On Thanksgiving Day, Anne-Elisabeth and I traveled to Waco, along with Teller. What better place to spend the day than a retirement community where everyone has been vaccinated? It felt good! Mom had not met Teller so we went with the theory that we would get there, then worry about what to do with a dog while we eat… and while we visited. The early morning trip there was terrible; massive rains, wind, and driving with our flashers on. Just general white knuckle, steering wheel gripping madness. I was worn out by the time we arrived, but the staff was ready and quickly presented two hot plates with pretty nice cornbread dressing, gravy that could stand on its own, lots of carrots and peas, and an absolutely delicious slice of apple pie. It was perfect, and I cleaned my plate! When we finished, all we had to do was stack our dishes and walk away. Actually, it was better than perfect. No cooking, cleaning house, or washing dishes. There was nice sunshine in Waco, but it was too cold out unless you were hiding from the wind. A sweet guy at the front desk named Crazy Larry told us to go ahead and take the dog upstairs to my mom’s apartment and not worry about it, so we did quickly, before he changed his mind. Teller was a perfect gentleman the entire time, laying on the rug and acting like he owned the place. He knew he had just one opportunity to make a good first impression on Grandma. I had picked up some huge, beautiful pecans on the grounds, so I sat and picked the meat out of those while having an engaging chat with my mother and her friend. AE fell asleep on the sofa. You know, just like any other regular Thanksgiving. I hope that your day was everything you wanted and needed this year. Our drive back was uneventful. I do believe that Thanksgiving Day is the best time to travel…of course, when it’s not raining.
The adult version of “head, shoulders, knees and toes” is “wallet, glasses, keys and phone.
In 2013, a 27-year-old model and actor, was left with brain-damage after accidently eating a small peanut butter pretzel. She was severely allergic to peanut butter and went into anaphylactic shock. Medics arrived, she informed them that she was having an allergic reaction and was getting no relief from her epi-pen. They should have given her intramuscular epinephrine immediately, but instead checked her blood glucose thinking she might have other legal or illegal drugs in her body because of her agitated state. Agitated state?!? She was agitated because she knew what was happening to her. Because of lack of oxygen, she is now a quadriplegic and requires round-the-clock care provided by her parents. She was awarded $29.5 million after a jury agreed that a Nevada ambulance company was negligent when treating her. This money will be used on future care, a portion donated to organizations helping people with brain injuries. Food allergies are real and can be harmful.
Support your friends’ businesses and progressions like you support the celebrities that you don’t actually know. Shop Local. (You may want to read that again…)
A good baking pumpkin is usually smaller than the pumpkins you use for carving, may be darker in color, and heavier because there is a thicker wall of flesh. Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins tend to be thinner, lighter, stringy, and are not grown for cooking. So, the heavier the little pumpkin, the sweeter the taste. HEB sent me a coupon for two baking pumpkins, but of course, I forgot to use it at checkout. Oops. I’m not surprised. So, last week I cut one of the pumpkins like I would slice cantaloupe. I lathered on good olive oil, smoked black pepper, and salt, then I roasted it in the oven until I could see some browning. I ate it the first night right out of the oven, with salmon patties and tomatoes from the garden. The second night I heated up a couple of pieces and drizzled maple syrup and a tiny bit of butter over those leftovers. Totally yummy. Well, there was still quite a bit left, so I scraped the skin, added cream, sugar, butter, flour, eggs, and maple extract, and made some of the best muffins ever. The new me doesn’t waste any food. The skins to the pumpkin and the seeds went straight to the compost for the garden.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Singer Billy Idol is 66. Actor-director Woody Allen is 86. Singer-guitarist Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult is 77. Drummer John Densmore of The Doors is 77. Actor-singer Bette Midler is 76. Actor Treat Williams is 70. Actor Charlene Tilton of Dallas is 63. Actor Cathy Lee Crosby is 77. News anchor Stone Phillips is 67. Singer Britney Spears is 40. Singer Ozzy Osbourne is 73. Singer Mickey Thomas of Jefferson Starship is 72. Actor Daryl Hannah is 61. Actor Julianne Moore is 61. Game show host Wink Martindale is 88. Gambit. Singer Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon is 85.
Actor Frankie Muniz of Malcolm in the Middle is 36. Actor JoBeth Williams is 73. Poltergeist, The Big Chill. Actor Ellen Burstyn is 89. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Exorcist, The Last Picture Show. Country singer Gary Morris is 73. The Wind Beneath My Wings. Announcer Edd Hall of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is 63. Singer Jerry Butler of The Impressions is 82. Drummer Bobby Elliott of The Hollies is 80. Actor Judi Dench is 87. Actor Beau Bridges is 80. Football player actor Dick Butkus is 79. Singer Joan Armatrading is 71. Singer Donny Osmond is 64. Actor Patricia Wettig is 70. Thirtysomething.
Actor Susan Dey is 69. The Partridge Family & L.A. Law. Actor Raven-Symone of That’s So Raven, The Cosby Show is 36. Actor Rita Moreno is 90. Singer David Gates of Bread is 81. Actor Donna Mills of Knots Landing is 81. Singer Brenda Lee is 77. Actor Teri Garr is 74. Singer Jermaine Jackson is 67. Singer Jim Messina of Loggins and Messina & Poco is 74. Actor Jeff Bridges is 72. Actor Kim Basinger is 68. Actor-producer-director Max Baer Jr. of The Beverly Hillbillies is 84.
Country singer Johnny Rodriguez is 70. At 18, Rodriguez ended up in jail where he sang in his cell and was overheard by a Texas Ranger who told a promoter friend about him. The story is that he was arrested after he and friends were caught stealing and barbecuing a goat, but there is also a story he was in jail for an unpaid fine. He came to the attention of country singers Tom T. Hall and Bobby Bare, who encouraged him to go to Nashville. Clute and LJ are listed as locations where he lived in the past.
Philip Margo, American musician, author, and longtime member of The Tokens, died at 79. He was best known for The Lion Sleeps Tonight which was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Arlene Dahl, the red-headed actress who starred in such films as Journey to the Center of the Earth, where she played a determined widow who heads to the planet’s core with Pat Boone and a pet duck, died at 96.
American theater royalty Stephen Sondheim died at 91. Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, Sunday in the Park, Dick Tracy; he touched so much of our music. One of his first jobs was writing scripts for the TV show, Topper, in the 50’s. “Stephen’s music is so beautiful, his lyrics so precise, that even as he exposes the imperfections of everyday life, he transcends them. We transcend them,” said former President Barack Obama at the Medal of Freedom ceremony in 2015. “Put simply, Stephen reinvented the American musical. ”
In Missouri, fossils from a Parrosaurus missouriensis, a large duck-billed dinosaur, were discovered 80 years ago at a site where a family was digging a new well but had not been identified as a new species until last month. The herbivorous dinosaurs are believed to be as long as 35 feet in length and roamed the region 75 million to 90 million years ago. That’s a lot of millions. In a rock smuggled out of Mongolia, researchers found a new dinosaur species that had a bill like a duck, teeth like a croc, a swanlike neck and killer claws, flippers like a penguin, and it walked like an ostrich…but could swim. It was a small creature about 18 inches tall and it is the first time that a two-legged, meat-eating dinosaur has shown to have the ability to swim. Not that you are going to write this down, but it was named Halszkaraptor escuilliei. Just in case you want to sound really smart.
Texas Monthly says for us to get ready for the best college hoops season in Texas history… “there’s never been a better time to be a basketball fan in Texas.” I would say that is a particularly good endorsement. Matthew McConaughey says that he WILL NOT launch a bid to become Governor of Texas, after teasing us about it for months. You would probably like his book, Greenlights, and you can listen to him read it, which is pretty fun. Abba now has a UK number one album, Voyage. Their lead single, I Still Have Faith in You, has been nominated for a Grammy Award, the first in the band’s history. Supposedly, three different Las Vegas hotels are trying to secure the band’s new concert show. They’re talking about a bidding war. Jeffrey Epstein’s former pilot testified that Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, & Prince Andrew all flew on Epstein’s private plane.
In a world where you can shop anywhere… SHOP LOCAL.
Yawn. The most popular pet names of 2021 are Bella, Luna, Lucy, Daisy, Zoe, Lily, Lola, Bailey, Stella, and Molly for girl dogs. Max, Charlie, Milo, Buddy, Rocky, Bear, Leo, Duke, Teddy, and Tucker for boy dogs. Female cat names are Luna, Bella, Lily, Lucy, Nala, Kitty, Chloe, Stella, Zoe, and Lola. Male cat names are Oliver, Leo, Milo, Charlie, Max, Simba, Jack, Loki, Ollie, and Jasper. Big yawn. But there was also some really fun names listed like Grogu (Star Wars), Britney, Crazy (hit song), Zoom, Dr. Fauci, Siri, Google, Boseman (Chadwick Boseman), Doge (cryptocurrency), Taylor (Taylor Swift), Caviar, Dijon, Raclette, and Baguette (French cooking), and Metcalf and Gronk (football), just to name a few. I like Boseman.
How to Support a Small Business Every Day. 1. Comment on their posts regularly even if it is just with an emoji. 2. Share their post. 3. Instead of liking, use the love or wow! This will help their page be seen more often. Thank you for supporting small business this shopping season and every other day!
The educational American Girl dolls and the board game Risk were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in recognition of their influence on the toy industry. Play Sand, which the group called perhaps the most universal and oldest toy in the world, was also inducted. If you feel that your toy of choice is missing from the National Toy Hall of Fame, then you can go to the National Museum of Play at The Strong and nominate it right now.
What is Omicron, besides the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet? Well, it is the newest variant of the coronavirus. Not all of them create enough concern to get their own name. The virus constantly mutates to be more efficient at its job which is to invade our immune system defenses, and until everyone is vaccinated, this will continue to happen. If you are riding the fence on the vaccine, now would be the right time to make an appointment. The drug companies are scattering to adapt their vaccines, but we should know within the next couple of weeks if Omicron is going to visit the states.
A Houston man was sentenced to 110 months in prison after he used more than $1.6 million in funding from the Paycheck Protection Program to buy an $85,000 pickup truck, paid off a loan on residential property, a Lamborghini, a Rolex watch, and trips to strip clubs. I think he got off easy. Way too easy. West Point cadets were attempting to seize the U.S. Naval Academy’s mascot before the annual Army-Navy football game but ended up with the wrong goat. Giggle. Just a few people, actually 61 of them, were enjoying a drink and music at Britain’s highest altitude pub last week, located about 270 miles north of London, when a late autumn blizzard brought snow and winds that blocked roads and took out some power lines, leaving them stranded. Stranded at a pub. Darn. They entertained themselves with movies, quiz night, karaoke, and music from the also stranded band. One lady said she didn’t want to leave. When life gives you lemons…
Oh, by the way, your grandma called. She said to remind you to get vaccinated so she can see you at Christmas.
LISA
