Let’s get buzzed!
Hood Honey is a Black-owned business in Cleveland, Ohio, focused on fostering community, education, and offering up opportunities to connect with the natural world in an area that truly needed it. Urban beekeeper Trey Williams has shared his love of caring for these tiny buzzing superheroes with his neighbors, school kids, and anyone who wants to understand more about the amazing world of bees.
Trey believes that caring for bees is also great for one’s mental health; focusing on their care grounds one in the here and now, and understanding their importance in all our lives deepens our connections to nature and how we feed ourselves. It has also been an exciting and fun way to introduce beekeeping to young people in neighborhoods where you would not expect to find a bee farm.
Born from the necessity of facilitating community, Hood Honey thrives on the bonds between people. Hood Honey creates Black economic development, opportunities for education, and family growth through urban agriculture with an unbridled emphasis on honey.
Click here if you would like to order some of their products and help support the bees!
OwlKitty is a favorite YouTube follow well-known by Wonkers. OwlKitty is IRL Lizzy; with her cat dad Tibo Charroppin and a green screen they have created some very delightful movie trailers that never fail to bring joy. Always watch to the end to get a short clip showing the making of the video.
A hobby of mine is cat pics as album covers, you know exactly the kind of photos I mean. Our very own gallbladder turned my Harry photo into something amazing. BTW did you know he also has a book (gallbladder that is, Harry is still editing his). OMG we have so many talented Wonkers.
This is a Nice Times recommended by a Wonker from a couple weeks back. (Sorry I forgot your nym.)
Dystany Spurlock likes to go fast. In a stock car, Dystany is a rarity, she is a young Black woman in a sport whose history is dominated by white men.
Her grandfather’s love of the sport is what drove Dystany to racing; as a child they lived near Richmond Raceway and could hear the roar of the cars while watching the races on television. She had always been fearless and never let expectations define her, she played football in high school on the boy’s team.
There were times when I didn’t know if it was going to work out, times when I worried that I was chasing something that just wasn’t going to happen for someone like me.
You don’t quit. Not when it’s hard, not when people doubt you, not when the path isn’t clear. You keep showing up.
This week the Movieboss recommends this compilation of 1970s Sci-Fi movies, just based on that screenshot alone. It is a good list of movies for when you are in a certain mood. You probably know that toothy little man terrorizing Karen Black in 1975 is from Trilogy Of Terror. As we soon will be heading into spooky season let’s look back on the fantastic television movies that traumatized us as children. This is one of those scary Nice Times as I know it makes for a fun conversation about a time when we were younger and the monster wasn’t a bloated, orange maniac controlling the country. Now that is some scary shit.
Wonkers’ Nice Times!
Our very own Dr. Jen (Wisdom) just published another nerd book. Administrative Intelligence: The Leader’s Guide to Operational Clarity and Scalable Change
“Work doesn’t have to suck!”
From BigBoppa: “My 12 yo granddaughter learned to weld steel earlier this summer while visiting her maternal grandparents in France. She designed and built the sculpture in the attached photo. Back here in the US she entered her project in the metal crafts category at the DuPage County Fair and won the grand prize, which comes with an invitation to the Illinois State Fair. The fair was held last week and her sculpture won second place. She was the youngest entrant and the only female.”
From Thalia Is Not Amused: Mr. Not Amused is home from the hospital! “He’s so happy to be home and has a great attitude about everything! He’s always been such a sweetheart, and that hasn’t changed. My biggest goal today is getting all his medications organized! But maybe after dinner. I’m making a sausage mushroom casserole that sounds amazing! 😊 Thanks again for all the love and support, your kindness means the world to us.”
Another book by a Wonker! From Luna: “My novel, Meet Me at the Ruins, was selected for a Regal Summit Book Award for Literary Fiction!” Available in Bookshop.org, here’s the link so Wonkette gets a tiny bit.
From BosGirl: “My kids wanted to say thank you to the generous Wonkers who helped build our classroom. This is just one picture of my kids saying thank you to my friends here for their classroom supplies.”
Funny commercial time! Since I shared TV movies from the ‘70s we need the commercials too.
Here’s some beautiful pen and ink art from N. Andrew Walsh (ExecutorElassus).
Today’s Nice Time music is one of my favorite feel good songs, “Lovely Day,” originally sung by Bill Withers. We all have songs that always lift our moods and that just hits that right spot, leave yours in the non-comments! I have two covers for you.
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Next week the Nice Times story you have all been waiting for, the story of Gimothy the Goose (and why you shouldn’t feed bread to ducks and geese). With an appearance from Angel, Gimmy’s best bud.
I end with the song that inspired today’s title, did you get it right?
Please send Nice Times suggestions, personal nice times and original art to ziggywiggynicetimes@gmail.com. It can be all levels of Nice Times!
Hello friends!
Update from last week's Nice Times, I spoke with Stu & Kathy and they were very happy to be included. While Kathy was working in the park another volunteer mentioned she had seen the story. This other volunteer's son is in Illinois and had read it and passed it along to his mom because it was about Cleveland Heights.
Kathy said... we're national!
I have another personal nice-time to report. Eleven years ago I had prostate cancer and had surgery via the Da Vinci robotic procedure. Two years later I started showing an increasing PSA level in my blood tests and a P.E.T. scan discovered that cancerous cells had migrated to a lymph node next to the prostate wall. That resulted in 40+ radiation treatments and I was good until 4 years ago when the PSA level began to climb again. So I had to go back again for another P.E.T scan and five more radiation treatments followed by 2 years of hormone suppression drugs. Last week my doctor told me that my PSA has been undetectable now for roughly 2 years and he’s hopeful that I can finally put that all behind me. I asked if I will still have to come in every 6 months for testing and he said “Of course. You’re my only patient who tells me off-color jokes.”