What I Heard This Week! 05-14-2020
You may have heard the story about Utah police pulling over a five-year-old that was cruising down I-15 to California so he could buy a Lamborghini. He had recently argued with his parents and his mother said she would not buy him a Lamborghini, so he took $3.00 and his parent’s Dodge Journey and drove away to buy it himself. The officer that stopped him is heard saying, “How old are you? You’re five-years-old? Wow … Where did you learn to drive a car?” Well, now a local businessman decided that the kid displayed principles of success by knowing what he wanted and going after it, so he took him around the block (without a seatbelt) in his own Lamborghini because he sympathized with him. STOP. What a horrible way to discipline a child that could have been involved in an accident and hurt himself and others! You do not gift him by taking him riding in the problem. You blister his bottom…oops, I’m sorry. That just slipped out. I didn’t mean it. ☹ I meant to say, start taking away everything valuable to him but his bed, a pillow, a fork and cup. And you do not give anything back to him until you see a change. A blinding change and I am thinking that could take a while. This would be a great family to check on in ten years or so, just to see how they are doing. A five-year-old that knows enough to head in the right direction of a car dealership in another state, then to pull over when the cops start following him…bet he is not so cute when he is fifteen.
Don’t you hate how your hair always looks nicer at home than when you are out?
At a Dollar Store in Michigan, a shopper was told by an employee that they were asking all customers to wear masks, as the signs said that were posted in the store. The customer then walked over to the clerk and wiped his nose and face on her shirt sleeve as he said, “Here, I’ll use this as a mask.” Hmmm. I wonder if he would have done that to a male employee. Police say the man is facing an assault charge for the incident. On the other end of the spectrum is a story about a man in Florida, posting on social media that he was going to shoot up a grocery store because not enough people were wearing masks. A written threat is considered a second-degree felony. Stressful times for us all. I have a niece that works for H-E-B and she is verbally abused often as she babysits the front entrance and asks people to put on a mask.
Life is too short to worry about everything. If you love it, hold on. If you miss it, find it. If you are upset, let it go. Every second you doubt yourself is a moment wasted.
If Covid-19 was not enough, now we must worry about the “murder hornet.” In Japan, these hornets kill as many as 50 people a year and now, for the first time, they have been found in the U.S. The queens can grow to 2 inches long and have mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins that can wipe out an entire honeybee hive in just a couple of hours. They decapitate the bees and fly away with the thorax to feed their young. Scientists know that we have a noticeably short window of time to find these invaders and get rid of them, or all is lost. In Washington, traps have been set hoping to catch the queens. If they can locate them, there are plans to use radio frequency tags to monitor and follow them back to their nests. We need our bees.
The front page of the Houston Chronicle reads, Unemployment, literally off the charts.
A University of Pittsburgh researcher “on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV-2 infection…” was found in his home with gunshots to his head, neck, torso and extremities, in what appears to be a murder-suicide. The body of a second man was found in a parked car near the scene, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head. They say it was a feud over a woman. Hmmm.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Actress singer Ashley Judd is 52. Actress Glenda Jackson is 84. Singer Billy Joel is 71. Blues singer musician Bob Margolin is 71. Singer Adelle is 32.
Kraftwerk co-founder, Florian Schneider, died at 73 of cancer. The German band formed in 1968 with synthesizers, electric flute, electric guitar and violins, offering a new, industrialized, robotic sound that influenced generations of musicians. In 2014, they were given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Comedy legend Jerry Stiller died at 92. He and wife Anne Meara found success in the 60’s as a comedy team. In the 90’s he became the role of Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, where as a hothead, he invented ‘Festivus for the rest of us’ – his ‘own’ holiday.
Las Vegas legend, Roy Horn of the entertainment team of Siegfried & Roy, died at 75 from COVID-19. Horn was injured in October 2003 when a tiger named Montecore attacked him on stage at the Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. He had severe neck injuries, lost a lot of blood and later suffered a stroke. He underwent lengthy rehabilitation, but the attack ended the long-running Las Vegas strip production.
Little Richard, the rock & roll pioneer that inspired a generation of musicians, died of bone cancer at 87. He would have stood out at any time, but in the ‘50’s he was like no other. (He was a dishwasher at a Greyhound bus station for a period of time.) Little Richard was flamboyant, outrageous, wore make-up, and played the “devil’s music.” He was among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tutti Frutti, his breakthrough hit, was originally supposed to feature such lines as “Tutti Frutti, good booty,” but it was changed to something more acceptable for the time. In ‘57, after a tour in Australia, he was on a plane and believed that the engines were on fire, so he struck a deal with God. If the plane landed safely, he would abandon the devil’s music. He upheld his end of the bargain, enrolling in college and becoming a Seventh-day Adventist minister. A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom.
Love can often be like waiting for a train to arrive and then suddenly realizing you’re standing on the wrong platform. Michael Faudet
SEE PICTURE PAGE #2. They were called D.A.M. dolls when I was a kid. Recently, hidden in the back of a file cabinet, I found two of the dolls that I had purchased at a garage sale in the late 80’s. The little ones I had as a kid were so loved by me. I cut out and made clothes for them out of felt because it stretched. Their cute little arms did not move, so it made for difficult sewing. I remember attaching sequins, beads, snaps, embroidery and little elastic waisted skirts with hats to match. I learned to braid so I could fix their terribly unruly hair. Such memories. In 1959, the original doll was carved out of wood by a father for his daughter in Denmark, because he could not afford a Christmas gift. Thomas Dam was a fisherman and woodworker that very quickly began taking orders for these super popular Good Luck Troll dolls, but it took such a long time to carve one out of wood that he began producing the dolls in hard rubber and then later, vinyl. Dam’s plastic trolls were high quality toys, using real glass for eyes and Icelandic sheep’s wool for hair. By 1964, Dam’s production had increased so much that he was forced to purchase the entire wool harvest of Iceland just to make these dolls. After Troll dolls arrived in the U.S. in the early 60’s, they became one of the decade’s most popular toys. After a copyrighting error in the 60’s, the dolls were quickly copied by cheap imitators and involved much drama, until Dam regained the name and sold the worldwide rights to DreamWorks Animation in 2013. Over the years, rebranding has included Toy Story movies and being voiced by Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick in the Trolls animated movies. There you go, 61 years of Trolls in one paragraph and all because I opened a file cabinet and opened a sweet memory.
Harris county is now focusing on nursing home facilities. They have tested 15 facilities so far and found 194 positive cases of COVID-19. If my figures are correct, that is an average of about 13 cases per nursing home. If there are roughly 100 nursing homes in the county, that leaves 85 to be tested, multiplied by the 13 average, equals another possible 1100 that could be diagnosed. Yikes.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Interesting: In California’s Bay Area, there’s a new stipulation on wearing a mask. You can wear any style of mask you want, as long as it does not have a valve in it. Hmmm. A mask with a valve may protect you from pathogens in the air, but it does not protect the people around you from your breath. Some masks and respirators have a little plastic piece embedded in the fabric. It is a one-way valve. That means it closes when you breathe in, so pathogens cannot get in through it. But when you breathe out, this valve opens, creating a doorway for your exhalation to leave the mask. Interesting.
I sneezed in the bank today, it was the most attention I have received from the staff in the last 10 years.
Mark Cuban, owner of Dallas Mavericks, decided to hire secret shoppers to evaluate the rate that Dallas businesses were reopening and to see what precautions they are taking to make it safe for their employees and for patrons like him and his family. Only 36% of businesses reopened that first weekend and 96% of open stores were not compliant with the protocols, such as, “single-use condiments, marked waiting spots, and sanitized carts, as well as suggested protocols like contactless payments, at-risk group hours, and disinfected surfaces. They found that businesses followed only about 60% of mandatory protocols and 54% of the suggested protocols. For instance, one secret shopper noted that “the manager approached the table to ask how our meal was, not wearing a mask or gloves.” (Masks fall in the suggested category, so while that’s technically still compliant according to Texas’s rules, it goes against the CDC’s recommendations.)” Hmmm.
Justin Ross Harris, the Georgia man convicted of murdering his 2-month old son by intentionally leaving him in a hot car in 2014, is seeking a new trial. Harris left his son in the car all day while he worked and exchanged sexual text messages and nude photos with six different women, including a 16-year-old.
The FDA granted emergency authorization for the first at-home saliva collection kit to test for COVID-19. This would widen the ability for those that need to stay at home, to be tested.
Today I was checking on the Brazoria County COVID-19 At A Glance and was surprised at how many more cases there were of men having the virus, than women. Men: 64.13% to Women: 35.87%. Remember the Lava hand soap commercial? “Wash your hands, Roger.” Also, the graph line continues to move up. 686 total cases reported. Let us not become complacent in our excitement to get back to ‘normal’. Let us be cautiously optimistic…
Does a mask provide such a strong sense of security that people are becoming lax in protecting themselves in all the other ways that are recommended? Uhhh…like distancing. Sometimes things are meant with best intentions, but you must use your common sense along with the product. Pool floaties…if you cannot swim you should not use floaties…bad for the swimmer and the person in charge of the swimmer. Traffic crosswalks…do not trust that the other person is going to stop for you. Trampoline guards…nah, even bike helmets…you must also do your part…for your mommas, grandmas and children.
While you are home, find some items to sell and when this situation is over, please call us. Because you are hurting, we are hurting. Let us help you not only clean out your garage, closets and drawers, but also put some money in your pocket. Happy 50th Anniversary to my sweet friends, Marcie and Howard Allen.
Lisa
