What I Heard This Week! 07-30-2020
Every once-in-a-while you read something that is so unbelievable. Read on. A woman in San Diego posted a photo of a Starbucks employee that had refused to serve her because she was not wearing a mask, despite a county public health mandate to wear one. She posted, “Next time I will wait for cops and bring a medical exemption.” (OK, but let’s talk about this time.) One kind person that read the post, which has now been deleted, started a GoFundMe for the barista, which collected over $100,000 in virtual tips. Now the woman says she wants half of the money that the barista earned when the story went viral. She spoke to lawyers, but they were too expensive, so SHE started a GoFundMe in an effort to raise money…to get half of his money. As Ricky Ricardo would say, ay-yi-yi-yi-yi!
My dream job would be driving the Karma bus.
There is an Atlantic weather system expected to develop into a tropical storm or depression. The next storm name in the Atlantic Hurricane season will be Isaias, pronounced ess-ah-EE-ahs. Some argue it should be pronounced eye-zay-uhs. I have no idea. I think it is Spanish and I can only count to 16 and order rum & coke in Spanish.
Shark Week will kick off August 9th with more than 20 hours of promised new programming during the 32nd annual event that lasts eight days on Discovery Channel. It seems that the pandemic lockdown, which has reduced the number of people playing or working in the oceans, “has given sharks the opportunity to reclaim the oceans.” Head over to SharkPickles.com, (yes, shark pickles – don’t ask, just look it up) for a tease of what iscoming. I promise it will be entertaining, to say the least. If nothing else, this gives us an excuse to re-watch the 1975 thriller, Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg.
A rare, unprovoked great white shark attack in the state of Maine, happened this week. The 63-year-old NYC woman, a seasonal resident, was swimming off the shore of Bailey Island and was rescued by two kayakers who took her to shore, but she did not make it. Let’s face it, a shark doesn’t know if you are a human or a big juicy seal, until they take a big taste out of you and she was wearing a wet suit, so she looked like a seal. Nature. They were here first. In Port Aransas, a 13-year-old boy caught a massive 11-foot, 6-inch, 844-pound tiger shark. The meat was split between 14 people who were on the boat.
A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting. Christian Dior
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals – Yankees Major League Baseball opener was not a pretty sight. In fact, it was hard to watch. He is definitely not a baseball player, just a super good sport, and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which I think he happens to be really good at. Topps decided that he deserved a first-pitch baseball card and sold them for a mere 24 hours, but during that time the sales broke company records. 51,512 cards sold during those few hours. It is a unique time in our world for sports and everything else I can think of. We are learning to celebrate in different ways. The company’s previous record was for a card of Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., which sold 19,396 copies and featured Guerrero’s first hit. $1.8 million was paid at auction this month for a LeBron James trading card showing him as a rookie from the 2003-04 season. It was the highest priced basketball card ever sold.
ALOT Travel website ranked Houston as the rudest city in Texas. Hmmm. Jammed freeways, unbelievable standstill rush hour traffic, mosquitoes, humid sticky weather…but I have to admit, there is some of the most delicious food in Houston, so perhaps Houston folks are just thinking about what they are going to eat next time, and therefore it just seems like they’re not very nice.
RECENT BIRTHDAYS: Lifestyle expert and domestic guru Martha Stewart is 79. She has a new HGTV show called Martha Knows Best, that premiers Friday. It will take you inside life on her NY farm, as she hands out home and gardening wisdom. TV producer Norman Lear is 98. All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jefferson’s, Good Times, Maude. Olympic gold medal figure skater Peggy Fleming is 72. Rock legend Mick Jagger is 77. Olympic gold medal figure skater Dorothy Hamill is 64.Rock singer Patti Scialfa is 65.Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.Actress Helen Mirren is 74.
Garfield creator Jim Davis is 75. Rock musician Roger Taylor is 71. Drummer for Queen.Actress Sally Struthers is 73. All in the Family. TV producer Dick Ebersol is 73. Co-created the long-running sketch comedy series, Saturday Night Live, with Lorne Michaels, in 1975. Rock musician Simon Kirke is 71. Bad Company. Rock musician Steve Morse is 66. Deep Purple. Documentary maker Ken Burnsis 65. Rock musician Neal Doughty is 72. REO Speedwagon. Arnold Schwarzenegger is 72. Actress Lisa Kudrow is 56. Friends. Chef Alton Brown is 57. Country singer Zac Brown is 41. Actor Wesley Snipes is 57. Actress Geraldine Chaplin is 75.Actress Sandra Bullock is 56.Style guru Tim Gunn is 65.
Olivia de Havilland, star of Gone with the Wind, died in her sleep at her home in Paris, at 104. The Hollywood legend was a two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress: 1946’s To Each His Own and 1950’s The Heiress. I just re-read her autobiography, Every Frenchman Has One, telling of her life in France. Peter Green, blues guitarist for early Fleetwood Mac, died at 73. He wrote the classics, Black Magic Woman and Oh, Well, and Albatross. Mick Fleetwood said, “he deserved a lion’s share of credit for the band’s success.”Regis Philbin died at 88, holding the Guinness World Record of 17,000-plus hours on TV.The star began his run as host of Live! with co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Kelly Ripa and served as the original host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
If you learn something new every day, you can teach something new every day.Martha Stewart
About a week ago, my son felt some abdominal pain that he suspected was appendicitis. Since his pediatrician had retired, we felt it was time to find a family practitioner for Gage. We called around, asked for suggestions, and were quite happy when Coastal Family Medicine could squeeze him in the next morning. Bingo. I wasn’t excited about him being in a doctor’s office right now with COVID on the loose, but he had done the research, and knew that his symptoms were serious. Little did I know what was coming. They sent him straight to the hospital for a CT scan and blood work, loaded him up and sent him straight to the Emergency Room. It was there that he received confirmation that yes, he needed to have his appendix removed. My sweet son FaceTimed me as they were telling him what needed to be done. They gave Gage a strong antibiotic and prepped him for surgery. The last thing I said to him was, “Don’t forget to send me all your passwords.” He laughed and I wanted to cry. My baby was going into surgery and I was sitting at my desk, literally twiddling my thumbs. The hospital called asking about our pharmacy of choice for the pain medication, so I was sitting at the drive-thru window of the Medicine Shoppe talking to Julie when my phone rang. The plan had been to pick up the prescription, then head immediately to the hospital parking lot and wait it out just like I did his first day of preschool in 1998. Gage was on the phone and announced he was ready to be picked up. I rushed over as he was being wheeled out of the ER entrance with a big smile. We loaded him up and his first request was rice pudding. “Mom, I didn’t plan on surgery when I left the house this morning, I’m starving.” Thank you so much to every single nurse and doctor that helped pull off an amazing ten hours without a hitch. It could not have been any more perfect than it happened. Emergency surgery during a pandemic, who would ever have imagined? Thank you Dr. Kovacev, Dr. Ritter,Casey, Katie, Courtney and anyone else I forgot!
Good news- Luby’s in LJ is now open again…daily from 11am to 7pm. That is a game changer for my family. Two girls, 17and 19-years-old, from Sugar Land, were swept off the Surfside jetties by a large wave as they attempted to walk down the rocks during storm Hanna but were rescued by nearby surfers.An 87-year-old woman mistakenly hit the gas and drove into a building on Parking Way, but no one was hurt. I believe I have hit the gas by mistake at least once in my life.A friend of mine had a motorcycle accident a couple of months ago and had to take a helicopter ride from the hospital in Bay City to Houston. He received a bill for $63,201.00 for that short ride. Yikes. His insurance covered the full amount, but he didn’t even get to enjoy the ride.
Tina went out in horrible rain today to pick up lunch and came back with an order of Popeye’s chicken and biscuits for me. I sat at my desk working on this column and picked at the food inside the bag for over an hour. Finally, I went back to the kitchen, took what was left of the chicken out of the bag and finished it off. It was so good. Then I came across this story about something that I have been waiting for my whole life…I guess. Eye roll. There is a Crocs shoe available that looks like a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and smells like chicken…on purpose. These are new shoes, not dumpster-diving treasures. Crocs’ limited-edition KFC clogs are now available for $60. They come with two drumstick-shaped charms that are made to resemble and smell like fried chicken. I bet Colonel Harland David Sanders is rolling over in his grave with laughter. ***Please note ***shoes are not for human consumption. 😊
All I am saying is, at any point during that ride through the desert, he could have given the horse a name.
This is hard for me to remember, so I will share in case you also have a difficult time. In LJ, if your garbage day is Tues. your heavy trash days are the 2nd and 4th Mon. If your garbage day is Mon. your heavy trash week is the 1st and 3rd Mon.of the month. Important because if you put it out on the wrong week, then you may get a citation. Now that I have your attention…If you are one of the several hundred people that illegally use the dumpsters that we pay for monthly in downtown LJ, please note that the city will not pick up your stained mattresses, rusted-out grills, broken furniture, pallets and left-over construction material from our property except every 4 to 6 weeks, so we have to mow around your stuff, look at it, admire it and wonder every single day where you received your manners, thinking that you can dispose of your unneeded stuff on someone else’s property. Just saying. I work in my garden and I see you all weekend long. I take pictures of your license plates. Some of you even have your names on the boxes you dump. That isa smart idea, just in case we need to get in touch with you…
Mark Tullos was the first to mention I had the airport runway directions wrong on the hijacked plane story last week. Connie agreed. Jeff Fourier sent pictures to Mark and they both agree that it was directly across the street from Popeye’s in what is now the Walmart parking lot. I stand corrected. Perhaps it was a taxi way that I remember seeing when I moved here. And I received much discussion this week about Things That Tell You the Truth:Small children, drunk people, and yoga pants. Thank you for notes and comments. I love it when I know you are reading this.Someone else sent me information on cow farts vs. cow burps. It is the burps that add to the methane, but truly small numbers in the whole scheme of things. It is unlikely that the use of lemon grass in the suggested amounts will do too much to produce an eco-friendly burger, but at least someone is trying to do their part.
Good. I see that you have been wearing your mask. Thank you, friends, and fellow citizens. Together we can do this, but it is a harder journey to do it and do it right, this time.193 new covid-19 cases in Brazoria County as of yesterday, 07-28-2020. One single day. Record number. We are heading in the wrong direction and doing so with astonishing speed. Hang on.
😊 Lisa
