The Guardian Angel

HEART, HUMOR, CHRISTMAS TRIVIA, MAC ’N CHEESE SOUP

Holly Jolly Wednesday greetings!

Christmas countdown is ON!  Are you ready?  Ready or not …

Presenting today’s episode and it’s packed full of awe-someness.

Beginning with —

If I had a boat I’d probably name it “IF”.  In honor of Rudyard Kipling’s poem which I have always loved  ** click here – IF **

The Hitchhiker by the one and only Jerry Clower is hilarious!

Music for your (our) ears — this performance of Angels From the Realms of Glory is hands down the most beautiful rendition in my opinion.

Mac ‘n Cheese soup recipe is outstanding.  Try it — you’ll love it.

Tracy Beckerman’s slice of life column and Leslie Elman’s fascinating trivia collection never fail!  Both so talented in what they write.

Super grateful for your valuable time popping in and giving us a read + thoughts + comments.  Gift.

Have a great week.
Catch ya on Friday.
Same time.  Same place.

POP QUIZ

  1.  “KID, THE NEXT TIME I SAY, ‘LET’S GO SOMEPLACE LIKE BOLIVIA,’  LET’S GO SOMEPLACE LIKE BOLIVIA,”  IS A LINE FROM WHICH 1969 MOVIE?
    a) “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”
    b) “Easy Rider”
    c) “Hello, Dolly”
    d) “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”
  2.  WHICH 1980s CHARACTER CAME FROM THE FICTIONAL PLANET MELMAC?”
    a) ALF
    b) Data
    c) Lennier
    d) Max Headroom
  3. THE AROOSTOOK WAR AND WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY INVOLVED A DISPUTED BOUNDARY BETWEEN WHAT PLACES?
    a) Kansas and Missouri
    b) Maine and new Brunswick, Canada
    c) Montana and Saskatchewan
    d) Texas and Mexico
Holiday Special Stories

QUICK QUESTION

IF YOU HAD A BOAT, WHAT WOULD YOU NAME IT?

Holiday Special Stories

POP QUIZ ANSWERS

  1. “Kid the next time I say, ‘Let’s go someplace like Bolivia,’  let’s go someplace like Bolivia,” is a line from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
  2.  ALF came from the fictional planet Melmac.
  3.  The Aroostook War and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty involved a disputed boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, Canada.

COPYRIGHT 2023 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

THE HITCHHIKER
BY JERRY CLOWER

When I was a student at Mississippi State University, a traveling salesman up and left Starkville, Mississippi, and went over into west Alabama and was calling on customers.  He got sick and died.  Well, they dispatched a hearse from the funeral home in Starkville to go pick up this traveling salesman.

They loaded him up and two fellows started back to Starkville with him.  They stopped in Columbus about sundown to get a Coca-Cola.  The man that wasn’t driving said, “I’m just going to stay in the hearse.  I’ll watch the body.  I don’t want nothing.”

The driver got out, went to the restroom, got him a Coke, and while he was gone a fellow come up and pecked on the glass.  The man sitting in the hearse said, “May I help you?”

He said, “I need a ride to Starkville bad.  I see an Okibbeha County tag on this hearse, and, man, I need to get home.  It’s an emergency.”

The fellow said, “Well, man, we’ve got a body back there in the back, and this is just a two-seater up here.  There’s no way you can ride with us unless you get back there with the corpse.”

He said, “Man, I’ll hang on to the top of this thing if you will let me get back to Starkville.  I need a ride bad.”

He said, “Well, I’ll open the back door for you.  You scrooch down, sit down right here in this corner, right behind the driver, and we’ll give you a ride.”  The man got settled, and the driver come out of the restroom, sat down and took off, doing about eighty five miles an hour.  The other man ain’t told the driver about the hitchhiker.

That thing was just eating that prairie country up to Okibbeha County, Mississippi.  That big old Cadillac just flew across there.

Suddenly this hand come through the curtain and grabbed the driver of the hearse, and he said, “Buddy, is it all right to smoke back here?”

The driver just opened the door and stepped out.

~ Copyright 1992 Jerry Clower
used with permission University Press of Mississippi

THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WILL TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN’T.
WHAT YOU’VE GOT TO DO IS TURN AROUND AND SAY,
“WATCH ME!”

MUSIC FOR YOUR EARS

Angels From The Realms of Glory

RIDDLE ME THIS

WHAT OCCURS ONCE IN A MINUTE, TWICE IN A MOMENT, AND NEVER IN 1,000 YEARS?

Holiday Special Stories

MAC ’N CHEESE SOUP

Delicious Mac ‘n Cheese in a bowl — soup style!

Here’s how we do it:

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/2 cups dry elbow macaroni
  • 1/2 cups minced yellow onion
  • 1/2 cup minced celery
  • 2 TBSP butter
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 tsp dry mustard
  • 1/8 tsp nutmet
  • 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 4 cups sharp cheddar cheese, hand grated from a block (don’t use pre-packaged shredded cheese — it just won’t work in this recipe.)
  • 1 TBSP fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup bleu cheese crumbles
  • 2 TBSP minced fresh chives

COOK
Elbow macaroni according to package directions.  Drain and reserve.

SAUTE
Onion and celery in butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until soft.  About 5 minutes.  Stir in flour to coat, 1 minute.

DEGLAZE
Pan with wine and simmer until nearly evaporated.  Stir in broth, mustard, nutmeg and cayenne.

SIMMER
Mixture until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

ADD
Grated cheese – 1/2 cup at a time, allowing cheese to melt completely before adding remaining cheese.

STIR
In macaroni, lemon juice plus salt and pepper to taste.

COMBINE
Bleu cheese crumbles and chives in a small bowl

LADLE
Soup in bowls for serving and garnish each with bleu cheese/chives.

PERFECT SIDEKICKS
Mini ham sandwiches
Fried chicken strips
Sweet apple slices

~ Hippie Cowboy recipe box

RIDDLE ANSWER

THE LETTER ‘M’

The Williston Graphic

LOST IN SUBURBIA

IT’S ALL IN THE BAG
BY TRACY BECKERMAN

Someone once told me that God gave women handbags because He knew, of the two sexes, women would be the ones who would know what to put in the bags in case of an emergency.  This probably started with the apples we stole from the Garden of Eden, but we won’t go there.

In terms of being a mother, some of your bag expertise is intuitive and some of it comes from experience.  When my kids were little, I had the usual first aid items like bandages, antiseptic wipes and anti-itch cream.  Then there were the sensible things like tissues, safety pins and stain-remover sticks.  There were also food items for the occasional hunger-related meltdown, like gummy candies, cheddar fish and fruit roll-ups.  Lastly, I had the atypical things, like jars of slime, dead crickets, and smelling salts (for me, when I saw the dead crickets in my bag).

Once your kids are older, your bag typically goes back to being your own.

Oddly enough, though, while fewer things go in, more things come out.  And when I say more, I mean your money, which is not spent by you but rather taken out of your wallet under the darkness of night by a teenager in desperate need of pizza.

At some point your kids move out, and and that is when you think you can carry what you need in your bag.

But you’re wrong.

“Hey, honey, can you put my wallet and keys in your bag?” asked my husband as we got ready to leave to go to lunch.  I happened to be carrying a smaller bag that day because I didn’t have all that much to put into it.  It was a nice change from the piano-sized bag I usually carry to lug around all my stuff.

“OK, but I don’t really have room for anything else,” I said, not wanting to change bags to accommodate his added things.

“No problem,” he said.

As we got to the door, though, he stopped.

“Oh, I forgot my sunglasses.”

“But it’s not sunny,” I argued.

“It may be later,” he said, grabbing his sunglasses.  “Can you put these in your bag?”

I narrowed my eyes and took his glasses, stuffing them into my already overstuffed bag with my own wallet, my own keys, my own sunglasses and all the other things I brought in case of things like fingernail catastrophe, freak hailstorm or floss crisis.

“Also, I’m almost out of juice on my phone,” he added.  “Can you stick this charger in your bag?”  He handed me a portable charger the size of the phone itself.

I found one last side pocket in my bag with just enough room left for his charger, and stuck it in.  My small bag was now bulging and weighed double when we started.  This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because the next time my husband asked me to carry something, my bag would pack a greater punch when I hit him with it.

“You know what?” he said.  “I think I should bring some suntan lotion, too.  Can you fit that in your bag?”

At this point, I really wasn’t sure what was going to explode first — my bag or my head.

“No,” I said firmly.  “The bag is full.”

“Can you bring a bigger bag?” he asked.

“I certainly can,” I replied, grabbing a larger bag from the closet.
“… and you can carry it.”

~ Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon:  A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble.”
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

Fascinating Stuff

FASCINATING STUFF

  • Before the federal government took over the job of printing paper currency in 1861, individual banks designed and issued currency.  Around Christmastime, a number of banks from Maine to Wisconsin issued Santa Claus banknotes that bore illustrations of Saint Nick, sometimes adapted from Currier and Ives engravings.  They’re no longer legal tender, but Santa Claus banknotes have been known to fetch a fine price among collectors.
  • Every year since 1900, the Audubon Society has conducted a Christmas Bird Count with birders and “citizen scientists” making a tally in their local areas of the species they spot and how many of each they see.  It’s the longest-running wildlife census on Earth.  The first Christmas Bird Count was done by 27 volunteers across North America, spotting 89 species and a total of nearly 18,500 individual birds.  The most recent Christmas bird count involved 76,800 volunteers worldwide — more than 58,000 in the United States alone — counted 2,544 species and more than 42.8 million individual birds.
  • Of all the nuts in the world, pecans are the one tree nut that’s native to North America, growing wild throughout the United States.  There are now about 400,000 acres of American pecan orchards, plated and tended by growers, producing nearly 300 million pounds of pecans a year.  Americans eat about a half-pound per person per year, mostly in fall and winter, which is pecan harvest time.
  • Kids in Iceland don’t complain when they receive clothing for Christmas.  New clothes — whether an entire outfit or simply a pair of socks — protect them from the evil Yule Cat, who, according to legend prowls around and eats children who don’t wear new clothes for Christmas.  The peculiar legend might have come from a heartfelt intention:  encouraging people to donate clothing to the poor so that everyone has a fresh outfit to wear at Christmas.

~ COPYRIGHT LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Wednesday Reader December 20

8 replies
  4. Marty says:

    IF YOU HAD A BOAT, WHAT WOULD YOU NAME IT? Answer, “Scaredy-Cat” The only boat I want is one that stays close to shore, like a tiny, little fishing boat. To put me on a sail boat or deep sea fishing boat would be like something from a horror movie.

Comments are closed.

8 replies
  4. Marty says:

    IF YOU HAD A BOAT, WHAT WOULD YOU NAME IT? Answer, “Scaredy-Cat” The only boat I want is one that stays close to shore, like a tiny, little fishing boat. To put me on a sail boat or deep sea fishing boat would be like something from a horror movie.

Comments are closed.