humor

Some frugal Christmas parodies.

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(Happy Throwback Tuesday! Yes, I know it’s supposed to be Throwback Thursday, but my sandbox, my rules. This article originally ran on Dec. 23, 2017. Get ready to sing along!)

This close to the holiday I’m still feeling the pull to buy, buy, buy. Even though we don’t have a television to deliver marketing copy six times per hour, consumerism creeps into our lives in other ways:

Ads on the classical music station (fun fact: a local shop packed and shipped more than 10 tons of Alaska king crab last Christmas).

Displays of holiday foods and gifts at the supermarket and drugstore.

Signs outside other stores.

Christmas decorations at restaurants and my neighbors’ homes.

Never mind that everyone on my list has been bought for and that all the gifts have been wrapped and either mailed or delivered. I still feel that I haven’t bought enough. That somehow I should be giving lots more. That maybe tomorrow on my way to a friend’s house I could just stop in somewhere and…

Noooope, as Lana would say on “Archer.” So I decided to banish those thoughts with humor.

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Giveaway: “Tundra” calendars.

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Every time I give away something from the Tundra family, there’s always a lot of response. So why not keep that energy going?

Besides, it plays into my “support the local economy” series of giveaways quite nicely. I ran into Tundra creator Chad Carpenter recently and bought two of his 2021 calendars. The idea is to give one and keep one for yourself.

Or maybe you’ll give them both away. However you handle things, that’s at least one holiday gift checked off your list – for free!

Bonus: I might even be able to get Chad to personalize the calendars for you. He generally throws in a cute li’l sketch of one of his critters, too. Some day those signed calendars could be worth…Well, I have no idea.

What I do know is that Chad’s work is known literally around the world. It’s syndicated in nearly 650 newspapers in the United States, Europe, Jamaica and Trinidad. I guess that moose, bear and bug humor is universal.

Not that Chad is limited to static images. He and his twin brother, Darin, have also been responsible for two films shot entirely in Alaska. The first was “Moose: The Movie,” about an ancient curse that awakens a killer ungulate. Mayhem ensues. Funny stuff also ensues. When I gave away a copy of that movie I described it as having been made with “a tight budget and a loose grip on reality.” Pretty much.

The second is “Sudsy Slim Rides Again,” which centers on an Alaska lawman who heads to a tiny off-the-grid town to investigate a missing person. That “person” is the mummified remains of a notorious criminal – and since he’s a big tourist draw, the town fathers and mothers want him back. However, he’s been corpse-napped by a couple of escaped convicts who want to leverage the stiff for safe passage out of town.

Just FYI: You can buy those films at the Tundra website, or rent them on Amazon. I won’t get any kind of remuneration if you do. It’s just another stab at supporting the local economy.

But back to the giveaway.

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Cake is the answer. What was the question?

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The other day one of us (hint: it wasn’t me) removed from the freezer a container labeled “sour milk for cake.” It wound up in the fridge, where I eventually discovered it.

DF won’t exactly cop to having done this, but he did do it. Probably when he was rearranging the stuff in the freezer to make room for more things from the garden.

Technically I could have just refrozen it. After all, it was already sour – refreezing wouldn’t have affected the texture a bit.

Instead, I decided to stir up a quick Lightning Cake, from the old Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Pretty sure they named it that back in the day because it’s as fast as lightning to make.

It’s still fast to make, and it’s still delicious. DF took a huge chunk (almost half the pan) over to his mom, who’s 92 and possessed of less appetite than when she was young. I like to send pies, jams, cookies and cakes over because I figure the more calories we can get into her, the better.

The next day she phoned to report that she “ate the whole damn thing.”

Well, she’ll be getting another chunk tomorrow, because there was a lot of milk in that container. Also because the answer to many of life’s problems is simple: Cake.

DF’s granddaughters coming over? Let them make cake.

Feeling a little glum about deadlines? Let me eat cake.

Worried about how many sweets I’ve had lately? Let me share cake. Because rarely will someone complain if you bring over a slab of cake, even though some weight-conscious folk will react as though you’ve just introduced a stray cat: “That’s not staying here! You’re taking that home with you! (And can I have another piece?)”

 

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Jerry Stiller and me: A minor celebrities story.

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The recent death of comedian and actor Jerry Stiller made me sad. Most people’s deaths make me sad. But I happen to know that in this case, the cliche everyone spouts is true: He’d had a great life.

How do I know? He told me.

Years ago he and his wife, Anne Meara, were guests of honor at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska. At that time I worked at the Anchorage Daily News, and was given the chance to interview them both before they got here.

Both of them were perfectly delightful. The conversation with Stiller went on for quite a while, and at the end of the interview he said he wanted to send me a copy of his autobiography, “Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara.” I thanked him and said that I appreciated the offer but that it wouldn’t be necessary.

 

 

He sent it anyway, with a personalized inscription, and I still have it.

At the end of the conference there’s always a tour from a glacier cruise company. Stiller saw me come aboard and waved me over. I spent the entire cruise sitting next to him and listening to him tell stories about his beautiful wife and his amazing children (actors Ben and Amy). He told me more than once how lucky he had been in his life, to have had such a wonderful marriage and incredible children plus the chance to do what he loved.

Sniffling yet? I am, too.

But that’s not the only point of this post.

 

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Scenes from quarantines, Part 1.

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The times in which we live are not just potentially deadly. They’re psychologically and emotionally exhausting.

People are dealing with not just varying degrees of isolation but also variables like:

– The fear that loved one (especially elders) will get sick and they won’t be allowed to visit

– Unemployment (or having to keep working without reliable child care and/or proper protection)

– Food and household product shortages

– Generalized anxiety, which can mean existing in fight-or-flight mode 24/7 and can also make the simplest tasks of daily living feel insurmountable

– Being full-time parents in a pandemic, i.e., trying to explain the new normal to housebound kids who can’t quite grasp why they can’t visit friends or go to the movies

– Maybe being not just full-time parents but also homeschool teachers who are still expected to put in a full day’s work from home

Yet among the ever-more-horrifying news articles and social media posts, I’ve also read some  pretty funny scenes from quarantines. Moms and dads talk about all the math they can’t remember, or moan that the math they do remember has been replaced by Common Core.

People who wear glasses joke darkly about their masks’ effects on their specs. (I’ve had some fairly foggy vision myself on our weekly trips to the Outside World.)

Work-from-home* parents report the mortification of having pants-less offspring run through the room during video conferences. Once-tight couples realize that their SOs have some Really Annoying Habits, or at least habits magnified by enforced togetherness.

I laugh at these things, sometimes harder than the actual humor warrants. We need laughter right now, to offset the daily horror show that is the 24-hour news cycle.

Hence, this article – not intended to make light of a very real public health and economic crisis, but rather to provide what we hope will be a few much-needed laughs.

“We”? Yes, we. The first part is running here and the second is over on my daughter’s site, I Pick Up Pennies. We’ve recorded a few random observations about the new normal.

 

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7 ways I know I’m not in Anchorage.

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Chief among them: Sidewalks. Sidewalks I can see!!! No snow, no ice, no worries about slipping and falling. No problem.

I’m in sunny Phoenix, visiting my daughter for a little over a week and I’m really starting to understand snowbirds – especially since it was below zero pretty much nonstop for most of January.

While the time difference is just two hours, it’s a big ol’ world away from not-so-warm-and-sunny* Anchorage, Alaska. And as usual, it’s a non-bacchanal visit:

I write. Love, love, love my work-at-home gig because it doesn’t matter whether it’s my home or someone else’s. Seriously: The flexibility of being able to visit Abby vs. having to request time off far outweighs the occasional self-employment hassle.

I visit friends, including Funny About Money, an old college pal who happened to be RVing in the area, and the blogger formerly** known as A Mom, Money and More.

I clean up*** a bit. She’s pretty much stayed ahead of the cleaning. Roomba + no dog and husband going in and out + no clutter thanks to the disappearance of said dog and husband = a place that’s much easier to keep tidy.

But I’ve got a few specific projects like mopping the floors, tightening loose doorknobs, and scooping the catbox. Speaking of which: I also plan to empty and scrub the box with vinegar and water, let it dry in the sun and refill it with some of the litter I helped her lug home the other day. Yeah, I party hard.

I hang out with my daughter. She also works at home, so sometimes the hangout is in the living room, both of us tapping away on our laptops. The rest of the time we’re either reading (occasionally sharing particularly well-written or funny stuff out loud) or viewing programs she thinks I’d like via Netflix and Hulu. It’s likely that I will watch more TV this trip than I would in a couple of months**** in Anchorage.

To some, all this might sound pretty dull. To us it’s pretty satisfying – and at this time of year, when I can go outside and use Nature’s S.A.D. light, it’s fairly great.

What are some of the other ways I know I’m not in Anchorage any more? So glad you asked:

 

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National Bacon Day giveaway.

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(As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This revenue helps keep the blog lights on.)

Apparently today is National Bacon Day. If you were to ask DF, he would likely insist that every day is National Bacon Day. (He eats a lot of the stuff.)

Some people believe that bacon is bad for you. It probably is. But if you need a reason to believe in bacon, check out this interesting factoid from National Today:

Bacon contains a nutrient (we know, we’re surprised too) called “choline.” It’s been known to increase intelligence and memory, fight Alzheimer’s Disease, and protect the heart from developing lethal problems.

We never thought our favorite food could get any better, but then we learn about its health benefits. Thank you, bacon; you’re the gift that keeps on giving.

I’ve been collecting porcine prizes for just such an occasion. The winner of the National Bacon Day giveaway will receive the following delights:

Makin’ Bacon game. This is touted as “a delicious dice game for the whole family.” I’ll let the winner be the judge.

Wooden sign. It says “Bacon is duct tape for the kitchen.” Agreed!

Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages. Yes. Someone invented Bacon Band-Aids.

 

 

“I Love Bacon,” by Jayne Rockmill. This cookbook has recipes for every meal of the day, and also for desserts. (My dear partner, who has been known to make Peanut Butter and Bacon Cookies and Bacon-Molasses-Cayenne Peanut Brittle, approved this message.)

Bacon Bowls. According to the packaging, these dishwasher-safe items let you make “delicious edible bowls out of bacon!” They can be used in the microwave, toaster oven or regular oven.

 

 

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5 money lessons from “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

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Sometimes I go to the movies to be intrigued, uplifted and educated. And sometimes I go just to watch a whole lot of stuff get blowed up real good.

You can guess into which category “Terminator: Dark Fate” falls.

This entry in the “Terminator” franchise picks up right after “Terminator: Judgment Day,” and posits that Sarah Connor (a deliciously well-aged Linda Hamilton) and her son were able to prevent Skynet from taking over the world.

However, things still go very badly indeed for a young Mexican auto factory worker named Dani Ramos (Natalie Reyes), who’s targeted for seemingly no reason by a sinister new brand of Terminator called a Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna).

But there’s always a reason, right? And there’s always a protector. In this film it’s Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a seriously buff and butt-kicking warrior from the future. Eventually Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up again, too, and he’s given a couple of funny bits along with the flash-bang stuff. (His deadpan descriptions of why he’s a perfect mate and the difference that the right blinds can make to décor are extremely amusing.)

“Terminator: Dark Fate” isn’t perfect. In particular, I wish that director Tim Miller (“Deadpool”) had trimmed some of the fight scenes. We get it: The Rev-9 can be sliced and diced and shredded but he always comes back for more. Stahp with the CGI, already!

Still, I was absolutely entertained – and it’s nice to have a film in which three of the four badasses are women.

Now let’s talk about money.

 

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Yet more s–t my boyfriend says.

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(Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Because I’m a huge nerd, stories about weird medical conditions fascinate me (especially the description of how the issue was diagnosed in the first place). And since my sweetheart is also a huge nerd, he likes to listen to excerpts.

A while back I shared this weird Washington Post medical article about a guy whose sore arm could have cost his life. The diagnosis was “acute compartment syndrome,” a situation in which the pressure inside muscles grows and cuts off blood flow to an entire limb. The poor fellow needed four surgeries during eight days in the hospital. Brrrr.

When I’d finished describing the article, DF said it reminded him of the condition sometimes afflicting train travelers who demand the best and most adorable berth on the train: a cute compartment syndrome.

As my friend Linda B. would say: Gah-ROAN.

One of the most appealing things about DF is his love for wordplay. He and I will embroider on each other’s puns until one of us feels queasy. Ultimately I started writing down the worst (best?) offenders, and back in February 2018 I published a collection of his bon mots and bad puns in the tradition of “Shit My Dad Says.”

(That was the name of a series of Tweets published by Justin Halpern. Later they became a book and eventually a TV show with William Shatner that didn’t last too long, even though the word “shit” was never uttered.)

Whenever he bursts out with another pun, I’ll tell him “that’s going on the list.” Not all of them do make the list, though; some are too obscure (or too smutty) for prime time.

You can read previous installments to get an idea of how my sweetheart’s mind works:

Or you can just dive right in and read this fourth installment. You’ve been warned.

 

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Things you do when you’re old.

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The other day I just did not feel like cooking, and none of the leftovers appealed to me.

So I chose my fallback: oatmeal. Then I realized that we had an entire gallon of milk – enough to cook farina and still make a batch of yogurt.

“Ooohhhh, no, not oatmeal. I’ll have Cream of Wheat,” I said eagerly.

Wonder whether anyone has ever said that exact sentence with that level of happiness? Probably not.

(It sure made my partner giggle, though.)

That phrase was just one more example of #ThingsOldPeopleDo. Yep, that’s an actual Twitter hashtag. And yep, I eat hot cereal for dinner sometimes, even if I also had it for breakfast.

But that’s not the only #oldpeoplething that I do. Here are a few other examples.

 

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