WEDNESDAY READER | June 22
Hello happy people – trust you’re busy preparing for all things summer now that it’s official as of yesterday. It’s gonna be a blast! Summertime always is. Has always been, in my mind. I present this Wednesday’s Read. Enjoy! Let’s go Laughing!
POP QUIZ
- CALLING ITSELF THE “ATHENS OF THE SOUTH,” WHICH U.S. CITY HAS A FULL SCALE REPLICA OF THE PARTHENON IN ITS CENTENNIAL PARK?
a) Atlanta b) Birmingham
c) Nashville d) Paducah
- IN 1851, WHICH U.S. STATE BECAME THE FIRST TO ENACT PROHIBITION, BANNING MANUFACTURE AND SALE OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES?
a) Connecticut b) Maine c) Missouri
d) Utah - WHERE DID THE NAME FOR THE SNICKERS CANDY BAR COME FROM?
a) Frank Mars nickname for his daughter
b) A thoroughbred racehorse
c) The sound of laughter d) The Mars family cat - IN AN EARLIER FORM, THE VIDEO GAME CHARACTER , MARIO, HAD WHAT NAME?
a) Alphonse b) Jumpman c) Pac-Man
d) Plumber man
QUICK QUESTION
IS YOUR LIFE CURRENTLY A SMOOTH RIDE OR AN OFF-ROAD ADVENTURE?
POP QUIZ ANSWERS
- c) Nashville
- b) Maine
- b) A thoroughbred horse
- b) Jumpman
GOT TO CHUCKLE
- Knowing that service people at certain national retail chains say “Welcome to _____” only because company policy forces them to do so.
- A tiny dog angrily barking at a huge dog as if it could kick its butt.
- Realizing that random strangers watched you trying to push open a door that reads PULL.
- Trying not to think about what you’re thinking about.
- The dozens of cars slowing down as they pass to watch the cop give you a ticket.
- When you go out of your way to let someone cut into your lane and not even a hand wave of thanks.
- Hysterically checking the places you’ve already checked in panic mode while searching for your wallet.
- Trying to ignore the sound that keeps you from falling asleep.
- Paying $2 for a soda that’s 70% ice.
- A sneeze that lingers in your nose and then absorbs to your forehead.
TO THE WORLD YOU MAY BE ONE PERSON – BUT TO ONE PERSON YOU MAY BE THE WORLD.
(( Starve the Landfills. Recycle.))
RIDDLE ME THIS
I’m so fast you can’t see me, though everyone else can see straight through me.
What am I?
FROSTY STRAWBERRY SQUARES
This recipe is excellent during the summer months as the temperatures climb and you want to cool down from the inside out. It relies on the tried and the tried-and-true pals – strawberries and Cool Whip.
Preheat oven to 375*
Crust:
1 stick butter, melted
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup chopped walnuts
In a small bowl, combine ingredients with a fork. Then, firmly press crumbly mixture into the bottom of a 13″ x 9″ x 2″ baking pan. Bake 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. When cool, break up mixture. Remove 1/3 of the mixture and reserve in a small container. Firmly press down remaining 2/3 of mixture in baking pan.
Frosty Strawberry filling:
1 – 10 ounce package frozen strawberries in juice, thawed
2/3 cup sugar
2 egg whites
Put strawberries + juice, sugar and egg whites in medium size bowl. Beat with hand mixer until all become light and fluffy. Fold in a small container of Cool-Whip by hand.
Gently pour strawberry mixed goodness over the 2/3 crust mixture. Sprinkle the reserved 1/3 over top.
Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until firm. When ready to serve, slice into squares. Ta-Da!
RIDDLE ANSWER
A blink of an eye.
ICE CREAM REBELLION
“I’m not touching you,” my 6-year-old said, holding a pillow a mere millimeter from my face after I demanded he stop hitting me with it.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said, beyond agitated.
“I know what I’m doing, too,” he said gleefully. “I’m not hitting you with the pillow just like you asked.”
He was so darn proud of his defiance that I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve always been a fan of small acts of rebellion and victimless crimes. My son lives in a world of rules, demands, structure, timelines and punishment. Was he being a punk with the pillow? Absolutely. Was he relishing in his act of defiance, which fell a mere wisp within the lines? Absolutely squared. And it’s hard to fault him for it. In my adult life — also full of rules, demands, structure, timelines and consequences — there is nothing sweeter than the feeling of getting away with something just a tad naughty. It’s why I still love to blow the paper off my straws — a pastime that may end soon, now that we think of straws as the devil in white-paper-tubed pajamas.
I’ve always taken immense pleasure in participating in and hearing stories of these micro-rebellions. The more innocuous they are the more my heart swells. They are, in my humble opinion, healthy — even the completely unhealthy ones that kids and adults engage in, such as sneaking a bowl of ice cream for breakfast.
Ice cream, the most scandalous of all dairy products, seems to be the epicenter of micro-rebellions — a point my friend Brian drove home when he had his own micro-rebellion at our friend’s wedding last weekend. The ceremony and reception took place on a cruise ship that was docked to load its new passengers for the week-long travels. The wedding couple were signed up for the seven days of disco nights and buffets.
The wedding guests, however, had only a few hours on the boat to attend the ceremony, cut the cake and get kicked off. There was an hour or so, though, when the wedding guests were allowed to walk freely around the boat prior to attending the ceremony. And that’s when the unlimited ice cream bar was discovered.
Soft serve your heart out!
Brian has always had a soft spot for soft serve. We were in college together, and I saw him on many occasions holding off breakfast until 11 a.m. — when they’d open up the soft serve machine — simply so he could use vanilla ice cream instead of milk on his breakfast cereal. It was an act of 18-year-old defiance against what his parents paid – meal card was intended for. When it comes to ice cream, all rules are off. On the cruise, he made himself demolish four cones before the guests were called in for the ceremony.
Immediately after the reception, the guests were escorted via security guard off the boat. The crew was careful not to have any stowaways for disembarkment an hour later. Brian had assumed the reception would have more soft serve. It did not. And here he was, so close to his favorite thing in the world but being pushed off the boat by rules and timeliness. It could not stand!
Brian was last in line of our friends exiting the boat, and before he stepped onto the plank, he made a run for it, screaming behind him, “I need one more cone!” It took him 20 minutes to run up two decks to the complete other side of the boat, fill up a fat cone, and make it back down to the plank. The sound of his name being called over the loud speaker caused him to grin, chocolate soft serve in the corners of his mouth. He wore it with pride as he stepped off the boat.
His wife smacked his arm and said, “Crazy person! What’d you do that for?” But Brian felt amazing. And it wasn’t just the ice cream that made him feel good. It was the specific kind of joy you have as a 6-year-old when your mom tells you to get the pillow off her face and you hold it a millimeter away.
I reluctantly welcome these micro-rebellions from my kid, but I have a feeling I’m going to need to pour myself a lot more ice cream for breakfast to survive them.
Katiedid Langrock archives – copyright 2018 Creators
Fascinating Stuff
- We wouldn’t have the Occupational Safety and Health Administration without Alice Hamilton, the first female faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a pioneer in industrial medicine and occupational health. Her work — studying and documenting the health histories of American workers exposed to dangerous, often lethal, industrial materials – led to the adoption of many 20th century workplace safety regulations. Hamilton died in 1970 at the age of 101. A few months later, President Richard Nixon signed that act that established OSHA.
- Traverse City, Michigan, bills itself as Cherry Capital of the world. French settlers from Normandy who settled along the St. Lawrence River were the first to plant cherry trees in Michigan. Turns out Lake Michigan keeps temperatures mild enough in winter and cool enough in summer to allow the trees to flourish, and flourish they do. Today some 3.8 million trees in and around Traverse City produce 75% of the U.S. tart cherry crop.
- Turkish Angora cats are considered a national treasure in Turkey, but they almost disappeared in the early 20th century. Lackadaisical breeders determined that Turkish Angora cats were merely Persian cats with more desirable coats, and they crossbred the two until the Turkish Angoras were nearly bred out of existence. That’s when the city zoo in Ankara, Turkey, stepped in to rescue its namesake breed (Angora being an earlier name for Ankara) and return it to its rightful place in the feline world.
- Mr. Bigglesworth in the “Austin Powers” movies was played by a hairless Sphynx cat named Ted Nudegent. (Get it? Nude
- Gent.) His stand-in cat was a cat named Mel Gibskin.
- In 1901, New York became the first state to require automobile owners to register their cars and put license plates on them. By 1918, all states required license plates for cars, but not all required licenses for the drivers themselves.
- Leslie Elman, Trivia Bits archives, trademark
