Cowboys, characters and the barley incident.

There’s a lot of really big news to report tonight so I’d better get right to the point. First, Dallas Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips (pictured below with a pre-menstrual headache) was fired yesterday after leading his team to another humiliating loss.

Here in Dallas a Cowboys coaching change gets as much attention and television air time as a nuclear accident or approaching hurricane, because apparently nothing matters to north Texans except: 1) football; 2) beer; and 3) where is George W. autographing his memoir tomorrow. (The answer to item three is Borders in Plano.)

In other news, today was Edna Mae Oliver day on Turner Classic Movies, commemorating 68 years since her death in 1942. I should have reported this yesterday so you’d have a chance to watch or record her films, and I apologize profusely for this oversight. Edna Mae was a very popular character actress in the 1920s and 30s with a face like Trigger. Although she was mostly a comedienne, she also appeared in a few dramas but always wound up being funny, anyway. Her movies today on TCM included The Penguin Pool Murder, Meet the Baron (one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen co-starring Jimmy Durante and the Three Stooges), Murder on the Blackboard, We’re Rich Again, Murder on a Honeymoon and No More Ladies.

And finally, a devastating retail announcement: OUR LOCAL WAL-MART DOESN’T SELL BARLEY. I discovered this perplexing fact earlier today when I was loading up on ingredients for homemade beef barley soup and managed to find everything I needed EXCEPT for the requisite bag of barley. Wal-Mart wasn’t out of it ... they just don’t carry it. After I composed myself I realized my soup would be delayed until Sam makes a quick trip to Kroger in the morning. I’ll publish the recipe tomorrow so you can make some for yourself. Seriously, it’s the best beef barley soup EVER. Thank you for reading this.

Sam & Marcy's weekend overview.

I love productive weekends, don’t you? Sam and I managed to fit in lots of exciting activities in addition to several naps. For instance:

A junket to Costco. On Saturday morning while I shoved a cart around the store buying marinated shrimp, organic raspberries and a gigantic bottle of salsa, Sam hung out at the AT&T booth and got us some new cell phones. It’s a remedial Motorola model and exactly what we wanted: free, easy to use, huge keys and no fancy doodads. (See photo below.) I know some of you will find this hard to believe, but the only thing we use them for is PHONE CALLS. Don’t tell anybody.

A long ride across Dallas. Early Saturday evening we drove Northwest Highway from our house in Mesquite all the way out to suburban Coppell ... about 40 miles each way on surface streets. Sam and I love driving around together because it’s like being on vacation. Plus we get to suck Altoids and wear seat belts.

Adventures with Cincinnati Chili. I bought all my ingredients on Friday and made the recipe Sunday afternoon for the first time in more than 20 years ... and it turned out GREAT. Sorry, but I didn’t invite anybody to share it with us because leftover Cincinnati Chili is awesome.

Yard appreciation. Our lawn is the envy of our subdivision. In the last few days three neighbors, an exterminator and a Schwan’s delivery guy have stopped to comment on the condition of our front yard, which is a thick, weed-free carpet of green. Trust me, this is no accident. We have excellent landscapers who mow and edge for us once a week, but it’s Sam who pulls every weed by hand and fertilizes the grass.

Turner Classic Movies. This weekend’s filmography included: 1) Double Wedding with William Powell and Myrna Loy; 2) a dopey British film about a goat called A Kid for Two Farthings; 3) The Rising of the Moon, a trio of weird Irish short stories directed by John Ford; 4) a terrific comedy called Captain’s Paradise with Alec Guiness; and 5) Tarzan the Ape Man with Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith and Cheetah. Incidentally, when we aren’t watching movies we like to watch “Cops.”

Thank you for reading this.

Planning ahead for bogus weather.

I think there’s some winter weather headed our way. It’s hard to tell for sure. According to Weather.com we’re expecting light rain tonight and most of the day tomorrow, heavy rain and possible thunderstorms tomorrow night, a cold front overnight Thursday into Friday morning that could turn everything into a quarter inch (or more) of ice ... and then a chance of light snow on top of the ice if you live north if Interstate 20. Counties closer to the Oklahoma border could get slammed.

So what exactly does this mean for the Dallas metro area? Nobody knows. Nobody EVER knows. I spent half an hour reading four different warning messages on Weather.com and all I actually got from them were meaningless words like “chance,” “possible” and “could.” For all I know we might end up with 65° and sunshine. The bottom line is, weather reports (bogus or otherwise) don’t really matter to me at all because I never actually go anywhere. Life is perfect if I’ve got Sam, pudding and Turner Classic Movies. Thank you for reading this.