BREAKFAST

 Taking a cue from my friend, Cross Town Lori (LL), I'm having a senior's breakfast this morning.

A slice of my birthday carrot cake with whipped cream!

Old age comes with benefits.

One of them is you can eat whatever you want whenever you want.

BIRTHDAY DINNER

 Several of you made comments on yesterday's post wondering if I had a celebratory meal to mark the beginning of my 84th year on this planet.

And I can tell you (Yorkshire Pudding) that it did not involve a quick run for a Big Mac.

As I told you (RedPat) it was exceptional.

And (LL) though it was tempting, I did NOT eat dessert first.

But let me not delay tempting your taste buds and making your mouths water a moment longer.

My birthday repast began with this salad of blanched snow peas, cucumbers and red mini-peppers.

As long time readers of this blog know, my wife Judy is not only an exceptional cook but an artist as well and I think she excels at her arranged salads.

The entree was one of our favorite meals - Chicken Picatta and Fettucini Alfredo topped with freshly grated Parmigianno Reggiano cheese from Italy, accompanied by toasted garlic bread.

Mmmmmm.  I just recreated the flavors in my mind and I'm hungry again!

And then - - dessert.

Judy's legendary Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.

And SPRINKLES!

The master chef in my house created all of this herself.

I was only allowed to grate the cheese, mix pre-prandial drinks and pour the wine.

We could have gone out to some fine (and expensive) restaurant or even to Mickey D's for a couple of Big Macs but why spend the money when I have one of the world's great cooks right here at home.

It was a highly rewarding (and filling) celebration of my special day.

THE BLOODY 24TH

 Let's see what's in the news of my world today.

Oh my, the big news comes to us from Fox, of all places.

It seems their big star, Tucker Carlson, and his employer have parted company.

That's in the wake of a 787.5 million dollar settlement the company made with Dominion to make a lawsuit go away.

But listen: when the news of Tucker's "departure" broke, the company's stock price tanked and their market value was down 700 million dollars!

In other news, a friend of mine said that over at CNN they "buried the lede" with the news that one of their longtime stars, Don Lemon, had been fired.

But let's get on to news of some survivors.

Barbra Streisand is celebrating (?) her 81st birthday today.

And another famous lady, the actress Shirley MacLaine is marking her 89th whirl around the sun today.

These last two are probably having a better day than the first two but, you know, life is what you make it.

Oh, I almost forgot one - this time a birthday BOY.

Well not exactly a boy, as the hair color can tell you.

And the moustache and chin whiskers have been white for seeming forever.

Now if you guessed this is your scribe, you'd be correct.

I share my birthday with the two talented ladies above and today is my 83rd.

I've only found one celebrity who was born on the exact same day I was.

That would be the author of the alphabet mysteries, Sue Grafton.

Regrettably she won't be around to blow out the candles today.

She died in 2017 before she could write that final novel in her series which she had already titled: Z is for Zero.

She was 77 when she lost a battle with cancer.

As those two media stars who started this post might say:

Sic transit gloria.

EARTH DAY 2023

 

Let's save it from us, for the others.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

 I hope you made it through 4/20 day smoking hot.

(heh-heh-heh)

(If you don't know what that means, just Google "420".)

At any rate, most of us have survived until another Friday shows up on the calendar.

And you all know what that means.

It's time to LAUGH!

Maybe we should change the name to Star Tricks.

Regardless, let's get out there and energize ourselves for the next few days so that, come Monday, we can all say "Hey, I had a great weekend!"

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

OH STEVIE

Can Stevie Nicks really be 75 years old next month? 

NEW MEMBER OF THE FAMILY

 Seems like I've been writing too much recently about old age and death.

So today I'm going to change the tone.

We have a new member of our family.

Yup, we've got a cat again.

After Blackwell and Muggles passed over the Rainbow Bridge, She Who Must Be Obeyed said "That's it. No more cats. We're too old."

Of course, Matty the Rental Cat didn't know that and just moved in, paying frequent visits to our home and delighting us with his friendliness and his antics when he got into the catnip.

BTW, I saw some of that in a store yesterday only it was carrying a brand name of Meowijuana!

But anyway, we've been in our new home since last September and in spite of seeing a number of cats in the neighborhood, none had come by for a visit.

And Judy's resistance was growing ever more weak.

Then the Beautiful Rich Daughter and Certified Cat Lady told her that many older cats are looking for homes with older, quieter families and said she'd put her in touch with some adoption sites.

I asked her (Judy) if she was sure about this since she had been so firm only a few years ago that we would not do this again.

Yesterday we went to a pet store and within an hour came home with that cutie above.

They told us her name was Squeakers, which neither one of us liked.

I told Judy that I had named almost all of the cats we had "owned" before so she could name this one.

It quickly became Sweetie and that name seems to fit her better.

She's 7 years old and weighs only 7-and-a-half pounds.

We were amazed at how quickly she became attached to us and how relaxed she was in her new surroundings.

So once again we are a Cat Family.

And I mean that seriously.

It is obvious that Sweetie wasn't adopted by us.

She adopted us.

NEWS OF A PASSING

 Yesterday I was moaning writing about birthdays and reaching advanced ages and what that means (great-grand-kids).

But not all of us are getting older.

One, for instance, is the legendary Buster Bodine.

I know.

Crazy name, right?

Well that's because it wasn't his real name.

His real name was Michael Hanks.

Buster Bodine was his radio name, the name he used as a rock and roll disc jockey.

Oh, for some of you younger readers, rock and roll was a music genre that . . .oh, never mind.

Just know that Buster Bodine turned radio on its head when he landed at WNAP - FM 93.1 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

He had followed his brother, Charles Hanks, better known on WIBC-AM in Indy as Chuck Riley.

Chuck was known for his deep, resonant voice.

Then Buster arrived for a visit and, as the story goes and I've been telling it for decades, he said "hello" and his voice was an octave lower than Chucks'.

He was hired on the spot.

Buster spent some years in Indy and other locations before once again following his big brother to Los Angeles and voice-over work.

Well, now it's all over.

He died this week following complications from heart surgery.

He was 70.

Chuck died a number of years ago, also of a heart ailment, at the age of 66.

I worked with Chuck but never directly with Buster, though he was just starting at WNAP as I was getting ready to leave WIBC.

The back room and the front room, as they were known back around 1969-1971.

So . . . so long, Buster.

Like Chuck, you'll be long remembered.

AGEING UPDATE

 April and May and June are big birthday months in our family.

The BRD's birthday was nearly a week ago.

My son's birthday was yesterday.

My birthday is coming up in less than a week.

SWMBO's birthday is next month.

Our younger daughter's birthday is in June.

Gadfrey!

After all that, plus our wedding anniversary, it's little wonder that we are exhausted.

Not only that.

I heard from my son late last night, saying that he had not done much on his birthday yesterday.

Just entertained the grandchildren in the afternoon.

The GRAND-children!

That means our GREAT-grandchildren.

Talk about making a guy feel old!

So we went out to a Mexican restaurant this afternoon . . . Judy and I and Gayle . . . to celebrate multiple trips around the sun.

It was good, actually great.

The Margaritas were fine.

The food was wonderful and much of it came home with us.

So how did we look afterward?

With apologies to the BRD, whose picture I neglected to take . . . first SWMBO, whom I know you all want to see.

And then your faithful scribe.

So now you know.

Older, wiser, battered by wind and sea, but standing athwart the years.

Bring 'em on!

MUFFIN, MUFFIN, WHO'S GOT THE MUFFIN?

 Last Friday morning I decided to try broiling a couple of eggs in our muffin tin.

The first time I opened the oven door I was met with a cloud of smoke.

SWMBO estimates that muffin tin had been with us for a few decades and maybe it's time to throw the relic out.

I gladly leaped at her suggestion and did a bit of searching on-line before suggesting that now they had ones made out of silicon that made baking and exiting the pan as easy as A, B, C.

She said she thought they might be difficult to get into the oven if they were loaded with something sort of liquid and suggested maybe to just get the silicon-coated non-stick metal pan.

So I went to the store before she could change her mind and came home with this.

Yup, it's flexible silicon but it has a metal framework that holds it steady when being put in or taken out of the oven.

SWMBO quickly agreed to my great wisdom in buying it, even though she noted it was the most expensive one in the store.

But then she sent me to the kitchen with instructions to inaugurate it, especially since we had some blueberries in the fridge that were getting close to going bad.

Well, I am never one to turn up my nose at homemade blueberry muffins.

Here's a couple of pictures of the result. (And, BTW, the new pan worked great!)

THE STAFF OF LIFE

 SWMBO, my wife, would probably tell you that nothing is better than homemade bread.

Nothing smells as good.

Nothing tastes as good.

So I try to keep her happy.

And because making bread is one of the easiest kitchen duties I can imagine.

Recently I tried one of Jacques Pépin's recipes.

It's for soda bread and he insisted that it was simple and fast.

In fact, it was.

Here's my first loaf ever.

Judy gave her approval and much of it disappeared as we munched on an inside picnic dinner Thursday evening.

Thanks, Jacques!

Or should I say "Merci beaucoup".

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

 Oh, gosh, what a dark dreary day it was yesterday.

And the day before.

SWMBO said she was sure it was going to rain for two reasons.

The first was the way the sky looked.

The second was the way her joints felt.

But there came no rain, just wind and temperatures about 20 degrees cooler than a few days before.

Up and down, up and down.

As I said to someone today, "It's Arizona."

At any rate it has not caused my sense of humor to freeze up.

Which is why you're getting these:

Oh those guys!

Well even if we can't get away from them and their corny puns, try your dangdest to have a sparkling weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oh, NOOOO . . .)

HERE, BIRDIE-BIRDIE

 

Finally got the bird bath installed in its new location off the side patio, joining the Monja and the Blue Cat.

SWMBO said the sealant on it wouldn't be ready until Tax Day but I guess she got as impatient as me and we cheated by a few days.

Now to get the birds interested in it.

THE SEASONS

 After waiting so long and so impatiently for Spring to finally come we launched this week into an early Summer.

The temperature climbed to 80 degrees here yesterday and nearly reached 100 down in Phoenix.

Today is expected to be much the same.

All of which made these flowering fruit trees all the more pleasant a couple of days ago.

Coincidentally a couple of white cars were passing just as I took the photograph.