working for the Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago, I helped arrange a visit to the city by Archbishop Sleiman in 2004 and served for a few days as his host. He is a lovely man, one who saw his own homeland of Lebanon torn apart by violence. He has been very involved in dialogue with Muslim leaders for many years. He and I have often exchanged emails when violence, especially anti-Christian violence, has erupted in Iraq. Please keep him and the people of Iraq in your thoughts and prayers.

Arizona: Small spring

 

The general belief is that the name of the state comes from an earlier Spanish name, Arizonac, derived from the O'odham name alĭ ṣonak, meaning small spring.

The all-too-fittingly-named Arizona could be out of water in six years

Prolonged drought and a rapidly expanding population are pushing Arizona’s water system to its limit.  Arizona is bone dry, desiccated by the worst drought ever seen in the state’s 110-year long observational record. 

The Grand Canyon State has been in drought conditions for a decade, and researchers think the dry spell could hold out for another 20 to 30 years, according to sources at the City of Phoenix. That people have not been fleeing Arizona in droves, as they did from the plains during the 1930s Dust Bowl, is a miracle of hydrological engineering. 

But the magic won’t last, and if things don’t start to change Arizona is going to be in trouble fast, says the New York Times. A quarter of Arizona’s water comes from the Colorado River, and that river is running low. There’s not enough water in the basin to keep Arizona’s crucial Lake Mead reservoirs topped up. If changes aren’t made to the entire multi-state hydrological system, says the Times, things could get bad.
 

 
Lake Mead has begun a sharp decline; the principal upstream reservoir, Lake Powell, now holds only 42 percent of its capacity, and Lake Mead about 45 percent. This photo of Lake Mead shows how much the water had dropped. Water used to rise to top of that area now bleached white. Since 2000, the lake has lost 4 trillion gallons of water.
 

If upstream states continue to be unable to make up the shortage, Lake Mead, whose surface is now about 1,085 feet above sea level, will drop to 1,000 feet by 2020. Under present conditions, that would cut off most of Las Vegas’s water supply and much of Arizona’s. Phoenix gets about half its water from Lake Mead, and Tucson nearly all of its.

Native American Artifact and Antique Show and more

It has been a strange weekend, partly because one of the conductors at the little railroad had to leave and the other one, an older retired Amtrak conductor in poor health, was told by his doctor not to work for a while. Tom, as usual, was the person they turned to for filling in. He worked all day (ten hours) on Friday and was expecting to have to work the weekend, too. Fortunately other volunteers became available for the weekend, but Tom was still on call for Saturday. So we could not venture too far afield.

We went into Baraboo for the annual Native American Artifact and Antique Show. It is not a big event, but it is always interesting. There seemed to be a number of new exhibitors this year and some of the ones I remember were missing. In particular I was sad to see that the people with the huge assortment of rocks, fossils and other geological items were not there. On the other hand, one guy had a small bronze Hittite fertility goddess image, dating (allegedly) to about 1300 B.C.E.  It looked a bit like the one in the photo. The price wasn't outrageous, but I passed it up anyway. Why it was in with a bunch of Native American artifacts is a mystery to me. On the other hand, there was a guidebook to the 1893 Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World's Fair) in pretty good shape, and I was tempted. Tom and I lived in Hyde Park, not far from where the midway of that famous fair was located. Again, it is not clear to me why they had the book at the Native American Artifact and Antique Show...

After that we visited a historic home that the local historical society is hoping someone will buy and refurbish as a residence or business. Originally built in 1909 for the family of George Ruhland, who owned a couple of breweries in town, it reminded me of countless convents I have visited, where the nuns had moved into a large old home and converted it more or less successfully to their use. This particular place would have been fine for a small young community, and the selling price is $1.00. One single dollar. On the other hand, Tom figures is would require at least $150,000 to $200,000 to get it in any kind of shape. And the area is, while not dangerous, not aesthetically pleasing. The view from the back of the house is an electrical substation and from the front you look out on a boarded up train depot. Two trains go by every day, one in the afternoon and the other at night. The large house next door (which you can barely see on the right side of the photo) belonged to Ruhland's father, and it looks like the walls are about to collapse. As you can see from the photo, the Ruhland house has multiple stories and would not be at all suitable for anyone who did not want to climb a lot of stairs. On the other hand, there is some nice woodwork and it might make a nice setting for a law or architectural firm.

Lots of people were walking through and we saw people we know. No news on whether anyone has expressed serious interest in taking it on, though.

Then off to buy a lawnmower and back home just as it started raining lightly. We went to Reedsburg for Mexican food and that was that.

Today (Sunday) Tom was tied to the house waiting for a couple of phone calls he expected in the morning. (Neither call has come yet, and it is 2:30 in the afternoon.) While he waited, I went to do some grocery shopping.

Tom will be working as conductor for the railroad Monday through Friday (most likely), and that means the meals will be my responsibility this week. We thought we might have a guest all week (a friend who had expressed interest in taking the conductoring position and who would stay with us while Tom trained him), but that is one of the phone calls that has not materialized. So I am assuming (1) that Tom will be working 10 hours a day all this week, and (2) that even if he doesn't have to work next weekend (he told them he would not be available ...), he will still be too pooped to do much of anything come Saturday. The conductor's job is hard on his back for a number of reasons, and I hope he makes it through the week!

The air we breathe

Recently I saw something that upset me, and I began fuming and composing a nastygram in my head. But then I had an image of my nastygram being spewed out into the atmosphere, poisoning the air. And I too breathe that air.

The unkind things I do and say help create the world in which I live. Why make the world worse for myself?

There is a Buddhist saying about holding onto anger being like picking up a hot coal to throw at someone. The person who gets burned is you.

Or I have heard that holding a resentment or a grudge is like drinking poison and thinking the other person will die.

It's the only world we have -- and I don't just mean the planet Earth.

Chuck Lorre's Best. Vanity. Card. Ever.

10 funny things that happen to your body when you get old:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
--------------------
Vanity card: a logo used by movie studios and television production companies to brand what they produce. Production logos are usually seen at the beginning of a theatrical movie or video game (an "opening logo"), or at the end of a television program or TV movie (a "closing logo"). Many production logos have become famous over the years, such as the 20th Century Fox's monument and searchlights, Paramount Pictures's mountain, Columbia Pictures's torch lady, MGM's Leo the Lion, and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Sleeping Beauty Castle.

On the vanity card for Chuck Lorre Productions at the end of every episode of  The Big Bang Theory, Lorre includes a message that usually reads like an editorial, essay, or observation on life. A typical card might include a range of topics as diverse as what the Bee Gees never learned, the cancellation of Dharma & Greg, the competence of AOL Time Warner management, and the genesis of Two and a Half Men.

The card is shown for only a few seconds at most, so longer messages cannot be read unless recorded and paused, although Lorre now posts the cards on his website. CBS has censored Lorre's vanity cards on several occasions. Lorre posts both the censored and uncensored versions of the cards.

The vanity card reported in this post appeared at the end of "The Occupation Recalibration" episode, which aired originally on January 9, 2014 and which repeated today, June 19, 2014.

Flutterby

Every spring I think I will plant one of those butterfly-attracting gardens, but I never do. We have a lot of blooming things, as earlier posts have indicated. But most of the flowers featured in the earlier posts are gone by the time the butterflies arrive in our neck of the woods. The white and pink peonies have come and gone. The day lilies are sending up stalks, and the blue lupine is flowering. The trumpet vine, beloved of the hummingbirds, is flourishing on one corner of the deck but still a while to go before it blooms. The weigela by the deck has bloomed, but so far all I have seen around those bushes are various bees. By the front sidewalk, we have coneflowers [Echinacea] like those in the photograph, but ours have not yet bloomed. Nor have the black-eyed Susans and assorted other perennials.

At any rate, the butterfly in the photo is a Red-Spotted Purple. One has been passing the day around the house today, much of it sitting on the lip of the birdbath on the deck. I have tried to snap a photograph but have had no luck. I did find this nice picture online when I was researching what kind of flutterby it was.

A movie deal in the works?

 

Yep, that would appear to be Robert Pattinson looking through my John of the Cross mystery novel. Perhaps he heard that the novel I am working on now involves Wiccans and druids. He is, after all, perhaps best known for his vampire roles in the Twilight movies.

Actually, of course, that is a cheap photo-shopped image. I have been looking online for some free photo-editing software to do some things for a collage project I am thinking about doing for an art class at the library. Not finding anything like what I want, of course. Tom, because of his work as a graphic designer, has all sorts of magic stuff on his computer, but I don't want to mess with that.

Meanwhile, if anyone is looking for a novel to adapt for the silver screen, I am open for suggestions.

Backpacks

As CEO of the Massachusetts-based company Bullet Blocker, Ed Burke sells one of the hotter goods in the body armor industry: bulletproof backpacks. And though he doesn't revel in the fact that business tends to boom after school shootings, he sees his company as providing a service for increasingly nervous parents.

"Business is growing unfortunately due to all the things happening in the country," Burke said.[...]
Bullet Blocker's co-founder, Joe Curran, built his first bulletproof backpack for his two kids after the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. He realized the commercial potential, and began manufacturing backpacks and other school safety products for a wider audience. Today, Bullet Blocker produces iPad cases, notebooks, and school bag survival kits ($400 -- advertised as a "great self contained kit to augment the reaction plans for school lock downs").

On this day

 

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the famous O.J. Simpson car chase. I remember I was at Notre Dame for a Carmelite seminar and when a group of us came back into the building from a walk, everyone was gathered around the television watching the live feed of the slow chase. I did not know that, in its own way, this was a sign of the end of civilization as we knew it.

A year or so later, I walked into the television room at the monastery in Brighton, Massachusetts one evening after dinner. People usually went up to watch the national news at that time. When I came through the door, I couldn't tell if they were watching the news about the Simpson murder trial or if they were watching Entertainment Tonight. The real news and the entertainment news had melted into one. That night it struck me that we had passed over a line of demarcation and that it was not good.

Of course, we now realize that most of what passes for news is entertainment or infotainment or, most often, misinfotainment. 

It was twenty years ago today
Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play,
They've been going in and out of style,
But they're guaranteed to raise the smile,
So may I introduce to you,
The act you've known for all these years,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

We're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
We hope you will enjoy the show
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sit back and let the evening go
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Cannon fire and Confederate spy

You may have seen that several children were injured in Utah over the weekend when a cannon used by a Civil War re-enactment group accidentally set off an explosion during a parade. When the cannon was set off, sparks landed on a pouch holding extra charges. The pouch blew up, burning three kids on the arms and waists. Last I heard, they were in stable condition, being treated for first- and second-degree burns.

The story caught my eye because Tom and I had gone to the Civil War re-enactors encampment in Sauk City on Saturday. I am happy to report that there were no such problems there. Tom had a long conversation with one of the men in charge of the cannons. We have been to the re-enactment two or three times before, and this was my favorite one. I learned way more about things as varied as how to spin thread from wool to how soldiers were recruited, how they were armed and why the bayonet was the Swiss army knife of the Civil War. I also learned more than I probably needed to know about women's fashions from that era.

The main reason we had gone was to see the presentation on Belle Boyd, the Confederate spy. I had thought that someone would be acting as Belle, but instead one of the women gave a very interesting and entertaining presentation about her. I don't think I learned anything new, but I did enjoy it.

I have written about Belle Boyd here before. You can follow these links if you are interested in what I had to say:
Another tenuous Texas connection
Belle Boyd again
Belle Boyd continues

To all you fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, foster fathers ...

Is it just me?

The news feeds and headlines abbreviate World Cup as WC -- leading to strange things: WC: Italy-Spain.


Uh, doesn't WC stand for water closet? Meaning bathroom or toilet? Or is it only the English and Anglophiles who would think so before they think World Cup?

Just my mind ...

Back to ...

Tom and Helen arrived around lunchtime on Wednesday. I had been out to pick up a couple of items, including some fresh flowers, and drove in right behind them. They were both exhausted from painting and Chicago-driving and so on. We went out for Chinese, people read and went to bed early.

Thursday I went back to work at the library: bookmobile in the morning, working on the library newsletter and its blog and odds and ends in the afternoon. That image is only remoted related to this post, since I am allegedly the library tech wizard. Pretty much not so much.

Tom's daughter Lucy had called and asked if we could provide her with dinner. She was in the area delivering rescue dogs. She had put in a request for my infamous Frito Pie, which I was happy to provide. Tom took Helen to catch the train for St. Paul and Lucy arrived about an hour later. We had a nice visit and she headed back home to Chicago.

Tom had various projects today and I piddled around. I woke up before 5:00 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. So I was up at five, poking at my tablet or the computer. After breakfast, I decided to take a morning nap -- my idea of total decadence! Which I did, and caught another hour or so of sleep.

Since then, reading, meditating, exercising, visiting with Peg who brought over some mock orange cuttings for Tom and stayed for a cup of coffee. We plan to go out for fish fry tonight and she will join us. Rich is still in Vermont, undinging hail-damaged cars.

Tomorrow Tom and I plan to attend a Civil War encampment/reenactment in Sauk Prairie. This year they are featuring a visit with Belle Boyd, a Confederate spy who would up dying in Wisconsin Dells (then called Kilbourn) and who is buried here. More on that tomorrow, if we get to go.

Lazycation

Tom went to Chicago this past weekend to visit with his kids, to meet his new grandkids and to help David and Rebecca with some painting around the townhouse they recently purchased. He and Helen, who was also down to help with the painting and to attend a memorial for her late father at the Univeristy of Chicago, hope to be back here tomorrow or the next day. Helen may spend the night or just catch the train back to St. Paul, depending on when they get here and how she feels about all that.

So I have just been lazing around. I would say that I and the cats have just been lazing around, but that is the cats' natural habit anyway. (Tom might tell you it is also mine, but opinions differ.)

I have made some progress on the novel, not just editing but actual composition of new sections. The light at the end of the tunnel may not be an on-rushing train after all.

Otherwise I have exercised, enjoyed sitting on the deck, read, listened to audiobooks, fed the cats, cleaned up after the cats, petted the cats, visited with Peg, done as little grocery shopping as I can get away with, fiddled around with the computer and tried to make a dent in the leftovers in the refrigerator.

It's been nice, actually! I keep thinking I might want to go into Madison ... or Reedsburg ... or Baraboo. I have gone so far as to get my wallet, cellphone and keys.  But between my room and the garage, I come to my senses.

At some point today or tomorrow, I need to straighten up the house and make it presentable.

Maybe tomorrow.

As Ellen Degeneres so wisely says, "Procrastination is not the problem; it's the solution."

Wisconsin: State Motto -- Forward

Wisconsin is located in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 23rd state by total area and the 20th most populous. The state capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee, which is located on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The state comprises 72 counties.

Wisconsin's geography is diverse, with the Northern Highland and Western Upland along with a part of the Central Plain occupying the western part of the state and lowlands stretching to the shore of Lake Michigan. Wisconsin is second to Michigan in the length of its Great Lakes coastline.

Wisconsin is known as "America's Dairyland" because it is one of the nation's leading dairy producers, particularly famous for cheese. Manufacturing and tourism are also major contributors to the state's economy. Where I live, tourism is the thing.

Wisconsin was organized as a U.S. territory in 1836 (the same year Texas became an independent republic), and Tom's ancestors migrated here from Germany in the early 1840s. We live on part of the land they received as a land grant in 1844. Four years later, Wisconsin became a state, three years after Texas.

Frantic Friday?

This morning Tom and I went over to the library to help set up for the first book sale of the year, one of three annual sales put on by the Friends of the Kilbourn Public Library to raise funds for special projects. This one-day sale is in conjunction with the Taste of the Dells celebration downtown.

Normally this June sale is a fairly small operation. The largest sale is in September with another small cleanup effort in October.

This year, however, because a small local academy closed down, they donated all of the library books left over after their own clearance sale last fall. As a result, the library has a ton of things on hand and did not actively solicit other donations for this sale. We were all convinced we would never get everything out on the tables, but our director encouraged us and amazing things happened. By the time Tom and I left at noon, it looked like almost everything was going to be ready for sale. Much depends on the weather, however, because the paperbacks, movies and audio materials are displayed on a large patio. The chances of rain tomorrow may make that impossible.

At any rate, we put in close to three hours of work. We went for lunch at a local place with gyros, a place Tom had not tried yet. A bit to my surprise, he was satisfied with the gyro. Not that he's picky, but he does have standards.

Then home to wrap up some of his paintings for him to take with him to Chicago tomorrow for Rebecca's new home. Because he wants to take the truck and it will probably rain at least part of the way, he wrapped each painting (two are 3 feet by 4 feet and another is 4 by 4) in canvas drop cloths, then layers and layers of stretch plastic wrap, first one way all around, then around the edges to seal and then all the way around again across the previous layers. It took two of us but we managed.  After all that, he cut up large garbage bags and added an additional layer of plastic around each package. This, he told me, is why he doesn't want to sell his work. Too much trouble to ship!

Sundance did her best to help by wandering around underfoot. I was getting dizzy walking around and around the paintings so much, and she is lucky she did not get stepped on. Cassidy, who had been sprawled out in the middle of the floor where we needed to work, ran off after the first large drop cloth descended upon her. Sundance stayed in the room because she suspected the whole thing was just an act to distract her and make her miss a mid-afternoon snack. As if!

Tom heads out tomorrow and will be gone until some time next week. He will see his twin grandchildren for the first time, as well as having a chance to see all his children. He and Helen will drive back here next week (day a little uncertain at the moment) and she will proceed to St. Paul by train, possibly after staying overnight to recuperate a bit.

The cats and I will try to hold down the fort. I expect them to follow me around all the time Tom is away. When only one of us is home, the cats tend to want to keep an eye on him to make sure they are not going to be abandoned completely and left to starve.

Why you want to ask about the details when you hear something on the news ...

You may have seen a pop science news article floating around the past few days outlining how hurricanes with female names are more deadly. The higher average death count is thought to be not because the storms themselves coincidentally happen to be more dangerous, but rather subtle social conditioning towards gender roles mean that people view the "feminine" storms as weaker and thus take fewer safety precautions.

It's an interesting theory that gets completely dismantled when Slate points out a major flaw in the study's methodology:

But [National Center for Atmospheric Research social scientist Jeff] Lazo thinks that neither the archival analysis nor the psychological experiments support the team’s conclusions. For a start, they analysed hurricane data from 1950, but hurricanes all had female names at first. They only started getting male names on alternate years in 1979. This matters because hurricanes have also, on average, been getting less deadly over time. “It could be that more people die in female-named hurricanes, simply because more people died in hurricanes on average before they started getting male names,” says Lazo.

30 years of female-only names and higher overall fatalities are going to pretty heavily skew the data. To prove this point, the Slate author uses the research's own data from '79 through the present, removes the dramatic outlier of Hurricane Sandy, and shows that the deaths are actually slightly higher for the male-named hurricanes, but not to any notable degree.

Scary! Part 2

A couple of people suggested that my friend's reaction to the flowers might have been due to some cartoon or video game he had seen in which flowers changed into monsters or looked like monsters. I tried to find a cartoon image of a flower turning into a monstrous owl, but to no avail. I did, however, find this flower arrangement that is supposed to look like an owl. You may find it scary enough.