WEDNESDAY READER | September 21

Hi all !

Well tomorrow’s the first official day of Autumn.

I love change of seasons. Keeps everything interesting – new weather, new wardrobe options, comfort food, get to pop open the windows and enjoy the fresh air inside when Autumn finds its way back. Win-win.

Here’s today’s Read. Hope you enjoy and thanks for being here. Grateful.

Google Advertising Here

POP QUIZ

WHAT DOES A FARRIER DO FOR A HORSE?
a) Designs its saddle
b) Exercises it
c) Grooms it
d) Makes and fits its shoes
The “Kalevala” is an epic poem and nation symbol of what country that gained independence from Russia in 1917?
a) Armenia
b) Bulgaria
c) Estonia
d) Finland
The first extraterrestrial volcanic eruption observed by NASA scientists occurred in 1979 on Io, a moon of which planet?
a) Jupiter
b) Neptune
c) Saturn
d) Venus

QUICK QUESTION

WHAT HOUSEHOLD CHORE DO YOU AVOID?

POP QUIZ ANSWERS

d) A farrier makes and fits its shoes
d) The “Kalevala” is an epic poem and national symbol of Finland, which gained its independence from Russia in 1917
a) Jupiter

Google Advertising Here

FAMILY FEUD

WIFE. VERSUS. HUSBAND. HUSBAND. VERSUS. WIFE.

A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word.

An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position.

As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats and pigs, the husband asked, sarcastically, “Relatives of yours?”

“Yep,” she replied, “In-laws.”

WORK HARD IN SILENCE. LET SUCCESS BE YOUR NOISE.

(( Starve the landfills. Recycle.))

RIDDLE ME THIS

WHAT CAN YOU PUT IN A BUCKET TO MAKE IT WEIGH LESS?

Google Advertising Here

TAILGATE TATERS

No doubt there’s a reason why this tasty, infinitely versatile finger food has enjoyed such popularity. Although it could be dubbed “the appetizer of the ’80’s,” don’t hesitate to serve it at a Tailgate party with burgers, hot dogs or BBQ!

4 large baking potatoes
2 TBSP vegetable oil
1 TBSP Tabasco sauce
1/4 cup butter, melted
salt and pepper to taste

Rub cleaned, unpeeled potatoes with oil, prick all around with a sharp knife. Bake 425* until tender, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest about 15 minutes. Cut potatoes, lengthwise, into quarter sections. With a spoon, remove all but a thin layer of potato “pulp”. Place quartered shells on an oiled baking sheet and brush with mixture of Tabasco, butter, salt and pepper. Bake at 425* for 8-10 minutes more until crisp. Enjoy at room temperature.

~ Hippie Cowboy recipe box

RIDDLE ANSWER

A HOLE

Google Advertising Here

OPENING DOORS

“When one door closes, another opens.” — Alexander Graham Bell

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle

“Be an opener of doors.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Hodor!” — Hodor

There are so many quotations about doors in American culture that it seems as if the door is intrinsically linked to opportunity, success and person gain. And the builders of my home must have read and taken those sayings to heart, because my new house has more doors than walls. That is not an exaggeration. And when I say the builder must have read the door quotations, I mean all of them — the phrases, the idioms, the lyrics, from Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s door’ tp tje Mptpropis B.I.G.’s ‘Kicking in The Door.’ It’s the only explanation that makes sense for this fun house I now call home.

I believe that the original owner’s desire to reach the highest echelon of success sand opportunity led to the door craze that consumed our brick Federal. But the oddest thing to me is that this is not our first experience with buying a house from overzealous door lovers.

In our previous home, we had an extraneous door that drove my husband bonkers. Leading out to the backyard were lovely French doors. Directly next to them, leading to the very same place, was a single door. We guessed that the single swinger was original to the home and that when remodels were made, the previous owners decided to fancy the house up with some French doors. Why they decided to blast a new hole into the back of the house rather than just expand the space being used by the original door, I couldn’t say. Wondering why, my imagination soared. I suggested that the single door was access to a magical portal, like the wardrobe in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.’ But despite his love for C.S. Lewis, my husband didn’t see the magic; he saw an eyesore.

Knowing my husband’s history, he is coping quite well living in a home that could have inspired Jim Morrison’s band’s name. We have nine doors that lead into our home from the outside. Nine! And despite how many times I landed on “mansion” while playing MASH as as kid, I don’t even live in a McMansion. (To be fair, the game also often said I would marry Macaulay Culkin, so maybe it is better that all my 10-year-old wishes did not come true.) I’ve tried counting the doors inside the home, but I always get confused and lose track of the number. It’s not my fault; it’s as if we are living through Alice’s looking glass.

In many ways, this bizarro is delightful in its kookiness. The previous owner knocked a massive hole in the wall that divides the living room from the laundry room and placed an aquarium inside it. Once we actually buy fish, that kooky randomness will be much appreciated. But when it comes to the doors, well, it just gets confusing. We have doors that lead to nowhere. We have multiple doors that lead into the same tiny space. With my master closet, you walk in a door to get to the closet. Then you walk through a second door just to access a third door that brings you back to the closet you were in when you walked through the first door.

And no, the closet is not the size of an Olympic pool. In fact, it’s barely a walk-in closet. All the room that could have been used for walking space has been monopolized, by you guessed it, doors.

I wonder whether the harnessing of opportunistic energy by implementing surplus entryways was successful for the previous owner. Did he sell the house because after having walked through 30 doors daily, his entrepreneurial endeavors brought enough cash flow to buy an island? Maybe he knew that by letting one door close only to immediately have to open another door, he’d acquire the perseverance necessary for success. Or maybe he just worked in door sales and, like my 1-year old, really liked things that swing back and forth.

Either way, I’m going to embrace the crazy and make a point to use all of the doors in my house. Because really, what’s the point of having a door, literal or figurative, if you’re not going to walk through it?

FASCINATING STUFF

When the United States Mint expanded its 50 State Quarters Program to include the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories, D.C. leaders proposed three designs for consideration. The U.S. Mint immediately rejected all three because they included the motto, “Taxation Without Representation” (the motto that’s been on “Washington, D. C., license plates since 2000). Back to the proverbial drawing board they went for a design that was approved and minted in 2009: a depiction of legendary musician and a D.C. native Duke Ellington and the motto, “Justice for All.”
The Dempster Dumpster, introduced in the 1930s, revolutionized public sanitation by making it possible to collect and transport tons of refuse efficiently and with minimal manpower. Engineer and businessman, George Roby Dempster, inventor of the “Dempsy Dumpster, went onto become mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, in the 1950s. His namesake product became so ubiquitous that “dumpster” is now considered a generic term for any bin resembling that most functional and convenient trash receptacle.
From 1951 through 1990, the Nobel Peace Price had a rival: the Stalin (later Lenin) prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples, bestowed by the Soviet Union. Among its recipients were poet Pablo Neruda, artist Pablo Picasso and American civil right activist Angela Davis. Linus Pauling, also a Nobel laureate in chemistry, Sean McBride, a co-founder of Amnesty International, and former South African President Nelson Mandela have the rare distinction of receiving both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Lenin Peace Prize.
More than a mile wide and twice as high as Niagra Falls, with hundreds of millions of cubic meters of water cascading over its surface, Victoria Falls, on the Zambezi ‘River between Zambia and Zimbabwe — is one of the world’s great waterfalls. Nineteenth-century Scottish missionary/explorer David Lingstone named the falls for Queen Victoria, but of course, local people had their own name for the natural wonder. They called it Mosioa-Tunya, “the smoke that thunders.”