This is the season of Naked Lady lilies in northern California. They grow the flower stem first- the leaves only come later after the flower has bloomed.

“The pervasive theme is rebellion.” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich begins her new book, “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History,” struggling to explain — understand — the appeal of an aside she made in the spring 1976 issue of an academic journal, a comment that has become a popular slogan printed on T-shirts and coffee mugs and bumper stickers, usually without her permission and often without attribution.
Quotation from Kathryn Harrison, We’re No Angels, Sunday Book Review (The New York Times) Much of what is characterized as female “misbehavior” is a matter of voice — of a woman insisting she be heard, paid not only attention, but also the respect due a being as fully human and necessary as a man.

In Chinese numerology, the number 8 represents the totality of the universe. For that reason, the Beijing Summer Olympics began on 8/08/08 at 8.08.08 pm. The number 8– laid sideways– also represents infinity. In Tarot cards, the number 8 stands for strength and justice. For the Pythagoreans, the number 8 is the symbol of the love. Any zeros after a number are considered multipliers.

New this year is an ugly truck contest.
Quotation from the 2003 Garfield Summer Celebration (Garfield Days) in Garfield, Minnesota (pop. 304)

April 28th marked the third anniversary of EncoreSeraphine.com. 793 comics. Much love. Thank you. ~Sera

You treated me like a goddess
When we were around everyone else
Now how come you couldn’t notice me
When I was standing by myself
Lyric from Meiko, Sleep

If every angel’s terrible
Then why do you welcome them
You said you’d provide the birdbath
If I’d provide the skin
Lyric from CocoRosie, Terrible Angels “It’s perfectly flawed imho”

Did life turn out the way you thought it would be when you were a kid? What you expected is probably what you got (unless you were unlucky); and if you didn’t expect much, that is also probably what you got. But no matter how well you planned (or didn’t plan), be honest– your life didn’t turn out exactly like you thought it would happen. For better or worse, one thing is certain: There were surprises and exceptions along the way.

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.
Quotation from Dennis Wholey

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
Quotation from Henry David Thoreau

Cleopatra slept with the most powerful men (and women?) of her time, her lovers reputedly numbering in the thousands. Actor Warren Beatty reportedly had sex with 12,775 women. Basketball player Wilt Chamberlain boasted of sleeping with 20,000 women.
Herewith, I am modestly putting comic #750 to bed.

[Warren Beatty was] dating Maya Plisetskaya, the Bolshoi Ballet’s prima ballerina who, inconveniently, was already married and didn’t speak a word of English. Beatty told his pal Dick Sylbert that it was the most wonderful relationship: “She never understood a thing I said, I never understood a thing she said.”
Quotation from Patrick Goldstein, Peter Biskind on Warren Beatty: Was his theme song ‘You’re So Vain’ or ‘Just a Gigolo’? (LA Times)

Of the 18 married women who came to America on the Mayflower, only 5 survived the first winter. This created a ratio of 10 men to each women. Adultery was so prevalent among the Puritans at Plymouth that it is impossible to say who the Fathers of our Country really were.
Quotation from Sabrina Aset, The Theology of Sex

I’m proud to think that I’m on Santa’s Nice List. But I take secret pleasure in knowing I’m somewhere on his Naughty List too.

I was often very, incredibly naughty, and if I didn’t come home at tea time, I used to be sent to bed without any dinner. But people used to bring me things; I was better fed in bed.
Quotation from Diane Cilento

Sorry there’s no photo in today’s comic. I’ve been virtuously wrapping gifts and decorating the house this weekend. I’m hoping to avoid the last minute holiday panic that gripped me last year.

I sometimes can’t remember what I did yesterday, much less a week ago. Somebody in a crosswalk walked in front of me as I was driving- what was he wearing? What did I eat for lunch? Where did I lay my glasses? I don’t consider myself stupid, but why can’t I remember?

People are overly optimistic about the accuracy of their retrieved memories, probably because most errors have little practical consequence and go unnoticed. Given the confidence in their own memory accuracy, people have too much faith in the accuracy of eyewitnesses. Memory has a multitude of quirks and inaccuracies that creep into its everyday operation.
Quotation from Marc Green, Phd, Eyewitness Memory is Unreliable

I’ll be a park and thou shalt be my deer.
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.
Poem by William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

Encore Seraphine has been down for a few days. In a nutshell, somebody exploited a software vulnerability. My webhost rightly suspended the website until the problem was fixed.
My heart goes out to the victims of the terrible violence in Mumbai, India.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Quotation from Mother Teresa
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
Another quotation from Mother Teresa
An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Quotation from Mohandas Gandhi