Beef on Weck Blog: A Bodacious Bit of Blarney

Greener Pastures For Panara's Blarney

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:02:00 +0000

Are you looking for Beef on Weck Blog: A Bodacious Bit of Blarney? NEWS FLASH I've moved my blog! Please visit me at the new site and remember to bookmark or favorite place it! Just click this link and away we go. Panara's Blarney.

About Face: A Real Head-Scratcher

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:41:00 +0000

In the age of the internet you get to learn all kinds of weird things you didn't want to know, such as how people actually lived in the 1500s. (Remember "peas porridge in the pot, nine days old?" It is more than a cute nursery rhyme.) For me it is the basis of ALL KINDS of exciting medical discoveries, a depressing one of which I am about to share with you. You know how when you get old your skin gets all wrinkly and saggy? (I'm sure none of you is old enough to know this personally, but you've SEEN pictures of really old people, right?) Well in the good old days we were told this is because you got old. Then later conventional wisdom took over, and it became more a matter of too much sun, a smoking habit, not eating the right omega three vitamins and general "hard living." (All living is hard. Whom do the Conventionally Wise think they're kidding?) Now we generally understand that as we age, our skin loses its elasticity, and, due to a variety of factors such as gravity and too much frowning, your face has no choice but to sag as close to the earth as it can get. While wrinkling in the process. So far so good! Turns out, that is not the full explanation. The full explanation is MUCH WEIRDER. In my opinion. It's as weird as cats and dogs living on thatched roof cottages and losing their footing during a bad rainstorm. Thus it "rains" cats and dogs. No, the true explanation for why your facial skin sags and wrinkles is that YOUR SKELETON IS DISINTEGRATING! True. I read this on reputable website with medical links. How it works is, your body slowly loses skeletal mass, and as it does, the skin no longer has enough structure to hold it up. So it sags into the cavities. (Note to the woman who had a face transplant: I hope you ordered one size too small!) I'm sure you never suspected this, since skeletons are supposed to last not only your entire lifetime, but, theoretically, they are supposed to remain in decent shape until the Resurrection of the Dead! Plus, if skeletons actually deteriorated, how could they be finding missing links such as Piltdown Man? (Oh, wait. He was a hoax. Make that Polyurethane Man.) Makes me wonder if early humanoid-type varieties of ape-persons weren't as small as they appeared to be. Maybe they just disintegrated a few sizes! Perhaps Neanderthal Man originally had the physique of Hulk Hogan or Jerome Bettis. I have to admit I'm kind of grossed out. It's bad enough that our bodies are "80 percent water" to begin with. (Which makes us the equivalent of sentient water balloons, going through life hoping to not get punctured.) I am not one of those people that likes to contemplate how many quarts of blood I'm made up of, or what makes it rush around in my body to feed all the cells, or how many miles of capillaries exist in my arms. I'd rather not think about it! So now this idea that our skeletons are dissolving as we go about our day is just not a comfortable one for me. It makes me want to tread lightly before I lose more bone mass and collapse into Silly Putty. Maybe it's one of those things like those montrous-looking but tiny creatures that exist everywhere around us, even on our skin, but are too small to gross us out. (The Dust Mite is pictured at the top of this article to the left.) Figure, if MY skeleton is slowly dissolving, so is everyone else's! So I'm not going to worry about this any more than I worry about mad cow disease. I figure the vegans are well-qualified to run the earth after I'm reduced to a blithering pile of shrinking bones. That reminds me of my kids' jokes. Now they are four and six, so they don't tell really good jokes. They mostly say nonsense things that I'm supposed to laugh at. Such as, "What do you call a bird on the lawn with X's on its eyes?" (What?) "An X-O Bird!" (hahahahahahahaha!) The 6-year-old is actually joke-savvy enough to know this is NOT a joke, and he tries to explain this to the 4-year-old, who pays no attention whatsover and launches into 20 more equally incomprensible jokes. But here are two jokes from my kids that actually made sense! 6-year-old: "What's black and white and black and white and green?" (What?) "Two skunks fighting over a pickle!" From the 4-year-old: "What do you call bones that fly?" (No idea.) "A hot air skeleton!" Haha! I DID laugh for that one! Have no idea how he could make that up! In fact, he doesn't think it's any funnier than the rest of them. I hope the Hot Air Skeleton doesn't dissolve before it runs out of air.

Might As Well Face It, We're Addicted To Oil

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 19:50:00 +0000

I wish I could tell you I saw the State of the Union address, but at that hour Hubby and I are completely absorbed in a routine that involves brushing teeth, donning PJs and reading bedtime stories. On top of all that, we have kids, too! So my impression of the president’s State of the Union speech is based purely on hearsay. If I've misunderstood anything I blame it entirely on the CEO of the Sago mine, who was supposed to be transmitting the information to me via tin cans and a string. But the main point came through loud and clear. We Americans are a bunch of staggering, out-of-control oil addicts! The president didn’t mention the part about assaulting other nations to ensure we could continue getting our fix. That’s no doubt due to our “democracy addiction.” In the State of the Union Address the president informed us we are ADDICTED to oil. Thank you, touchy-feely speechwriters, for not just saying we need the stuff to run our cars. I have not heard, at this point, if the president expects us as a nation to quit cold turkey, attempt a 12-step program, or if we're about to be tossed into the earthly gutter to beg foreign countries for euros "to buy a cup of coffee" (while we sneak to the local gas station to fill up our SUVs). The thing is, in order to solve our problem, don't we need to hit "rock bottom?" Or could we get by with an intervention of some kind? Personally I don't care to call it an addiction. I prefer to think of it as a gas guzzling problem. Sure, we like to gas up, but I can switch to my bike anytime! Let's take a look at the main warning signs of addiction and see how we U.S. motorists stack up. I am taking the liberty of answering for the majority of Americans because I didn’t have time to call or poll. I feel I am no more than one or two standard deviations away from being “average” so this is perfectly acceptable. 1) Does it take more gas to make you feel “full” than it used to? Answer: Yes. Especially after we bought our full-sized van. 2) Do you ever use more gas than you intended to? Answer: Definitely! Every time I get stuck in traffic, accelerate to pass Sunday drivers so fast that their wigs blow off, or have to go back to the store yet again for that one critical item such as my son needs Saltines for some classroom topography project. 3) Do you have “blackouts,” or “lose time” after using a lot of gas? Answer: Not sure about the blackouts, unless you’re referring to the time we left the door open all night and then couldn’t start the van the next day. We spend a third of our lives sleeping, and another 25 percent driving. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for watching State of the Union speeches or buying solar panels for the roof. 4) Do you ever use gas in the morning to reduce anxiety? Answer: Let’s put it this way, if I didn’t use gas in the morning, I’d be CREATING a lot of anxiety! We’ve got to get everybody to work and school, and it’s just too far to walk unless I’m planning to start a family farm on the front lawn. 5) Do you ever find yourself wishing you could gas up in order to calm yourself? Answer: Whenever that needle slips below a quarter tank I start to worry. Then I tell myself to relax, I can afford to pass the three stations with the expensive brand name gas. Then there’s an unexpected detour and suddenly I’m in full panic mode. 6) Do you ever gas up when taking prescription medications? Answer: Yes. I figure what’s more dangerous, me driving under the influence of penicillin, or me hitch-hiking after taking prescription meds? 7) Have you ever gone to work or school smelling of gasoline? Answer: I’m not 100 percent sure, due to the intoxicating effects of inhaled gasoline, but most likely yes. 8) Do you have a history of relationships with other gasoline users? Answer: There was that boy in ninth grade whose mother drove us everywhere. Beyond that it was bikes. But once I hit the real dating scene it was gas users all the way. 9) Do you find yourself using gasoline to help you sleep? Answer: My sister-in-law swears by the “Driving the Baby Around the Block” method of getting cranky babies to sleep. 10) Do you fill up your gas tank more than the recommended amount? Answer: Only to the nearest dollar. Lately it’s been to the nearest nickel because it’s just too expensive to let any spill over. 11) Do you try to conceal your use, or “edit” stories about using gas? Answer: We DO keep the van in the garage at night, so that would technically be concealment. Also if I ever run out of gas on the highway (especially after passing up a few “expensive stations”) I hope to be able to conceal this from my husband. 12) Do you ever use gasoline alone? Answer: After dropping off the kids, yes. But then I rationalize, saying well you never know, I MAY be pregnant. 13) Do you ever say things you regret while using gasoline? Answer: Sometimes I lose my temper. But never in front of the kids, and I don’t do rude hand gestures. 14) Have you ever slept in your car? Answer: Yes, but I was at the U.B campus where there was NO WAY to get a parking space after 8 a.m. So I’d get there an hour before my class started and yes, sometimes I napped. 15) Is your life increasingly chaotic and turbulent? Answer: On a personal level, no. But every time I read the news I get the feeling the world as a whole is trying to pull a “Thelma and Louise” off the nearest cliff. The other area of the State of the Union speech I wanted to address is our president’s call for a ban on human/animal hybrids. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to meld human DNA with horse DNA? A new race of Centaurs that could gallop to work would surely solve this oil addiction we’re so worried about. Well, it’s hay for thought.

Steel or Feathers? Superbowl XL

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 06:32:00 +0000

Pity the poor Detroit Lions. This Sunday's Superbowl extravaganza at the Pontiac Silverdome is as close as the city is likely to get to that hallowed game. I think the team's been jinxed ever since George Plimpton donned the Lions uniform to provide research for his book "Paper Lion." Since then the Lions have played with all the determination of a paper team competing in a scissors league. They play like journalists in pads. But never mind the poorly scripted reality show that is the Detroit Lions. ("I'm a Detroit Draft Pick, Get Me Out of Here!" or "The Amazing Waste") We want to focus on the big game itself, now less than a week away. In spite of the Motor City's recent malaise as former powerhouse automakers GM and Ford tighten their belts to the point they look like Lindsay Lohan during Lent, Detroit is determined to put on a super show as the Superbowl enters middle age. Turning 40 this year, Detroit doesn't want Super Bowl XL having a midlife crisis. True, it's 40 years later and the original British Invasion seems complete. The Rolling Stones are performing at halftime. They're as American as shepherd's pie, yet here they are facing (let's be honest, early Geezerhood) and they're performing at our quintessential U.S. sporting event. I guess they are tamer than poor, maligned Janet Jackson. That's the other buzz on this event, that it could be the site of a spectacular Al Qaeda-fueled terror attack. With three threatening videotapes in the past month alone, you have to start wondering if they're going to start issuing press kits. Maybe Osama and the guy with the glasses will show up with the teams during media week? All I can say is if there are any surprises at the Super Bowl I'd rather see nipples than nukes! Word has it there has been a lot of terrorist "chatter" about Detroit and the date February 5th. Well, duh, it's the Superbowl. They're probably betting on the game. Somebody wiretap the bookies! I do have my preferences on this. The Steelers represent a traditional blue collar town, and an industry that is a shadow of its former self. As tough as the Seahawks team seems, they reside in an area famous for latte-sipping, tofu-eating hippies. How can we root for a city whose people might not care if their team wins? Also the Steelers still wear the same team uniform with its solid black and gold color scheme. The Seahawks abandoned their blue and gray for a hue that can best be described as "algae." Yes, it might be necessary for oceans to thrive, but it's still slime. Seahawks Coach Mike Holmgren has already won a Superbowl with the Packers. Steelers Coach Bill Cowher has been laboring for the Steelers for 14 long years (that's two consecutive Biblical famine periods) with no ring to show for it. What better going away present for retiring running back Jerome Bettis? Even though I'd prefer to see a Steelers victory, my number one goal here is to see a GAME. That's something I didn't see during the Conference Championship weekend, when the Steelers and Seahawks basically blew out their opponents by a comfortable margin. Also I am including in my nightly prayers, "Lord, please don't let this game be decided, or ruined, by ZEBRAS!" (Honestly, as Noah was closing up the ark I think I would've left the whole referee species behind.) The Steelers ARE at a bit of a disadvantage, playing in a dome. This is a team that is accustomed to battling the elements, along with the other team. And we all know Mother Nature can be a formidable opponent! In the controlled atmosphere of Ford Field they may feel like a pigskin science experiment rather than an athletic contest. It may distract them! But as long as the Steelers players keep their Terrible Towels firmly affixed to their bodies during any commercials with one or more Desperate Housewives, I think we can keep the FCC at bay. So my prediction: Big Ben Roethlisberger shakes off the thumb injury and takes it to the Hawks. If the two teams produce an exciting game, and we get through it without a hint of terrorism, then I will consider us all winners.

Terrorocracy Triumphs in Palestine

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 16:08:00 +0000

The Palestinians held their big election, and by American standards the turnout was stupendous. An estimated 80 percent of the eligible voters went to the polls. (U.S. turnout is typically less than half) What a great day for democracy! Perhaps the winds of freedom and civil discourse will soon be sweeping over the entire Middle East! Except the developed world is not so happy at the news. You see, the winner of the Palestinian election was not some moderate. Not a pro-western leader. Not a party anyone can consider talking sense to. The winner in these elections was Hamas. Yes THAT Hamas. The radical organization that advocates the destruction of Israel. (Admittedly it takes more than desiring the destruction of Israel to be labeled "radical." It's a fairly common sentiment.) The thing is, this group is utterly devoted to terror as a way of life. They are now the officially elected and sanctioned Terrorocracy in the Middle East! Technically, the term HAMAS stands for: "Holy Armageddon! Mullahs Aiming Scuds!" So you can see why the normal nations are upset. I think we've already announced we can't consider negotiating with a duly elected terrorist organization. It would be like if we elected one of the Crips mayor of Los Angeles. John Gotti governor of New York State. Perhaps Tim McVeigh (before he was executed) and David Koresh (before he was incinerated) winning the presidency and vice presidency on the America First ticket! However, now that we've admitted WMDs were no longer the real reason for invading Iraq (at best they were a "consensus reason"), we've settled upon this "bringing democracy to the people of the Middle East" canard. It is certainly a duck of a story that is laying an egg as we speak. ("Canard" is french for "duck" if you'd like to secretly enjoy that statement a little more, perhaps with a nice irony glaze.) Now that we have Terrorocracy, we know darn well that Iraq is going to end up being a Theocracy the moment our "political advisors" skeddadle when the danger of kidnapping or an IED (Improvised Exposive Device, ie. "roadside bomb" or "shrapnel sandwich") gets too great. I have long felt we will not exit Iraq due to political pressure, overseas or domestic. We will exit when we run out of money to fund the operation. One more Katrina-style natural disaster should do it: L.A. earthquake, Northwest volcano, NYC hurricane, whatever it is. Really, do we want to keep wasting money and lives just so the ruling religious party over there can have their Theocracy? Even if it's democratically elected? Ah, for the good old days of puppet dictators! Whatever happened to benign rulers? Wise kings? People whose sole goal wasn't to trample the earth and the people on it? Well regardless, Hamas has announced it doesn't have any immediate terror attacks planned. However it has warned that Israel needs to "change its flag." Gee that's kinda personal! It's one thing to trespass on my lawn, but another to criticize my wardrobe. People in the south are still touchy about the rebel flag. Apparently Hamas wants two of the blue stripes removed because to the Palestinians it represents an alleged Israeli belief that the country's dominion extends from the Nile River (in Egypt) to the Euphrates River (Iraq). As if they didn't already have enough to fight about over there. I suspect it's no coincidence that geopolitics is converging with religion in a region commonly known as the Holy Land. It was the site of the original Eden, and the site of the future Armageddon. Let's just hope it doesn't occur in the "near" future!

Oprah Does The Right Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 00:48:00 +0000

I have to give Oprah Winfrey credit. She went on her show to say, loudly, Mea Culpa! That is something author James Frey* (his real name and unfortunately also the name of another author who does NOT lie for a living. I hope they sort it out via middle initials.) pointedly did NOT do on the Larry King show as he defended his version of the truth. Oprah obviously read my blog and had a change of heart! Okay, she probably read a smattering of the invective being hurled by some very fine writers in newspaper columns all over the country. But my point is, her media empire is vast enough, and audience entrenched enough, that she doesn't have to apologize to anyone. The fact that she'd bother to do so says she cares about her credibility. She even admitted to being embarrasssed at this whole thing. That is just so rarely heard from a celebrity of any kind, much less one of her stature. I'm a little bit amazed that Mr. Lying Author appeared on the show again soley for the purpose of being browbeaten by Oprah, columnist Richard Cohen, and others. He said he had "made mistakes," and when Oprah pressed him on it, even admitted to making mistakes AND lying. Granted, this second Oprah appearance will guarantee even MORE book sales. But honestly, the book was doing so well, fueled first by the book club selection, and now by the controversy, that the second show wasn't really necessary. I'm wondering if his publisher, Doubleday's Nan Talese, threatened to apply a very hot poker to his private parts. They are in major damage control mode. Now that financial success is guaranteed, apparently Nan would STILL like to maintain a shred of credibility. Hard to do when your own husband, Gay Talese, is doing the rounds on national TV basically disagreeing with you. Some have even suggested that the publisher may have subtly nudged Mr. Frey along the duplicitous path he ultimately took. Who knows! Wouldn't surprise me. I would really like the publisher to add a note at the end of the book. "Based on a true story." My brother called me this afternoon to ask if I knew anything about this "Frey guy" and why Oprah was interviewing him, and why he looked so uncomfortable. I said, "Read my blog!" But it also gave me a chance to flick on CBS and catch part of Oprah's show. Yes, it was fun watching Frey agree with everyone that he was, in fact, a big fat liar. I mean really, a root canal with no novocaine? I don't know too many non-Nazi dentists who would do that. So Oprah, from me to you, I'm sorry for calling you the country's most prominent enabler. I am heartened to see you stand up for Truth, Justice AND the American Way. Just like Superman would. As to Mr. Frey's book, well, heating oil prices are high. I hear a lot of people are buying wood-burning stoves. Let's put his book to good use!

Why Good Things Happen To Bad Authors: Lies & The Lying Liars Who Sell Them

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:39:00 +0000

When it comes to book sales, there's nothing as good as a famous person to wave a magic wand and turn your pumpkin of a tome into a glittering coach. So when the Princess of Hype, Oprah Winfrey, selected James Lie's* (not his real name) memoir for her TV book club last fall, it was little wonder that it propelled him out of the pumpkin patch to the top of the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction. He has reigned there for the past couple of months. Problem is, some super-sleuths at the TheSmokingGun.com suspected something was amiss with "A Million Little Pieces," Mr. Lie's* (not the name on his birth certificate) cindery tale of how he wrecked, then redeemed his life after years of drug and alcohol addiction. (Well, people have been calling it "gritty," but I wanted to stick with my Cinderella theme. So I decided "cindery" meant the same thing. Besides, the man's reputation is now in ashes.) They weren't the only ones to get a whiff of the ocean as they read the tale. Janet Maslin of the New York Times also wrinkled her nose at some of the book's scenes. But the truth crusaders at the Smoking Gun had the gumption to investigate some of Mr. Lie's* (not the name that on his police record) claims. What they discovered is that a Frey* Fact is not the same as a True Fact. For you grammar sticklers who thought "true fact" was redundant, well, no longer! A Frey Fact "may" be 95 percent true, or it may not be true at all. It may be something he thought was true, wished were true, or simply pretended was true. Take the several months he spent in jail. Turns out, it was a few hours. He didn't even have to change his underwear! His "street cred" is not even as good as Martha Stewart's. Now I KNOW it can seem like months when you're in a boring place with no good reading material. But it doesn't justify portraying yourself as a seasoned jailbird. (Martha, on the other hand, knows when to use her turmeric, and that cayenne spice is a weapon.) So Mr. Lie's* (not the name on his book jacket) reputation is in a Million Little Tatters, at least with the literary community, by which I'm referring to people who actually write, edit or review sentences for a living. In the book sales universe, the marketing people are probably in ecstasy. The more notoriety he gets, the better his book does! Oprah was not outraged about this. Instead of standing up for truth and justice, she settled for the American Way. Which is to say, it didn't matter. Yes! She has succeeded in becoming this country's most prominent enabler ever. Larry King invited Mr. Lie* (not the name used on his glossy bio sheet) onto his CNN talk show shortly after the scandal broke. Was he there to apologize? Hahahahahahaha. Surely I jest. He was there to RATIONALIZE. Now, most human beings are natural amateur rationalizers from the time they hit school age. (My 4-year-old: "I didn't mean to hit him. My BRAIN told me to!") However addicts are professional rationalizers -- they do it for a living. So Mr. Lie* (not his original nickname) told us that memoirs are a literary form that aren't about "facts" but rather about one's perception of the facts. Which I could buy if he were referring to his subjective experiences. It is one thing if Christina Crawford tells us her mother Joan was mean to her. It's another if she says her mother died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. How much time you spent in jail is not just a matter of perception, it's a matter of public record. Oprah said that the truth didn't matter as much as the emotional experience people had while reading the story of Mr. Lie's* (not his real nom de plume) "truth." Forgive me for stating the obvious, but when it comes to non-fiction, some stories resonate simply because THEY ARE TRUE. Would the Diary of Anne Frank be a classic if we learned she was hiding in the attic due to agoraphobia, and went on to die of old age in a Belgian nursing home? Mr. Lie's* (not what kids called him on the playground) story failed to sell to publishers as fiction, so he punched up some of the scenes, painted himself as the key figure in some girl's death in a train wreck, and repackaged it as a memoir. Why not, there's room in DaVinci's Last Supper painting, too. Didn't Judas have an accomplice? But Mr. Lie* (not the name he uses on his IRS forms) had the nerve to say the book is "95 percent true," so overall the reader is being served a lot more fact than fiction. It would be helpful if the publisher would use a different color ink in order to differentiate the faux prose -- perhaps yellow? With respect to Oprah's contention of the "experience" being true for the reader, I just plea bargain to differ. Suppose a man or woman goes on a date and has an absolutely stunning time. The date of his or her life. Then, before the next date occurs, learns that the other person is in fact already married. Not quite the same date, is it? Sure, a good time was had. Enjoyed every moment of it, maybe. But the experience as a whole has soured because it was based on a lie. A restaurant meal that's only five percent arsenic? Well, I think I'd want the arsenic as an optional side dish, not baked into my entree. So James Frey (his real, sullied name) is going to profit nicely from his jitterbug with the devil. Can't wait to see the eventual movie: "Bogus Memoir and the Brotherhood of the Flaming Pants."

George Bush Made Me Do It

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:38:00 +0000

I'm not sure if the devil has been demoted, or our president has been promoted, but George W. Bush is catching a lot of blame these days. Some of it well-deserved, no doubt. (Harriet Miers! Poor thing.) But some things simply aren't his fault. Like people hitting their kids. I caught part of a radio talk show last night as I was driving the 6-year-old home from swimming lessons. (He calls them Stroke Lessons because "I already know HOW to swim.") So it was a show I don't normally listen to, but I had it on because these days you never know when the next terrorist attack is coming to a sporting event near you. Some guy calling himself "Larry the Angry Liberal" was on. He was not the host, but rather the guest, and if I understood correctly, he IS a host of his own syndicated show, with about 40 stations carrying him. But he was guesting on someone else's show. Well Larry was having a bad day. A very bad day. Seems due to his position as angry liberal talk show host, someone had confronted him in public (not on his show) and said something to the effect: "If you're against a war for OIL, how come you're still driving a CAR?" And then walked away from him and jumped in his own car with his buddies. This incident angered Larry the Angry Liberal. (Not hard to do, I guess.) It angered him to the point where his blood temperature shot up from 98.6 to 212 degrees. He was extremely angry that this person had asked this question which was designed to stifle debate. Not only that, he had the nerve to walk away and not wait for an answer! Which left poor Larry feeling like a Big Dumb Angry Liberal Talk Show Host. Now as he was relating this story on yesterday evening's talk show, the host asked what his answer would have been if the guy had waited for an answer. "Well I don't really have one," Larry said. But still, he hated the question, and the superior manner in which the man delivered it. He stewed about this so much that he went home and hit his 15-year-old autistic son. Backhanded him across the face. As he later added detail, he said it was dinnertime and the son had banged his spoon on the table (which is not atypical for autistic kids, apparently). Larry had told him to "Shut up," then elbowed him AND struck him. That's a lot of anger. Now, let me say first of all there is probably no person on the planet who hasn't done some awful thing to their kid that they regret immediately upon doing it. Whether it's raising your voice, saying something sarcastic, spanking, propelling, or breaking a toy. (My two kids were fighting over a flag on a wooden stick once. My words had absolutely no effect on them, no matter how I configured them or what tone I delivered them in. So I grabbed the flag and broke it in half right in front of them. Their faces were so devastated that I taped it back together, apologized for losing my temper, and then delivered a lecture on "we must not fight over toys." Which they sort of listened to.) So we're all guilty of this. If you're not, you're a saint, and please put in a good word for me at the Heavenly Happy Hour. And in Larry's defense, he sounded terribly remorseful, almost to the point of tears. Perhaps telling the story on a radio show had a confessional/repentance aspect to it. And I have absolutely no doubt he loves his son and hates the fact that he hit him. But here's where we part philosophical company. He went on to explain that it was not HIS fault that he hit his son. It was George Bush's. Yes! George Bush's "War for Oil" made him do it. That's how bad this war is. And how indifferent George Bush is to what happens to angry liberals' kids. He actually said this as a serious justification. It was not a radio parody or a goof. The host said"How is your son doing now?" and Larry mumbled something about that they would patch things up and everything would be fine and so forth. The host didn't really go after him, just sort of commented, "so you think this is George Bush's fault..." in a kind of incredulous tone. Then he took a caller. The caller was a lady who said it was NOT George Bush's fault, it was HIS fault he had hit his son. Whereupon Larry accused her of being a Bush supporter. (she said she was not) He then asked her what she thought of this War for Oil vs Driving A Car argument. She said she did not CARE about that issue, she was concerned about the guy's son, and his way of dealing with anger. Larry was much more interested in getting to the bottom of the oil vs cars conundrum, whereas this lady was extremely interested in his parenting skills. Believe me, I was rooting for the lady! Go Common Sense Woman, Go! This was irritating Larry, who then explained it this way. HE was like a bunch of dry weeds, and George Bush threw a match at him. It was not HIS fault he grew into a brush fire! The lady then said, "That's a bad anaolgy...weeds don't have BRAINS!" She was probably wondering if Larry had one. He then asked her if she was an educator. (No. Probably just a parent.) But let's put it this way, if Larry really does think he's like "weeds" he'd better think about what people like to do with weeds. Exterminate them! Not that I am suggesting anyone exterminate Larry. I'm just suggesting that his metaphors have managed to make him look like an even worse parent than his original story did. How is this any different than hitting your kid because your football team lost? Because your boss yelled at you? Because you misplaced your car keys? I totally agree with that lady. This was an anger issue, not a "George Bush made me hit my kid" issue. If you can use that as an excuse, you can use anything. It really made me want to tell Larry to shut up. And then elbow him and backhand him across the face. But I didn't. And I didn't do it to anyone else, either. How would Larry feel if "I" hit his kid because of "George Bush's War For Oil?" Gee, do you think he'd press charges or sue? Larry, whoever he is, is really sorry. But he needs to understand that nobody can make you hit your kid but you.

The United Flavors of America

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 04:41:00 +0000

Has something gotten into America's ice cream? People are saying all kinds of weird stuff lately. Yes, there was Pat Robertson doing the voiceover as God commented on Ariel Sharon's medical chart. Then there was Hillary Clinton telling us it takes a Plantation to Raise a Slave Child -- she did this in a mock urban African-American accent. Not that she was mocking. Just method acting, maybe! If you know what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge nudge, breakdance, breakdance. There was Senator Ted Kennedy lecturing Judge Samuel Alito on being a member of an exclusive club that wanted to keep women out of Princeton back in the 60s or 70s. Meanwhile Kennedy continues to maintain membership in Harvard's Owl Club. ("Who? Me? WHOOOOO!") The Owls don't allow women, apparently, but Ted thinks that paying dues is not the same as being a member. Hey, I'd be satisfied if he'd simply rescue women from inconvenient car accidents! Now there's New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. And yes, being Mayor of New Orleans these days is sort of like being Mayor of Pompeii, or Alderman of Atlantis. Everyone knows what you're talking about, but the constituency is a little dormant. Anyway, you remember him. He's the one who told everyone to evacuate the city before Hurricane Katrina even though a majority of the inner city population didn't have transportation. Buses were allowed to sit unused while everyone was directed to go to the Superdome with their sleeping bags. (Well it wasn't HIS fault. The bus drivers all wisely took cabs out of the city.) He also encouraged everyone to RETURN to New Orleans just before Hurricane Rita struck. Causing quite a traffic jam between anyone trying to leave, and those trying to perform hurried U-turns in their rental cars. Now he's saying he wants New Orleans to be a "chocolate city." I had to call Hillary Clinton's office for the translation on this, and her staffers assured me he is referring to "people descended from those who used to work on plantations." Okay then! He's calling for an all-black New Orleans. Or a mostly-black New Orleans. Or a primarily black New Orleans. Or at least a mighty sweet New Orleans. I've heard the price of chocolate is set to skyrocket, so maybe it IS a good time to invest in the city. So I have decided that I LIKE Mayor Ray Nagin's idea for re-naming America's people based on foods. Here is a short list I have compiled: African-Americans are now CHOCOLATE Americans. White folks are now ANGELFOOD Americans. Native Americans can be called PEMMICAN Americans. Asian Americans become SAFFRON Americans. Hispanic Americans will be FRIJOLE Americans. The Martians, when they land, will be designated AVOCADO Americans. This will be a lot more fun for those college applications and for the U.S. census forms. And there's no reason we can't commingle food groups for people who are of mixed race! Even though New Orleans is not a city at the moment, I vote that we keep Mayor Nagin in office just for the entertainment value. He says stuff no normal person could get away with! He just needs a place to put his office that isn't six feet below sea level. Is there room, perhaps, in Yellowstone National Park? I keep hearing that volcanic region is going to blow its top. I can hear him now: "Please do NOT touch the hot lava. It is not safe to play in or around a molten area..."

West Virginia Mining Disaster 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 06:44:00 +0000

My title is a nod to the Bee Gees and their mournful tune "New York Mining Disaster 1941" (which, according to them, was written in the dark, and actually was based on a mine disaster in Wales that killed more than 200 children.) It is hard to know what to say about the tragedy at Sago Mine that hasn't already been said by the families of the fallen miners. The mining industry is about as foreign to me as drilling for oil or creating clones. So I generally wouldn't take an interest in what's going on unless we run out of oil, start using coal to heat my house or I meet a copy of myself socially. So far none of that has happened. While loading web pages on the subject I was assaulted by ridiculous sponsored internet ads like "Miners Needed! Work From Home!" Let me guess, you send a check for $500 to some post office box and they mail you a plastic shovel and instructions on how you can earn thousands by starting your very own mine in the backyard. Won't the homeowners' association be pleased! But the news from Sago was serious. Whether the miners had been found dead or alive, it would've all been a part of a week's work for the "always on" cable news media. Even so, the word "Sago" may not have entered the general public's Proper Noun Vocabulary but for one small aspect of the story. They got it wrong. As wrong as it is possible to be wrong. Big, bad wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Everyone got scooped by a mother with two kids who rushed out of the local church when Truth crystallized and hope shattered, punctuated by helplessly flailing fists. "There's but one alive," she said. She had hurried to the church with her kids when the bells first pealed the happy news that the men were alive. She wanted to celebrate with the families who expected to embrace their missing men that morning. Instead they were cold-cocked by circumstances that flowed from a tangled skein of communications. Stunned townspeople gasped their grief to CNN's Anderson Cooper, the only cable news reporter still on the scene in these desperate morning hours. Even he seemed disbelieving at first. Then the truth settled like the blackest of coal dust. Twelve dead. Only one alive. I was struck by the religious symbolism that seemed to permeate the story. Local businesses put up signs exhorting everyone to pray for the trapped men. People placing the fate of their loved ones in God's hands. Pleas for a miracle. The strains of the song "Amazing Grace" wafting from the church as waiting families struggled to keep despair at bay. At long last, the bells chiming the thrilling, but ultimately mistaken news. Then the Sago Mine's CEO had no choice but to bludgeon the ecstatic crowd with the facts. He had gone from Angel of Light to Messenger of Death with the phrase, "There's been a miscommunication." The stampede of emotions that followed was as inevitable as it was frightening. "God took away our miracle," said one family member. Several days later Anderson Cooper re-interviewed the woman who initially broke the story for (let's be honest here) the ENTIRE U.S. news media. She had taken two photographs inside the church. Not of the pandemonium that later occurred, but of the governor of West Virginia and Sago Mine CEO Ben Hatfield as they were about to deliver the stunning news. CNN showed both photos, which seemed unremarkable at first. (and I wish I could show you the photo but I can't find it online.) As I was staring at the shot of Hatfield I noticed in the background behind him a GIANT picture of the Last Supper. It was so big it almost seemed like a mural on the wall, the apostles looming over Hatield's shoulders. "Twelve alive, one dead." Is God trying to tell us something? If so, what? Maybe that our settled, comfortable way of life is about to be upended. That we're in for a reversal of fortune intended to pry us away from our material way of living and thinking, and toward our Creator. Crazy, I know. But no crazier that a big, fat picture of the Last Supper as a mute backdrop to that horrific announcement. No crazier than believing there is a meaning to everything that happens, and that God's healing power remains, all appearances to the contrary. No crazier than regarding this life as the briefest of rest stops, and realizing we'll all be moving on soon. I can only hope the hugely talented Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot is composing a musical ode that will memorialize this tragedy as indelibly as his song about a sunken Great Lakes freighter, "The Edmund Fitzgerald."

The Late Great Andy Rooney

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 06:27:00 +0000

(Lakeland, FL) The world is a less curmudgeonly place today after the untimely death of Andy Rooney, 86, beloved syndicated columnist, CBS 60 Minutes commentator and former reporter for the Stars & Stripes. He died in his sleep while in the midst of an interview on Larry King Live. (Source: AP, i.e. "Argumentative Patti") At this time there are unconfirmed reports that Mr. King was also deceased at the time of the interview. Okay! Let me first be honest and point out that Andy Rooney the New York Giants fan is still alive, and grumbling about what a pain it is to get to the games. (Although they may have had to defibrillate him after his team failed to score in its playoff loss to the Carolina Panthers Sunday.) It is Andy Rooney the WRITER who has apparently hit the rim and bounced into the great Round File in the Sky. The yellow sticky note attached to his gravestone reads: Be right back, as soon as I think of something interesting to say!" Mr. Rooney has a terrific eye for minutia and a no-nonsense writing style. Problem is, the worse his trifocal prescription gets, the closer to his body his writing seems to gravitate. That is why we are now reading about: The piles on his desk! The contents of his pockets! The stubble on his face! I don't object to a writer taking on a small subject. A good one can make it anything but mundane. But for heaven's sake, if you're going to write about what's in your pockets or your junk drawer, at least make sure there's something interesting in there. I don't want to read about the color of your lint! More evidence that Mr. Rooney has passed away: Larry King was kind enough to mention one of Mr. Rooney's books, "Common Nonsense," and encouraged the public to buy it. Mr. Rooney let out a big guffaw and told us it was selling terribly. Whereupon I'm 100 percent certain his book publicist choked on her coffee. (Medical suggestion to the PublicAffairs Books marketing staff: Mr. Rooney could probably benefit from a coffee enema.) If some publisher wants to take on one of my books I promise if I get on national TV I will tell everyone it's a wonderful book and they should all buy it immediately. I may even have a portion of the profits donated to the Andy Rooney Memorial Fund for Giants Fans With Bad Seats. (Note to Larry King: I'm just wisecracking. Please don't hold that against me when scheduling for your show!) I also admit my attempt to have Mr. Rooney gossiped about in the past tense is a transparent ploy to grab the undivided attention of all four bystanders who have chanced by here. I am using Mr. Rooney's well-known name and magnificent Q-Score to promote my wholly obscure name and meaningless Z-Score. (Q-Score relates to celebrity popularity; Z-Score is an indicator I made up rating the likelihood of inducing sleep. As in, cranking Zzzzzzzs.) But I figure Mr. Rooney has annoyed me on at least three different levels: 1) His opinion on Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ." I think it's a spiritual masterpiece, whereas the very idea of it seems to bother him. He then picked a few of the looniest letters and emails of criticism to showcase in his column, when I'm sure he got plenty of cogent well-written ones, too. 2) His opinion that women should not be sideline football reporters. This from a man who admits he knows NOTHING about baseball. And who is old enough to have watched Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig play. I was irritated enough by this to mention it in my novel, "Buffalo Winged." 3) He hates St. Patrick's Day. What kind of pint-sized leprechaun of a grinch would say that? He's the scrooge of the Guinness world! Any person of Irish descent who is not fond of St. Patrick's Day should keep his pie-hole shut instead of sharing his grumpiness with the rest of the parade-loving, sodabread-baking, green facepaint-wearing public. Maybe he doesn't like it because it's an inclusive holiday that encourages everyone to be Irish on that day! In one column this year he claimed that he'd never met anyone with some of the most popular boys' and girls' names of today. That's because his grandchildren are probably senior citizens by now, for Ezekial's sake! Of course he doesn't bump into anyone of the school-age set. There are a lot of things I like about Mr. Rooney. I think he's a good citizen, patriotic American, loyal family man and Giants fan, frugal consumer, honorable human being, honest commentator and, yes, excellent writer. His style isn't flashy, but it's highly readable and addictive. There are days when I skim through most of the paper, but I read his columns from start to finish. Even if it's just to see how he's described the head of a pin he's been staring at too long. That's why he's a syndicated columnist, and a good one. Long live Andy Rooney! Patricia Reilly Panara is the author of "Buffalo Winged" and "Nobody Move!" and regular columnist for WNY Media Network and her tiny population of blog readers. Contact: 863-838-2117 Beefonweck.com and Beefonweck.blogspot.com

Going Postal

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 15:29:00 +0000

Since I'm sure we've all made New Year's Resolutions involving not only physical health, but also FISCAL health, I thought I'd contribute to your financial well-being with this great idea I had for saving money. Aside: when I was in college I was in charge of the newsletter for our living group, which happened to be a chapter of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. Even then my writing style was snarky. Anyway one of our goals was to save money, namely because any "saved money" on mundane things such as electricity could then be used for wonderful things like parties! So each week I would publish what I called a Pseudo-Energy Saving Tip, or PEST, that would help us cut down on the electric bills. Such as, wash your hair, then visit someone in the dorms and use her blow dryer! Well you get the idea. So it is in the spirit of my PEST tips that this great idea came to me. With first-class postage jumping two pennies to 39 cents today, I was thinking we as USA citizens should try to beat the increase. I will readily admit that publishing this suggestion TODAY makes my idea not only a day late, but the equivalent of an unsolicited opinion (two cents) short. But I wanted to share anyway, because I'm so enamored with my idea. Here goes: We push as much of our 2006 mailing into the first week as we can, in order to retain the 37-cent rate. Simple! But it will require ingenuity to make it work. First, obviously you don't pay your BILLS early. There is nothing money-saving about that, unless you are prone to late fees. It's the correspondence that can really reap you some big savings. So drag out that address book or event calendar and count up all those birthdays, anniversaries and weddings that might be coming up. Buy the number of cards you will need for the birthdays and start firing them out! The people born in February will marvel at your incredible efficiency. The people born in March through July may consider you a tad eccentric. Those born from August through October may wonder if you're on some funkily-interacting medications. And anyone born in November or December will assume this is a BELATED card from 2005. So be sure to mark very clearly on the card that you previously sent your 2005 card, and that THIS card is to be counted toward your 2006 obligation. This should give some of your recipients added joy, as they realize they are NOT already (fill in dreaded advanced age here), but still have a number of months to enjoy being only (fill in too-old-to-be-believed-but-heck-it's-younger-than-anything-you'll-be-turning-in-the-future). The next obvious money-saver will be getting your entire holiday card list taken care of 11 months early. No one can argue with getting a head start on Christmas. I'm sure you know people who are buying half-price holiday decorations for next year, or are stocking up on wrapping paper and cards. There is no law that says you cannot use these items in January for the express purpose of beating a postal rate increase. Now for those of you who have kids, there is the problem of how to photograph them now so they look a year older. For teen boys, try adding a little peach fuzz using those washable magic markers. For toddlers you way want to stand them on a box or cut their hair differently. And of course an outfit change is absolutely a must! The newsletter is a little more problematic. It requires you to call on all your psychic abilities and PREDICT what is going to happen to your family in the coming year! Well I suggest not trying to be too dogmatic about this. Rather than visiting fortune tellers, buying a dozen magic eight-balls, or reading up on Nostradamus, I think you should acknowledge that your Christmas newsletter is based on SPECULATION, or perhaps what you would LIKE to happen. You will need a very large footnote on the bottom that says something like: "* not responsible for the accuracy of events contained herein. Everything subject to Murphy's Law." Or somesuch. You can also have fun with it, maybe including multiple choice options on things like your vacation plans, so your friends and relatives can vote on where they want you to go. (Note: "hell" is not funny.) Also, as you include those upcoming graduation announcements as if they already occurred, you may even start getting money and congratulations in the mail. (A little added pressure, yes, but worth it!) This would also be an ideal time to insert some unrealistic parental expectations, such as "Phinneaus graduated summa cum laude! We're so proud!" (This is a nod to Julia Roberts' son, who may be the only person in the U.S. under the age of eighty who is named Phinneaus. Caveat: The Amish MAY trip me up here. Wouldn't it be cool if Julia Roberts' son grew up to be Amish?) Based on some horrific natural disaster in 2005, I suggest throwing a few of these in your newsletter just to give an added air of realism. Try something like, "of course we were horrified to lose all our relatives on the West Coast due to that awful earthquake/volcano/tsunami, but we donated Hazel's allowance to some Red Cross profiteers who are now using the proceeds for a gambling binge at the Floating French Quarter." You might also want to say something like, "And isn't it just AWFUL about Africa?" without specifying anything further. This is guaranteed to be 100 percent accurate no matter what happens in 2006. I have to ask, though, is there some reason the stupid post office (and I mean "stupid" in the nicest possible way there) can't come up with an even-numbered postage stamp? Don't they realize that if they have to raise the stupid rates (and I mean "stupid" in a snarling kind of way there) that we would just as soon pay an EXTRA cent so we can calculate what we owe more easily? And thus avoid another postal increase for an extra six months to a year while we enjoy the round number? Sigh. The Golden Era of easy postal calculation dates back to the oh-so-hot summer of 1988, when first class stamps were a quarter. Since that time they've been annoying us with stupid (and I mean that in an aggressively psychotic way) rates such as 29 cents, 33 cents, 34 cents (what, those idiots couldn't just make it 35 and stop torturing us? I mean "idiot" in the old-fashioned sense of "person with least amount of common sense in the whole neighborhood"), of course 37 cents, and now 39 cents. Just make it 40! Forty, I tell you! We'll pay it! Gladly! Thirty-nine is STUPID. (I mean that in the sense that obviously you are in no danger of being fired from your job ever, or you wouldn't come up with such a stupid number.) For the record, "drop letters" would be delivered for only a penny back in good old 1855. I know that it sounds cheap, but since you could buy your average cow for a penny, it was really a luxury item to send a "how-dee-doo" card to your aunt back then. (Don't believe me. For all I know cows cost as much as BMWs.) Also they charged MORE if you sent the mail more than 3,000 miles. (But figure, domestically, now much further could you send it? We didn't own Alaska or Hawaii at the time!) By 1932 the rate had risen to 3 cents, and this was in the Middle of the Great Depression! You have to realize, though, that people didn't "send resumes" back then. They just showed up in person, hat in hand, asking if you could spare a dime. (A dime! See, they were asking for a lot!) By the time JFK was assasinated in 1963 you had to spend a full nickel for a first class letter. But by then we had stopped sending polite correspondence and were glued to our TVs in case the Beatles showed up on Ed Sullivan or we tried to send a man to the moon. No wonder Vietnam was so far along before anyone decided to protest it. The Watergate years had first class postage at a dime. Figures! We were having an energy crisis, why not a postal crisis to go along with it? So we got rid if the president but kept the postal rate increase. The disco era saw a jump to 15 cents, but this was the domain of Jimmy Carter, who told us to lower our expectations even as prices were rising. It was a nice even 20 cents in 1981 -- who all got shot that year -- President Reagan? Pope John Paul II? John Lennon? J.R. Ewing? Well, you can decide who's important and who isn't. That zings us past the Unabomer Years to the modern era when you have to pay extra for anthrax-free mail. It is nice to know, though, that the NSA is probably using some extremely high-tech devices to spy on my Christmas newsletters. I hope they enjoy them!

Pat Robertson Moons Ariel Sharon

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 03:44:00 +0000

This is a story I'm also publishing on the WNYMedia.net site. At the moment I can't get the feed from that site to this one (hence the "blankness" below my Panara's Bodacious Blarney header), so I'm reprinting it here. I've gotten a couple of comments on the story over there, one person was chuckling over it, another accused me of not believing that God intervenes in the world. Hahahahaha. Anyone who knows me knows I believe God routinely intervenes in the world. I just don't happen to think Pat Robertson has any more insight into God than your average toddler. To quote my 4-year-old, "The letter T is JUST LIKE a cross, only it doesn't have God on it!" Anyway, here is my Pat Robertson piece, with bonus commentary on the status of mooning in our society: With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon clinging to life after suffering a serious stroke, his supporters must be relieved to learn that his demise has been Divinely Ordained. So says televangelist Pat Robertson, self-appointed SpokesProphet of God. Apparently God was ticked over Sharon’s plan to give some land to the Palestinians, so he ordered up a severe medical problem that would (ahem) “take him out.” Far be it from me to argue with God or his Prophet! But even though mooning is strictly legal in the U.S., I’m not sure everyone is appreciating Pat’s attempt to metaphorically drop his trousers and point his heinie in the direction of Israel. It wasn’t enough for Pugnacious Pat to wish death on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last summer. Which he later amended to say he was only suggesting that some lucky gal “take him out” to dinner. Turns out Pat supports this Women’s Lib stuff after all! Now Pat is honoring the deathwatch over Ariel Sharon by claiming the 77-year-old Israeli Prime Minister’s recent strokes were God’s retribution for his plan to “divide” Israel and cede some of its land to the Palestinians. Would it be too rude to point out that the Palestinians are, in fact, “Native Peoples” to the area? It’s enough to make me want to rename the Washington Redskins. How about the D.C. Palestinians? That would certainly project an image of a team never willing to give up no matter how long the odds, or how awful the draft picks. And won’t the cheerleaders look tough in those bulky vests? But I digress, which is easy to do when discussing the Middle East. Since Pat is busy channeling God, would it be okay for me to channel the late Emily Post and ask if this is good etiquette? Shouldn’t major Christian leaders at least wait a seemly amount of time, say, until after the guy dies, before suggesting his death was evidence of God’s wrath, or, in any case, God’s official political opinion? If Sharon dies as the result of God’s displeasure over the country’s boundaries, does the CEO of the Rand-McNally mapmakers have something to worry about? Is he going to get bonked on the head by one of his own oversized globes? Do you think it’s remotely possible that Sharon is suffering health problems because 1) He is old, as in PAST the average age of death for chain-smoking white men, 2) He’s extremely overweight, even morbidly obese. Anyone want to venture a guess as to what the “morbid” part of morbidly obese represents? 3) He’s in a high-stress job. Oh, sure, everyone loves him, but he still has to worry about someone nuking his country or assassinating him personally. All part of a day’s work for the Israeli prime minister! If Polite Pat is so sure he knows what God thinks, would he mind asking if this Iran thing is going to explode into World War III? I, for one, would appreciate a little advance notice so I can put my head between my knees and locate my TV’s remote control. Obnoxious aside: If World War III actually DID break out, would the cable channels bother to break into their regular programming to tell us? Or would we have millions of teenagers who would never hear the news at all because MTV would be blithely continuing with its regular schedule? Anyway, Pat’s claim that God has come to earth and taken the form of a blood clot in Ariel Sharon’s brain is outrageous, but he is only “mooning” Mr. Sharon in a metaphorical sense. We’ve learned recently that baring one’s buttocks is a form of free speech that is “protected” in the U.S., and, most specifically, Maryland. Since “mooning” is a colloquial expression having nothing to do with illegal liquor stills or NASA, I feel I should at least define it as being “a form of expression that leaves the communicator at risk of sunburn and insect bites.” Actually if it hadn’t been for this recent court ruling I wouldn’t have guessed that anyone thought there was a law against it. I believe it may even be legal to moon motorists while standing in the median of a divided highway, thus tying up traffic for untold hours. I think we only have laws against exposing body parts that are involved in reproduction and lactation. Elimination and constipation are apparently protected by the U.S. Constitution. Personally, I think the accuracy of Mr. Robertson’s retribution statement is probably best symbolized by a steaming pile of you-know-what. So Pat is not so much “making pronouncements” as he is “eliminating thoughts” from his overtaxed brain. And we’re all getting to see the lovely results in our neatly manicured media outlets. A late holiday present from me to all of you: the official Pat Robertson Metaphorical Pooper Scooper. For collecting his pearls of wisdom and depositing them where they belong. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Back to the Future For Buffalo News Carrier

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 02:52:00 +0000

An 81-year-old Grand Island woman has her newspaper carrier to thank for potentially saving her life by noticing her paper hadn't been picked up. Joseph Rains, a seventh grader in the Buffalo suburb of Grand Island (yes, technically, an island, and also, technically owned by Native Americans) was delivering a special Monday holiday edition of the News when he noticed a previous paper had been untouched. Then he heard some mysterious banging coming from inside the house. Concerned, he consulted his chaffeur (technically, "mom") who was was driving him around on his route that morning. She contacted the local authorities, who responded and found that Audrey Yehle had fallen inside her house and (yes, technically "couldn't get up" -- just like that doddering commercial for emergency alert services always warned us could happen!) Instead of fancy technology, she had utilized an ordinary household broomstick to attract her paperboy's attention. (Thank you Glenda, the good witch, for that idea.) The woman just happened to live on "Love Road," leading us to wonder if the late Beatle John Lennon himself was playing guardian angel for the woman, tapping the 12-year-old paperboy on the shoulder. This was such a heart-warming item that it was reported tonight on Keith Olberman's Countdown Show on MSNBC. In his version, the newspaper boy noticed the woman's "Buffalo Courier-Express" hadn't been picked up. So I conclude, technically, that the woman had NOT been lying helpless for a couple days, as reported, but rather must have been there for a couple DECADES. The Courier, you see, has been out of business since 1982. Thanks, Keith, for sending me Back to the Future! Now if only I could score an invite to the Bass Pro Under the Sea Dance.

Christmas Wish List: Happy Kids!

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 08:36:00 +0000

I don't know any parent whose wish list is substantially different from that. All we want for Christmas is happy children. Well, yes, we also want world peace (as long as we don't have to personally see to it), financial stability and health for all concerned. But if the kids are happy that's pretty much all we ask. Someone pointed out recently that Christmas just doesn't have the same magic that it did when we were kids. You never get anything that really thrills you, unless you have incredibly rich spouse who leaves a luxury car topped with a bow in your driveway. In which case you probably already have everything you could want or need, anyway. Well shoot, everything is supposed to be more fun for kids! Whether it's playing little league, losing your tooth, going to an amusement park, learning to ride a bike, anticipating your birthday...why should Christmas be any different? From a worldly perspective, of course. Spiritually Christmas ought to add meaning with every passing year. I will have to say that for kids of the age of mine (4 and 6), no matter how hard we try to emphasize the "Jesus' Birthday" thing, it is really not much more than a technicality to them. Jesus is one lucky kid, who gets to have his birthday on Christmas Day. So he can get presents! I had to actually explain that Jesus came first, followed by Santa. Sort of like the chicken and the egg, never mind Happy Meals or the frying pan. I don't really worry that the Santa Concept will undermine their future religious faith. Some claim that once they learn that "Santa is a lie" or at best, a parental exaggeration on par with "you'll never grow if you don't eat your vegetables," then they will conclude every fantastic-sounding thing we've ever told them is false. Such as the existence of God and a heavenly afterlife. My plan is to retire all the fictional characters at the same time. The moment Santa is unmasked is the day we eliminate the Elves, cage the Tooth Fairy, shoot the Easter Bunny, bury the Groundhog and smash the Great Pumpkin. I may even reveal there is no all-seeing cop who will cart us off to jail instantly if he EVER SEES ANYONE WITH AN UNBUCKLED SEAT BELT. My 4- and 6-year-old are really worried about having to eat jail food, and they often discuss what would be served there and what it might taste like. Personally I believed in Santa 'til I was maybe eight, and it never caused me to have any religious doubts. That's for later when you realize bad things happen to good people! The Book of Job in case anyone forgot. What's more perplexing is why "good" things happen to bad people! Who the heck made Herod king? Anyway, Hubby and I got our wish this year, as each kid was thrilled with the whole Christmas experience, and they were even on good behavior at Mass. (The 4-year-old fell asleep, which is about as good as it gets.) Some of our more successful endeavors were as follows: making a deliberate effort to see some great local light displays. They had a listing in the paper of some spectacularly ostentatious ones, complete with lighted figures on rooftops, gyrating animations, colors everywhere. So I mapped out a route which took us to half a dozen or so great sights, along with a very large mobile home park where about 90 percent of the residents decked out in a major way, attended by Santa and Mrs. Claus giving out candy at the exit. It took about half an hour to get all the way through, and I'm certain the location is visible to astronauts orbiting the earth. The 4-year-old was sputtering his praise, "This was good! This was beautiful! This was wonderful! This was generous!" (He's sort of like an automated synonym-finder at this age.) We also took advantage of an early Thanksgiving by decorating the weekend BEFORE. This allowed us to schedule two holiday parties, one the weekend after Thanksgiving (for friends) and another a couple weeks later (for work people who are also friends). We always invite people with their kids so no one has to worry about sitters, and our kids are thrilled to have the company. However they always enjoy the children so much that they want them to come right back the next day! Hubby's outrageous display of Santas, nutcrackers and funky villages is the visual centerpiece of all this. Naturally I am more concerned about having enough food, including something kids will eat. (chocolate santas! pretzels!) The week before Christmas my mother sent us some seeds for grass for the kids to grow for the Baby Jesus. The idea is that we're growing it so we have fresh hay for his manger when he arrives. The kids really like this in a horticultural sense, watering it with great glee each morning. It grew quite tall in only a week! This was another way to keep them focused on the "Jesus coming" aspect of the holiday. I want to thank my friend Katrena for alerting us to Northpole.com, a fabulous site that has anything a kid (or parent) could want to make your holiday preparations complete! This site allowed us to email Santa, which both kids did. They anxiously checked their email box (available right on the site) every couple hours. It took him more than a day to reply, but they were thrilled! They were able to read and personalize stories, play Christmasy (and educational) games, print out coloring sheets and puzzles, find out deep background information on Santa. We visite Mrs. Claus' kitchen and picked out a cookie recipe for us to all make together. There was a huge selection, but we settled on "angel crisps" because my 6-year-old studied them all and decided this one didn't have any ingredients he objected to. Hubby then had the brilliant idea of purchasing two "calls from Santa" on Ebay. Yes, I suppose you could have a relative do it, but it's hard to disguise your voice for five minutes. And this "Santa" (from Nevada) was great! He had a real Santa voice, and you could call him up and get his answering machine and leave messages. Hubby and I had to fill out a questionnaire about the kids. When he called the caller ID read "Santa: North Pole." I have to say the kids' jaws both dropped when they realized they were talking to Santa. Santa chitchatted knowledgeably about their lives, asking about their teachers, my 6-year-old's lost teeth (even claiming he sent an elf to help the tooth fairy find the tooth he lost on the playground!), complimented them on doing their chores and flossing. We put Santa on speakerphone so I taped the whole thing. Well worth the ten bucks per call, in my opinion. Santa did a fantastic job! On Christmas Eve we tracked Santa's progress around the globe on the site's NORAD satellite Santa Tracker. It was cool! You could see on the map where he was. You want to start early in the day when he's still in Japan and keep checking back every so often as he hits various countries. There are live reports and on location sightings as he flies past local landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower. When he got to Brazil I warned the kids we'd better get them to sleep! We sprinkled the reindeer food on the front lawn before ushering them to their beds. Hubby pretty much bought and arranged all of their toys this year. (He was better about not getting things that come with 3oo PIECES.) I made the hot cocoa that we sent out for Santa, along with a plate of angel crisps. I'm also in charge of the stocking stuffers. In addition to chocolate Santas they each get Christmas pencils, two toothbrushes, floss, chapstick, math flashcards and dice. I don't know why the dice. Maybe because we were always losing the dice to board games when I was a kid, so I'm compensating. So for any adults who feel like they have lost the magic of Christmas, you really need to spend it in the presence of children. Jesus is the reason for the season, yes, but children are the reason for the toys. Without Santa we'd have no toys. Without Jesus we'd have no love. Someday the children will realize which aspect is expendable and which is not, and when they do, they will never lose the magic of this Holy Day.

Merry Christ's Birth 2005

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 06:33:00 +0000

We all know Christmas is about much MORE than the birth of Jesus Christ on earth approximately 2,000 years ago, give or take a solstice. As if it needed to be! Primarily it seems to be about retailers achieving their year-end sales goals. Since one of my previous professional incarnations was advertising for a retail chain, I can attest to the economic worship of what is reverently known as "The Fourth Quarter." But Christmas is also an opportunity for the socially aggressive to insist that their form of Christmas greeting is preferred to any other kind. That is, "Merry Christmas" is superior to "Happy Holidays," and we'll boycott your butt if you ban the former in favor of the latter. For the religiously inclined, why not skip gift-buying altogether and just focus on the true meaning of Christmas? Then you don't have to worry about which stores to avoid! It isn't really necessary, though. If you want to annoy people you can just pronounce it "Happy HOLY-Days." That's where the word came from, after all. Another option is to shout gleefully, "Mary, Queen of Scots!" in a British accent. This will definitely make people wonder what is wrong with you. At our house, along with getting ready for the Birth of Christ, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Believe it or not, that special actually MENTIONS the birth of Christ and quotes Scripture! Today that seems wildly subversive. It's also worth noting that Christmas was already completely commercialized at that point. I think we need to complain about much more than the commercialization of Christmas. That's a retailing fact of life, but far from the only feature making Christmas something other than perhaps it was originally intended. How about the Electrification of Christmas? It's apparent from a cursory trip in residential areas that the Worship of the Watt goes on unabated, with glowing bulbs, icicles, snow globes, reindeer, angels, manger scenes, disco balls, cartoon characters ad infinitum. (Personal note: And I love looking at it! Give me more!) Or, the Hallmarkification of Christmas. (Guilty here, too.) Between packages and cards it's possible to spend more of your Christmas season in the post office than in Church! But I love getting the photo cards and newsletters that update us on people we don't see nearly often enough. All the friends and family get them except my one friend who "hates newsletters" because they are so impersonal. Well I always write a personal note on the card in addtion to sending the newsletter. I actually used to send out a page or two long-hand letter until carpal tunnel set in. So after that I decided the newsletter was the only way to go. I just try to make it interesting enough that if it's the only thing you had to read in the car you wouldn't be totally bored. How about the Calorification of Christmas? This isn't hard to do in any case, but when you've acquired an Italian mother-in-law, as I did seven years ago, things get REALLY out of hand! Pasta...fish...meatballs....side dishes....COOKIES. Forget those stupid tips on how not to pack on the pounds over the holidays. It's impossible. And realistically, why should we turn any of this fantastic food down? Can we talk about the Jingleization of Christmas? Those stores and radio stations that start playing tunes with bells as soon as the Thanksgiving wishbone is parted? Think about this. Six weeks of Christmas music. In a 52-week year, that is more than 10 percent of the total year spent listening to Bruce Springsteen giggle "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." It is more than a month of Jose Feliciano crooning "Feliz Navidad." It is like listening to "The Little Drummer Boy" as a penance for the duration of Lent. On the other hand, there isn't much about modern music that I like, so I guess I'm not really complaining. Just pointing it out! What should we call the things we watch during this season? The BoobTubopoly of Christmas? Since we have a 4- and 6-year-old naturally we are revisiting the traditional kids' specials such as Charlie Brown, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mickey's Christmas, Frosty the Snowman and the Little Drummer Boy. And adult fare such as A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, Home Alone (okay, a movie, but for kids), Miracle on 34th St., Holiday Inn, and (my personal favorite) The Homecoming, which introduced us to Earl Hamner's Walton family. It is amazing with all these "izations" (beyond just commercialization) that we have time to notice Jesus at all! I do try, and it comes more to the fore when you have to constantly remind your kids WHY we are doing all this stuff. Because Jesus wants us to! On a commercial note, I really don't need anything except socks. I KNOW the Christmas season is about more than me keeping my feet warm. It is about the presence of Jesus in our lives. I wonder if the emphasis on that in December somehow gives us a pass on realizing it every other month of the year. That is going to be my project for 2006. Getting the Jingle out of Jesus so he can show up at the breakfast table every morning, supervise my driving throughout the day, and help us wrap things up at night. Welcome, Jesus, into our lives and our hearts!

Reindeer Food is Nutritious

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:00:00 +0000

I was a Christmas Party Volunteer at for my son's first grade class. Several of us got there early to prepare the room while the children were having recess out on the playground. Even though I am a "food person" by nature, I did not get assigned to pizza preparations or cookie placement. For some reason I am always tortured by crafts. Right to the craft table I go! We will be creating reindeer puppets out of a brown paper lunch bag, construction paper body parts, and of course glue. And even though I am (psychologically) allergic to glitter, that of course was mixed into the equation in the form of "Reindeer Food" that we would be putting into little plastic Ziploc bags. Reindeer Food is made up of standard rolled oats plus the glitter. My son's first grade teacher said the children could scoop the oats into the bag, but she wanted us parents to handle the glitter. This was due to an incident involving one of her own personal children a number of years ago. They had to visit an emergency room in order to extract glitter from her child's eye. As I have mentioned before, I am very Craft-Unfriendly. Nothing turns out better due to my participation in it. My very presence causes glue to harden, construction paper to curl up, yarn to develop split ends, sequins to scatter, glitter to clump up. I was becoming concerned that "I" would get glitter in my eye and have to be transported to the emergency room, still clutching my adult scissors. So the children filed back in to start their Christmas party activities. I did one useful thing, which was to go around the class with the hand sanitizer and make everyone wash up. Then they scattered to various tables to play Christmas Bingo, frost Christmas cookies and of course to construct their reindeer puppet and assemble the reindeer food. Eight or so first graders gathered around my table, smiling expectantly. I was sitting in a first grade chair, so my knees were approximately at my ears. I moved one knee out of the way and said, "Welcome to the reindeer table!" That brought an immediate chorus of "Where's mine Give me the scissors I don't have one Hey he took the glue You're too close to me I can't find my other antler...etc." Fortunately the pieces they had to glue onto their bag were already inside the bag. They all dumped out these pieces onto the table, which caused them all to start elbowing each other in case someone else was reaching for "their" pieces. Never mind the fact that they were all the same, and no one was likely to steal "your" reindeer eyeball to give "their" reindeer a third eye. One girl said to me, "What is the glitter for?" "It's part of the reindeer food," I said to her. "It helps the reindeer fly." "So they eat the glitter?" she said skeptically. "How do they fly before they get there?" I frowned. "They already know how to fly because they're magic reindeer." "I don't believe in magic food," she said. I shifted to a more technical explanation. "The glitter helps the reindeer find the food on the lawn. It's an optical enhancement," I tried to say with finality. Now if I were that girl's parents I would be tempted to borrow a neighbor's dog poop, sprinkle some glitter on it, and throw it on the front lawn for added reindeer realism. But that's just me. After the children finished glueing all the pieces to their paper bags they were supposed to put their name on their own reindeer. One child added, "Made in China." I guess he pays attention to labels in the stores! When we finished our reindeer they all gathered in front of the teacher for the wrapped book exchange. One thing I notice about first graders is that they allow each other practically NO personal space. While sitting on the floor they jam right up against each other like they're on a pilgrimmage to Mecca. The teacher kept saying, "Spread out! No one will be able to walk up to get their present unless you spread out!" Another thing about the first grade class it that at first glance it sort of looks like a hockey player awards dinner. They all smile broadly and no one has any teeth! I wonder if the teacher gets used to that look. As each child's name was called, he or she was supposed to go to the pile of wrapped presents and choose one. They spent a lot of time on the choosing, even though these were all books and you had no idea what book was inside. So they were choosing based on the style of wrapping paper and contours of the package. Which were all either square or rectangular. Book-shaped, for heaven's sake! Why was this taking so long? The tag said who the gift was "from" so each recipient was supposed to say something thankful and give a holiday greeting to the giver. But you have to admit a "book exchange" is a good idea for first graders. Even though everyone wanted to trade once they opened their book. Finally I was released from duty. No glitter in my eye. No stab wounds with scissors. No glue in inappropriate places (best as I could tell). Only one girl whose tenuous hold on the reality of Santa may have been threatened by my reindeer food explanation. Next I will be working on the physics of how the sleigh stays up there. "Magic" has become seriously undermined as a working explanation.

Improve Your Memory In 14 Days: A Quiz

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 20:39:00 +0000

Haven't I seen this quiz before? Say in the past couple of weeks? Any memory test that doesn't include my grocery list is just playing games. Here's a quiz for you: 1) How much time, in your average week, do you spend staring into your refrigerator, slowly chilling your forearms, because you refuse to close the door until you remember what it is you were supposed to be getting? 2) How many rebate coupons that you are eligible for do you successfully redeem in any given year? (More than half or Less than half) 3) How many perfectly pleasant phone conversations do you have with family members each day without getting to the real point of your phone call? So you have to call back. 4) What percentage of your birthday and anniversary cards that you send out are, technically, "belated?" (whether the card uses that word or not) a) Less than half? b) More than half? c)Practically all? d) I've stopped sending cards because I can't remember to whom I'm related anymore. 5) How many important documents could you physically locate in five minutes? Circle all that apply: driver's license, birth certificate, car registration, social security card, marriage license, passport, title to car, mortgage papers, warranty card for anything costing more than $500 bucks. 6) What is the phone number for your childhood home? (first home that you had to learn a phone number for) 7) What is the oldest condiment in your refrigerator? How long ago did it expire? 8) Where were you and what were you doing when Andy Gibb died? (you may omit this question if you don't know who Andy Gibb is. If old substitute JFK. If young substitute JFK, Jr..) 9) Recite the Whopper Ingredients. 10) Say "Toy Boat" four times fast. 11) If you are still reading this quiz you probably can't remember why you started taking it.

And Time's the Person of the Year Is...

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:50:00 +0000

Time's Person of the Year, eagerly awaited by those of us who like to ingest news along with our carbohydrates, is none other than...a triumverate. Yes! Three persons in one. A trinity, if you will. A new trend that I already don't like, starting with the replacement of Nightline's Ted Koppel with three people who taken together aren't nearly as good. So who are these three all-important persons, bellwethers of Life As We Knew It in 2005? Was it this year's Weather Supremes: Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma? (No.) Was it our govermental stooges, FEMA's Michael Brown, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco? (Uh-uh.) How about Republicans in Trouble, such as Scooter "G. Gordon" Libby, Bill "Me First" Frist, and "Smiling" Tom DeLay? (Nope.) Or Democrats Saying Dumb Things, such as Harry "Concentration Camps" Reid, John "the Army's Broke" Murtha, or Howard "The Scream" Dean? (Not hardly.) No. None of those. Singers perhaps? Ones we are sick of reading about, such as Britney & Kevin, Jessica and Whats-His-Name, J. Lo and anybody? Nah. Terrorists? We've got Bombings in Bali, Terror on Trains in Britain and Insurgents in Iraq. Eh, it's almost background noise now. Well then! How about people who DISTRACTED us from real news? The Runaway Bride in Albuquerque, Natalee Holloway in Aruba, Cindy Sheehan in Crawford? Big People Who Left Us Worse Off For Leaving? Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks and Johnny Carson come to mind. How about those most responsible for reminding us that the news media is a wretched profession whose duty is to serve someone, but that the "someone" isn't the general public? I crown Queen Judy "Miss Run Amok" Miller (formerly of the New York Times), Court Jester Armstrong "Pay Me" Williams (ex-syndicated columnist), Pageboy Dan "Faked Evidence" Rather (retired from CBS News). Ooh. My suggestions above seem practically PLAUSIBLE. So which did Time Magazine choose? (Dramatic Rock and Roll Drum Roll gives way to clackclackclacking of a computer keyboard) The "Persons of the Year" are none other than U2 lead singer "Bono" and that husband and wife team of Bill and Melinda Gates. 'Cuz they're trying to make the world a better place! I have to admit I should really applaud Time's effort to name them. So what if it resonates with practically no one? Does it matter that it sounds like a bunch of high school teachers voted them "Most Admired Celebrities" in a dreamworld? Maybe the world is so depressing today that Time just had to look for someone doing good in the world and celebrate it no matter what. Time's writers are probably extremely tired of writing about hurricane debris. I should really agree wholeheartedly. It just seems so, so lame. Yes, the world is falling apart before our very eyes, but some very rich and famous people are throwing a lot of money at the world's problems! Also, after viewing the cover photo, I wish Bill and Bono had traded glasses. That would have offered an interesting visual effect. How is it that Mother Nature did not win hands down? (or bodies Facedown?) You've got a Tsunami in southeast Asia (the magnitude of which has never been seen in our lifetimes, and occurred too late to make the list last year). An earthquake in Pakistan that was large enough to make Pakistan and India set aside their nuclear threats for a few moments, and of course Hurricane Alley on the Gulf Coast, which waterlogged an American City to the point where it Ain't Coming Back. (Repeat: Ain't. Coming. Back.) I suppose I should give Time credit for looking at the bright side. They've lit a candle instead of cursing the darkness! Okay, Time. Maybe the world WILL be a better place in 2006. We can only pray that it is. If I had to pick one person of the year it would've been Terri Schiavo, victim soul for this poor, deluded humanity that resides on earth. May God bless us all, every one.

Loose Tooth T

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:47:00 +0000

Our 6-year-old has been discussing his loose tooth since the summer when it first began to wiggle in its socket. Would he be able to eat food when it fell out, he wondered, or was there a risk of starving? "Has the first grade lost any students to starvation?" I asked him. "Not yet," he admitted. "Well you probably won't be the first." As Thanksgiving bore down on us the dental drama heightened. The tooth was dangerously loose. There was a very real risk it could pop out and vanish into Grandma Carm's famous Thanksgiving Day pork sausage stuffing. But no. The tooth held on. It went from loose, to very loose, to hanging by a thread, to hanging by an invisible thread. Now it appeared to be held in place by nothing more than a force field. Uncle Rob offered to tie his tooth to a doorknob. Or he would get his tools from his toolbox. Our 6-year-old declined, aghast at the suggestions. It wasn't until the following day that he burst into our room and said, "Guess what?!" He opened his jaws wide to show off the new gaping hole in his gums. We cheered! He did a victory dance! Then came a howl. The 4-year-old began hitting himself in the head. "It's gone!" he cried. "He lost his TOOTH!" In all the excitement of "losing" the tooth I guess we had failed to explain what came next. "It won't be gone forever," I told him. "He'll get a new grown-up tooth." We carefully secured the tooth in a plastic sandwich bag, and placed the bag under his pillow. The next morning he had a shiny silver dollar in its place. To show you the state of first graders' education these days, the 6-year-old informed me that because they were active at night and could see in the dark, tooth fairies are "nocturnal." Less than a week later he announced at breakfast that his other bottom tooth was very loose. He hoped to lose it at school. Apparently a lost tooth at school is accompanied by fanfare and a visit from the assistant principal. There is a special container for the precious tooth, and who knows, maybe a crown. As he was wiggling the tooth with his finger I suggested he stop eating his second piece of toast and get ready for school. "Just brush the top teeth," I advised him. Five minutes later I heard a moan from the other side of the house. He emerged from his bedroom, crestfallen. It had come out when he tripped over his brother. (I'm probably lucky I still have all of my teeth considering how many times I have tripped over the 4-year-old.) I placed Tooth Two in another sandwich bag and stuck it in our refrigerator. At dinnertime Hubby heard the good news and bad news. A lost tooth, but no glory at school. "Where's the tooth?" Hubby inquired. I went to the refrigerator. Where the heck was it? I had it in a plastic bag, for Mike Tyson's sake. It had to be in there. I searched every shelf, each drawer, the butter compartment. The freezer. The. Tooth. Was. Gone. How could this be? The search was narrowed down to a single major appliance. As the condiment bottles multiplied on our countertop, Hubby looked concerned. "Why don't I look?" he suggested. I gave the boys dessert, trying to ignore the sinking feeling that I had perhaps tossed it out with old onions that had outlived their pungentness. That had gone over to the Dark Side of the Fridge. I don't remember doing this, but then, I don't remember half of what is on my grocery list these days. Or could I have intended to put it in the refrigerator and never did? And why the heck was I refrigerating an expired tooth, anyway? I wasn't a dentist or taxidermist. Five minutes later Hubby triumphantly produced a plastic bag with its little white contents. Relief flooded through me like a dose of nitrous oxide. The 6-year-old resumed his state of Dental Ecstasy. Later I remarked to Hubby, "Good thing you have good eyes." He replied pointedly, "Good thing I'm RESOURCEFUL." "You mean you..." He held up a piece of white platic with a small edge sawed off it. "So I had YOU fooled, too?" E-Novacained-Gads! We were pulling a fast one on the 6-year-oldm, not to mention the Tooth Fairy. She obviously took it at face value, because she left the coin as expected. Tooth Number Three came out just the other day during an especially violent game of kickball during recess at school. To my son's chagrin, the tooth became lost in the playing field. Fortunately his teacher explained that a well-written note to the Tooth Fairy instructing her to "check the playground" would probably result in the traditional prize. The next morning, it did.

Pet Peeves for Cranky Women

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 15:04:00 +0000

These are the top-ranking pet peeves for women, as compiled by a bunch of people who are totally guessing. Agree or disagree? 1) When someone says something negative about obese people. Yes! It makes my cellulite start jiggling with anger. Since more than half of America is overweight, you're making fun of the majority! Does that sound smart? We women are more sensitive about our weight than men, so when men say something snarky we take it as an assault on our gender. 2) When someone says "A woman should never be president." What, like the men have done such a great job? Plus, wasn't Woodrow Wilson's wife running the country at one point? Maybe I haven't been listening closely enough, though, because I honestly have never heard anyone say that. 3) When a man says having affairs is just part of the male biology. Along with saying stupid things, I presume. Well pooping in the woods is part of our biology, too. Civilized people don't do it. I just read a statistic that half of all married women have had an affair, so maybe it's part of women's biology, too. Put that in your pipe and worry about it! 4) When your boyfriend says he never wants to get married. Huh? Boyfriends NEVER say that. It would ruin everything, especially for HIM. What they say is, "I need more time," or "I'm not ready yet," or "Why do we need to get married when what we have is so great?" or "I've been hurt before, so I can't trust anyone else yet," or "you only need to be married if you're ready for kids, and I'm not ready for kids," or, "Pass me the remote." Anyway, I never understood why women are anxious to marry men who aren't anxious to marry them. Doesn't anyone feel the need for enthusiasm before a date is set? 5) When the line is longer for the women's restroom than for the men's. I have taken creative action. Look for restrooms on other floors! See if you can find an employee restroom! Put your hair under a baseball cap, scrunch it over your eyes, throw on hubby or boyfriend's jacket, and slouch into the men's room! (I have done this with a full shopping cart in the grocery store.) If no other options exist, avoid liquids! 6) Men who get paid more than women for the same job. These days, don't they at least have to call it something else? When it's time to ask for a raise, you'll know how much to ask for. "The same amount that Bubba's getting." 7) Male bosses who make sexual jokes. Tape recorder? Lawsuit? Camcorder in your desk, whip it out and say you wanted to capture some of his best material for replay at the office Christmas party? Ask him to repeat the joke slowly so you can type it into an email you're sending to your lawyer? Say, "That's your wife's joke, right? Does she have any more?" Ask if his kids are as funny as he is. Gift him with the Ex-lax brownies. 8) Guys who can't take the hint that we're not interested. Listen, that isn't their fault. They're programmed to keep trying. Is it so hard to say, "I'm not interested," or "You're not my type?" 9) Co-workers who wear sexy outfits to the office. That isn't annoying. It's entertainment! Every office needs one of these. Maybe two, so they can try to outdo each other! It is always interesting to see what they'll flounce into the office wearing during the season's first blizzard. 10) Relatives who ask "When are you getting married?" Possible responses:

(Ashen look on your face.) "Did he set a DATE and not TELL me? What have you heard?"
"As soon as he divorces his wife."
"Hopefully before I succumb to my fatal illness."
"As soon as possible."
"We already are. Did we forget to invite you?"
"We're waiting for a few elderly relatives to die off so we can shorten the guest list."
"Whenever you want us to, if you'll pay for it."
"I can't. I'm gay, and he's my cover."

11) Relatives who inquire, "When are you going to have a baby" (Why, are you available to babysit?)

12) When your mother says something mean about your lifestyle. Why be negative. Just say, "yeah, isn't it great?" Unless it's about your closets. Just go clean them!

13) When someone asks how far along you are when you're not pregnant. Most people realize this is about as popular as asking someone how much they weigh, but I suppose it still happens. Just tell them you're due in 10 years. How about the reverse, not realizing a heavy person IS pregnant when they are? That's sort of insulting, too.

14) Men who stare at your chest. Well I suppose you could just tell him his fly is open so he knows where you've been staring.

15) Men who whistle when you're walking down the street. What, that isn't a compliment? As long as they aren't making lewd propositions, who cares?

16) When your boyfriend or husband forgets to ask how your big day at work went. Just TELL him! Then he won't have to ask.

17) When your husband/boyfriend buys you clothes in the wrong size. YOUR fault for not handing him the Sizing Memo before holidays or special occasions.

18) When your mother-in-law makes snippy comments. How about, "Thanks, I'm working hard on that." No sarcasm in tone allowed. You will go to heaven faster.

19) When your hairdresser screws up your 'do. Unless your an Academy Award nominee, you'll live. It might be an excuse to experiment, which most of us don't do often enough. Take pictures and let the kids have a laugh!

20) When someone obviously re-gifts. Be sure to give it back to them in the next go-around!

21) Pet peeve lists that go on longer than twenty items.

Things I Am Thankful For

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:15:00 +0000

This list is NOT all-inclusive.

Garbage Pickup.
Being able to do a complete mental body scan and being able to say, "Nothing hurts!"
My family, immediate and extended. My Family: Born Weird! His Family: They think they're normal! Our Family: "How about HAPPY?!"
Faith. I didn't realize having faith was gonna take so much FAITH. If I'd known, I might have settled for Faith Lite. Meanwhile, I'm working on my Persecution Complex.
All that nice weather between hurricanes.
Permanent Press. Although I think I would ignore wrinkles either way. Is Botox the facial version of Permanent Press? Because you have to get your face-freezing botulism spores re-injected every so often, I guess it would at best be a Temporary Press.
Not having to worry about where my next meal is coming from, or where our plumbing waste is going to. That when I turn on the tap something comes out, and it's clean.
The roof is still attached to my house, and it isn't BLUE.
My mother-in-law is a fantastic cook, and she did the Thanksgiving Dinner.
The reinvigoration of every known holiday and special occasion by virtue of my children. The Easter Bunny has spring in his (her?) step! Santa Claus is Jesus' Chief Procurement Officer! Martin Luther King Jr. is our best buddy! The presidents sure know how to plan a fun weekend! St. Patrick is the best green dude this side of Gumby! Easter is the reason for a really long church service and a fabulous egg hunt! The Fourth of July is a great time to store explosives in the garage! Labor Day is all play and no work! The Halloween Anticipation Season kicks off on September first! We don't like Pilgrim Outfits but it doesn't matter if we get the bigger half of the turkey wishbone on Thanksgiving! Birthdays last a minimum of a week, and with luck can be extended to last an entire month! And so forth.
High-speed internet. Without it, I'm just another hearts player.
Recipe sites on the internet. Now you only need to buy cookbooks for the pictures.
The Triple A. This year we were on a first-name basis.
Air conditioning. Without it Florida is not habitable by anything but rain forest critters.
Catalogs. I dislike crowds. I dislike shopping crowds even more. I hate waiting in long lines with shopping crowds the most.
That every time I clean my closet I find at least 20 bucks or a dinner gift certificate to make it worth my while.
Caller I.D. We can now interrupt ourselves only for friends and family.
Drive-through anything. With kids and carseats, any transaction you can complete through a car window is a blessing.
The football season. It takes my mind off the bird flu.
Floss.

Wisdom of Four

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 13:05:00 +0000

It seems like business leaders, politicians and educators are constantly convening meetings so they can solve problems and generate wisdom. But as any parent knows, all the wisdom of the earth is contained in the fresh thoughts of your average 4-year-old. Their experience with the world is limited, and their ability to comment about it is recent, almost newly-acquired. So they are able to think outside the box better than anyone! Here are a few things MY 4-year-old has had to say lately.

Who IS This Masked Oracle? "I have to go potty. I want you to come in to watch my privacy." "You made me MAD! I'm going to give myself a timeout." (Don't ask me how he concluded this was a great way to punish us. We won't inform him otherwise until he gradautes high school.) Him: "I'm going to play the computer game WITHOUT the disk." Me: "How are you going to play it without the disk?" Him: "Greatly." "I'm going to tell you the rules about ME." "Don't say those words." Him (to his father): "Why are you putting these toys here?" (in a cardboard box) Hubby: "Those are going into the garbage." Him: (incredulous) TOYS are GARBAGE? You're ashamed of yourself! Hubby: "The toys are broken." Him: "You ruined my LIFE!" "Don't call them classmates. They're my friends." "I only like Pilgrims a little bit." Him (to me): "I'm the boss. Everyone in this family has to do what I say." Me: "I'm the Queen. The boss works for the Queen." Him: "I don't like the Castle People. They can't stay here." "I'm allergic to aliens." Me: (to both kids) "Don't you think it would be nice if we could buy some extra presents and wrap them up and give them to poor children who don't get presents?" Him (lip quivering): "But, but...I'M poor children!" "How old will you be when I'm 100?" "I want a twin sister. She has to be the same age." (After fighting with his brother, then appealing to me.) "Let me tell you what the tease was." "I'm going to put you outside with the alligators and the mosquitoes and the spiders. And you'll have to SLEEP there." "I'm going to CRUSH you into CRACKERS."

"That's IT! I'll give you TEN more chances. If you lose your chances, then you get CONSEQUENCES!." (His "consequences" to me are either that my newspaper gets taken away, or I can't have my morning coffee.) "I love you a million times."

Eureka! Worst Jobs in Science

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:43:00 +0000

So you thought trash collectors have it bad? You told your parents you were going to be a baseball player or actress, and they insisted you went into "science?" Well scientists sometimes don't have the greatest jobs, either. Thanks to Popular Science Magazine we can examine and hypothesize about this year's top ten worst jobs in science: 1) Orangutan Urine Collector: People in white lab coats go running around in rain forests, trying to figure out the exact moment Dr. Zaius is going to take a leak. ("Dr. Zaius" was one of the Orangutan leaders in Planet of the Apes) They operate using big plastic sheets, which they try to throw down on the rain forest floor at key moments, or the more daring among them use a plastic bag on a pole. Recommended accessory: goggles and deodorizer. They couldn't just stick a catheter in some sick zoo oragutan for this? Guess not, they're trying to determine something about the "levels" in free-ranging rain forest critters. 2) Space Ballerina: The NASA guys want to show off to the public a new robot they've invented that has a sensitive "skin" that can detect the presence of astronauts and get out of the way before any embarrassing space collisions occur. Who better to promenade with in public than a Ballerina For Hire? Sure, the lifts may be clumsy, but the thing is NOT supposed to step on her foot. And no one's going out for drinks after the performance. 3) Expeditioner for Earthwatch: These are volunteer positions that people take during their vacation time to help out with particular scientific causes. So, for example, instead of sunning yourself in Hawaii, you could be analyzing dirt! Or watching frost melt! Or trying to exterminate mosquitoes before they give you malaria! One volunteer had his eyes swollen shut when he got bitten by something they were studying. He is still not sure what it was. You can't count on getting a tan, but you MAY be able to get a t-shirt. 4) Semen Washer: Like today's sanitation engineers they insist on being called by their technical name, cryobiologists. (No sense crying over spilled specimen bottles!) These specialists work at the "sperm bank." Hopefully with nice 9-5 hours and days off for all the federal holidays including Columbus Day! (Do they issue a receipt after you make your deposit? Insist on identification to make sure you're depositing to the right account? Offer prizes for people opening new accounts? Is there a drive through for sperm donors in a hurry? How about an ATM for privacy?) Semen washers use centrifuges and preservatives so that deposits are "insured" for up to 20 years in the freezer. 5) Volcanologist: Or in the venacular, Occasional Human Sacrifices. See, it's no good studying volcanoes from afar. You have to get right up close to them and peer inside. And sometimes, like those projectile vomiting infants, these volcanoes "spit up," hitting the poor volcanologists with molten lava. These guys and gals are "on call," meaning the minute a volcano looks like it's going to spew ash and bury a town, they are supposed to come running to get some great recordings on their instruments from the slope of the volcano. No wonder these people so often get turned into lava statues. 6) Nuclear Weapons Scientist: If you work for a rogue country, somebody may be trying to kill you to keep you from allowing that country to join the "nuclear club." Even if you work for a non-rogue country, it just isn't that prestigious telling people your job is to develop weapons for the purpose of wiping out humanity. And if you decide to give up your job at the lab, it's tough to go over to academia. The reason? All that work you did in the lab is "classified." You can't prove you did it, and you certainly can't publish anything about it! Then there was this nasty eye-burning laser incident... 7) Extremophile Hunter: As much as this sounds like chasing kids with skateboards, bungee jumpers and people who ski out of helicopters, the truth is a lot more nauseating. Apparently it involves going to some of the most remote, stinkiest places on earth to see if any living things are inhabiting the area. (Aside from the dumb scientists "looking for them," of course.) Apparently there is a Extremophile Microbe that has been discovered living in arsenic-saturated mud that gives off enough gas to smell like a herd of elephants after a baked bean barbecue. Only not as pleasant. It is also laced with a combination of smells representing rotten eggs, natural gas and dead fish. So breathe out of your mouth, I say! 8) Biology Teacher in Kansas: Because of the ongoing debate over evolution vs intelligent design, Kansas' biology teachers are stuck worrying about if they are going to be sued, ridiculed, fired, or adversely publicized on any given day. What to do? Go with the Big Bang Theory. We all just exploded onto the scene intact. Or try both theories. God exists! Things change! What more do you need to know? 9) Manure Inspector: Ha! Well at least they don't have to inspect the manure of that Extremophile Microbe. How bad can this be if you're allowed to wear a gas mask and wash your hands before lunch? Isn't every farmer on the planet somewhat of a manure inspector? Well the scientists who specialize in this are trying to make sure the manure samples are not contaminated with E. Coli bacteria, because the farmers don't want that stuff getting onto the vegetables. Experts in the field assure us that even if you wear gloves while getting your samples, the smell somehow gets embedded into your skin. 10) Guinea Pig: Yes, they need humans in the lab. Real live ones. The pesticide companies need to know what happens to the human body when exposed to a variety of compounds. (That glow-in-the-dark skin? It's great for exercising at night.) When even mosquitoes reject you, then you know your onto something toxic! Somehow that career as a singer/songwriter is starting to look better after all!

Wal-Mart Is NOT Part of the Axis of Evil...

noreply@blogger.com (Patti Panara) — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 19:49:00 +0000

...although you could probably find plenty of people, from economists and small retailers to union organizers and wholesalers who might argue the point. Wal-Mart's resemblance to Iraq, North Korea and Syria have more to do with its simmering potential for violence. I hate to say this, folks, but we may have to send in a battalion of troops or weary National Guardsmen to quell a wave of retailing combat that seems to have overtaken America's most obesely successful retailer. It would be best to secure the perimeter before allowing citizens to shop there. The first incident occurred this summer. Allegedly several zealous Wal-mart employees pursued a suspected shoplifter out of the store and into the parking lot. They wrestled the poor fellow to the asphalt. Which probably irritated hordes of circling Wal-mart shoppers seeking a great parking space. After subduing the suspect, the employees apparently "sat" on him until the authorities got there. We wouldn't want anyone escaping the premises with an armful of cheap plastic crap! I guess just getting the guy's license plate number or retrieving the goods was not satisfying enough for the Dukes of Wal-mart. By the time the police arrived to take over from this "citizen's arrest," (or, Enthusiastic Employee Kapture, a.k.a. "EEK!"), the guy wasn't looking so hot. In fact, he was, to use a technical term right out of the employee handbook, "deceased." Turns out the reason the guy would not remain "subdued" on the parking lot pavement is that he had no shirt on, and the pavement was 110 degrees, give or take a third degree burn. So not only was this ex-shopper "dead," he was also "toast," as in "overdone on one side." All from applying excess pressure to this fellow's lung regions. No matter how else you look at it, Wal-mart just lost a customer! But in this war of Retailer vs Consumer, the customers weren't about to let Wal-mart gain the upper hand through intimidation tactics. No! They followed up by opening fire at a completely different Wal-mart, killing two workers. Flak jackets are not currently part of the Wal-mart employee uniform, but perhaps that will change once the full extent of the Customer Insurgency is known. Likely the gunman was just making an aggressive commentary on the store's customer service. I think we can all agree, though, that exercising your second amendment right to bear arms is a clumsy way to exercise your first amendment right to free speech. So what can we do about these customer insurgents, who, we suspect, are being trained and funded by disgruntled retailers such as K-mart, Sears and the Store Formerly Known as Eckerd's? One solution is better armor for those peaceful customers who frequent Wal-mart. The Hummer would be the recommended vehicle for your Saturday morning shopping. Second, I'm thinking we need to dim the lights in the stores. That would provide a more soothing atmosphere, not to mention making it more difficult for sharpshooters to take aim. Third, we need to make the shoplifting experience less lethal. Instead of A) Shooting to kill, or B) Suffocating the suspect between the pavement and the store employees' buttocks, instead we should go for a kinder, gentler approach of perhaps slashing their tires before they escape, or just maybe shocking them into submission with taser technology. They'll thank us later! This raises the issue of the Shoplifting Enigma at Wal-mart. Who, exactly, is harmed by this? Let's start out by examining who is NOT harmed: 1) Founder Sam Walton. He's dead, and therefore beyond economic repercussions. 2) Wal-mart employees. There is no regulation in the employee handbook that says killing the customer is preferable to letting them escape with unpaid-for merchandise. 3) Chinese workers. The will continue churing out the goods no matter what American consumers do or do not purchase. In fact, they may churn out even more if they have to replace shoplifted items. They will still receive their 9 cents per day paycheck. 4) Wal-mart shoppers. What? You're saying we may have to pay MORE for our cheap plastic crap to make up for the pilfered goods? Well, we'll just buy less of it, then. Thus freeing up closet and cupboard space across America. Or we'll buy the stuff at our locally-owned and operated store! Thus creating millions of jobs for Americans. Note: I am not advocating breaking the law. Shoplifting is still morally wrong. I'm just pointing out that it is a victimless crime unless someone gets inadvertently squashed on the pavement. Even more so if they get squashed in a handicapped parking space. I'm thinking, though, that they have a double standard on Matters of Shoplifting. If you'll recall, Runaway Bride Jennifer Wilbanks allegedly is an ex-Walmart shoplifter. She only got fined and had to do community service. No one sat on her! (Although, arguably, she may have outrun them, or simply "vanished" when they tried to apprehend her.) So obviously they have more than one way to deal with cases of suspected shoplifting. I think the next time they have a case like this they should release some kind of chloroform throughout the store. Then as customers pass out they can have their bags inspected by Wal-mart employees wearing masks or chemical weapons gear. See? Didn't you think all along that Wal-mart was hiding Saddam's WMDs?