Celebrating Sunday. Thunderstorms, baloney and great crap on TV.

In this post: Blackouts, baloney, thunderstorms, a train wreck.

It’s 4:30 in the morning and Sam and I woke up about an hour ago. This is what happens when a person takes too many naps! In my case, though, it resulted from a huge hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) crisis at lunch-time yesterday when I practically blacked out followed by such overwhelming fatigue that I slept on the chaise for SIX HOURS. By the time I woke up — around 6 p.m., I think — the whole day was shot to hell.

Being a senior citizen has a few clear advantages.

Happy day after Labor Day. I hope yours was swell.

I’ve been having some insomnia issues again. Mostly the problem is pain in my hands and feet (from peripheral neuropathy) and I just can’t get comfortable when I lie down in bed at night. So I get up and hang out in the study for a while eating TicTacs — like I’m doing right now — until the crappy spasms and electric shocks die down. I manage to catch up on my sleep during the day, thank God, and usually wind up unconscious in the family room for three or four hours watching William Powell movies. Welcome to my world.

Know what? I’ve decided that being a senior citizen has a few clear advantages aside from handicapped parking and a breakfast discount at Denny’s. For instance, yesterday afternoon during a moment of reflection I reached a new plateau of self-awareness: I’M LOW MAINTENANCE AND EASY TO PLEASE. I don’t need fancy or expensive shit to be happy. I don’t need a LOT of shit, either. I just need my favorite shit: FOOD and a COUCH. (Stop laughing.)

Before I forget, I’ve got a couple of terrific new pictures of Cooper to share with you tonight. Cooper is my niece Allison’s little boy. Look at the sweet face on this munchkin!

This might be a little unorthodox, but what the hell. I’d like to present a Howdygram Brainstorm Award to myself for dreaming up a brilliant new health care product ... a customizable digital thermometer called “iTemp” with downloadable amplified ring tones! This would especially helpful for old people like yours truly who take their temperature a lot but never hear the stupid beep. Sam is usually two rooms away yelling “YOUR THERMOMETER IS BEEPING!” when I can’t hear the damn thing less than four inches from my own ears. For starters I believe we should offer a variety of recognizable everyday noises — such as a fog horn, the chimes from Westminster Abbey, a barking golden retriever and a city bus — plus the complete Beatles catalog, some Peter, Paul & Mary, Bachman Turner Overdrive, everything by the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean singing “Dead Man’s Curve.” Please send an email if you think this is a good idea and approximately how much money you’d be willing to invest. Thank you.

And now, a favorite Herman cartoon for your possible interest. (I’ll be sharing three of them this week.)

This might be a fine time to shlep myself back to bed. It’s already after 3 a.m. and I’m not getting any younger.

Euless rhymes with clueless.

It’s been two whole days since my last post, and so much time has elapsed that I almost don’t know where to start! I’m guessing the best solution would be a chronological list of activities, so here goes.

Thursday. Sam and I had a swell breakfast at Denny’s with Senior Scrambled Eggs followed by a visit to the Dallas Museum of Art, where we viewed lots of ancient South Seas tiki statues with big penises, Renaissance paintings, 2,000-year-old earrings and a gallery of modern art that included chairs, dinnerware from Macy’s and a plastic wall unit. Our car alarm went off in the underground garage.

Friday. We wanted to eat lunch at Main Street BBQ in Euless — they have a brisket buffet and all-you-can-eat pickles! — but our plans turned to crapola when their lot was so packed we couldn’t find anywhere to park. So we used our GPS to zoom in on a Chinese restaurant about two miles away, a hole-in-the-wall called Uncle Chen’s in a nondescript strip mall that probably didn’t serve more than half a dozen walk-in customers a week because their business is almost 100% delivery. Our meal included mediocre hot & sour soup with plastic spoons and no napkins, shrimp with snow peas for Sam and shrimp egg foo young for me that was amazingly reminiscent of the Cantonese-style egg foo young I used order at Nankin Restaurant in Skokie in the mid-1960s. Uncle Chen’s was extremely clean and they have good parking and free egg rolls. We’d probably go back if it wasn’t so damn far.

A photo of Uncle Chen’s appears below followed by a map that indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite; and B) Uncle Chen’s in Euless. Euless rhymes with clueless.

We’ve also been enjoying some classic old movies this week, such as Charles Laughton’s cartoonish performance in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and wonderful Walter Huston in Dodsworth (1936), which is one of our all-time favorites. Dodsworth is right up there with Ben-Hur minus the lepers and chariots.

And now, at last, it’s time to hit the sack. Please look out for sinkholes and thank you for reading this!

This convoluted scandal is draining my neurons.

Okay, I think I got confused last night. This convoluted General Petraeus scandal is draining my neurons. In another twist to the same story, apparently those “30,000 pages of email” were transmitted between Marine Corps General John Allen — Commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan — and Jill Kelley, a married millionaire social climber in Tampa who blows her husband’s money hosting black-tie shindigs for military brass at MacDill Air Force Base. The Wall Street Journal reports that when Kelley began receiving anonymous meanacing emails earlier this year she contacted a pal in the FBI who linked the emails to General Petraeus’ jealous girlfriend and biographer, Paula Broadwell. Just for fun the aforementioned FBI agent emailed Jill Kelley photos of himself shirtless.

Holy crap. Would this be an amazing HBO mini-series, or what? Even though this story has started to give me cramps, the cast of characters appears below for your possible interest. Apparently Jill Kelley and her twin (see bottom photo) both suffer from the same serious neck injury.

It’s definitely fall in north Texas and we had our first official freeze this morning. Even though I don’t go out very often — just on weekends for Chinese food or Senior Scrambled Eggs at Denny’s — I still manage to keep track of the changing seasons because: 1) I visit Weather.com at least once a week; 2) Costco is already advertising their Christmas specials; and 3) my feet are cold. Although a nice pair of socks would have been cheaper, to alleviate item 3 I just ordered a comforter set from Wal-Mart. Stop laughing, people. Wal-Mart’s Hometrends brand bedding is BEAUTIFUL and their king-size comforters are larger than practically anybody’s, including the ritzy and overpriced designer crap at Bed Bath and Beyond.

The set comes with two king pillow shams and a bed skirt. I didn’t have to buy the matching throw pillows because they’re already on a shelf in my armoire. No kidding.

I usually don’t gloat (not much, anyway) but thought you might enjoy some real-time misery on DisappearingRomney.com, a website that’s tracking Mitt Romney’s diminishing Facebook popularity as it actually happens. Now in frightening decline, Mitt has been losing approximately 847 friends every hour.

And on that cheerful note I think I’ll go make a nice pot of chicken barley soup. Thank you for reading this!

The Howdygram strongly recommends early voting. You can go to Denny’s afterwards.

We did it. WE VOTED THIS MORNING. It was so much fun Sam wants to vote again tomorrow!

Our polling place at the Lakeside Activity Center — yes, it’s actually next to a lake — was not quite as chaotic as Tuesday (see earlier post) so we decided to grab the last handicapped parking spot and get in line with an intriguing assortment of old people, yahoos, Elvis impersonators and neighbors. I hope the huge turnout means everybody’s voting for President Obama but I can’t be positive. Incidentally, the Howdygram strongly recommends early voting because you can go to Denny’s afterwards and have a little party. (Try the Senior Scrambled Eggs.)

More breaking election news! According to an article today on Foodbeast.com, out of 2,094 voting-age adults 59% would rather eat a hamburger with President Barack Obama and 41% with Mitt Romney. WHAT A LANDSLIDE! Smashburger hired Harris Interactive to conduct the survey online, and the results also revealed which former U.S. president Americans would choose for a burger buddy: 22% for Clinton; 15% for Abraham Lincoln; 14% for John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan; 5% for Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington; and 4% for George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.

Personally, I can’t believe 4% of Americans would pick George W. Bush to do their yard work. And what the hell ever happened to FDR, Grover Cleveland or — better yet — Millard Fillmore?

In case I’ve piqued your interest, Millard Fillmore, a Whig, became president of the United States following the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850, at which time Taylor’s entire cabinet resigned because they hated Fillmore’s creepy little guts. After his term in office ended (1853) Fillmore joined the Know-Nothing movement and opposed Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. His most popular accomplishment was co-founding the Buffalo Historical Society. Holy crap.

I think I’d better eat something. I just tested my blood sugar and it was only 49, which is maybe two or three points away from calling 911 and certainly explains why I just wrote a Howdygram post about Millard Fillmore. Thank you for reading this.

News flash: Einsteins eat at Denny’s and work at AT&T.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the Einsteins at AT&T must be borderline criminals or, at the very least, a pack of peabrains who can’t comprehend compound sentences. I’ve been calling once a month since April to find ways to reduce our monthly U-Verse bill, but every single time one of their employees makes an adjustment THE BOTTOM LINE KEEPS GETTING WORSE. For instance, last month I spent the better part of a week horsing around with AT&T (see post) trying to change the billing information on our wireless account (two cell phones) from Sam’s name to mine so we could combine it with our U-Verse statement — which has always been in my name, for reasons that defy logic — to qualify for a stupid discount. Didn’t happen.

And that brings us to today’s fiasco! AT&T emailed our August U-Verse statement this afternoon and (no surprise) the grand total was higher than July. Actually, a LOT higher than July. A tense 45-minute conversation with their Einstein du jour revealed that AT&T: 1) added an expensive unlimited family texting package to our wireless account even though I never asked for it; 2) forgot to credit us for three TV promotional packages; and 3) “accidentally” charged us for a movie package that I canceled two months ago. Eventually I was able to reduce our U-Verse bill from $319 to $219. I can hardly wait for September. Holy crap.

Now for our latest adventure at Denny’s, where we always find lots of handicapped parking spots and cheap meals for old people. After we dropped off Sam’s car at Pep Boys this morning for routine maintenance we drove over to our favorite Denny’s at Beltline and Interstate 80 for Senior Scrambled Eggs. Call it dumb luck, but we were seated directly behind the village Einstein who’s bellowing into a cell phone, whistling for the waitress and kind of smells bad. Bonnie (our waitress) told us he'd been wedged into the same booth drinking free coffee refills for THREE AND A HALF HOURS, driving her crazy and trying to get everybody in the dining room involved in a conversation. Obviously Sam and I weren’t expecting an experience like Tavern on the Green, but a little peace and quiet with our eggs would have been appreciated. The map below indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite; and B) the aforementioned Denny’s.

A portrait of Denny’s Senior Scrambled Eggs appears below. In case you’re interested we always ask for our pancakes on separate plates and I get sugar-free syrup with mine. Please let me know if this is too much information, okay?

Tomorrow Sam and I will commence an official Tex-Mex culinary tour of Dallas. I’ve compiled a list of the top five highest-rated Tex-Mex restaurants in the metro area and we’re figuring on visiting a different establishment every couple of weeks for a late Saturday lunch. These will include:

1. Pepe’s & Mito’s Mexican Cafe (featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives”) at 2911 Elm Street near Baylor Hospital
2. Amigos at 940 E. Belt Line Road
3. Avila’s at 4714 Maple
4. Mario Sabino’s Mexican and Salvadoran at 5404 Lemmon Avenue near Love Field Airport (they don’t have a website)
5. Rafa’s Cafe at 5617 Lovers Lane

I’m definitely stoked about this. Restaurant reviews will be forthcoming.

A quick report from Club Meds. I’ve discovered an unwelcome side effect from the insulin I’ve been using for the last few months: MEMORY LOSS. I inject the maximum allowable dose (100 units) of Lantus® every night at bedtime and for the last several weeks I’ve noticed that I’m not remembering names, years, people or words and sometimes get halfway into a sentence and lose track of what I’m trying to say. It’s a lot like being stoned except without the munchies.

Thank you for reading this.

The sushi tray that got away and other tales of interest.

For the thousands of you keeping track of my health issues, lab results and expanding regimen of prescription medications I’m pleased to report that I finally have an appointment for a “baseline” kidney ultrasound … 9:30 a.m. on August 28 at Baylor Medical Center in Garland.

I’m thinking about asking Sam to come with me so we can turn this into a fun outing and stop for Senior Scrambled Eggs at Denny’s on the way home. The map below indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite; B) Baylor Medical Center in Garland; and C) Denny’s. Please send an email if you’d like to join us at Denny’s so I can get a table that’s big enough. Thank you.

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t write a post yesterday because Sam and I were too busy eating and sleeping after a morning excursion to Costco, where we loaded our cart with the following awesome crap:

• chicken salad
• tortellini pasta salad
• a carton of charcoal-grilled hamburger patties
• lots of sliced cheese
• sliced up rotisserie chicken for sandwiches
• a tub of tasty mozzarella balls floating in olive oil
• steak flautas
• three pounds of pistachios
• a sack of crumbled bacon
• dried apricots in big, big bag
• two dozen really cute peeled hard-boiled eggs

I also wanted a party-size platter of assorted sushi (see below) but Sam managed to talk me out of it at the last minute. I recovered from my disappointment when he consented to a large quantity of PEELED HARD-BOILED EGGS, easily the most brilliant invention ever not counting cruise control and penicillin. I made us a pile of deviled eggs as soon as we got home.

From our Two-Slugs-On-A-Couch department, we watched a number of interesting movies this weekend, including: 1) Professional Soldier (1935) with Victor McLaglen and Freddie Bartholomew; 2) Listen, Darling (1938) with Judy Garland, Freddie Bartholomew, Mary Astor and Walter Pidgeon; 3) North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint; and 4) Hatfields and McCoys (2012) with Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton. Numbers one through three were terrific. Concerning number four, Hatfields and McCoys was a barbaric hillbilly nightmare that SUCKED and we deleted it from our DVR less than 20 minutes after we started watching. I couldn’t even look at the screen.

I have no idea how or why this redneck hatefest was nominated for so many Emmy awards. Holy crap, who in their right mind would consider children being shot in the head with rifles — only because they have the wrong last name — to be ENTERTAINMENT. Personally, I’m much happier with fine programming like “Hardcore Pawn” and “Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

For the record, I placed my very first online order today with the National Mustard Museum store for the fine products pictured below. This website receives a Howdygram recommendation for being hilarious, clever and a genuinely fun place to spend money! The owner (and museum curator) is Barry Levenson, Wisconsin’s former attorney general, who resigned from law in 1991 to devote his life to mustard. (I am absolutely, positively NOT KIDDING about this.) Barry’s regular email newsletter (subscribe here) is just as adorable as his website. He is shown at right wearing official apparel from his Poupon U. collection. Perfect Hanukkah presents for all your favorite Jewish mustard lovers, which probably number in the thousands.

All of a sudden I have a huge craving for bratwurst. Thank you for reading this.

Denny’s “Grand Slam” Vegas wedding chapel, coming soon. I hope they have a senior discount.

I’ve never liked bugs. For those of you who know me personally, of course, this is an understatement to end all understatements because I am completely paralyzed at the sight of an insect — any insect — such as bees, moths, spiders and crickets. Sometimes, depending on weather conditions, Texas can wind up with an abundance of the aforementioned crickets, but this year the big hoo-hah is MOSQUITOS, particularly the kind that carry West Nile Virus. So far this summer we’ve had 431 confirmed cases of West Nile and 12 fatalities with 10 to 15 new cases reported every day. This even includes Sundays, when all good southern mosquitoes should be in church or standing in line somewhere for brunch. Holy crap.

The Dallas metro area has declared a state of emergency and ordered five planes from the Texas Department of Emergency Management to shpritz pesticide all over north Dallas and the Park Cities neighborhoods (Highland Park and University Park) before students start returning to our institutes of higher learning, which includes Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center, Dallas Baptist University, the Dallas County Community College District and Jim-Bob’s Barber College on Lamar across from the new Pizza Hut.

A clever marketing dude at Denny’s corporate headquarters has decided to kill two birds with a rock by opening a new Denny’s combined with a cheesy wedding chapel in a new Neonopolis entertainment center in downtown Las Vegas. The restaurant will offer its traditional menu — Grand Slams! Patty Melts! Soup du Jour! — with a chapel in the middle featuring intentionally stupid “over-the-top Vegas décor.”

For the record, Sam and I got married in Las Vegas in 2006. After Denny’s opens its new Grand Slam Chapel I’m thinking we might have to go back and renew our vows, because this time we can dine on Senior Scrambled Eggs for lunch instead of that sad and crappy Cheez Whiz Buffet at the Riviera.

Thank you for reading this. Seriously.

Has anybody ever noticed that China’s female athletes mostly look like men?

I just checked Weather.com and noticed that the temperature here will hit 108° today and 107° tomorrow. Quite honestly, I’m a little freaked out about this because I didn’t sign up to live in the MOJAVE DESERT. Holy crap, people, this is Dallas! What are we supposed to do with our GREEN TREES and RIVERS and CATTLE and PUBLIC PARKS and LAWNS and PETS and PLAYGROUNDS!? It’s so damn hot around here you can’t even park your car outdoors long enough to eat a plate of Senior Scrambled Eggs at Denny’s, which shouldn’t take more than 30 stinking minutes if you get a decent waitress.

I personally don’t intend to leave the house for any reason whatsoever even though Sam is already at Pep Boys replacing the flat tire on our Hyundai (check out my previous post).

Breaking news from the London Olympics this morning is a story that eight women badminton players from China, South Korea and Indonesia were expelled from the Games for intentionally trying to lose, apparently in an effort to play against easier teams in the round robin elimination. Although I’m not inferring that badminton is in any way an interesting, relevant, fun to watch or stimulating sport, it’s really crappy that paying ticket holders were treated to the sight of athletes purposely lousing up their serves and throwing games. After 45 minutes of booing, Olympics officials finally threw the players off the court and had them expelled. On a slightly different subject, has anybody ever noticed that China’s female athletes mostly look like men?

Howdygram headquarters is humming this morning! As I write this post I’ve got a crew of maids cleaning the kitchen, landscapers galloping all over the front yard and any minute now Schwan’s will knock on my front door with this week’s delivery of tasty but convenient frozen crapola, pictured below for your possible interest. I almost thought Schwan’s showed up early today but it was only a couple of well-dressed Jehovah’s Witnesses. Somebody should tell them it’s too hot today to sell religion.

Sam just got home. Thank you for reading this.

The South shall rise again. No kidding.

It’s early Sunday morning and I woke up an hour ago with a stuffed nose and a craving for TicTacs. While I’m blowing one and feeding the other I thought I’d write a post because Sam and I did a few amazing things on Saturday.

First, we ate Senior Scrambled Eggs for lunch at a BRAND NEW DENNY’S (new to us, anyway) on I-20 during a lovely drive to Fort Worth. I don’t remember our waitress’ name but she was extremely energetic. (I think I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be 18 years old.) Afterwards we continued heading west and discovered the Texas Civil War Museum, a hidden gem in a town called White Settlement — I’m not making this up — about 10 miles past Fort Worth.

This is a TRULY COOL MUSEUM, and it gave us an opportunity to test my new wheelchair while checking out their exhibits of uniforms — mostly Confederate, of course — plus high tech “medical” instruments (hacksaws, pliers and butcher knives), antique photos, shredded flags, cannon shells, guns and a lot of Civil War-era ball gowns worthy of Gone with the Wind. They also had LIVE MUSIC yesterday featuring Buttermilk Junction, an excellent group of costumed and adorable local yahoos who use authentic 19th century instruments and sing authentic 19th century songs, such as “Dixie” and “Shenandoah.”

I’m pleased to include the following Buttermilk Junction video from YouTube. They’re playing a tune called “The Colored Aristocracy.”



The map below indicates: A) The Texas Civil War Museum; and B) Denny’s with the energetic waitress.

From our Tea and Crumpets department, if you’re a big fan of the British royals like yours truly I think you should try your skill at a fun match-up game that’s posted on ABC’s news website. I played and won three times — perfect scores! — which obviously makes me a nerd of astonishing proportion. (I’m actually fine with this.)

I have to go back to bed now. I’m out of TicTacs.

An ode to podiatry, soup and Joel McCrea.

Thursdays are always significant. To prove my point, today I woke at 8:45, dragged two neatly-tied sacks of trash to the curb for pickup, shlepped myself to the podiatrist at 11 for a routine quarterly appointment, got home at 11:25 and here I am, horsing around with the Howdygram!

Incidentally, that was NOT a typo in the previous paragraph. I live 60 seconds away from my podiatrist and was finished today in less than 20 minutes. For your possible interest the map below indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters; and B) Dr. Angelier’s office, which also happens to be across the street from our dentist and less than three blocks from our favorite Denny’s, where Sam and I enjoy Senior Scrambled Eggs.

For lunch today I’m making a large pot of Bear Creek hot & sour soup with several fabulous yet healthy additions: 1) a container of cubed tofu; 2) shirataki zero-calorie “rice”; and 3) half a cup of beef textured vegetable protein. And there’s no point procrastinating because it’s almost 1 p.m., I’m starving, and I need to get started watching all those Joel McCrea movies I recorded last night, including The Great Man’s Lady (1942), Stars in My Crown (1950), Come and Get It (1936) and The Common Law (1932).

Thank you for reading this.

Hairy armpits, invisible sandwiches and a high-definition tour of Heaven.

Contrary to the final paragraph in my last post we did NOT end up at Mariano’s Hacienda for dinner tonight because the lot was so crowded we couldn’t find a place to park. So we decided to head back to Mesquite to check out the Black-eyed Pea, which was even worse than Mariano’s. Although I was tempted to just go home and eat gefilte fish we eventually wound up at Denny’s.

Now don’t get me wrong. Although Sam and I like Denny’s and always enjoy their cheap senior citizens menu, tonight we happened to pick the wrong restaurant ... the one that’s across the street from Town East Mall. The map below indicates: A) Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite; B) Denny’s at Belt Line Road and I-30 (our favorite); C) Denny’s at Belt Line Road and  Route 80 (our second-favorite); and D) Denny’s across from Town East Mall, which sucks.

This evening the main dining room — a concept I use loosely here — was filled with big greasy dudes with tank tops and tattoos and a couple of screaming kids trying to turn nachos into hand cream. The aforementioned dudes were especially disturbing, as I have a serious aversion to hairy armpits in restaurants. To put it delicately, they make me want to puke. Fortunately this didn’t turn out to be an issue since I never got my food. Sam was already finished with his Senior Scrambled Eggs when I signaled our waiter to cancel my invisible sandwich and bring us the check. The manager felt so lousy about what happened that she packed up my dinner to go and didn’t charge us.

Incidentally, I ate when I got home. The only armpits in sight belonged to Sam, which is fine with me because Sam has excellent armpits.

A quick reminder. Don’t forget to watch The Masters — go Tiger! — starting tomorrow at Augusta National in Atlanta. The first two rounds will be broadcast on ESPN; CBS will air rounds three and four on Saturday and Sunday.

For the record, professional golf is an awesome background sport on TV if you plan to take an extended nap because everybody whispers like on “Bowling for Dollars” and the course at Augusta is so exquisite in high-definition it’s like taking a tour of Heaven.

Thank you for reading this. Seriously.

Our decadent Saturday … scrambled eggs at Denny’s before dawn.

Due to insomnia — and then waking Sam at 5 a.m. to horse around and keep me company — we decided to drive over to Denny’s for Senior Scrambled Eggs. I thought we were being decadent (it was still dark outside) but apparently this is not such a unique idea among old people here in Mesquite as Denny’s enjoyed a rather steady stream of incoming elderly the entire time we were there. This makes me a card-carrying member of the blue hair brigade now ... and only three days after I get invited to my first free funeral-planning seminar for senior citizens. Holy crap.

I went back to bed as soon as we got home. When I woke up three hours later I found Sam unconscious on the chaise in the family room, wrapped in our faux mink throw with a Boston Blackie movie on TCM. I think he looks like Smokey the Bear. (Sam, not Boston Blackie.)

Come to think of it, more sleep sounds like a damn good idea right about now. Don’t slam your door on the way out, okay?

A pair of pet peeves before breakfast.

Hello, howdy, happy Saturday and what’s for breakfast? I woke up really hungry and would probably ask Sam to shlep us over to Denny’s but it’s a little too cold outside (29°) to leave the house for a plate of food, even if it’s Senior Scrambled Eggs. We love their Senior Scrambled Eggs!

And now, please grab yourself a bagel and get comfortable. I want to unload for a minute.

Today’s pet peeve. I’m sick of Gabrielle Giffords. She was in the news again yesterday because the Navy named a COMBAT SHIP after her, and I want to know why anybody in their right mind would think that’s even remotely appropriate. What the hell for? She’s a POLITICIAN, for God’s sake, and she survived a gunshot. Big deal. Couldn’t the Navy dig up the names of a few deserving Medal of Honor winners who actually, you know, served in the MILITARY? The media and government are so obsessed with her — and she’s so over-saturated in the news — that I’m reacting to Giffords now like she's KIM KARDASHIAN. And that, dear readers, is the kiss of death.

Thank you for allowing me to spew. And I mean this most sincerely.

Today’s other pet peeve. Human skeletons who get hired as fashion models. We’ve all seen pictures of anorexic models, but Ioana Spangenberg (see below) beats them all. She’s a Romanian bag of bones with a freakish 20-inch waist that can’t possibly be for real. Spangenberg insists she eats three meals a day — please, give me a break — but a person who consumes solid food just can’t look like this. Holy crap, my wrists are thicker than her THIGHS! She says her husband thinks she’s gorgeous, and that’s certainly swell and wonderful, but any reputable fashion house or magazine that hires Spangenberg should be run out of town. She’s not a model, she’s a HANGER.

I’d better mosey into the kitchen and rustle up some grub. Thank y’all for reading this. I’ll try to be back later, but no promises.

Prizefighters, brownie procrastination and avoiding Maria Ouspenskaya.

Saturday was lazy and wonderful around here. Following a nice lunch at Denny’s I took two mega-naps, almost baked brownies and watched a middleweight fight on HBO, the FDR biopic Sunrise at Campobello with Greer Garson and Ralph Bellamy, and The Rains Came with Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power and Maria Ouspenskaya, who’s four feet tall and ugly enough as a maharajah’s wife to scare the crap out of just about ANYBODY. I actually slept through most of The Rains Came, but that’s okay because I watch it every time it’s on TCM and could recite most of the dialog by heart. This movie has some incredible special effects for 1939. Trust me, you’ll start looking for water wings.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, a thoroughly meaningless event for Sam and me since we have no vested interest whatsoever in who’s playing or who wins. Our day will be filled instead with other worthwhile activities, such as dim sum for lunch at Hong Kong Royal, baking the sugar-free brownies I put off yesterday and trying to figure out whatever happened to winter in Texas. The grass is turning green, our lawn service already started their spring weed treatments, outdoor bugs are emerging and we haven’t had daytime temperatures below 53° since the second week of December. As a matter of fact, temperatures in January and February (so far) have been more like March and April. If you think I’m making this up, take a look at our forecast.

As long as I’m rambling about weather you may be pleased to know that the drought is over for Dallas/Fort Worth. We received triple our normal rainfall in December and January, which helped our reservoirs and lakes rise more than five feet. (Lake Lavon actually rose TEN feet, which is excellent news if you live in Plano.) Most local municipalities will continue to enforce stage three water restrictions for the next few months, but that’s no big deal since it’s still winter and we’ve already had more than enough rain for our trees and lawns. Incidentally, I should mention that the rest of the state is still under an “exceptional drought” warning. This is crappy news for crops and cattle, and we Texans LOVE our crops and cattle although I have to admit that I wouldn’t recognize an actual crop if it jumped up and slapped me in the face.

I should probably go to bed now so I won’t oversleep and be late for dim sum. Thank you for reading this!

Longhorns are some of the cutest people we know.

It was a nice, quiet day at Howdygram headquarters beginning with Senior Scrambled Eggs at Denny’s, a drive through Sunnyvale, several consecutive naps, dinner at home (Easy One-Pot Greek Rice) followed by a couple of okay movies.

First we saw Passport to Suez (1943) with Warren William and Eric Blore, a thoroughly lame World War II spy thriller pretending to be Casablanca except it was based in Egypt, everybody’s accent was atrocious and the Humphrey Bogart part was played by — of all people — Sheldon Leonard (see right).  The plot was so awful we almost started rooting for the Nazi spies. And we HATE Nazi spies.

Next we saw Hell Divers, a 1931 adventure film about Navy pilots in Elmer Fudd hats starring Wallace Beery and Clark Gable with no mustache.

Hell Divers was actually way better than I expected and included some very well done fake flying scenes with plenty of fake stunts and fake pilots jumping out of fake planes with fake parachutes that wouldn’t open. There’s even a tear-jerker ending when Wallace Beery winds up saving Clark Gable’s life but has to sacrifice his own in the process and the entire crew of the U.S.S. Saratoga is crying like a bunch of girls.

Breaking news! The annual Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo opened today and runs through February 4 at the Fort Worth Stockyards. Here are a few photos for your possible interest from the kickoff parade.

Sam and I didn’t attend the parade but we love longhorns and never miss an opportunity to post photos of them. Longhorns are some of the cutest people we know.

Here’s something exciting! Tomorrow Sam will finally complete his wild-west education with a two-hour gun safety class at 10 a.m. so he can run for marshal of Mesquite in 2013. (I might be kidding about the marshal part.) Yee-haw, pass the bullets and thank you for reading this!