Wednesday Reader November 1st

TRIVIA + FASCINATING FACTS + HILARIOUS COLUMNIST TRACY BECKERMAN + 2 RECIPES

HELLO FRIENDS AND HELLO 1st DAY OF NOVEMBER
FROM CHERYL

Greetings all!
How did last night go — meaning trick or treaters or a get-together somewhere?

Well — I sure failed miserably.  I had written in a previous post that I’d not had a trick-or-treater in more than 25 years but I always bought a bag of candy just in case.

I didn’t buy the candy this year and guess what happened?

Doorbell rang and there was my little neighbor pal Edgar Jr all dressed up doing the trick or treat thing.  And there I stood empty candy handed.

He smiled and said, “That’s okay.”

BOO on me!   That’ll never happen again.  Halloween lesson learned.

Great Episode today!

Beginning with QUICK QUESTION
What do I think everybody should possess?
My answer – Self Reliance as in quick thinking and adapting to any situation that comes my way.  You?

FOUR ALL is a super intriguing, made ya think read.  Beginning with the author’s choice of title.  Not sure what Four All means.  Any ideas?

Instant Karma — smile and wave.  I find that if I smile and wave — 8 outta 10 people smile and wave back.

TWO RECIPES today!
Backstory — I was looking through my Hippie Cowboy recipe box (you’d LOL if you saw it — big as a shoe box and is not organized – ha!)

So looking through the bazillion recipe cards in that big box,  I found 2 recipes that I’d cut out from magazines years ago and had taped them to index cards.

Both are tried and true and really GOOD!

Tracy Beckerman – GOLD column about her tooth.  Funny stuff.

Leslie Elman’s trivia and Fascinating Facts never disappoints me.  Indeed FASCINATING never-knew-that-before info.

Thanks so much for sliding by today and giving us a read + sharing + caring.  WE APPRECIATE YOU!

Have a great day — catch ya on Friday.

Here we go!

POP Quiz

POP QUIZ

  1.  BLUE MOUNTAIN COFFEE IS AN OFFICIAL DESIGNATION FOR COFFEE GROWN IN WHAT COUNTRY?
    a)  Guatemala
    b)  Indonesia
    c)  Jamaica
    d)  Kenya
  2.  THE BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER HAS A MARK IN WHAT SHAPE ON ITS BACK?
    a)  Heart
    b)  Star
    c)  Thumbprint
    d)  Violin
  3.  THE WORD “TYCOON” COMES FROM A WORD MEANING “GREAT LORD” IN WHAT LANGUAGE?
    a)  Arabic
    b)  Hungarian
    c)  Icelandic
    d)  Japanese
Wednesday Reader November 1st

QUICK QUESTION

WHAT IS ONE ABILITY YOU BELIEVE EVERYBODY SHOULD  POSSESS?

Wednesday Reader November 1st

POP QUIZ ANSWERS

  1.  Blue Mountain coffee comes from Jamaica.
  2.   The brown recluse spider has a violin-shaped mark on its back.
  3.   The word “tycoon” comes from the Japanese word “taikun” (“great lord”), used to describe a rich, powerful person without royal blood.

~COPYRIGHT 2023 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

FOUR ALL

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

Some other reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English:

  1.   The bandage was wound around the wound.
  2.   The farm was used to produce produce.
  3.   The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
  4.   We must polish the Polish furniture.
  5.   He could lead if he would get the lead out.
  6.   The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
  7.   Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
  8.   At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
  9.   When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
  10.   I did not object to the object.
  11.   The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
  12.   There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
  13.   They were too close to the door to close it.
  14.   The buck does funny things when the does are present.
  15.   A seamstress and a sewer fell into a sewer line.
  16.   To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
  17.   The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
  18.   After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
  19.   Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
  20.   I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
  21.   How could I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
  22.   I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

~ courtesy and with permission
Poeticexpressions.co.uk
Thanks Mike and the Team!

ALMOST EVERYTHING WILL WORK AGAIN IF YOU UNPLUG IT FOR A FEW MINUTES, INCLUDING YOU.
~ Anne Lamott ~

(( Instant Karma: Smile and Wave. ))

RIDDLE ME THIS

IT BELONGS TO YOU, BUT OTHER PEOPLE USE IT
MORE THAN YOU DO.
WHAT IS IT?

Wednesday Reader November 1st

MAGIC COOKIE BARS + SHOE LEATHER MARINADE (!)

MAGIC COOKIE BARS

This is it!  The easy Eagle Brand classic that generations of moms have relied on to bring smiles all around!

PREP TIME: 10 minutes
BAKE:  25-30 minutes
MAKES 24-36 bars

HERE’S HOW WE MAKE THEM:

  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 1 (14-ounce) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
  • 2 cups (12 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 1/2 cups (3 1/2 ounces) flaked coconut
  • 1 cup chopped nuts (of choice)

PREHEAT OVEN TO 350*

IN A 13 x 9-inch baking pan – melt butter in oven for a few minutes.

REMOVE FROM OVEN AND ROTATE BUTTER EVENLY ON BOTTOM OF PAN — THEN —

  • Graham Cracker crumbs evenly over melted butter
  • Gently pour Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk over the crumbs

NEXT — SPRINKLE EVENLY OVER CRUMBS AND MILK

Chocolate chips
Coconut flakes
Chopped nuts

PRESS DOWN FIRMLY WITH A FORK

BAKE 25-30 MINUTES – UNTIL LIGHTLY BROWNED

REMOVE FROM OVEN

LET COOL AND THEN CUT INTO BARS

STORE LOOSELY COVERED AT ROOM TEMPERATURE ON THE COUNTER OR IN CUPBOARD
((think plastic wrap or tin foil))

ENJOY!

SHOE-LEATHER MARINADE

Recipe writer penned this, “My friend Beautiful Jenny named it because an old boot would taste great if you marinated it in this for an hour.”

HERE’S HOW WE DO IT:

  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 TBSP minced garlic
  • 1 TBSP fresh ginger, peeled and minced

IN A LARGE BOWL, WHISK TOGETHER ALL THE INGREDIENTS UNTIL WELL COMBINED

Will produce a scant 1 3/4 cups.  Pour marinade in a plastic zip bag and add red meat of choice and marinate for at least an hour – flipping bag around from time to time.

GRILL MEAT TO YOUR LIKING AND SERVE

RIDDLE ANSWER

YOUR NAME

Wednesday Reader November 1st

LOST IN SUBURBIA

AIN’T IT THE TOOTH
BY TRACY BECKERMAN

Most of the time, my tongue and my teeth are blissfully unaware of each other.  They each just do their thing, and everyone gets along just fine.  But then one day I lost the bonding on the back of my bottom front tooth and suddenly my tongue was all over it.  My tongue was like “tooth tooth tooth tooth tooth” all the time until it was raw and sore.  I was sure my tooth was antagonizing it, so finally I yelled, “Cut it out, Don’t MAKE me come back there!”

Naturally this happened at the end of a Friday and because it wasn’t technically an emergency, I had to wait three days to get it fixed.  In the meantime, my husband was blissfully unaware of my situation, or didn’t actually care, and ordered a pizza to eat while he watched “the game.”  I grabbed a slice, which was piping hot, and then thought better of it because I was sure if I burned the roof of my mouth, I would have a complete breakdown.

I knew that I had to do something about the situation until I could get to the dentist, so my tooth, my tongue and I all left the house and went to the drugstore.

I looked around the mouth aisle and didn’t see anything specifically made for when your tooth and tongue are fighting.  But then I remembered something.  The thing that made my children’s lives manageable through their orthodontic years.

Wax.

When their braces were scraping their cheeks, they would put a little piece of wax on the braces to create a shield.  THIS was going to save me from the tonguepocalypse.

At first, I couldn’t find the stuff, and I thought I was going to have to go to an orthodontist office disguised as a middle-schooler and get some there.  I thought if I wore a pair of Uggs with leggings and a puffer jacket while my face was buried in my cellphone, it just might work.

Fortunately, I spotted the wax very low on the display, in a tiny little plastic container, lined up in strips.

I grabbed one, paid for it and broke it open, and applied a little bit to my broken tooth.

The sun shone down.  The angels sang.  I had relief.

And then I swallowed it.

I broke off some more and applied that one.  And then I swallowed it.

Apparently, the stuff was very good at sticking to your teeth.  It just wasn’t very good at staying there.

I went home and repeated this process about 14 times throughout the day.  No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the wax to stay on.  At this point I thought I’d probably swallowed enough wax to grow a candle in my stomach.

“How’s the wax thing going?” asked my husband when he got home from an outing.

“It’s not,” I said glumly.

“Why?”

“The wax won’t stay put,” I said.  “I’ve swallowed enough wax to grow a candle in my stomach.”

“I’m really sorry, honey,” he said sympathetically.  “How about we get some ice cream to take your mind off it?”

“No, thanks,”  I said.  “I’m full.”

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

Fascinating Stuff

FASCINATING STUFF

  • In 1871, Canadian-born Englishwoman Lucy Walker became the first woman to reach the 14,692-foot summit of the Matterhorn, fifth-highest peak in the Alps.  Englishman Edward Whymper led an expedition up the Matterhorn five years earlier, but Lucy Walker’s climb was different:  She scaled the mountain as a proper Victorian lady ought to, dresses in a long flannel skirt.
  • Goliath birdeater tarantulas (Theraphosa blondi) are the largest spiders on Earth, weighing less than half a pound with leg spans of 11 inches and bodies nearly 5 inches long.  They sometimes eat birds, but they prefer frogs, toads, lizards and rodents.   You’re unlikely to encounter one of these beauties unless you happen to be trekking in the Amazon rainforest at night (they are nocturnal).  Some people do seek them out, though.  Then they roast them and eat them for snacks.
  • Charles Dickens’ “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” and Jane Austen’s “Sandition” are among literary works left uncompleted when their famous authors died.  Many writers request that their unfinished works be destroyed.  Literary executors, from the ancients who published Virgil’s (unfinished) “Aeneid” to Max Brod, who released “Amerika,” “The Trial” and “The Castle” after Franz Kafka’s death, often ignore those requests.  But when fantasy author Terry Pratchett, creator of the “Discworld” series died, his executors had his computer hard drive crushed by a steamroller, just as Pratchett requested.
  • In 1896, George R. Mann won a commission to design a capitol building for the state of Montana, to be built in Helena.   A year later, over allegations of corruption, the committee that awarded the commission was disbanded, and Mann’s design was abandoned for one that would cost less.  In 1899, Arkansas was soliciting designs for a new capitol building.  Mann submitted the plans he’d drawn for the Montana project, won the job and built his elegant neoclassical capitol in Little Rock instead.

~ COPYRIGHT 2023 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Day Maker Readable Art
10 replies
  1. Marty says:

    First of all t he beautiful art illustrations are breathtaking. Thank you!

    So the question asked, “WHAT IS ONE ABILITY YOU BELIEVE EVERYBODY SHOULD POSSESS?”. That’s easy, The ability to forgive! I knew a precious couple in Carmel, CA who got into a feud with the next door neighbor and he killed them both. Ohh there’s other people I have known that bicker back and forth and it, too, escalated into deaths. Unforgiveness is a beast. Therefore I choose forgiveness every time.

  2. Trent Garrison says:

    The one ability everyone should have is the ability to empathize. Love that question. Really made me think.

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