Listen up: Mammograms successfully identify 80% of breast cancers, but that leaves 20% that are not easily identified. There is a lifetime risk assessment test called the free Tyrer-Cuzick test available online ibis-risk-calculator.magview.com or the Gail test available at bcrisktool.cancer.gov. The tests are based on a variety of factors like family history, date of a woman’s first period, age when her first child was born, family history… a lifetime risk score above 20% suggests additional diagnostic screening may be needed, something that most insurance plans cover for women considered high risk. My breast cancer was not found with a regularly scheduled mammogram, it was found during a biopsy of another area that eventually tested negative. Arm yourself with facts. We tend to fight less for ourselves, just trusting that someone else will take care of us, or convinced that if we ignore it, it will go away.

The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved. – Richard Rogers

Recently, my friend Robert and I had tickets to see Girl from the North Country at Hobby Center in Houston. Music and lyrics were by Bob Dylan. The show itself was pretty good, great acting, just a little confusing to keep up with, but the music was super.  A local friend, Davis Gordon Gilbert, writes plays. One of those plays, Aces, was recently performed at Match Theatre in Houston. The story was about a reunion at a Texas TV station – with all five Miss Texas USA beauty queen title holders that went on to consecutively win the Miss USA title and crown, and place as top finalists in the Miss Universe Pageant, all representing the great state of Texas. The show has been performed in Palm Springs and now in Houston. Congratulations, Davis.  It was a fun night.

My whole problem is my lips move when I think.

According to NOAA (United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), 60.5% of the world’s coral reefs have bleached in the past year. That is nearly two-thirds of the coral reefs on the planet… exposed to heat stress that triggered bleaching. Nearly 900,000 ‘immune support’ echinacea YOGI tea bags have been recalled due to pesticide contamination. Yogi does not use pesticides, leading them to believe that if a neighboring farm is applying pesticides or chemical fertilizers, those applications could drift onto organic land.

The Guardian says that nearly 75% of climate experts blame ‘Lack of Political Will’ for anticipated future warming with global temperatures expected to increase by at least a full degree above what was internationally agreed to, which in turn will have catastrophic consequences for the planet.

A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend.  Amit Kalantri

RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Sportscaster Brent Musburger is 85. Rock musician Garry Peterson of Guess Who is 79. Singer Stevie Nicks is 76. Actor Pam Grier is 75. Described as cinema’s first female action star, Jackie Brown. Phillip Michael Thomas is 75. Detective Richardo Tubbs on Miami Vice. Country singer Hank Williams Jr. is 75. Actor Genie Francis is 62. Laura Spencer on General Hospital. Remember when she married Luke. Musician Pete Townshend is 79. Singer actor Cher is 78. Singer Susan Cowsill of The Cowsills is 65. Singer Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers is 83. Keyboardist Bill Champlin of Chicago is 77. Singer Leo Sayer is 76.

Bill Walton, one of the biggest stars in basketball broadcasting, NBA champion, and member of basketball Hall of Fame, died at 71. Shaquille O’Neal honored Walton by saying that “we definitely lost one of the Four Fathers of The Big Man Alliance.”

The Miss Universe contest had a ‘first’ in its 73-year-history. 60-year-old Miss Buenos Aires, lawyer and journalist, didn’t take home the Miss Argentina crown that would have let her represent her country in the international pageant, but she did win the “best face” category. Old guidelines required women be between the ages of 18-28. She looked good.

Kids benefit from being exposed to the arts. Summer classes for kids at The Center for the Arts and Sciences…camps include art, Teen Guild, drama. musical, space camp at the Planetarium, Museum of Natural Science. The list is endless. Check out classes at Recreation Centers, dance studios, the libraries…you can find something to fit the child and your time and your budget. Many support scholarships. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!” is the summer musical at Center Stages. Tickets are available now but will likely sell out so get them now. Show dates: July 12 – 21, 2024. 979-265-7661.

Lauren Anderson is celebrating over 40 years with The Houston Ballet. She started as a student with a scholarship in 1972, then 1983 – 2006 she became a professional dancer, and she is still there. You may remember that she was Houston Ballet’s first Black principal dancer. I saw an article about her in the Houston Chronicle, and I think what she said bears repeating. The article started with, “The numbers say it all. Across all grade levels, Texas students who are highly engaged in the arts attend school more regularly, are twice as likely  to earn exceptional scores on standardized tests, 19 percent more likely to graduate high school, 20 percent more likely to attend college, and 42 percent more likely to attend a 4-year institution than those who complete only the minimum requirement.” And it goes on… she’s just saying that we need to support the arts…in schools, in your own town.

The arts matter because art is meant to move people either on an intellectual or emotional level. Whether this is a book that stays with you days later, or a performance that moves you spiritually or a song that makes you look at the world around you in a different way. The purpose of art is to cause a reaction and with this purpose it can create a synergy of change; change in attitudes, perceptions, and thoughts. – Catherine Brookes

What is bed-rotting? When my kids were growing up, we had pajama days where we well, stayed in our pajamas all day long, or until evening time when we would put on a clean pair of pajamas and start all over again. It was fun. No real responsibility on pajama day. My daughter even made a sign that warned visitors not to even think about knocking on our door, ever. Well, now Generation Z (the Zoomers, born between 1997 and 2012), the generation after Generation X. When they feel burnt out from work, school or something else, they self-care to cope with stress and anxiety, all while scrolling through social media, eating snacks… you know what I’m saying… they’re having a pajama day, they just call it by a new name… bed-rotting. Whatever, but now it’s popular on social media. My mom always told me that if you kept something long enough, it would come back in style. Ha-ha

The new me is trying to clean up my life. Or at least make it neater behind closed doors. I’m trying to grab a drawer or clean out a cabinet every once in a while. So, today it was the Lazy-Susan organizer with all the related nail stuff.  I removed every bottle of colored polish. You’ll never see me with anything other than clear and that’s just on really special occasions. There were some weird colors, then I remembered I had bought them to repair chips on ceramics…in particular, a favorite plate that someone had returned with a chip. I found the plate and took it to the kitchen… yes, it was the perfect shade to fix the plate – I even found where I had fixed it before. So, as I slipped it back into the cabinet to ensure its health until the next time I used it, I hit a platter and took out another big old chunk. Hmmm. Gorilla glue and fingernail polish to the rescue again. Good as new.

My grandfather had a barber shop in Waco, so my mother went to beauty school so she could be his manicurist, something really new in the 50’s. But instead, she married my daddy and 9 months later she had someone to practice her craft on. Today, I was reminded of what my mother used to say to me as she was perming my hair – always on the day before picture day. I don’t know what it is like to get a perm now but then, it was stinky, stinky, stinky, and it hurt. When I would say ouch! she would very politely respond with, “Lisa, you must suffer to be beautiful!”

Mike Tyson suffered a medical emergency due to an ulcer flare-up 30 minutes before his plane landed in Los Angeles last week. Isn’t he fighting Jake Paul in July, who just happens to be 30 years younger than Tyson? I can remember back to 1997 when Tyson bit the ear of Evander Holyfield, spit it out, (no ref stopped the fight) then a few minutes later, he bit him again. Tyson admitted that he bit Holyfield’s ear because he wanted to kill him after he head-butted Tyson. (Tyson was also convicted and sentenced for the rape of an 18-year-old in 1992, but that’s another story). The ear biting is a little hard to comprehend. Let’s say for instance, if a golfer was biting other golfers’ ears, or if a baseball player was biting the first baseman’s ear as he flew by, would they let these people continue playing. No. It’s kind of funny to imagine but, why is he still allowed to box?

Next week I’ll tell you all about my trip to Boston, MA and Durham, NC to visit my kids. It was THE BEST! Have a great week.

LISA

Send comments to Lisa Baker at lisa@thesourceweekly.com

Every single week, I try as hard as I can not to sound like a total dope in this column, but this may seal the deal. Do you know where pine nuts come from? I guess I never really thought about it AT ALL. I do know that I really like pine nuts… better than most other nuts, except almonds. But pine nuts are not really nuts at all, they’re the seeds of mostly stone pine or pinyon pine trees. There are many different types of pine trees, but not all have edible seeds. I sprinkle pine nuts on salads, use them to make fresh basil pesto, soups, pasta, and main dishes. So, the next question is why are they so expensive? Pay attention. So to harvest, first you have to find low branches containing both open, and unopened pinecones. The open ones have already been robbed of their seeds by birds and animals, so you gather just the unopened ones in a bag because they are so close to popping out. I imagine using a cloth bag. Leave your bag of unopened pinecones in a warm, dry, sunny location and the cones will release the nuts/seeds. Shake the bag. The cones should release some of the seeds on their own. Then you need to remove the shells on each seed with your fingers. That, my friend, is why the seeds/nuts are so expensive. Time extensive. Have you ever had a Pignoli Cookie? Pignoli is Italian for pine nuts. The Italian pine nut almond cookies that Mary Meyers makes are the best. I went home last night promising myself that I was going to make a batch, but I didn’t have almond paste, but here is the recipe. This one is from Food Network Kitchen.

Pignoli Cookies
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 7-oz tube almond paste (Odense brand is good)
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1 large egg white
1 cup pine nuts
Preheat to 300 degrees. Position racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Pulse flour, granulated sugar, confectioners’ sugar, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add almond paste and orange zest, pulse until fine crumbs form. With the motor running, slowly add egg white, process until dough comes together. You can also mix dough in a bowl with your fingers.
Put the pine nuts in a small bowl. Form tablespoonfuls of dough into balls with damp hands – you can use your cookie scoop for this – roll in pine nuts to coat completely. Arrange 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until light golden around the edge, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool completely on the baking sheets or they may fall apart.

The only difference between a flower and a weed is judgement. Wayne Dyer

On the way to the office this weekend, I saw what I thought was an old Falcon truck. I immediately called my sister (I love cellphones) to ask her if there was such a thing. Yes, there is. Now, I’m sitting at the office, reading about the Ford Falcon as described online …  entered the U.S. motoring public in October 1959, three-speed manual transmission (3 on the tree), base price was just under $2,000, it could handle six passengers and go 30 miles on a gallon of gas, which was totally unheard of then. The Falcon Wagon was introduced a few months later in January 1960 and the Falcon Ranchero with the open-bed pickup body was introduced a few months after that, based on the 2-door wagon and considered to be the world’s first mini-truck. Daddy had a Falcon and I remember him telling me that instead of all gauges, it had, in his words only, idiot lights on the dash. In other words, as human beings, we were no longer smart enough to watch a gauge and know when a vehicle was crying for help. I was required to know how to change the oil in the Falcon, change a tire and I could gap spark plugs, because I always helped him work on our cars.  Still talking with my sister, Dani and I started reminiscing about daddy teaching us how to drive that white Falcon. I just remember trying to get the feel, sound, and timing down, to be able to shift gears at the right time and remember which direction I was supposed to go with that “H” on the column. When it was Dani’s turn to learn to drive, daddy took her to the levee in Dallas so she could practice going up and down the hill. She mentioned to me, in no uncertain terms, that she was scared to death, but he made her do it anyway. When I was either 14 or 15, he had me drive my mom’s station wagon from Shreveport, Louisiana to Dallas – at night, on a road under construction, in the rain, and wouldn’t let me slow down to a reasonable speed. I too, was scared to death, and believe that’s why I don’t like driving at night, in the rain, to this date. I always remembered my own past experiences when I was teaching my two kids to drive.  My son was very cautious and never in a hurry to get his license, while my daughter who is afraid of nothing, wanted to get her permit the first day she was eligible. Wish I had that Falcon sitting in my driveway now.

NBC’s Lester Holt (I have total trust in that man and would believe anything he reported to me), took his son to 30 Rock on Saturday mornings when he anchored Weekend Today, while Stefan was still in high school. In fact, Lester Holt started teaching his son how to drive in the parking lot of MSNBC. The 37-year-old Stefan Holt is now married with three children, working as an anchor at a Chicago NBC station. Describing his dad, he says, “From day one, he has been a constant support and my go-to confidant for advice on how to navigate our profession. He’s my mentor on being a great journalist, but also my example on how to be a great dad.” If you’re teaching your child how to drive in the near future, please make notes.

A husband surprised his wife with a night out to celebrate the anniversary of their first date. She was reminded of the man she fell in love with. They arrived at the theater and learned the movie was playing at a different location a full hour earlier. She was reminded of the man she married.

Nutrient depletion in soil can happen because of soil erosion, poor management practices or intensive agriculture. There are studies and great concerns about the depletion of nutrient-rich topsoil and the loss of nutrients like carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, but scientists are now warning about the depletion of potassium and how it could threaten global food security in our future if we don’t make plans to correct it. In a perfect world, the cows and chickens poop, fertilize the ground, then we plant the crops, then turn what’s left of the crops back into the soil, then the process starts all over again. Our grandparents taught us to compost and use Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) in our gardens. Organic compost is rich in magnesium. Without magnesium, chlorophyll is unable to capture the sun’s energy required for photosynthesis which means the leaves would never turn green. For potassium you can add kelp or seaweed, wood ash, compost, potash, and more. This is why it is recommended that you rotate your crops by not planting the exact same vegetables in the exact same spot year after year. Just saying. Without nutrients in the vegetables, your body will not get what it needs to run efficiently.

At my age ‘getting lucky’ means walking into a room and remembering what I came in for.  Unknown

Mexico City, with nearly 22 million people, is facing a severe water crisis and may be out of water by summer. The Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo movie,13 Going On 30, is 20 years old. One of my favorites. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of performer inductees for 2024 are Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & The Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, & A Tribe Called Quest. Musical Influence Awards includes Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton. Musical Excellence Awards include Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick, and Norman Whitfield. The Ahmet Ertegun Award goes to Suzanne de Passe. Everyone is talking about the cicadas and they don’t understand why this year is so big… two different broods of cicadas, one that lives on a 13-year emergence cycle and the other that lives on a 17-year cycle, will emerge at the same time after tunneling to the surface from underground when the soil reaches 64 degrees. That only happens every 221 years. Thomas Jefferson was president the last time this happened. I read that South Texas is quite safe. Aren’t you glad you have me around for such useless information.

Have a great week. Thank you for reading us. Sell something. I mean it!

LISA

Send comments to Lisa Baker at lisa@thesourceweekly.com