movies – Page 6 – Life In A Word

Tale of the Little-Dog

When my son and his wife visited with their daughters last week, the consensus for dinner was hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. These choices were noteworthy in that I honestly can’t remember the last time I ate a hot dog. Sweet Italian sausage? A couple of times a month cut up into a stir-fry of vegetables. Beer brats? Also delicious, hot off the grill with a little mustard. But a hot dog is child’s play by comparison. Or should I say, a “dachshund sausage”?

It’s true. The Germans, who by all accounts can take credit for the invention of the hot dog (five hundred years ago!) nicknamed their frankfurters “dachshunds” – or “little-dog” sausages because, well, they looked exactly like the dog breed. The only history Americans claim is the re-nickname “hot dog”. Even the hot dog bun – which really took hold at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 – points back to the Germans, who always ate their sausages with bread.

Are hot dogs a staple in your diet, or like me are they simply a distant memory? If they weren’t hot off the grill in the backyard or at a summer picnic, perhaps you had one at a baseball game (but not so much football or basketball, go figure). You’ve probably also seen hot dogs on the midway at carnivals and county fairs. Wherever you get your franks today, they’re just not as likely to come from established restaurants.

In the 1970s, America seemed to have hot dog stands on every corner. The most popular of these was the distinctive drive-thru Der Wienerschnitzel’s, but you also had – at least from my California-based memory – Pup ‘N’ Taco, Ben Franks, Tail o’ the Pup, and the walk-up Hot Dog on-a-Stick booths you’d find at amusement parks. Today’s retail hot dog is at a Sonic Drive-In or the food court at Costco. If you live anywhere near New York’s Coney Island, you can also include “Nathan’s Famous”, or at least the annual hot dog eating contest of the same name.

A hot dog may be “a cooked sausage eaten in a long, soft piece of bread”, but its secondary meanings are less definitive. “Hot Dog!” is something you used to say when you were VERY happy about something else (“used to”, meaning sixty or seventy years ago). A “hot dog” is also a person “who makes fast, skillful movements in skiing, snowboarding, or surfing to make people notice them”. That last definition still stands.

Speaking of “used to say”, we also used to sing about hot dogs, didn’t we? Oscar Mayer’s jingle convinced us we should BE hot dogs (so everyone would be in love with us). But the better song came from Armour, which asked us what kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs? Per the lyrics, “…fat kids, skinny kids, kids that climb on rocks… tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox…” Today’s version of the Armour jingle would probably be censored just for using the word “kids”.

“I wish I had a million dollars. HOT DOG!” (Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and “It’s A Wonderful Life”)

Hot dogs will always be a childhood memory more than a dietary preference in my book. My mother, raising five hungry boys, developed several dinner recipes when time and ingredients were in short supply. These included canned baked beans and weenies (two ingredients = dinner!), and a truly odd creation from the Betty Crocker cookbook made up of hot dogs, mashed potatoes, and cheese (three ingredients!). Whether it tasted good or not – I honestly can’t remember – dogs, mash, and cheese conveniently covered the protein, carb, and fat categories, all in one broiler-blasted casserole.

My most vivid childhood hot dog memories are not the dinners mentioned above. Instead, I can’t forget snacking on raw hot dogs from the refrigerator (which sounds awful now, but hey, I was a kid). My mother was faithful to the Oscar Mayer brand so I ate a lot of their hot dogs raw. Speaking of Oscar Mayer, here’s the better memory. They built a motorized advertisement which to this day may be the coolest vehicle on wheels. The “Wienermobile” cruised the streets of Los Angeles, stopping every now and then in a parking lot so you could view it up close. The driver handed out tiny plastic replicas of the vehicle, appropriately labeled “Weenie Whistles”.

(Courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures and “The Santa Clause”)

Let me conclude with a solved hot dog mystery. Your grocery store sells most brands in packages of ten. They also sell hot dog buns but in packages of eight. Why? Because hot dogs weigh about 1.6 ounces, which makes a package of ten a convenient sale of exactly one pound of meat. On the other hand, hot dog buns are baked in trays of four, which work best with conveyor belts and processing. An odd number of buns – trays of five – is a model of inefficiency. So until one or the other manufacturer changes their standard, you’ll always have leftovers for snacks. Or better yet, for your dog.

The hot dogs I served my granddaughters last week were comically advertised as healthy: no fillers, no preservatives, and so on. They weren’t very good. Maybe the worst part of a hot dog is what makes it taste so good? Or maybe hot dogs have simply lost their appeal to me? No, wait, that can’t be true. Anything my granddaughters ask me to eat has instant appeal.

Guess I haven’t eaten my last little-dog sausage just yet.

Some content sourced from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Springtime Rings

My daughter drops little hints on our phone calls recently, teasers to suggest her boyfriend will soon pop the proverbial question. If he does propose, her left hand will be adorned with an engagement ring and she’ll become – literally – a marked woman. She might as well sport a little neon sign on her ring finger blinking, T-A-K-E-N.

While my daughter gets excited about her potential Ring by Spring (Hallmark Channel movie, March 2014), I glance down now at the gold band I’ve been wearing for the last thirty-four years. My wife and I decided a plain ring wasn’t enough of a statement for wedded bliss so we chose one with seven inset diamonds across the top. Now that I think about it, those seven gems might as well broadcast M-A-R-R-I-E-D.

Over the years, I’ve grown fond of the string of bling inside my ring. It’s a unique setting and the diamonds draw compliments. But credit to my wife, there’s purpose behind the glitter. She gives me her coy smile and declares, “When you’re walking down the street by yourself, the woman with her eye on you a block away will easily know you’re married”. A block away? That’s pushing it, but my diamond shine certainly does seem to advertise M-I-N-E.

Speaking of the opposite sex, Irwin Shaw, a playwright and author from the early 1900’s, wrote a short story that seems appropriate here. It’s called The Girls in Their Summer Dresses. Shaw puts us on the streets of New York City on a beautiful day, where a married couple is going for a walk. The husband keeps getting distracted by every pretty girl passing by and his wife calls him out on it. Their conversation over drinks after – and his closing thought – make for an interesting perspective on marriage. You can read The Girls in Their Summer Dresses here.

I can’t talk about my daughter’s forthcoming engagement ring and my own circle of gold without including a ring of my wife’s. No, not her wedding band (though it’s a beaut’) but rather a Claddagh ring she’ll receive from Ireland in the next few days. As we learned when we visited the Emerald Isle (and also from the Hallmark Channel – As Luck Would Have It, April 2021), the Claddagh ring includes symbols of love (heart), friendship (clasped hands), and loyalty (crown). Wear the ring facing one way to show you’re single and looking for love. Wear the ring the way my wife will, to show you’re already “captured”.

So there’s one more ring for love out there in jewelry shops (and it’s not a “promise ring”, which doesn’t count for much of anything). Ever heard of an eternity ring? It’s a band of precious metal with little gems all the way around the circle, to symbolize “never-ending love”. Talk about a bauble. Women describe it as “cumbersome”, and rumor has De Beers came up with the concept to justify a large purchase agreement with Russia for small diamonds. My wife will never get an eternity ring from me. Our vows included a nod to her wedding ring as “a forever sign of my love and fidelity”. See? I’ve got “never-ending” covered already.

My newsfeed included a recent wedding proposal in Atlanta, where the groom-to-be took his bride-to-be on a helicopter tour of the city, then promptly dropped to one knee on top of the skyscraper they landed on. When he popped the question he opened a box of five engagement rings. Seriously? I hope the guy my daughter will marry is way more decisive than that. Commit to just O-N-E, son, kind of like you did when you chose my daughter.

Some content sourced from the CNN.com article, “Man tops off helicopter proposal with five engagement rings”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Her Majesty’s Persistent Presence

America is a vast melting pot, her contents stirred for generations in a dogged effort to blend peoples and cultures into a cohesive whole. It’s the classic chemistry experiment, where the glass beaker is filled with all manner of substances and then shaken, only to watch the inevitable separation back to individual weights and colors. The shake-up brings moments of drama though; the storm before the calm if you will. It’s also an apt description of the British Monarchy.

Despite my best efforts to filter my newsfeed, I still got the announcement about Oprah Winfrey’s televised interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last week. I don’t know much about either former royal (or Oprah, for that matter) so I dismissed the headline and moved on. But I was alerted to the interview again the following day. And again the next day. Finally, in a move that can only be described as can’t-help-myself, I got out of my chair, grabbed the remote, and programmed the DVR to record. Something deep-rooted was telling me Sunday night’s interview was must-watch TV.

No it wasn’t. The questions and answers were predictable. The topics just begged for a response from Buckingham Palace (mission accomplished). After two hours of back-and-forth (and too much time in a chicken coop) my take on this couple hadn’t changed. Meghan shouldn’t have dabbled in the royals in the first place. Meghan eventually orchestrated her way out of the palace (and the country). Harry followed. Now they’re barely surviving… in an 18,000 square foot house in Montecito, California worth $14 million. Oprah is their neighbor.

Waste of two hours? There’s no denying it. Still, I chose to watch.

Americans don’t have royals, but we have a lot of movies about royals.

Why do I care about Harry and Meghan? I don’t, yet somehow I do. Maybe I should blame The Crown, the excellent Netflix series about the British monarchy. By total coincidence, my wife and I started watching Season Four this week, which is all about Harry’s mother Diana. Then my newsfeed tells me the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip) suffered a heart condition last week, rough enough to land him in the hospital. Add to that regular photos of Queen Elizabeth looking ever-regal at the ripe old age of 94 and the royals are all over the place. They make themselves kind of hard to ignore.

The episodes of The Crown are a revelation, especially for those of us in “New England”. Each show kind of ungilds the lily of America’s perception of British royalty. There’s more drama, politics, and in-fighting than we Yanks would’ve ever believed of fair princes and princesses. Yet through it all stands the queen – at the epicenter of the shaken beaker – somehow maintaining poise and presence. All of the events in The Crown take place within Elizabeth’s lifetime, yet it feels like we’re going several generations back.

Despite The Crown and my newfound respect for Elizabeth, there’s no question it was the late Diana, Princess of Wales who first piqued my interest in the British royals. Who could blame me, right? Lady Di was beautiful and supremely innocent, a veritable Disney princess in the flesh. She was born just a few months before I was. Her wedding to Prince Charles in 1981 – the grandest of ceremonies watched by hundreds of millions of people across the world – was the stuff of fairy tales (Charles himself, not so much). Diana embodied all that was good and somehow magical about life as a royal.

But then we have Diana’s shocking death not sixteen years after her marriage. Talk about shaking the beaker. My wife and I were at a party in California at the time and returned to our hotel late, staying up hours past midnight to watch the funeral on television. Like the Oprah interview this week, I can’t explain why I gave up half a night’s sleep to watch. I just felt compelled to.

Thanks to The Crown, the royals aren’t looking quite as regal as they used to. Diana effectively sacrificed her life to be a royal. The agendas of Elizabeth and her several prime ministers were in constant conflict. Season Four has a poignant episode where Elizabeth arranges an individual lunch with each of her four children. She needs a valet to prepare a brief of information on each child so she can have meaningful discussions with them. Elizabeth may be “Queen Mother” but the title rates a distant second to “Queen”.

Harry and Meghan seem determined to move on from the monarchy. They’ll never achieve “normal”, and whether their marriage is the real deal is TBD, but good on them for making a show of it. Me, I’m moving on too. The next season of The Crown isn’t until next year so it looks like I finally get a break from the royals. Er, unless William and Kate are up to anything interesting. Are they up to anything interesting? Hm. I’d better go check.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Fine Print

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the movie, Jurassic Park. I’d read the Michael Crichton novel so I already knew the story, but I still couldn’t wrap my mind around that first dino scene, where a brachiosaurus casually munches on the uppermost leaves of a forty-foot tree. The gigantic creature was so lifelike I thought, “Where’d Steven Spielberg get a dinosaur?” In my defense, computer-generated imagery (CGI) was brand-spankin’ new back then. A ferocious T-Rex looking and moving like the real thing was still jaw-dropping in the 1990s. And I’m having the same reaction to the stuff rolling off 3D printers right now.

If you’re like me you haven’t paid much attention to 3D printing. You see some of the items a 3D printer can generate and they seem like child’s play. In fact, 3D printing reminds me of a 1970s toy called “Creepy Crawlers”. You had these tubes of colored goop you squeezed into metal molds, and then the molds went into an electric oven. The goop would grow from flat to 3D with heat, and suddenly the oven was spilling out all kinds of bugs and spiders you could drop on your friends. (There was also consumable goop called “Incredible Edibles”; products to compete with whatever the girls were making in their Easy-Bake ovens).

But I digress. Here’s my 3D printing naivete in a nutshell: I still think my 2D printer is the more impressive technology, cranking out high-resolution photos and perfectly addressed envelopes. I mean, whatever would I need a third dimension for?

Yep, I am seriously naive about 3D printing. The scope of this topic is mind-boggling if you really take the time to understand its potential. Here’s a good example. Picture a printer as big as your living room. Picture a printer cartridge of concrete instead of ink. Now watch the printer build your living room, one horizontal layer at a time. The printer can also build the rest of your house. Just add plumbing and electric when it’s done.

Without getting too far into the weeds, let’s define 3D printing for what it really is: additive manufacturing (AM). Here’s an easy way to picture the AM process. When you build a log cabin you lay out the entire foundation of logs for the house – with breaks for the doors – before you add the next layer of logs. You work your way up a layer of logs at a time, keeping those breaks for the doors, adding breaks for windows, pipes, and such, completing the structure with a sloping roof on top. Perhaps you add a fireplace in the process; again, layering bricks on top of bricks until you’ve reached the top of the chimney.

That’s pretty much how a 3D printer works. It “pictures” an object in horizontal layers and “prints” it from the ground up. 3D printing has been around longer than you think. 3D printers were developed as early as the 1970s (preceding your inkjet 2D printer!). The early versions just had to be manually programmed. Once we attached a computer and software, 3D printing really came into its own.

Watch the following video of a 3D printer confidently layering a basket weave – it’s mesmerizing:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5d/Hyperboloid_Print.ogv/Hyperboloid_Print.ogv.360p.vp9.webm

The products speak for themselves, of course. A shortlist of the more cutting-edge printed creations gives you an idea of where our world is heading:

Cakes and pastries – The “ink” is baked goods in one nozzle and frosting in another. Design it on your computer screen and then “print”. It’s like the Easy-Bake Oven on steroids. Only you don’t need the oven.
3D-printed confectionery from Ukrainian chef/architect Dinara Kasko
Bones – No, not some plastic or other polymer designed to replicate bones, actual bones. It’s called bioprinting – the fabrication of natural tissue using cells and other building blocks, and it’s coming soon to a clinic near you. Don’t worry how long a broken bone will take to heal; just replace it!
Buildings – Forget about building that log cabin one layer at a time. Your 3D printer will do the whole job for you (and it’ll still look like a log cabin). Your printer can also build sturdier houses out of concrete. This one’s on the market in Riverhead, New York, for $300K.
Vehicles – 3D printers have already created boats, kayaks, and most of the makeup of cars and trucks. Long ago I was impressed with the robotics of the Ford Motor Company, employed on a long assembly line to build cars one part at a time. A 3D printer can essentially do the same job standing still, no assembly line required.
You – I could speculate on the potential for a full bioprint but let’s avoid that scary future for now and just say, a 3D printer can create a figurine to look exactly like you. Think of it as printing a 3-D photograph.

If your mind is not blown by what you’ve just read, consider this: 3D is already passe. That’s right, we’ve already moved on to 4D printing. 4D – at least with printing – refers to materials that can change shape with time, temperature, or some other type of stimulation. A good example would be a printed window shade, sitting tight and virtually unnoticed at the top of the window in daylight but expanding to full cover as darkness falls.

Don’t know about you but this level of technology makes my head hurt. When I’m done with this post I’m gonna push “print” and generate a nice 2D copy for my files. Oh, and maybe watch Jurassic Park again.

Some content sourced from the 7/24/2020 Forbes article, “What Can 3D Printing Be Used For?”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Is It Live or Is It Memorex?

New Year’s Day has come and gone (and a warm welcome to you, 2021), which means it’s time my wife and I take down the Christmas tree. For some, taking down the tree means disconnecting the branches from the trunk, the trunk from the base, and packing the whole thing into a cardboard box to be used again next year. For us, taking down the tree means lifting it off the stand, hauling it outside to the truck, driving it over to the drop-off lot, and donating $5 to fund the recycling. Yes, this year – as with all of my years – the Christmas tree is real, not artificial.

I’m not here today to debate real vs. artificial Christmas trees. They both have pros and cons and your choice rests on where you live, your budget, and assorted other reasons. For me, a real tree is simply a tradition I refuse to give up. Picking out a tree with my family was a big deal when I was young. There was something magical about living in sunny Los Angeles and watching dozens of pine-scented snow-dusted trees being unloaded from Canadian railcars. Never mind we paid a little extra to have our tree “flocked” (adding a touch of spray-painted artificial snow). It was still a real tree.

Real vs. artificial goes way beyond Christmas trees. When I consider one next to the other, I always think of Memorex. In the 1970s and ’80s the Memorex Corporation produced audio cassettes, the precursor to the compact disc. In their TV commercials Memorex included singer Ella Fitzgerald belting out a note powerful enough to shatter a wine glass. Then they’d play a recording of Ella’s performance and the wine glass would still shatter, begging the question, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

Real vs. artificial also recalls Milli Vanilli, the R&B duo from the late ’80’s. Milli Vanilli made it big with the album “Girl You Know It’s True”, then won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. But years later the world would find out Milli Vanilli never sang anything. Instead they lip-synced their way to fame; their albums the voices of studio performers. Milli Vanilli returned the Best New Artist Grammy shortly after that.

Let’s visit real vs. artificial a little closer to home; say, the kitchen. As much as my wife and I seek whole, organic, locally produced foods, we can’t help including a few outliers. I just went through our pantry and came up with a few good examples:

Aunt Jemima syrup. This pancake topper – destined for rebranding in the name of racial equality – is nothing but high fructose corn syrup, water, and a whole lot of chemicals. The “Natural Butter Flavor” variety blatantly advertises “contains no butter”. You’ll find all the pure maple syrup you want in Vermont but you won’t find a drop in a bottle of Aunt Jemima.
Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts. A long time ago Pop-Tarts contained real ingredients (else my mother wouldn’t have put ’em on the pantry shelf as kid snacks). Today’s Pop-Tarts are enriched flour and a bunch of scary-sounding ingredients developed in a lab. It takes half the height of the box to list everything that goes into a Pop-Tart.
Kraft Mac & Cheese. Make a bowl of pasta, top it with melted cheddar, and Voila! you have macaroni & cheese in two ingredients. Kraft Mac & Cheese needs twenty-one to accomplish the same dish. But man, don’t it taste great?
Ritz Crackers. More enriched flour plus lab ingredients. (Maybe every food can be made from enriched flour?) The Ritz Crackers box includes a warning, “Contains wheat, soy”. Ha, if only that was all it contained.
“Real” Bacon Bits. My mother-in-law left this bottle of horror behind when she brought a salad for Christmas dinner. But guess what? It really is made of bacon (okay, and chemicals). I must’ve been thinking of other brands, where the bits are actually “flavored textured soy flour”. Oh ick.

Back to our real Christmas tree. After the gifts were passed around and opened, we discovered one more, looking a little embarrassed behind the branches. It was a brightly colored basket, the kind all dressed up with a cute wooden box and Christmas bow, overflowing with food items and protected in plastic wrap.

But here’s the rub. We opened the basket and found a whole lot of nothing. Generic cookies, coffee, candy, and a couple of cheap Christmas mugs, arranged carefully so as to suggest the basket contained much more. To add insult to injury, none of the food items were name-brand (except for a handful of Lindor truffles). The cookies and candy were made with a ton of artificial ingredients. The coffee was so generically packaged it had me wondering if it was even coffee. The whole basket made me think “Memorex”.

This is where I jump to a discussion about artificial intelligence, but your real brain needs a rest so that’s a topic for another day. Meanwhile, my wife and I will keep heading out every Christmas to tree lots (or the woods) to find the perfect one. “Artificial” may sneak into other parts of our lives now and again but at Christmas, we’ll always be keeping it real.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

The Original “Black Friday”

The first two weeks of November were jammed with “un-often” events this year. For starters the bright light of Halloween’s blue moon spilled into the wee hours of November 1st. During those same wee hours most of us lost Daylight Savings Time. The very next day (Monday) marked the official arrival of Hurricane Eta to our shores. The day after that we voted in a presidential election. A week later we staged the Masters golf tournament (it’s supposed to be in April, people). Then we had another hurricane (Iota), the first time we’ve had two in November. Finally, we spiked positive COVID-19 tests in record numbers after months of declines.

That’s a pile of rarities in a short amount of time. So why not add one more to the heap? Friday the 13th. I missed it completely. Maybe you missed it too (and you’d be forgiven with all those other distractions). Last Friday – the 13th – came and went without an ounce of bad luck to blog about. Ironically, the only story I can share brought good luck. I placed a carry-out dinner order last Thursday night and the restaurant gave me someone else’s food. When I went back for the right order they told me to keep both. As a result my Friday the 13th dinner was unexpectedly “on the house”.

Are you superstitious? I’m not – not in the least. I have no problems with sidewalk cracks, leaning ladders, or black cats. I don’t lose sleep anticipating the third occurrence of a bad thing. I gladly pick up a penny (it’s free money after all) but with no expectations of luck. I’ve broken mirrors (deliberately, in remodel projects) and wishbones (on a whim, in turkeys). I’ve even knocked on lots of wood (mostly doors) but hey, my life goes on as usual.

As for Friday the 13th’s “un-luck”, its long-ago origins are suspiciously weak. The most common comes from the story of Jesus in the Bible: thirteen individuals at the Last Supper (Thursday) followed by Jesus’ foretold crucifixion the following day. Other theories point to fighting gods in mythology and fighting knights in the Middle Ages. None of these carry water in my book. Seriously, how did misfortune come to be associated with the collision of a particular day and date?

I read up on calendar averages, thinking the 13th falling on a Friday was as uncommon as a blue moon. Maybe the 13th favors the other days of the week instead? Nope, try the reverse. Over a significant number of years the 13th falls on Friday more than Saturday, Sunday, or any other day of the week.

To add a helping of confusion, look no further than Spain or Greece. These countries have an irrational fear of Tuesday the 13th. Italy? Friday the 17th. Imagine watching America’s famous horror movie franchise in any of these places and wondering, “so… why do they call it ‘Friday the 13th'”?

No matter my efforts to undermine this superstition, the effects are real. Over 17 million Americans admit to a dread of Friday the 13th. Some avoid airplane travel and others won’t even get out of bed. Buildings remove the thirteenth floor from the stack (which is a lot of demolition for a superstition, isn’t it?) Elevators conspicuously delete the “13” button. Numbered seats in stadiums go 10, 11, 12… 14, 15, 16.

For some of you, Black Friday means bargains. For others, Black Friday means “13”. If nothing else, I’ll give you a couple of words to describe the circumstance of the latter’s irrational fear. If you’re afraid of the number 13 you have triskaidekaphobia. If you’re afraid of just Friday the 13th you have paraskevidekatriaphobia. (Me, I only have acrophobia. At least your phobias sound more sophisticated.)

Fact check. This post was published close to the midpoint between Black Friday (the 13th) and Black Friday (the retail binge). Okay-y-y-y. This post also contains exactly 666 words. WHOO boy.

Let me repeat… I am NOT superstitious.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Flying Furballs

As I glance out the windows of my home office I’m struck by the calm of a late fall afternoon; the cloudless blue sky with just a whisper of wind through the trees. I don’t see any aircraft heading to or from the local military bases, nor the white vapor trails they often leave behind. No flocks of birds heading in perfect formation south for the winter. No falling leaves spinning to the ground. Heck, I don’t even see a flying squirrel!

Maybe you caught the story earlier this week. Seven people locked up in a Florida prison are charged with spearheading a “flying squirrel ring”. They trapped thousands of the little guys in the wild, laundered them through a dealer (what sort of person deals in flying squirrels?), who distributed them to several buyers. The buyers then drove to airports around the U.S., where the winged creatures were loaded onto airplanes headed to far eastern countries. Who knew: there’s a market for flying squirrels as exotic pets? Asians pay top dollar for them.

Is it just me or is there something a little redundant about shipping a flying squirrel on an airplane?

Also, what kind of a weirdo goes to the trouble to capture, launder, distribute, sell, drive, and transport thousands of flying squirrels halfway around the world? If you’re going to do something illegal why not deal drugs? Does a flying squirrel sell for that much?

Here’s another thing I can’t figure. What do you call a litter of flying squirrels… a “squadron”?

You must admit, flying squirrels probably make the top-ten list of God’s coolest creatures. The Northern species is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. They have big doe eyes to help them see in the dark (picture a Disney character). They forage for fruit, seeds, tree sap, and the occasional bird egg. They’ve been buzzing the planet for millions of years now – almost prehistoric.

But let’s talk about those “wings”. Flying squirrels have what’s called a patagium: a furry, parachute-like membrane stretching from tiny wrist to tiny ankle. When the membrane’s stretched taut they can glide from tree to tree, using their tail for stability. They can even steer their body like an airplane, using limbs and tail. How far can a flying squirrel fly, you ask? How about 300 feet? Yep, put one of these babies on top of an American football goalpost and he can soar all the way through the other end zone. “Touchdown”!

Okay BUT… flying squirrels lost some of their coolness when I discovered this picture. OMG, that’s just wicked scary. Can you imagine camping under the stars relaxed in your sleeping bag and you wake up to the rapid descent of that? I’d NEVER be the same. And here’s another Halloween-ish detail: flying squirrels glow. Their underbody fluoresces pink under UV light. Why? No idea, but that just makes them creepier.

Maybe I don’t want a flying furball for a pet after all.

I suppose I’d take flying squirrels over some of the other flying organisms out there. You know about flying fish. You may even know about flying frogs. But did you know about the flying squid in our oceans? Seriously, they can jettison out of the water by expelling water from their “funnel” and travel up to 160 feet. They can even keep that water blast going in the air for extra distance. And there you have it: the world’s only jet-propelled aerial locomotion animal.

Now let’s get to the stuff of real nightmares. How about flying snakes? Five species in Southeast Asia and India can glide like the squirrels. They contort their long bodies to be concave (like an upside-down taco shell), which allows them to buoy on a cushion of air. Not to be outdone by the squirrels, flying snakes can also cover the length of a football field. They even make mid-air 90-degree turns. I didn’t have plans to visit Southeast Asia or India anytime soon but now I’m never going. No way.

Finally, we have the undisputed king of flying nightmares: balloon spiders. These ungodly insects spin a silky globe along with a sturdy dragline and go for a ride wherever the wind may take them. If I was talking about one flying spider I might deal with it but these guys travel in packs. Large packs. Can you imagine? An endless assault of mini paratroopers on a mini Normandy, only you are Normandy. “Incoming!”

You can fill your skies with whatever you want but I’ll pass on flying squids, snakes, and spiders. I’ll even pass on the Northern squirrel (they only live 5-6 years and have no interest in bonding with humans) Oh, and for those of you with flying monkeys on the brain, those would’ve been on the cool list if I hadn’t watched Dorothy and her friends at such a young and impressionable age. Still gets me.

Nope, I choose late fall cloudless blue skies with just a whisper of wind. No squirrels anywhere in sight.

Some content sourced from the 10/20/2020 CNN article, “Florida officials say several people charged in flying squirrel trafficking operation”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Matt Match

It happened again this week, as it seems to every couple of months. I was lying face-up in the chair, with the dentist putting finishing touches on a crown, when she says out of nowhere, “So… celebrity trivia question. Which Hollywood actor do people say you most resemble?” To which I quickly responded – from years of practice – “Matt Damon“.

That’s me on the left and Matt on the right. The likeness has never been my own opinion, but rather a conditioned response from so many people making the comparison. If I really concentrate, focusing on certain facial features, I suppose I can acknowledge some resemblance. But it’s a stretch at best, so it fascinates me I get this comment over and over again. In yesterday’s instance, my dentist said it was most obvious when seeing my face in profile. She must check out a lot of photos of Matt Damon.

Damon has made quite a name for himself on the silver screen. Alongside Ben Affleck, he burst onto the scene in 1997 with his Academy-award winning screenplay Good Will Hunting. His resume has been a fairly unbroken string of box-office successes since, including Saving Private Ryan, Ocean’s Eleven, the (four) Jason Bourne movies, The Martian, and most recently, Ford vs. Ferrari. It’s fair to say Damon leans towards scripts with lots of action, with the occasional foray into comedy and drama.

With something of a physical likeness, I thought I should explore a little further under Damon’s skin (so to speak), to see if he and I have anything in common besides looks. He’s eight years younger than I am. He was born in Boston while I was born in Los Angeles. His parents divorced when he was three while my parents remain married to this day. He has one brother while I have four. On the other hand, we’re both married and we both have daughters. We’re identical in height at 5′-10″ (!!!) And most significant to the topic at hand, we’re both products of a parent of English descent and another of Swedish.

So Damon is (apparently) my biologically unrelated look-alike (aka doppelganger). All of us have one or more out there in the world; mine just happens to be a “name”. My dad was often associated with the late actor George Kennedy. My mom – Nancy Reagan. Hollywood itself has plenty of pairs, including Dax Shepherd/Zach Braff, Zooey Deschanel/Katy Perry, and IMHO the most twin-like of them all: Natalie Portman/Keira Knightley. As for Matt Damon? His doppelganger is not yours truly, at least not in his own social circles. Maybe Mark Wahlberg.

Let’s visit Damon’s movie characters for a second. I identify with one in particular. No, not the brilliant-but-shy, quick-talking Will from Good Will Hunting, with his rough edges, street smarts, and Boston accent. Neither Jason Bourne, with his lightning-fast fighting skills and penchant for cross-continent espionage. Not even Private Ryan, because I can’t claim to have worn the uniform nor lived in wartime. Ah, but then we have Ocean’s Eleven’s Linus Caldwell. Linus is the hesitant participant in the heist. He’s not keen to lead, but he likes being part of the team. He’s on the quieter side, aims to please, takes a risk or two for the sake of respect, and comes across as Mr. Nice Guy. He also sports the casual polo/khaki look, with the occasional zip-up jacket. Yep, Linus could be my doppelganger as well.

You’ll find a lot of photos of Matt Damon on the web. You’ll also find some personal quotes. Here’s one of my favorites: “It’s just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.” As much as Damon’s an actor by trade, I’ve seen enough of his roles to believe his true persona often reflects in his characters. He seems like a decent guy and he’s done very well for himself. He has a solid marriage and three wonderful daughters. He’s atypically modest and straight-shooting for a Hollywood headliner. So if people want to “doppelgang” me with someone like that, who am I to care if I actually look like the guy?

Some content sourced from IMDb, “the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV, and celebrity content”.

Come What Mayo

When I was a kid, I had this inexplicable obsession with cheese sandwiches. Maybe it was the popular Wonder Bread of the time (a slice of which could be reduced down to a compact dough ball with minimal effort). Maybe it was fondness for the Tillamook cheese my mother always had on hand; the sandwich merely serving as an edible container. Surely it was because they were super-simple to make. Whatever the reason, cheese sandwiches would’ve been utterly dry-mouthed and unappealing without the essential third ingredient: mayonnaise.

The easy guess here is you have mayonnaise in your refrigerator. Go check. Even if you don’t, you have the ingredients to make your own: eggs, oil, and vinegar or lemon juice (blended together at high speed and allowed to set). The fancier versions of mayo add in some spices. Your particular brand probably lives quietly in the refrigerator door or towards the back of one of the shelves, alongside several other condiments. But the more I learn about mayonnaise the less inclined I am to group it together with the basics like ketchup and mustard.

West of the Rockies where I grew up, the standard brand of mayonnaise was always Best Foods. When I moved east of the Rockies later in life, the name changed to Hellmann’s but the label, the jar, and ingredients were exactly the same. That was always an oddity to me – until I learned Best Foods acquired Hellmann’s after both brands were solidly established. Rather than drop one for the other Best Foods just kept them both. Same product, same packaging, different name. [Note: those of you in the southeastern U.S. may prefer Duke’s Mayonnaise – a distant third in sales. At least Duke’s tastes distinctly different than these fraternal twins.]

Mayonnaise has one of those prolonged evolutions you could care less about, including its debatable origins. Several moments in European history claim ties to its invention. The most credible story (or the most romantic – take your pick) has the French winning the Seven Years’ War in 1756, and the victory dinner including a fish course, but no cream to make the tartar sauce. The chef improvised with eggs, oil, and garlic instead, and voila: mayonnaise. Further, the dinner took place in the Spanish port city of Mahon, so the sauce was dubbed “mahonnaise”. Elegant name, no?

But for a few uses I can take or leave mayonnaise. In addition to my childhood cheese sandwiches I only use mayonnaise for tuna salad, potato salad, or cole slaw. I never put mayonnaise on a burger (do you?) It’s ketchup on my French fries not mayonnaise (apparently that’s a “thing” with some of you). It’s drawn butter on my artichokes (again, not mayonnaise). And speaking of the cheese sandwiches, I recall my mother packing school lunches with bologna-and-mayonnaise sandwiches. Meat and mayo on the bread – that was it. No Tillamook cheese, no lettuce or tomato, no pickle on the side. There’s a harsh simplicity to bologna and mayonnaise. In other words, I hated the combo (and maybe that’s why mayonnaise only gets “a few uses” in my world now).

After my wife and I met, I discovered another refrigerator regular besides Hellmann’s: Miracle Whip. You could say Miracle Whip masquerades as mayonnaise (same look, same wide-mouthed jar) but the taste is decidedly sweeter. Check out MW’s ingredients and you’ll discover a clone of mayonnaise… but with a healthy dose of high fructose corn syrup (sugar). I like the tangy taste of Miracle Whip but I can’t help thinking mayonnaise is the healthier alternative. Credit Kraft Foods though, who debuted their “less expensive alternative to mayonnaise” at the Depression-era 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Almost a hundred years later MW’s a staple condiment, and the Miracle Whip-or-mayonnaise debate lands in the same conversation as Coke vs. Pepsi, Uncle Ben’s vs. Minute (rice), and Aunt Jemima’s vs. Log Cabin (syrup).

If you’re like me, at some point in this post your sub-conscience drums up the 1982 romance “An Officer and a Gentleman” (If not, you’ve missed a great film). If you’ve been to Ireland you probably know County Mayo in the northwest corner of the country. Better yet, go visit the town of Mayo on the northeast coast of Florida. A few years ago Mayo changed its name to Miracle Whip as a publicity stunt. Okay, that tops all other “mayo” references I can come up with.

As little as I dip into my mayonnaise jar, I’ve seen plenty of expiration dates. It might behoove me to make my own instead. Eggs, oil, and vinegar, with a little salt to taste, whipped at high speed. Sounds American easy-as-pie. But call it mahonnaise, okay? Then you’ll have something sounding more like what the French cooked up all those years ago.

Some content sourced from the 7/9/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “The Delicious Evolution of Mayonnaise”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Saving (the) Daisy

“Daisy” the St. Bernard (photo courtesy of Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team)

Let’s visit the dog days of summer; specifically, a day in the middle of last week. In England, on the highest mountaintop in the land, a group of sixteen rescuers carried an ailing dog down to safety – a rescue operation of more than five hours. These heroes didn’t rescue just any dog; they rescued a full-grown St. Bernard. Put that image in your head for a moment. People coming to the rescue of a St. Bernard. That’s “Role Reversal” with capital R’s.

(photo courtesy of Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team)

“Daisy” – the St. Bernard in our story – was descending England’s Scafell Pike last week (owners in tow, presumably) when she experienced pain in her rear legs and refused to go any further. Rescuers consulted a veterinarian before administering meds, food, water, and treats (lots of treats). Then they loaded the 121-lb. doggie onto a stretcher and eased their way down the mountain, navigating several steep stretches, rocks, and a waterfall. Daisy was the model patient the whole way down and it turns out this was her second rescue. Her first was by her owners, from a relatively “hard life” into a better one just a few months ago.

Saving Daisy strikes a chord with me not just because she’s a feel-good story (and we need plenty of those these days), but also because my wife and I own a St. Bernard ourselves. “Remy” is six years old and lives with us on our ranch, alongside horses, cats, and occasional wildlife. Remy came from a breeder in Nebraska about six hours to the east. He joined our family when he was only eight weeks old. Look at him now!

When I read about Daisy’s rescue my first thought was, “how the heck did a St. Bernard get to the top of a mountain? To explain, St. Bernards have typical dog gears like sprint, walk, and idle. The difference: Daisy and Remy spend 95% of their time in “idle” lying down. Yes, they can “sprint”, but only for about thirty seconds (followed by “collapse”). They can also walk short distances – say, to the mailbox – but like Daisy, when they choose to “idle” you’re not gonna get ’em to move an inch. Daisy is a svelte 121 lbs. so maybe she has more gas in the tank than most. Remy is 160 lbs. Our first St. Bernard “Sebastian” was well over 200. They don’t call ’em “gentle giants” for nothing.

A St. Bernard and a mountaintop isn’t an unusual combination, of course. These big boys were originally bred to be Alpine rescue dogs by monks on the Great St. Bernard Pass between Switzerland and Italy (hence the name). It is said St. Bernards rescued 2,000 people over a span of 200 years from Alpine snowstorms. I’d say they’ve earned their reputation as rescuers (and working-class dogs).

Nope, they don’t carry a barrel of brandy

We named our dog “Remy” after Remy Martin, the cognac variety of brandy. Perhaps you’ve seen images of St. Bernards with barrels of brandy around their necks. As romantic as it sounds – a big furry rescue dog bringing stiff drinks to avalanche survivors for warmth – the whole idea is just folklore. Even the Great St. Bernard Pass monks say they’ve never put a barrel on a Bernard.

St. Bernards weigh fifty pounds at twelve weeks

If Daisy’s anything like Remy, her owners make accommodations atypical of most dog owners. A water bowl isn’t big enough for a Bernard; better go with a bucket. Add a large waterproof mat under the bucket because it seems one-third of every slurp ends up on fur or floor. For those (very short) walks, forget the leash and go with a heavy rope instead (we use a horse’s lead line). Also, you’ll need a doggie ramp for the car because Bernards aren’t so agile. While you’re at it, trade the car in for one with a high ceiling clearance. And be sure to crank the AC so all the panting doesn’t fog the windows.

St. Bernards are classified as “working dogs”; a tribute to their rescue skills. They compete in dog shows like other breeds, but less in agility and more in carting and weight-pulling. St. Bernards have starred on the silver screen, as the good (“Beethoven”), the bad (“Cujo”), and the animated (“Nana” in the Disney version of Peter Pan). I think Daisy’s story might be an even better “Incredible Journey” script, don’t you? After all, St. Bernards have been rescuing people for thousands of years. Now we finally get one asking for our help. It’s about time the shoe was on the other foot (er, paw). Glad you’re okay, Daisy!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.