USELESS INFO TUESDAY

~  In Indian culture, bindi is the ornamental red dot that adorns the forehead of Hindu women.

~  The Easter Lily originated in the Ryukyu Islands of southwestern Japan.

~  The Napa Valley was the first U.S. wine region to be granted "geographic indication status" by the European Union (2007).  The geographic recognition bars vintners from other regions from using the names Napa and Napa Valley on their products.

~  Tennis great Rafael Nadal generates and average of 3,200 revolutions per minute when he strikes a ball with his devastating forehand.  (and he's hot too!)  Roger Federer averages 2,500 rpm with his forehand.

THERE ARE THINGS THAT WE JUST CAN'T HANDLE....

...like a very tine tree frog in the Smoking Lounge (i.e. carport).  You can just barely make it out on the arm of the white plastic chair in the picture below.  And, no, that is not an Adirondack chair with arms that are 5" wide....that chair's arms are about 2" wide.  Yes, the frog is a tiny bit larger than a quarter but smaller than a half dollar.

And we were scared of it.  We being Rachel and myself.  We walked out, lit our cigs, I turned around and said "Is that a leaf?"  Rachel asked "where?" as I was bending down for a closer look.  "AHHHHH, IT'S A FROG!"

We both screamed and ran through the house to the back yard to finish smoking.  I know it is crazy.  I know I make fun of Rachel being deathly afraid of moths (one attacked me the other night - but that is a different story), but I do not like frogs.  It is not that I think it can hurt me or anything like that...I just, under no circumstances want one to touch me!

We kept looking out the window to see if it was still there, just like we did the the half of a field mouse sally left us, or the baby squirrel with no head, only this time, the frog was alive and well and haunting us from the arm of the plastic chair in the Smoking Lounge.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

I was sad to hear this week that ABC is cancelling two Soap Operas that were very dear to me in the 1980's - "All My Children" and "One Life To Live."  We would record them everyday and watch them after school.  Some of the great story lines I remember were...

~  The years of drama with Tad/Liza, Jenny/Greg, Greg/Liza, Tad/Liza's Mom, Jenny/Jesse (running away), Jesse/Angie....

~  Palmer Courtland and how much pain and grief he caused everyone, especially his daughter Nina and her husband Cliff

~  Hilarious Opal, Tad's Mom

~  Stuart/Adam Chandler

~  Of course, Erica Cain was always mixed up in everything

~  Loved the Buchanans on OLTL - Asa, Clint, Bo

~  Love how Asa always seemed to marry Bo's girlfriends - i.e. Delilah and Becky Lee Abbot

~  The whole Vicki/Nicki fiasco - OLTL did a lot of crazy things - time travel, split personality, visiting the afterlife...

~  Dorian Lord and Herb Callison

I have not watched these shows in years, probably at least 20 years, but it is still sad to hear they will not be on anymore.  You always knew at 12 o'clock noon you could turn on ABC and see Erica Cain (looking amazing like she did 20 years ago) messing with some one's life - love or otherwise.  Cheers to you ABC Soaps!

SOUTHERN FRIED THURSDAY

I came across an interesting quote while researching "hushpuppies."  I think it is very interesting that our beloved "soul food" seems pioneered by the American Indians. From Wikipedia...

Native Americans were using ground corn for cooking long before European explorers arrived in the New World. Southern Native American culture (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek) is the "cornerstone" of Southern cuisine. From their culture came one of the main staples of the Southern diet: corn (maize), either ground into meal or limed with an alkaline salt to make hominy, also called masa, in a Native American technology known as nixtamalization. Corn was used to make all kinds of dishes from the familiar cornbread and grits to liquors such as whiskey and moonshine, which were important trade items. Cornbread was popular during the American Civil War because it was very cheap and could be made in many different sizes and forms. It could be fashioned into high-rising, fluffy loaves or simply fried for a fast meal.



“ To a far greater degree than anyone realizes, several of the most important food dishes that the Southeastern Indians live on today is the "soul food" eaten by both black and white Southerners. Hominy, for example, is still eaten ... Sofkee live on as grits ... cornbread [is] used by Southern cooks ... Indian fritters ... variously known as "hoe cake", ... or "Johnny cake." ... Indian boiled cornbread is present in Southern cuisine as "corn meal dumplings", ... and as "hush puppies", ... Southerners cook their beans and field peas by boiling them, as did the Indians ... like the Indians they cure their meat and smoke it over hickory coals. ”


—- Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians.

It doesn't get much more Southern than that...

USELESS INFO TUESDAY

~  Before succeeding as an actor, Brad Pitt supported himself by dressing as a giant chicken to promote El Pollo Loco fast-food restaurants.

~  Gateway computers are packaged in white boxes covered with irregular black spots.  The design is intended to resemble the markings on Holstein cows - a tribute to the company's roots.  It was founded on a cattle farm in Sioux City, Iowa.

~  The largest insect that ever lived was a prehistoric dragonfly known by the Latin name Meganeuropsis Permiana.  It could have a wingspan of two and a half feet.  It weighed over a pound and lived about 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous period.

~  In U.S. history there has only been one time when two sitting senators ran against one another as major party candidates for president.  It was the 2008 election between Obama and McCain.

FUNNIEST THING I....

HEARD THIS WEEKEND:  J Big Dawes tell Pwebb, "I am like Jesus.  I love all dogs."

WATCHED THIS WEEKEND:  marathon of "Housewives of New Jersey:  Season 2"

SAW THIS WEEKEND:  the garden of eden on mine and TCW's street....and yes, "Adam" lives there.

ATE THIS WEEKEND:  rice cake - lightly salted (I love my rice cake!)

SOUTHERN FRIED THURSDAY

"All I can say is that there's a sweetness here, a Southern sweetness, that makes sweet music. . . . If I had to tell somebody who had never been to the South, who had never heard of soul music, what it was, I'd just have to tell him that it's music from the heart, from the pulse, from the innermost feeling. That's my soul; that's how I sing. And that's the South." – Al Green


“Yes, sir. I'm a real Southern boy. I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer.” – Billy Carter

“Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn't dream of interrupting you at golf.” – Harper Lee

“The summer picnic gave the ladies a chance to show off their baking hands. On the barbeque pit, chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat and a sauce whose recipe was guarded in the family like a scandalous affair.”– Maya Angelou

“Because I was born in the South, I am a Southerner. If I had been born in the North, the West or the Central Plains, I would be just a human being.” – Clyde Edgerton

USELESS INFO TUESDAY

~  A baby porcupine is called a porcupette.

~  In 2006, Bono, who formed a private equity group with five partners, purchased a 40% share in Forbes Media.  The equity group, Elevation, is named after a U2 song.

~  The only state highway that bans motor vehicles is on Mackinac Island, Michigan.  Travel on the scenic eight-mile long M-185 is restricted to foot, bike, horse and horse-drawn carriage.

~  In the Harry Potter books, galleons, sickles, and knuts are coins.  Galleons are gold; sickles, silver; and knuts, bronze.

~  New Orleans Mardi Gras borrowed its official colors - purple, green, and gold - from Russia's royal house of Romanov.  The colors were officially adopted after New Orleans organized it first Mardi Gras in 1872 to honor the visiting grand duke Alexis Romanov.

WEEKEND FACTS

1.  It was hot and the sun shone all weekend - yuck.
2.  Mexican train Friday night - I lost.
3.  Oysters, crab, alligator, fried pickles, fried green beans, beer, wine, race - good friends - good times!
4.  Read a good book.
5.  Rachel cooked dinner.
6.  Rachel had to go to the store 3 times because she kept buying the wrong ingredient.
7.  Rachel did the dishes - WOW.
8.  Undercover Boss - I cried.
9.  My friend left for Disney - jealous.
10.  Did not leave my house on Sunday - YAY.

SOUTHERN FRIED THURSDAY

From Wikipedia...

The Culture of the Southern United States, or Southern Culture, is a subculture of the United States that is perhaps America's most distinct, in the minds both of its residents and of those in other parts of the country. The combination of its unique history and the fact that many Southerners maintain—and even nurture—an identity separate from the rest of the country has led to its being the most studied and written about region of the United States.


"More than any other part of America, the South stands apart...Thousands of Northerners and foreigners have migrated to it...but Southerners they will not become. For this is still a place where you must have either been born or have 'people' there, to feel it is your native ground. "Natives will tell you this. They are proud to be Americans, but they are also proud to be Virginians, South Carolinians, Tennesseeans, Mississippians and Texans. But they are conscious of another loyalty too, one that transcends the usual ties of national patriotism and state pride. It is a loyalty to a place where habits are strong and memories are long. If those memories could speak, they would tell stories of a region powerfully shaped by its history and determined to pass it on to future generations."

– Tim Jacobson, Heritage of the South

AND THE WINNER IS...

..."I'm Just a Bill"  with 33.3% of the votes!  Yay!

Other favorites were "Conjunction Junction" (running second), "Three is a Magic Number" and "Interjections!"

Thanks for all who participated....and SHAME on L Big Dawes and Triple T for not remembering any "School House Rock!"  I think we should make them memorize "I'm Just a Bill" and perform it at our next big gathering! 

USELESS INFO TUESDAY

~  Henry Fonda once said, "How in the hell would you like to have been in this business for as long as I, and then have one of your kids win an Oscar before you did?"  His daughter Jane Fonda had won a Best Actress Oscar for "Klute" (1971).  He won an Oscar 10 years later for "On Golden Pond."

~  The bird pictured on the official flag and seal of Atlanta, Georgia is not a Falcon, Hawk or Thrasher (the name of pro sports teams in Atlanta), but a Phoenix.  The bird is shown rising from its ashes, symbolizing the city's rebirth after is was devastated by fire in 1864.

~  The winged woman depicted in the Emmy Award statuette is holding an atom.  According to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the statuette's wings represent the muse of art and the atom represents the electron of science.

~  In 1999 California's Disneyland transformed the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse into Tarzan's Treehouse.  The Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse had been a fixture in the Anaheim theme park since 1962.

~  The extra-long twin beds manufactured for college dorms are five inches longer than standard twin beds.  The standard twin is 39 by 75 inches; the extra-long twin is 39 by 80.

FUN FACTS FONDAY

1.  Yesterday was my Mom's 76th birthday.  We showered her with gifts, food and love.

2.  Started watching the Showtime Original Series "The Borgias" about a corrupt Pope in the 1400's.  Based on a true story, full of intrigue, murder, sex....need I go on?

3.  Domino's Pizza is gross.

4.  It is pouring down outside, so I am trapped in Huntsville.

5.  If I say to you "You break tiles" that means you are cool, great, the bomb, et cetera. (Shout out to Btut!)

6.  I hope I get to go to the beach this summer.

7.  I have a crush on Colin Firth.  I watched this movie Saturday night.  It was up for many awards too.  He was also nominated for Best Actor for this.  He won for the "Kings Speech." It was a fabulous movie...very deep...I loved it.

A few of my favorite quotes...

"A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be." - George

"Sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty." - Carlos

"If one is not enjoying one's present, there isn't a great deal to suggest that the future should be any better." - George



8.  I don't have a number eight.
9.  See number 8.
10.  Love

FLASH BACK FRIDAY

I started singing "Conjuction Junction, What's your function?" the other night on the couch.  Rachel is like "What in the world are you singing?"  I replied, "Conjuction, Junction" from School House Rock, remember?"  She replied no so....

...I started looking up all the old School House Rock videos on my phone and making her watch them!  I couldn't believe she had not heard of them.  I used to love seeing them on Saturday morning.  I also rmemeber when Saturday morning was the only time you could see cartoons on TV!  My fave SHR is "I'm Just a Bill."  I love the voice of that little bill, and the end when the big fat guy comes out of the White House and says "Congratulations, Bill, NOW YOU ARE A LAW!!!!"

I don't remember the first one above - My Hero Zero, but I do remember all the others.  I had forgotten about "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here!"  The grean YEA! one is the one for interjections...you know they show emotion...(oh know, I feel singing coming on)...

Hey! That smarts!

Ouch! That hurts!
Yow! That's not fair givin' a guy a shot down there!

So when you're happy (Hurray!) or sad (Aw!)
Or frightened (Eeeeeek!) or mad (Rats!)
Or excited (Wow!) or glad (Hey!)
An interjection starts a sentence right.

Interjections (Hey!) show excitement (Yow!) or emotion (Ouch!).
They're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point,
Or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong.

...Remeber how the last two lines were kind of spoken...in a soft voice.  Love it!

What was your favorite SHR?  Send me an email or comment and I will announce the most popular next week!

Rock On!