Monday, January 17
Jan. 18th, 2022 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Getting home safely. Though there was mention of snow, I decided to go to town anyhow, and see how it went. I WANTED to go to pottery tonight, but alas. About the time I got to town it did start raining, then snowing. So I got some groceries and called it a day.
The roads went from perfectly clear to a slushy mess in about an hour, and the drive home had to be done slowly and carefully because the visibility wasn't great and the roads were slippery.
My husband had to drive a few hours to his work apartment, and he made it safely too, through similar conditions.
It's also back down to about -20, from almost zero earlier in the day. Gotta love Canada.
So I had a nap, then worked on a necklace for a while.
I learned today about Napoleon being attacked by bunnies.
Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo wasn’t the only humiliating face-off in his illustrious career; in the summer of 1807 he faced a rather different opponent, a horde of rampaging fluffy bunnies.
To put this epic battle in context, Napoleon had just signed the Treaties of Tilsit, thereby ending the War of the Fourth Coalition, and the perfect way to celebrate, he decided, was with a rabbit hunt. His chief of staff Alexandre Berthier set about collecting the bunnies needed for such a celebration, while also inviting a selection of the most prominent men in the military. He wanted to impress so he revealed hundreds (and some sources even say thousands) of bunnies caged and eager to flee as soon as they were released – or so he thought.
Once the rabbits were released from their cages they did the exact opposite of what all the men expected – instead of running away in terror they all bounded straight toward Napoleon. Nervous laughter quickly transformed into horror as this fluffle of beasts began to climb up the French emperor’s legs. Napoleon’s men attempted to beat them off with sticks but the swarm was, quite literally, impossible to shake off.
Although most likely reluctant to admit it, Berthier was to blame – instead of trapping wild hares he had purchased tame rabbits, they were used to seeing humans so they were expecting Napoleon to feed them their dinner rather than shoot them. Eventually Napoleon did manage to escape the fluffy plague, but only by fleeing to his coach, the bunnies in hot pursuit apparently “divided into two wings”, some even made it into the carriage.
Getting home safely. Though there was mention of snow, I decided to go to town anyhow, and see how it went. I WANTED to go to pottery tonight, but alas. About the time I got to town it did start raining, then snowing. So I got some groceries and called it a day.
The roads went from perfectly clear to a slushy mess in about an hour, and the drive home had to be done slowly and carefully because the visibility wasn't great and the roads were slippery.
My husband had to drive a few hours to his work apartment, and he made it safely too, through similar conditions.
It's also back down to about -20, from almost zero earlier in the day. Gotta love Canada.
So I had a nap, then worked on a necklace for a while.
I learned today about Napoleon being attacked by bunnies.
Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo wasn’t the only humiliating face-off in his illustrious career; in the summer of 1807 he faced a rather different opponent, a horde of rampaging fluffy bunnies.
To put this epic battle in context, Napoleon had just signed the Treaties of Tilsit, thereby ending the War of the Fourth Coalition, and the perfect way to celebrate, he decided, was with a rabbit hunt. His chief of staff Alexandre Berthier set about collecting the bunnies needed for such a celebration, while also inviting a selection of the most prominent men in the military. He wanted to impress so he revealed hundreds (and some sources even say thousands) of bunnies caged and eager to flee as soon as they were released – or so he thought.
Once the rabbits were released from their cages they did the exact opposite of what all the men expected – instead of running away in terror they all bounded straight toward Napoleon. Nervous laughter quickly transformed into horror as this fluffle of beasts began to climb up the French emperor’s legs. Napoleon’s men attempted to beat them off with sticks but the swarm was, quite literally, impossible to shake off.
Although most likely reluctant to admit it, Berthier was to blame – instead of trapping wild hares he had purchased tame rabbits, they were used to seeing humans so they were expecting Napoleon to feed them their dinner rather than shoot them. Eventually Napoleon did manage to escape the fluffy plague, but only by fleeing to his coach, the bunnies in hot pursuit apparently “divided into two wings”, some even made it into the carriage.
