Archives for 2022

If something is good there will soon be someone to come in and mess it up.  It is what we humans do!

• The Internet: What a wonderful communication tool, soon filled with predators, scam artists and insane conspiracy theorists.
• Email: Instant communication; no waste, postage or delays; our inboxes now overflowing with ads, spam, viruses, offers of help with ED and male enhancement (how do they know?).
• Facebook:  Fantastic way to share pictures and thoughts with family and friends now a tool to track you; a breeding ground for lies and political unrest and ceaseless ads.
• Oreos:  No need for pumpkin spice or mint and Cap’n Crunch: what lame brain thought of crunchberries?  Yuk.  But at least they kept the originals as well!

Yes, we need to go to the food aisle to find some consistency and comfort in this maddening world.  There are some things that, although many have tried, cannot be topped.

• Jiffy Cornbread: Adding milk and an egg delivers a sweet, moist delicacy.  Keep your recipes from Granny in Louisiana that yields dry, crumbly dust.
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese: The original elbow macaroni, no weird shaped pasta. Add milk and butter only.  Le Châtelain Brie, Blue d’Auvergne and Camembert belong on a tray with French Mini-toasts and a fine Cabernet, not on elbow shaped pasta.
• Duncan Hines Brownie Mix: In the interest of full disclosure Betty Crocker and Pillsbury mixes make the grade as well (crispier corners with DH).  Any top brand mix beats the often dry “made from scratch” brownies.  (Yes, you may have a member of the family that is the exception to the rule and creates a moist treat, but why bother?
• Best Foods Mayonnaise: AKA Hellman’s,  No question here.  If you are going to slather your salads and sandwiches with artery clogging hydrogenated  fat, may as well taste good and there is none better.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  

Reactionaries, racists, white supremacists and all-around douchebag wastes of humanity: This is your day to celebrate one of the darkest days in American History.  This is the day we learned just how huge a percentage of American citizens are ignorant, hateful sheep,  worshipping an insane Russian puppet bent on forming an oligarchy to feed his insatiable ego and serial narcissism, even at the cost of our tattered Constitution and dwindling freedom.

There is always hope.  Perhaps during your celebration you will need help and there will be no one around familiar with the Heimlich Maneuver.

They do not write great lyrics like that today!

Listening to contemporary music with its trashy lyrics and atonal non-melodies sends me into a nostalgia frenzy, pining for the good old days.  A time when lyrics were poetic, even uplifting and the day flew by with you humming a lilting melody that magically encased the words in an ethereal glow.  Life was worth living.

And I’ll never forget this immortal tune:
          “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
           A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
           Yes! Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
           A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?”

To this day, when I hear these exquisite words (sniff), I am transported.

Still, when I think Blues, I don’t think music.  Like millions of others around the globe my heart and mind go immediately to the real standard-bearers of True Blue, The Smurfs.  We are mesmerized by the wisdom and experience of Papa; the soft curves and flowing blond hair of Smurfette; the loveable irascibility of Grouchy Smurf; the MENSA-like insights of Brainy Smurf and the side-splitting humor of Jokey Smurf.

Long after the fleeting popularity of the blues fade away with the other disappearing genes of music like country-western, pop and rap, the Smurfs will carry the term Blues into the next millennium.

For those of you that know Linda and her not-so-secret love of this specific confection, will understand what a joyous day it is in our home. I believe this holiday might not have gotten the recognition of other holidays because it is still the first Monday of the year and you probably had to go back to work.  (Emphasis on YOU as I did not…have I mentioned I’m retired?)

Good news for my readers in Nigeria though as the Federal Government has declared January 3, 2022, as a public holiday in celebration of the New Year! 
There is always Joy somewhere in the world; some days you might just have to look a little harder.

At Last, a New Year’s Resolution I can achieve!  While getting to the gym on a regular basis has been a challenge, I am able to muster the energy and focus required to go the App Store!
I took the email advice and downloaded an array of active apps to get me to my fitness goal.  In my world, fitness goal is interchangeable with weight loss goal.  I chose Strava, MyFitnessPal, Calm, Meditopia, Freeletyics, 30 Day Fitness, Pedometer, Health, FitOn, Asana Rebel, Noom (to replace Gloom and Doom) & HIIT. (There are other helpful apps but I was afraid downloading anymore might make my iPhone too heavy to carry).

Whew!  New Year’s Resolution #1 done!  Now I just sit back and relax while the weight effortlessly melts away, Right?

Seems simple, right?  But a wise man once said, “Learn something new each day and you will have gained at lease 365 new bits of information in a year!”  Deep.  Can you figure out why, by adhering to this principle, you might learn 366 facts every fourth year?  While you ruminate on that conundrum let’s get back to the lesson at hand.

Ever since the advent of the Gregorian Calendar,  in use since its inception in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a reform of the Julian calendar, it has been accepted that January 1st would be the time for adding one to the previous year; for example 1582 would become 1583; 1584 would then become 1585 and so on, etc.), and that specific day was to be called New Year’s Day.  This was a revolutionary development as the previous method of tracking years, the Julian Calendar, began the year with the number 1, causing confusion among the masses as many citizens mistook the single digit  for an I or a lowercase L.  It became the norm for a supervisor to hear the excuse from an employee who had not shown up for work the previous day, “Sorry, I though yesterday was L.”

All that ended when Pope Gregory named the fist month January as a tribute to the two-faced Roman God Janus, also said to be the Patron Saint of the Republican Party.  The first day of January became very easy to identify as the beginning of the new year and centuries later is still known as New Years Day.  Next year we will delve even further back in history to learn why many a college bowl game takes place on this day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!