Just when you think the Crazy Pendulum can't swing any higher

...you watch an edition of The Colbert Report and see something about this: 

Parents Warned About Mail Order Chicken Pox Lollipops

What's more nuts:

1) That moms would mail other moms disease-ridden treats? or;
2) That recipients would need to be advised they might not want to give the germ-laced goodies to their offspring?

They call themselves 'The Flight'

Of course, I bought the MP3. I mean, just LISTEN to them.

What? No autopsy for Bin Laden?

Surely it'd be of scientific interest to learn how he lived with neither heart nor conscience.

Good. Riddance.

How to Steal a Million - Part 1

August 2008

Re: Discovery proceedings regarding the Guardianship petition of My Alzheimer’s Stricken Mother, an alleged incapacitated individual.

Dear Ms. Maboobski:

Thank you for the copies of the three financial documents my youngest sibling claims are all that he found within my very dead and somewhat well-heeled father’s records. Please note that two of those documents, rather large checks totaling $40,000 made out to my father, prior to his aforementioned death, and while he was intubated and comatose in the local ICU, appear to have been written, endorsed and deposited into another account by my youngest sibling, who, you will recall, shares my father’s name and my father’s address, but not my father’s credit rating or high moral standing. Perhaps it would be wise to bring this irregularity to the Judge’s attention, and seek that my Alzheimer-stricken mother's financial matters, as well as her checkbook, be turned over to the current Power of Attorney, my sister, and not be left in the hands of the aforementioned heavily in debt and usually jobless youngest sibling.

Sincerely,
My mother’s much-concerned other daughter of many decades

August 2008

Memo to Judge Oops
From: Ms. Maboobski, Court-appointed Friend of the Judge for what-her-name’s mother, an alleged incapacitated individual with a pretty large bank account.

In the matter of the alleged Alzheimer’s-stricken but well-heeled widow of the much-mourned dead Estate Planning Attorney with the leaky bank accounts. To prevent further embarrassing, obvious and inconvenient forged checks from coming to light, I move that you limit discovery in this case to only those items which have transpired since the deceased’s, uh…death.

P.S. My most recent billing for services is enclosed. It’s so high because of obvious and grievous tension between the demented lady's children documented by attached letter recounting outrageous accusations of financial impropriety on the part of my client’s youngest offspring, an impossibility because said offspring told me himself that his father WANTED HIM TO HAVE IT. Also, said ‘much concerned other daughter’ has failed to bring forth a legal expert who can prove that comatosity precludes an individual’s spontaneous ability to gift large sums of money to indigent children.

August 2008

From: Judge Oops, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania’s Well-heeled Widows and Orphan’s Court
To: Everybody involved, whatever your names are

So ordered, whatever Ms. Maboobski said in her memo, which I can’t be bothered to read because I’m late to my tee time. And whatever you charged, Boobs, is just fine by me. I’m sure it’s reasonable and legal and ethical and all that stuff. By the way, everybody’s still raving about those perogies you brought to the pot luck. Send me the recipe?

Fast Food - Italian Style

What's to eat? After a week in Tahoe and all those hours in the car, NOBODY was into doing anything about dinner. Ever resourceful, this writer pulled a trusty pouch of proscuitto from her private stock, then sent the hungry hordes out to the garden to pick their favorite lettuces to wrap it therein.

Best part? No dishes.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I have an organic garden, so my garden trowel trembled to see this deal. Seeds of Change is offering 25 packets of free, organic seeds for a total of $4.99 in shipping charges. You can't pick the seeds and you'll have to wait two to four weeks for them to arrive. Judging from what The Weather Channel tells me, that's fine for those of you in snow-packed parts of the country, and plenty of time for those of us in sunny Phoenix and Florida to plant our fall gardens.

Here's the link. There are no strings attached. Any seeds you don't like pass on to your neighbor. Gardeners know this is a screaming deal. Non-gardeners...seriously, give it a shot. Start with some herbs in an outdoor pot on your patio. All you have to do is plant and water. Basil is easy.

Then you can invite your neighbors for pasta with homemade pesto.

Then they'll love you.

They really will.

*****

Note: Thanks to 3-month-supply, a Yahoo Group, interested in healthy and sane emergency preparedness for this info.

dumbfounded

Just read this on Fox News:

Dozens of countries have offered assistance. Two U.S. aircraft carrier groups were off Japan's coast and ready to provide assistance. Helicopters were flying from one of the carriers, the USS Ronald Reagan, delivering food and water in Miyagi.

Two other U.S. rescue teams of 72 personnel each and rescue dogs arrived Sunday, as did a five-dog team from Singapore.

Can somebody explain Washington, D.C.'s ability to deploy resources tout de suite to a suddenly-savaged country thirteen time zones away while it left our citizens to dehydrate on rooftops for days and days after a well-predicted earthquake?

It's a long, long way to Santiago, Chile

Growing my own has spoiled me. I expect all my produce to have that 'just picked' taste - fresh, crisp, with just a hint of the garden dirt I'm too lazy to wash off.

We like blueberries in this house. We time our trips to New Jersey to coincide with blueberry picking season in Hammonton. I understand my husband's craving for that taste of summer, especially as winter's bite lingers even here in sunny Phoenix, but I told him if he wants a taste of Chilean summer, best we travel the 4000 or so miles south. It's cruel to drag Chile's luscious blue globes north to sit in overpriced, and mushy squalor on our grocery store shelves.

What's Hanging in YOUR Walden?

Your eyes do not deceive you. That's a clothesline. My clothesline. The green stuff hanging from it? Organically grown Bok Choy from my out-of-control garden.

You're incredulous, aren't you? I mean, who has a clothesline?

I do. Along with cotton, citrus, cattle, and copper, AND, if national cable news is to be believed - guns, drop houses and regular shoot outs along the border - Arizona has plenty of sunshine.

(I'll leave the unspeakable recent tragedy out of this, except to mention that troubled young men like Jared Lee Loughner do not in any way define the basic human decency, kindness, and friendliness I've encountered during my 12 years here.)

I like sunshine. It produces no carbon emissions, is sustainable, and will likely be around for another million years or so.

Here's the best part: It's free. And it makes the clothes smell good.

It's also pretty good for dehydrating a recent favorite recipe - Bok Choy Gone Amok.

Mega-Mesclun

Plant seeds, stuff grows. Who knew? Question is, what to do with all the green?

Much as the denizens of Casa di Tarquini love salad, limited as we are to 24-hour days, our ability to crunch through the garden's current production proves overwhelming. Lasagna can only hold so much bok choy, parsley garnish only so much pasta, and I'm too damned lazy to bag it up for the neighbors.

Time to break out the blender.

I didn't invent the concept of whirling arugula with my canned apples, but I did can a lot of apples. And peaches. And, um...pears and things. I thought about canning the greens, but wouldn't processing them for 60 minutes in a pressure canner kinda cook the life out of them? (No doubt I'll regret that decision when the Zombie Apocalypse comes and we're holed up in our house with nothing but barrels of wheatberries and dry milk.)

Here's how to do it: Put some water or milk in the blender. Add a lot of raw greens, whatever is taking over the garden. Add a lot of fruit, whatever is overflowing your pantry. Set blender to highest setting and pulverize the patooty out of it. Drink.

Good stuff. Good for you.

The snow-bound among you who don't live in Arizona can read this post and weep - just like our new Speaker of the House.