What I Heard This Week! 05-16-2019
On a recent trip to Waco, we stopped to fill up at Buc-ee’s on 290, of course. While the gas was pumping, I ran inside to get a cup of ice and there they were on the display cabinet. Boxes and boxes of animal crackers just like the ones we had as kids, but was it? No, the box is made just like the one we remember in the well-loved bright red and yellow, but instead of a circus boxcar, there is a vintage red pickup with wooden side rails that is holding a truck-bed full of animal cookies. They don’t taste exactly like the originals – a tiny bit sweeter, but that’s because the “assortment of 8 fun shaped cookies” have baked-in sprinkles. But they are made in the USA and we ate the whole box. Oh, and they are called Beaver Buddies. 😊
I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three. – Elayne Boosler
The Houston ship channel was temporarily closed after a 755-ft tanker carrying liquified natural gas, collided with a tugboat pushing two barges. One barge capsized and the other was damaged, leaking a gasoline product called reformate, a highly flammable chemical that is mixed with gasoline and is ‘extremely dangerous to marine life.’ You think?!? It contained benzene (a component of products derived from coal and petroleum), toluene (colorless flammable aromatic liquid obtained from coal tar or petroleum and used in aviation fuel and other high-octane fuels, in explosives, and as a solvent for gums and lacquers), and xylene (used as a solvent). Now the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has responded to a fish-kill report about 8 miles southwest of the collision, after juvenile fish, flounder, sheepshead, drum and blue crabs (about 1200 in all) were found washed ashore. One raccoon and birds had already been found on the barge, dead. Not good.
Seen on Facebook: Why do eggs come in flimsy Styrofoam cartons and batteries come in a package only a chainsaw can open?
Billy Houze adopted his daughter 27 years ago. Recently, when his kidneys began to fail and as he waited for an organ transplant, his own biological kids tested negative as a match. But then his adopted daughter tested as a perfect match. She says, “I’m not scared; this is a miracle. My dad has provided everything for me. He saved my life so I could save his.” Nice story.
Walmart and Sam’s Club stores will raise the minimum age for tobacco products and e-cigarettes to 21, in an effort to combat tobacco sales to minors. They will no longer sell fruit and dessert-flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems like Juul and other devices for vaping which attracts teenagers and young adults. The Centers for Disease Control reported that the use of electronic tobacco products increased by 38% last year among High School students and by 29% among middle school students. Hmmm. I understand and support decisions to help eliminate smoking of any kind, but if you are old enough to vote and determine who runs our government, then you should be old enough to determine whether you are doing something stupid to your body.
First Apple, then Amazon and now Microsoft just became the third US company to reach a market valuation of $1 trillion.
Useless Information: More and more women are hanging up their yoga pants and buying jeans according to newly released data. Shoppers bought 364 million pairs of women’s jeans last year, a 5% increase from the year before. I know you can rest easier this evening just having this little bit of useless information to store in your personal library.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Actor writer Alan Bennett is 85. The Lady in the Van. Singer musician Richie Furay is 75. Buffalo Springfield. Singer Billy Joel is 70. Blues singer musician Bob Margolin is 70. Muddy Waters. Actress Alley Mills is 68. The Wonder Years. Blues singer Herbie Murrell is 70. The Stylistics.
Actor Douglas Sheehan is 70. Second husband of Valene Ewing on Knots Landing. Pop singer Sheena Easton is 60. Actor Paul Guilfoyle is 70. Captain Jim Brass on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Actress Mary McDonnell is 67. Dances with Wolves. Actress Penelope Cruz is 45. TV personalities Drew and Jonathan Scott are 41.
Television host Stephen Colbert is 55. Musician Bono is 59. Actress Melissa Gilbert is 55. Singer Enrique Iglesias is 44. Actress Pat Carroll is 92. Known for voicing Ursula in The Little Mermaid. NBC newsman Brian Williams is 60. Baseball Hall of Fame Willie Mays is 88. TV host Tom Bergeron is 64. America’s Funniest Home Videos. Houston Astros infielder Jose Altuve is 29.
Naturalist Sir David Attenborough is 93. “I have seen for myself the effects of plastic pollution on some of our planet’s most precious species and natural places – an unfolding catastrophe that has been overlooked for too long,” he said. “But we ignore it at our peril.”
Tim Conway, very funny man, died this week at 85. I heard him described as the man that brought laughter to millions of us, from our heads to our toes. He WAS one of the funniest men on the planet. He said, “People enjoy sitting back knowing they won’t hear a lot of four-letter words. I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore. A lot of it isn’t the kind of thing you can feel comfortable watching with your kids. And I still feel that way even though, now, my kids are in their 30’s.” I’m remembering the dentist scene. He had been diagnosed with dementia last year and had lost his ability to speak.
Peggy Lipton, flower child, died at 72. Lipton revealed that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2004 and was treated. She was well-known through her role as Julie Barnes in the television series The Mod Squad for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1970. Thin with long, straight, blonde hair, clad in mini-skirts, bell bottoms, and love beads, Lipton’s Julie Barnes became a fashion icon and the hip “it” girl of her time. In 1974, after Lipton married musician and producer Quincy Jones, she took a hiatus from acting in order to concentrate on her family; daughters, Rashida and Kidada Jones, who became actresses.
Doris Day died at 97. She had been in excellent physical health, until recently when she contracted a serious case of pneumonia. She received an Academy Award nomination for Pillow Talk. At 46, she made her last movie, With Six You Get Eggroll. More than 50 years after she recorded Sentimental Journey with Les Brown and the Band of Renown in 1945, her version of the song made it into the Grammy Hall of Fame. “She conveyed a unique blend of innocent sexiness … that was not so much the woman next door as the woman you wished lived next door,” Times critic Charles Champlin wrote in 1988. When asked why she thought audiences had embraced her, Day once recalled, “I honestly believed every word of what I sang or spoke, and people respond to that.” Que Sera Sera.
Pteronophobia is the fear of being tickled by feathers.
A 400-year-old Geneva Bible, dating to 1615, that was stolen from the Carnegie Library last year, was recently recovered by FBI in the Netherlands. More than 300 rare books, maps, plate books, atlases and more were stolen by a former archivist and a rare book dealer – more than $8 million in books. The bible was similar to the one brought over on the Mayflower.
A North Carolina family adopted a 4-month-old golden retriever puppy as a pet for their newborn son. What happened next is the puppy, Maverick, became best-friend and support buddy to their 11-year-old golden retriever, Charlie, who had both eyes removed due to glaucoma. Maverick will even take Charlie’s leash in his mouth and go for walks. Super sweet story. They are now Instagram stars @charlieandmav.
California intends to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide in a class of organophosphates which is chemically similar to a nerve gas developed by Nazi Germany before WWII. A University of California at Berkeley study found that 87% of umbilical-cord blood samples tested from newborn babies contained detectable levels of the pesticide.
“Stupidity isn’t punishable by death. If it was, there would be quite a population drop.”
At our house, we are finding more and more ways to eliminate, well, eliminate might be a little strong. We are trying to find ways to give up single-use plastic. Heavy emphasis on the word ‘trying.’ It’s so hard. Single use plastic is everywhere because we are people that love convenience, but we need to pack up our ‘lazy’ and do something good for the world. The plastic spoons and forks were easy. We just don’t buy them anymore, at either the house or office. Sorry, Costco. When someone gives us plastic cutlery, we try to reuse them. We bought compostable spoons for emergencies, but we still wash and use them more than once. Drinks can be ordered with no straw and we bought paper straws for home. And my daughter has a metal straw that she carries in her backpack. But plastic sacks are everywhere. We started using our own grocery bags several years ago, but if you don’t take in an ample supply, then they have double and triple bagged your groceries before you know it. For Mother’s Day, my daughter bought me a container of organic cotton produce bags from Purifyou. On the package it says, “from durable, tightly woven, raw, unbleached and biodegradable cotton.” There are nine different size bags that are lightweight, machine-washable, see-through and state they can safely hold up to 11 pounds. These bags are versatile in use. I’ll let you know if I remember to take them into the store.
“Be an encourager. The world has plenty of critics already.” – Dave Willis
An Australian man who won a total $709,842.97 in a lottery jackpot said, “I’ve been playing these (same) numbers for 13 years. I dreamt them one night – they appeared in my dream. I woke up and wrote them down and I’ve been playing them ever since.” Hmmm. A very patient man.
“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.” Rita Mae Brown
A New York state new mother tested positive for opiates while she was in labor with her son. The hospital followed procedure and contacted Child Protective Services but very quickly it was determined that the mother had simply consumed a poppy seed bagel earlier in the day. Hmmm. Opium is derived from the poppy plant and has been known to cause false positives in drug tests.
During a traffic stop in Florida, a sheriff’s deputy was suspicious as he pulled over a 22-year-old driver and his girlfriend for running a stop sign. They said they had been collecting frogs and snakes under an overpass. After issuing a warning, the deputy asked to see what they had collected. They showed him 42 mud turtles and one soft shell turtle in the bed of their truck. Then the deputy asked if that was all? I can’t imagine what made him suspicious. The woman then pulled out a foot-long alligator that she had stuffed in her yoga pants. Yoga pants?!? They DO have such large pockets. I carry humongous items in my yoga pants all the time. Don’t you? I’m still giggling. Have a great weekend.
Thanks for reading this.
Lisa
