Last week a longtime friend came into town and along with another friend, we went out for dinner and drinks. Because of life, Covid and everything else, we hadn’t seen each other for a while, so Marcie, Jean, and I were having a great time catching up, sharing food and stories, and just enjoying each other’s company. Our conversation moved to RentAFriend. I had never heard of it. It’s a website (where I found two misspellings) that allows you to pay ($10 to $50 per hour or more) for friendship… or be paid for your friendship. Requirements: be over 18, never convicted of a felony or registered as a sex offender and willing to hang out with people you don’t know for pay. This might be especially important now that everyone seems to be best friends with their phones. – just look around while shopping, standing in line or especially when eating out at a restaurant. Everyone is on their phones and has forgotten how to have a conversation, even with their own family. Maybe everyone has been stuck inside so long and has forgotten how to nurture true friendship. So, let’s say you need a friend to go to an event or party with you, or even a pottery, cooking class or concert. Then you could rent a friend. I pulled up the 77566-zip code. There are 8-pages of people (average age 20’s to early 40’s) from LJ, Clute, Freeport, Brazoria, Angleton, Cedar Lane, Alvin, Rosharon, Galveston, Santa Fe, and Manvel who want to be your friend (in exchange for your money). Now, some of them can’t spell very well, some look quite nice, some are questionable but surely, I pray that they are all a positive, encouraging, 8-pages of honest people. I can’t imagine being lonely, but I know there are people that really would pay to have companionship, my conscience just won’t allow me to believe this is the right way. Too much room for something negative to happen. Think about it. If you happen to know of someone that might be lonely (no matter their age), then please give them a little bit of your time. I don’t mean SugarDaddyMeet, Match, Bumble, Silver Singles, or OurTime. I mean the old-fashioned pick up the phone, drop a card in the mail, or stop by on a Sunday afternoon with popcorn and a game, type of time. Good endorphins.
Use swimming pool noodles to wrap your pipes when you’ve put off going to the hardware store until there’s nothing left. Isn’t that clever?
On December 9th, Darren Aronofsky’s (He did Pi) The Whale will be released in theaters. Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, George of the Jungle) will play Charlie, a reclusive English teacher with profound empathy and love for everyone around him; a very kind soul who weighs 600 pounds. Prosthetics were used to transform Fraser into Charlie, who rarely leaves his couch. “By far and away I think Charlie is the most heroic man I have ever played,” Fraser added. “His superpower is to see the good in others and bring that out of them.” From everything I have heard and read, it will be cinema at its best. They’re calling it The Brenaissance.
Good manners are not bred in moments, but in years. Julia McNair Wright
Do you ever wonder why mosquitoes are not as attracted to some people as others? Only the female mosquito feeds on blood, while males feed on plant nectar for energy. Interesting. Mosquitos, ticks, fleas, and horseflies require the protein found in blood to develop eggs. They are not attracted more to women than men, or to blondes and redheads more than dark-haired individuals. Your skin color doesn’t matter. They are in fact, attracted to beer drinkers, stinky feet, perfumes and scented lotions, bright clothing, O-Positive blood, lactic acid, and CO2 (carbon dioxide, so if you are thrashing and swiping at a little mosquito, you are definitely more attractive, because she can smell you from 200 feet away.) If you’ve been working in the yard and are nasty and dirty, you’re far less attractive to the mosquito. There, you have it. So, get a bat house and put it in your yard so the diligent mosquito man can go home at night.
Here I sit at my office eating leftovers from last night’s dinner. I don’t know how I did it, but I have made some really BAD meals lately, and because of the high grocery prices, I’m going to eat them…for days. I promise to never waste food again. I just love good food, but I would rather go without a meal, if it’s not tasty. Last night I took a Sockeye Salmon fillet, smeared on olive oil and seasonings, then slow-cooked it for about 25 minutes, then turned off the oven until my Brussel sprouts were finished. I had halved them, put a little butter, olive oil and seasoning in my pan, browned them along with pecan halves then when they were done, I added a big spoonful of vanilla & black cherry jam. It was so good with that little bit of sweet. Now that’s a good meal and I will eat it 4 times with a smile.
Jimmy Carter, the longest-living US president in history, celebrated his 98th birthday in a simple way with his 95-year-old wife, Rosalynn by his side watching his favorite Major League Baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, on television in Plains, Georgia. After he lost to Ronald Reagan in 1981, he immediately began planning The Carter Center. It opened in Atlanta in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind effort for a former president. The stated mission was to advance peace, human rights, and public health causes around the world. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He traveled internationally into his 80s and 90s, and he did not retire officially from the board until 2020.
Loretta Lynn died at age 90. Her fiery hits like Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind) and You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man), which topped the country charts in 1966, made her the first female country singer to write a No.1 hit. She told it like it was in songs like Rated X and The Pill which were banned from radio, even as they became beloved classics. “They didn’t have none of them (birth control) pills when I was younger, or I’d have been swallowing them like popcorn,” Lynn wrote in her memoir. “I wasn’t the first woman in country music,” Lynn said. “I was just the first one to stand up there and say what I thought, what life was about.” In early 2021, at the age of 89, she recorded her 50th album, Still Woman Enough.
Let’s face it. Herschel Walker was a great athlete, but he may have been hit in the head one time too many. (I had written he was a blockhead hypocrite, but I took that out so I wouldn’t upset anyone.) The Georgia Senate candidate that supports a national abortion ban without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother, is now on the defensive after a report that he paid $700 for a girlfriend to have an abortion 13 years ago. It seems that not only did he pay for the abortion, but he also sent her a get-well card encouraging her to rest and relax while she recovered. In fact, she has a copy of the check from Walker and a receipt from the abortion clinic, in addition to the lovely get-well card. I often think that it gets harder to shock people, but this has left some with their mouths hanging wide open. His own son said, “Family values, people? He has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising one of them. Christian Walker
Swiss retailer Migros is launching a coffeemaking system designed to replace the aluminum and plastic capsules that are filling up our landfills with thousands of tons of waste each year. It is described as coffee balls, and they are fully compostable.
Close your eyes and imagine being in line at McDonald’s waiting to get your nostalgic Happy Meal. Wait, you say you’re too old for a Happy Meal?? Well, the new ADULT Happy Meal is called the Cactus Plant Flea Market Box and gives you a choice of either a Big Mac or 10-piece chicken nuggets, medium fries, and medium drink, plus one of four collectible toys. Grimace, Hamburglar, Birdie or Cactus Buddy. For a limited time. The Happy Meals will run around $9-10 dollars, depending on your location. Or you can just save up your money for therapy. Burger King is offering a Ghost Pepper Whopper just in time for Halloween. It features an orange bun, spicy queso, crispy jalapenos, bacon, ghost peppers cheese and a Whopper patty. Too hot for me.
Jacob Runyan and Chase Cominsky were disqualified from a Lake Erie Walleye Trail Fishing tournament when egg-shaped lead sinkers and fish fillets were found inside the fish they’d brought to the final weigh-in. All this additional weight helped push the team’s total weight close to 34 pounds. Sadly, they had only needed 19 pounds of fish to win, and would have received almost $30,000 in prizes.
Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the season against the Texas Rangers, breaking Roger Maris’ American League record set in 1961. A fan caught the ball, which now has an estimated value of as much as $2 million. Yikes. “I just try to take it one day at a time and say a prayer, go out there and just try to play my game,” Judge said. “For me, I never tried to focus on the number, never tried to focus on going out there and doing it. Just go out there and play my game, and if I’m good enough and God willing, it’ll happen. I think just having that type of faith I think kind of helped me out through this whole process.”
The real-life 2018 Thai Cave Rescue, about the boys’ soccer team rescued from a flooded cave in northern Thailand is a six-part Netflix series. Eddie Murphy is going to star in Candy Cane Lane, his first full-length holiday film. Thanks to my downtown next-door neighbor Debra, for the wonderful pumpkin muffin last week. A Chinese man was found safe after he spent two days in a hydrogen balloon traveling about 200 miles after his balloon became untethered and flew away while he was using it to harvest pine nuts from a tree. Think about that the next time you sprinkle pine nuts on something. Merriam-Webster has added to their dictionary, shrinkflation, adorkable, subvariant and pumpkin spice, now officially in the dictionary. Just a few of the 370 words and phrases that were added. Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen have apparently hired divorce attorneys. Retirement may not be looking so good.
To all friends and family that reached out to me the past two weeks to check on Teller, I say thank you. Teller was being walked downtown as he is each and every day (we get the mail and go potty around three), then we sit at the corner of Parking Way and This Way and watch traffic. I envision at those moments that he goes back in time to when he was the downtown street dog. He smells the air, people I don’t know yell, “Hey, Teller” as they drive by, and I smile a lot. It’s fun to live with a celebrity. Two weeks ago, we were just minding our own business, sitting there smelling his past, when he suddenly lost his mind, saw a truck he didn’t like, and bolted forward to chase it, along with his leash, collar, and me following. I think I was airborne when I turned loose of the leash, which cut my finger and tore off parts of a fingernail. Yes, he did catch the truck as it ran over his back left leg and paw. Or should I say that Teller placed his left leg on that wheel, then threw his foot under the tire. At that moment everything happened in slow-motion, but from what I could see, I just knew that my best pal’s foot was crushed, and he was now going to be a three-legged dog. His Aunt Kim saw it all from her office window and ran to us in heels, Jeff (world’s nicest guy) the driver of the truck, stopped and assisted while I ran back to my office to get my car and keys, then the driver of the Sysco truck (or was it Sparkletts) rushed over to him with a big cup of ice water. With everyone’s help we managed to get him in my car (with Kim getting a new piercing in the process), wrapped his bleeding leg in a towel, and headed straight to Hope Animal Hospital. They quickly knocked him out, x-rayed and sutured. Nothing broken, but a handful of drugs twice a day since. It changed him. Especially the conehead. He just sat and stared at nothing. We have only visited the mailbox on one occasion since that fateful day. He holds his ground and won’t get much further than the front of our office. He will get there. The sutures (the ones he hasn’t removed himself) come out Friday and I’m hoping he can play ball and take a bath after that. Thank you all for the love. He’s worth it. Have a great weekend. I’m finishing my income tax.
LISA
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