want a sip? didn't think so.

pat yourself on the back if you voted yesterday. if you didn't, grandma will get you.

phone scam

okay, well, i picked up my phone today to check whether it was someone i wanted to talk to or not (don't you hate people who do that?)( well, don't you hate people whom you suspect don't want to talk to you?), and there on my caller ID it said, "PHONE SCAM." no, i'm not kidding.

i can envision the conversation at the telephone company when these crooks went in to obtain telephone service. yes, we'll have call waiting, and voice mail, etc. "what would you like it to say on caller ID when you are calling someone?" well, what do you think? hmmmm. something simple, i guess. "what type of business is it?" well, it's a phone scam. that's good, let's just put "phone scam" on, shall we? yeah, that would be good. "phone scam."

just in case you didn't know.....

before and after



i am 60, going on 70, i've grow up! just like a lump.
the floor makes me trip, i land on my hip,
i've fallen! i can't get up!

i am 60 going on 70, once i was sweet and young,
now wrinkles and sags and crow's feet and bags:
what once was tight's now sprung.

totally unprepared am i for my man to retire.
bear him at home all day? can i?
just light my funeral pyre.

i need someone younger and stronger
taking me to the loo,
he is 60 going on 70, who'll take care of who?

a-one more time:

oh, i have eight cats, i crochet hats,
it's what you're supposed to do,
when you're 60 going on 70,
watch out! it's coming for you!

ok, i'm back, don't talk about it

THE WONDERFUL DOCTOR OF OZ

"We're off to see the doctor, the wonderful doctor of oz.
We hear he is a freak about germs if ever a freak there was.
Wear gloves to the grocery, don't eat the dip,
Don't touch your face with a fingertip.
Why, oh, why, cuz Dr. Oz is scared, scared of the everyday things he does.
(and he wants to be sure we're scared too. so there.)
But all the women love him,
The wonderful doctor of oz.

p.s.

perfect southern biscuits

2C self-rise flour, martha white or white lily
(OR 2C plain flour with 1 T b.p. and 1 t salt)
6 T cold lard
3/4 - 1 C full-fat buttermilk

flour in bowl. add lard. mix the lard very quickly with your fingers until the mixture looks like coarse meal. your goal in working quickly is to leave behind small bits of lard, which will melt during baking and leave light "flakes." if you don't work quickly and with a light hand, you will melt the lard. add smaller amount of buttermilk and mix with hands, lightly. do NOT knead. handle the dough, all through, lightly, keeping those little bits of lard intact. if you need more buttermilk, add.

turn out onto a floured surface. shape lightly into a circle about 1 inch thick. cut with a floured biscuit cutter. a drinking glass of the size you want, with the rim floured, works, too. put cut biscuits on buttered sheet and bake in the middle of the oven at 500 for about ten minutes. if you're like me and your oven smokes at 500, 450 for 15 minutes works just as well.

biscuits should be lightly golden. if you wish, brush with butter when they're hot. cut open and spread with more butter. in fact, when the biscuits are gone, eat the butter plain! rub the butter all over your.......sorry, i got carried away. i do like butter.

lardy, lardy, darothy, aren't we farchanate to be marmans!

i've never claimed that my parents were especially well brought up or well-educated. but one thing i know for sure is that somewhere in the lessons of childhood they failed to learn the appropriate definition of the word, "lard." somewhere in their lives, they came up with the idea that the word "lard" and the word "buttocks" could be used interchangably. for example, "move your lard and let me sit down." "get your lard out of the way: i can't see the tv." "will you get me some ice cream? sure, lardo."

i never realized that lard was a real product, prized for many good reasons by the southern cook.



i moved to north carolina about 33 years ago. at first, i enjoyed having an attitude which i have come to call the "california" attitude, i.e. making fun of everything and everybody, more or less without pausing. once i was asked to give a farewell for a family that was leaving here, and i gave them a gift so that they could have good southern cooking after they moved. it was the item pictured above. i just told them to add it to everything, and they would never miss the south.

now, that was in my snarky years. (aren't you glad those years are over?) now that i've lived here awhile and gained a deep and honest respect and admiration for southern people, i have learned to love southern cooking and lard. but now i know the more subtle flavors of the south. for example, you never put lard in green beans. are you kidding? only fat back, bacon, ham or other smoked pig fat will do.

now you may have a moral and physical (or even emotional or spiritual) repugnance for lard, and i, like everyone else, am trying to eat more healthy food. but you will never make a good southern biscuit unless you use lard. or pie crust. or perfect fried chicken. you can make a very good imperfect chicken without frying it in lard, but why risk it? once or twice a year for perfect biscuits, once a year for perfect pie, and once a year for perfect fried chicken, is not going to kill anyone.




summary: repeat five times out loud: pig fat is our friend.

christy wins!!!!

christy won my contest for the best fibonacci poem. she wrote a great poem and deserves the prize. yes, okay, she WAS the only one who wrote one, but i had already decided that my readers are a somewhat rebellious group that doesn't take to challenges or suggestions very well. so that's not exactly my fault, is it?

so if christy will contact me, i will make arrangement to award her fabulous prize, a $5 Michael's card. yeah, you wished you'd written something now, don't you? tough.










oh, yes, and happy birthday to the first of three july birthdays in our family: my son-in-law, christian plautz.

no comment needed

what more do i need to say?

voila

how do you like my new look? my daughter is a talented webpage designer, (my unbiased opinion), and i think some of you have her work on your blogs, too. i couldn't resist the apple blossoms. if you're interested in her doing some work for you, you can reach her at maryslastchance.blogspot.com.

do you ever think about bugs? i was thinking about bugs today as i was pulling bushels and bushels of weeds from my flower and herb garden. one reason i was thinking about them was that i had stood in fire ants and had to run for the hose to put out the fire, i was stung by a bumble bee that i accidentally tried to pick up (it was in a flower), and when my hands were totally covered in dirt, i was bitten/stung in two places by things i couldn't even see, but which left little marks on me. (this isn't really a good introduction to what i was going to say about bugs.)

c.s. lewis asked why we should quarrel with a creature just because it has more eyes or legs than we do. he said that he had been reading by a window and a leaf blew in onto his book. the color and shape made him think it was some sort of a hideous insect. when he saw that it was a leaf, the same colors and shapes that had been abhorrent before, now added to his delight in his admiration of the leaf.

i will be so proud of you if you don't scream like a little girl and run away every time you see a bug.

oh. and i killed a brown recluse spider today.

so where are my fibonacci poems?

it's
not
that hard,
my readers
and friends. if i can
do it, surely you can. amen.

how to stay married for 39 years, the monarch shortage, and the fibonacci sequence (something for everyone!)

this is a charming, happy picture of me and my 39-year partner in life looking charming and happy. and it's not a lie; we ARE sometimes charming and happy.

THE SECRET TO STAYING TOGETHER FOR 39 YEARS:

don't leave.



WHY I HAVEN'T HAD ANY COMMENTS, PICTURES, ETC., ABOUT BUTTERFLIES LATELY:

i saw a monarch butterfly in april. that was the last time. my milkweed and asclepias tuberosa are both growing and blooming beautifully, but no monarch has been by to lay her egges. i should know, i check every blooming day. no pun intended. there is nothing to say about butterflies right now. i do have lots of tiger swallowtails because i planted fennel and dill, which they love, and i have seen their eggs and their very beautiful caterpillars on it. but i don't bring them in the house and watch them grow and turn into butterflies, because every time i have tried they die.

THE FIBONACCI SEQUENCE:

my good friend lois, who is a writer, is in a writers' group. for one of their projects, they wrote poems based on the fibonacci sequence. for those of you who are not properly educated (i.e. haven't seen the da vinci code or looked up fibonacci on wikipedia), here is some information on the fibonacci sequence. leonardo of pisa, who for some reason was called signor fibonacci, in the 1200s, described a sequence of numbers beginning with 0, 1, in which each additional number in the sequence is the sum of the two previous numbers. therefore: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13....... (you would all KNOW this if you saw the right movies and didn't always depend on ME!)

the writers wrote poems in which the first line had one syllable, the second had one, the third had two, etc. (i guess the real first line of the poem had zero and was left blank.) here is her poem, which i think is lovely.

White
Blooms
Sprinkle
Glossy green
Towers of cool shade---
My Mississippi magnolia.
--Lois Bartholomew

here is my attempt:

Burp!
Oops.
'Scuse me
Pass the pig,
Hushpuppies, slaw, beans.
My barbecue joint. Again, burp!

you can see, she not only is a better poet than me, she also has higher and more beautiful thoughts.

send me your fibonacci poem, and if yours is the best you will be rewarded with a fabulous prize.

lisa, for your eyes only

here is the video i promised to lisa, who was the only one who was curious about the squirrel in the toilet. here is a full explanation given by my son-in-law, christian, and his roommate, jeremy. sorry to blame wade for this. sorry, wade.

okay, okay, i suppose you could all watch it.




so so there you have it.

tune in tomorrow for the secret of staying together for 39 years. also, why i have had no thoughts about butterflies recently, AND the latest workings of the fibonacci sequence! don't miss it.

i'm baa-aack

for those of you who didn't know i've been gone for a few weeks, poop to you. for the rest of you, you'll be glad to know that i am the proud owner of a new monitor for my computer and i'm back online.

only lisa had any questions about the fur in the toilet, so only she gets to watch the amazing video which explains the phenomenon and which i will post tomorrow when my IT guy gets back from vacation.

here is a mystery: my ducks' eggs were disappearing from the nest. you know, the fertilized eggs that they were setting on. also, my chickens had quit laying. there has not been a fresh egg on the place for two weeks.

here is the solution: my husband found a five-foot long black snake actually curled up in the ducks' nest. it was growing sleek and fat on MY BABY DUCKS and my eggs. crapezoid! i was just grateful that he ran for the shovel this time instead of my good serrated bread knife, which is what he attacked the beast with last time, about three or four months ago.



by the way, that man and i have been married 39 years, today.

the dog ate my homework

i hope that at least some of you have not given up on me. our monitor died (may it rest in peace) about two weeks ago, no one can fix it, and we have to wait for a paycheck to get a new one. i asked one of my daughters (who will remain nameless, mary) to put some sort of a "see you soon" message on here, but she did not. i guess the dog ate her homework, too. see you soon and don't give up hope. i will be back soon to help clear up those issues in life that are so darn difficult.

any questions?

the darker side of DUCKS

some may question that ducks have a darker side. hah! (mirthless laugh). our two female ducks are "on the nest," as they say in "it's a wonderful life," except that they really are. sitting on nests. about 23 hours a day. our one male duck is also sitting on a nest 23 hours a day. he was guarding the female ducks and nests first, but then i think they got annoyed with him and gave him a couple of eggs and said, "here. do something useful, and for heaven's sake, BE QUIET."

these female ducks have undergone a complete change in personality since they laid their eggs.



yes, they have gone from docile, sweet, funny pets, to being threatening and sinister. the other day i went in their pen (to give them food, mind you, and they know me!), and they both came at me. one aimed a peck at my shoe, i aimed a kick at its head. both of us missed. they pecked at chickens who were just standing there, and then one ran out of the pen and pecked one of my cats. now, you can't that that is the behavior of a psychologically normal duck. they resembled nothing so much as animated bulb horns (see fig. 1).

so that's what's happening on my little wannabe farm today. anybody want a duck?

p.s.

i missed two important thoughts:

1. people who are lonely tend to perceive criticism and feel defensive in social situations, so they often prolong their lonely state.

2. i personally feel lonely when no one leaves a comment on my blog. i'm sure it's because no one likes me.

look at all the lonely people

today i heard about a scientific study of loneliness. here is what they found:

1. loneliness and being alone are not at all the same thing. people who are alone are not necessarily lonely, and people who have spouses, children, friends, etc., are not necessarily NOT lonely. anyone over the age of 12 did not need a scientist to tell them this.

2. loneliness is contagious. a person who is lonely raises the "loneliness scores" of their friends and families just by being around them. if you have ever had a friend, sister, mother, spouse, or anyone else around who was suffering from loneliness, you didn't need a scientist to tell you this.

3. the two things i would like a scientist to tell me about loneliness, i.e. how to avoid it, and how to help someone stop being it, were two of the things this study did not address. go figure.

here come BLUEBERRIES!!!!!

i realize that not everyone divides their year into seasons according to their favorite fruits, but don't worry, i am here to help you.

first comes strawberries. i have a goal every year to get tired of strawberries. darn, i failed again, although we ate them until the tiny seeds were so constantly stuck in my teeth that when i finally got them all out, my teeth felt loose.

next is blueberries. they stain your teeth and tongue blue, it's too hot to pick fruit when they are in season, and chiggers seem to have a symbiotic relationship with them (that relationship is that humans feed on the blueberries and then the chiggers feed on the humans), but you've GOT to eat blueberries. don't ask me why, i don't makes the rules!

blackberries are next. i have a theory that the larger they are, the worse they taste.

peaches follow blackberries, which i don't try to grow, but acquire somewhere and eat until i am bathed in juice and need a pumice stone to get the sticky off.

miscellaneous: watermelons are good now. local cantaloupes will be ready in july. corn (or "carn" if you're from utah) is starting to be good now in the store. local is usually good in time for the fourth of july.

if anyone has any questions about fruit and when to eat it and how much to love it, just give me a

call. (for those in UT, luv ya, 'preshiate cha.)

a question, a quote, and one more little tidbit

THE QUESTION: some scientists say that mad cow disease came from cows eating cows. i don't know anything about that, but my question is, do you have a natural "icky" feeling about that idea or, more specifically, the idea of chickens eating chicken? a friend suggested that it should "feel" wrong to feed chicken to chickens. we usually feed our always-voracious and totally omniverous (and very stupid) chickens whatever we have left over each day, and i was and am totally devoid of the "icky" feeling i should (maybe) have. do you feel it?

THE RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY: (from "southern living") "highlands [NC] is a real hot spot for salamander diversity..." (is this something you always wanted to know?)

ONE MORE TIDBIT: from (i cited this book in my last post---i'm not doing all that italicizing again) "We are sad at funerals, but there's no such thing as a funeral without a humorous moment. Once a visiting Episcopal minister took a step backward and fell smack into the grave. It certainly livened up the service.

Not many have forgotten the time one of our more intellectual citizens died, and the Presbyterian minister, who had known her forever, was out of town. The family rustled up a supply minister who'd never laid eyes on her. The night before the funeral, the family gathered to tell him all about the deceased, her fortitude in the face of a long sickness, her appreciation for art and literature. The sisters, knowing their big sister would want it, requested the minister to read some poetry, maybe a bit of Shakespeare or Keats. But the visiting divine chose "Keep a-Goin'." ('Tain't no use to sit and whine 'cause the fish ain't on your line; Bait your hook an' keep on tryin', keep a-goin'.") The bereaved sisters were doubled over with laughter. If you can't find something to laugh about, you will end up crying."

this is, no doubt, true.

"dying tastefully in the mississippi delta"

"After the solemnity of the church service and finality of the grave, the people of the Mississippi Delta are just dying to get to the house of the bereaved for the reception.

"Friends and family begin arriving with covered dishes, finger foods, and sweets as soon as the word is out that somebody has died....You can't bury a self-respecting Deltan without certain foods. Chief among these is tomato aspic with homemade mayonnaise---without which you practically can't get a death certificate---closely followed by Aunt Hebe's coconut cake, and Virginia's butterbeans.

"The burial, which is solemn though rarely entirely devoid of humor, most likely takes place at the old cemetery on South Main Street. The old cemetery is one of the best addresses in Greenville, Mississippi. Being buried anywhere else is a fate worse than death in Greenville. The FFGs---that's First Families of Greenville---would simply refuse to die if they weren't assured of a spot. Not that the old cemetery is strictly FFG. Not by a long shot. Lola Belle Crittenden, bless her heart, had to plant a huge hedge around her ancestral plot. Why? The neighbors. "They're so tacky," Lola Belle huffed.

"We're people with a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. We won't forget you just because you've up and died. We may even like you better and visit you more often.

The old cemetery sees quite a bit of traffic, from the living and the dead....When Adelle Atkins, a widow, married James Gilliam, a Greenville widower, she insisted on bringing her late husband, Harry, along. She asked whether she could re-bury him on the Gilliam family plot. Adelle's new in-laws...were appalled. They were obsessed with who would go where when the day came. And besides, they hated the notion of new dead people coming in and just taking over.

"Cremation is a possible solution to the overcrowding problem [at the old cemetery]. But it's still a new and dicey proposition in the Delta. The last time somebody was cremated, his ashes were sprinkled from a crop duster. We all ran for cover. We liked him fine, but we didn't want him all over our good clothes."

from Being Dead is no Excuse, the Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral, Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hayes

four old ladies running amok!

i have been in the mountains of nc. did anyone miss me? i went with three other ladies, all of us over the age of 55. i was neither the oldest nor the youngest.

you might wonder, what do four old ladies do for fun in the mountains? well, one has two artifical hips and two artificial knees, one's bladder capacity is about two teaspoons, one has kidney stones, and one has only one or two active hours before needing a nap. can you guess which one of those descriptions is me?

this is our idea of running amok. we got away from our kids and husbands and into the company of only people who appreciate us for the wonderful quirky geniuses we are. we shopped the thrift stores. we sat and looked at the river until it made someone think of the bathroom. we ate vast quantities of food and dessert. we listened to an old man tell stories of revolutionary war history that occurred in the exact spot we were. we ate fudge. one of us danced with strange men (the one with the artificial joints). we kissed each other's sweet cheeks and said to ourselves, "i am SO lucky to have such good friends."