A 58-year-old grandmother from England noticed an ulcer in her mouth last October and had to have nearly all of her tongue, the glands in her neck and multiple teeth removed in order to remove the cancer and save her life, but doctors were able to remove muscle, skin and a vein from her left arm and create a new tongue. There were 29 people involved in the operation but when she woke up, she could talk. Amazing.
Troop 352, based at First United Methodist Church in LJ, is up to 11 members in their all-girl troop. It’s the first girl-only troop in Southern Brazoria County and they still have room for more so grab your girl and get on over there. This is the first year that girls are allowed to join Scouts BSA. It’s about time. Scouting is fun.
You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd.
In the past, I have told you about the group I belong to, the Women’s Lecture Series where we meet 3-times a year, listen to a speaker and eat lunch. It’s the only organization I belong to where I just show up and eat. This month the speaker was best-selling author Shaunti Feldhahn. She was a former Wall Street analyst. After years of research, she is now able to explain to us that we are not nearly as kind as we think we are. Even very loving, giving, caring people have daily habits of unkindness that we don’t even recognize, which are sabotaging us without realizing it. I bought the book and I am GOING TO LEARN TO BE KIND. (it stresses being kind when you least want to be.)
If you want more kindness in the world, then put it there.
Debra Perry, my friend and State Farm neighbor next door, walked into my office and presented me with roses. Beautiful roses. Peach and red that are opened just perfectly. It’s that ‘kindness thing’that I ‘ve been talking about. Perfect example. Thank you, Debra. Now my job is to pay it forward. Hmmm. What shall I do?
Robert Ellis (local boy) released a new record “Texas Piano Man” (which is great) but the best song is Topo Chico. You’ve got to listen to it! White tux. I’ve tried to tell you in the past…I love this guy.
My son called last week about 5pm and asked me what I thought about him coming home from University of Houston for the evening so he could see our kitties. I said no! Absolutely not! Then very quickly added, “Oh, alright, but only if I can cook you a delicious steak, garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus.” He agreed. Ha-ha. What’s a mom to do when your kid wants to come home for the evening. I ran (literally) from the office to the grocery store, picked up my missing ingredients (steaks and cream for the potatoes) then stopped by the section where the individual beers live, because he and I enjoy having beer tastings – splitting new and different ice-cold beers and drinking from my Paw-Paw’s vintage Lone Star beer glasses with the roping cowboy on them. One beer I picked was a stout that was great BUT the other one was Saint Arnold Bishop’s Barrel 22, priced at $6.99 for ONE SINGLE BEER. Yikes. I set it back on the shelf, then decided YOLO. It says on the bottle, “With our Bishop’s Barrel series, we experiment with pairing our ales with a variety of different barrels, fruits or whatever else might strike our fancy. We age these in our barrel room anywhere from a few months to well over a year. This Saison Ale was aged in Chardonnay barrels with honey, peaches, apricots and Brettanomyces added.” It is so delicious. Since I can only afford to buy one beer at a time, there’s not a chance that I will abuse it, but I could sure get used to it.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Olympic gold-medal swimmer Mark Spitz is 69. After the Olympics, he was taking acting lessons, then read and screen tested for the part in the 1975 Jaws movie that ultimately went to Richard Dreyfuss. Spitz won seven gold medals in the 1972 Munich Games and his record stood until Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics.Actress Laura Dern is 52. Jurassic Park. Singer Sheryl Crow is 57. Actress Jennifer Aniston is 50. Actor Taylor Lautner is 27. Author Mary Higgins Clark is 91. #1 NY Times bestselling author and the ‘Queen of Suspense.’US Air Force Major General Charles E. “Chuck Yeager is 96. Actress Stockard Channing is 75.
Karl Lagerfeld, one of the era’s most respected and daring designers, died at 85. He had some great quotes.“I’m very much down to earth, just not this earth.”“I think tattoos are horrible. It’s like living in a Pucci dress full-time.” “Never use the word ‘cheap’. Today everybody can look chic in inexpensive clothes (the rich buy them too). There is good clothing design on every level today. You can be the chicest thing in the world in a T-shirt and jeans — it’s up to you.” “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life, so you bought some sweatpants.”
Lee Radziwill died of natural causes at the age of 85. She was Jackie Kennedy’s younger sister and a former princess. “Regrets? I think everyone has regrets, and people who say they haven’t, are either liars…or narcissists. There have been many things in my life to have regrets about, in the sense I wish I could have changed them, or somehow made them not happen. What I don’t have is envy.”Shirley Boone, married to legendary 1950’s singer Pat Boone for 65 years, died at age 84.Remember the picture of the sailor and the woman kissing in NY’s Time Square as people celebrated the end of WWII. The sailor was George Mendonsa who died just two days before his 96th birthday. He was living at an assisted living facility in Rhode Island with his wife of 70 years. The photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt became one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century.
One of our long-time newspaper carriers has been unable to run his route for the past two weeks so I have been delivering papers. First off, I am reminded of how much it takes to get a fresh paper to you each and every weekplus what a great job these guys do making sure the papers don’t blow away or get wet. One lady told me that one Thursday Alfred came back hours later to bring her fresh dry papers because it had rained since he dropped them in the very wee hours of the morning. He didn’t realize rain was forecasted and hadn’t covered the papers. This manmissed delivery only one week in20 years. I’ll repeat…one week in 20 years. Alfred, we will miss you. Your dedication has been so appreciated.
Tom’s Pawn Shop – On my journey to deliver the papers, I found something unique at Tom’s Pawn in Brazoria. It’s a Blessing Box in front of their Brazoria store. They have been my customer for years, so I don’t know why I’m surprised. They’re such good people. It’s a box with a glass door on it that says, “Take what you need, bring what you can, above all, Be Blessed,” and it’s full of canned goods. Hmmm.
A Virgin Atlantic flight from LA to London hit a record 801-mph, 35,000 feet over Pennsylvania, compliments of the jet stream, the high-altitude air current along which storms travel. Captain Peter James tweeted, “Never, ever seen this kind of tailwind in my life as a commercial pilot.” Although the plane didn’t remain in the “jet streak” – the zone of maximum wind embedded within the jet stream – for long, it still arrived 48 minutes early. Speed of sound is 767 MPH.
Blue Bell’s latest is Raspberry Fudge Brownie–It is almondice cream combined with fudge brownie chunks, flakes of dark chocolate with a raspberry sauce swirl. According to our in-office testers, it’ssome-kind-of-good.
Brian Wilson is one of my favorites. I thought you might enjoy this little bit of 53-year-old history, according to This Day in History: – From the very beginning, the Beach Boys had a sound that was unmistakably their own, but without resident genius Brian Wilson pushing them into deeper waters with his songwriting and production talents, songs like “Surfin’ Safari” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” might have been their greatest legacy. While the rest of the band toured during their mid-1960’s heyday, Wilson lost himself in the recording studio, creating the music for an album, Pet Sounds,that is widely regarded as one of the all-time best, and a single “Good Vibrations” – on which he lavished more time, attention and money than had ever been spent previously on a single recording. Brian Wilson rolled tape on take-one of “Good Vibrations”on February 17, 1966. Six months, four studios and $50,000 later, he finally completed his three-minute-and-thirty-nine-second symphony, pieced together from more than 90 hours of tape recorded during literally hundreds of sessions.
Brian Wilson began “Good Vibrations” that February night in 1966 with the intention of including it on Pet Sounds. Harmonica player Tommy Morgan recalled how those sessions would work: “You’d sit with a music stand with a blank piece of paper, waiting for Brian to give you your notes. He knew exactly what he wanted. He had every note in his head.” The problem was that Wilson had an awful lot of those notes in his head – notes for different keyboards, different strings, different percussion instruments and, most famously, notes for the most ‘different’ instrument ever to appear on a pop record: the otherworldly electric Theremin, an early electronic instrument previously heard only in movies like It Came from Outer Space. Emulating and ultimately outdoing his idol Phil Spector, Brian was building “Good Vibrations” into a massive wall of sound, and the further he went with it, the more it became clear that his vision for the record was too great to rush. Pet Sounds was released without “Good Vibrations” which Wilson returned to in earnest several months after his initial sessions.
When the rest of his fellow Beach Boys finally heard the track that Brian Wilson had been working on in seclusion for more than half a year, they were extremely enthusiastic, and “Good Vibrations” went on to become their third #1 hit single. It also turned out to be the last Beach Boys recording that Brian Wilson would fully participate in for years to come, as drugs, depression and mental illness derailed his career in the late-1960s.Taken from A Day in History. –
Downtown LJ Farmers Market. 110 Parking Place…it was their first weekend. Super cold but it was fun. Bread, eggs, chicken, vegetables, hot coffee, crafts, BBQ, and lots more. The golden beets and turnips were delicious. Free-range chicken was so good that I ate all 4 pieces when I roasted it two days later. The last two Saturdays, we have traveled to Angleton for Peach Street Farmers Market. Great veggies right now. Throw on a hat this Saturday and go visit them. We need to support our Farmer’s Markets.
We lost a great friend, customer and wonderful man this week. Mr. Ike Joe Talbot was involved in a car accident and passed away at the age of 93. We will miss him. We will miss his warm brownies. We will miss his great stories. In our often crazy, ugly world, he was both a gentleman and a gentleman.Oh, and he taught me how to wave on Facebook. I had no idea.
Look to your left for our Oscar Ballot. 24 categories, all presented live on Sunday evening. I always feel so stupid because I haven’t seen very many of the movies, but Sam Elliott is up for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and that is good enough for me. Have a great week-end and thanks so much for taking the time to read this.Lisa Baker
