For some reason when I woke this morning I realized I had been dreaming about an international Zoom call between a friend of mine and her son in some foreign land.
But before she could even say "Hello", he joyfully blasted music out through the ether to her.
But the r-e-a-l-l-y strange part of this dream was that the music was "Papa Loves Mambo"!
That's a song I haven't heard or thought of in years and I had to Google it to find the most popular version of it was recorded by Perry Como in 1954!
Now try to explain that because I sure can't.
And if I started the earworm for you just understand that I've had it going through my head for hours.
So, you're welcome.
And now let's continue our countdown to Christmas.
Christmas Season, when people for some unexplained reason put colored lights and inflatable (or not) decorations in front of their places of residence.
For example, here is a photo taken last night in snowy Minot, North Dakota.
That's the home of my cousin, Cherie, who always decorates to the max.
It's a tradition that goes back decades, to when her late father used to clamber around on the roof well into his 80's putting lighted reindeer and Santas and sleighs up there.
Fortunately my cousin, who is only a few months younger than I am, hasn't continued that tradition.
When I spoke to her last night I told her it looked like Las Vegas.
She said "thank you"!
And I have no idea what those blue blotches are supposed to represent.
I could only think "snowflakes" and Elvis Presley's song "Blue Christmas".
Oh well, it gives her joy and she has a nephew to do the decorating for her.
Down here in Arizona many people do the same, lighting up the neighborhood with elaborate displays.
On the other hand, here's the extent of my outside decorating.
Give me some credit.
At least I didn't put out a lighted "Bah, Humbug" sign.
Ah, the weekend is over and we're back to another work week.
Well for some of you.
Speaking for myself, as an old guy on his porch, it's just another glorious week in retirement.
And speaking of old, apparently I fooled a few of you with one of the memes in the past Friday Funnies.
That one apparently stumped some of you.
So here's the explanation, from one of the early forerunners of rock and roll music, Bill Haley and the Comets.
Just the fact that I remembered that song from the 1950's shows you how old I am
Now that that's all straightened out, we can go on to other items in the news.
Judy continues to improve from her knee replacement surgery as she comes up on one month with her latest bionics.
She's moving about more easily and with less dependence on her rollator and the pain is lessening . . . . somewhat.
Another physical therapy session is scheduled for this afternoon so we'll see how she does.
I just finished reading my latest book from the library last night, The Last Gunfight by Jeff Guinn, which purports to be the true story of the battle at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
I've been fascinated by the legend of that fight for years.
And if Guinn's book is to be believed, legend is a good way to describe it.
Wyatt Earp appears to be far from the "good guy" image portrayed in movies and television shows and the gunfight never occurred in the O.K. Corral at all but in a vacant lot off another street.
Be that as it may, it was a good read.
The weather has turned cold here in my part of Arizona.
Cold by my standards, with highs only reaching the 50's F. for awhile.
But this week it's supposed to top out at near 70 and I'm ready for it.
That may sound strange if you know I grew up in North Dakota, only about 50 miles from the Canadian border, but I've been gone a long time and I've lived in Arizona over half of my life so my blood has thinned.
I came home from a visit to our nearby Mexican market the other day with 5 huge Jalapeño Peppers.
The price for all five was only 86 cents!
When I expressed surprise the young lady at the checkout said she hadn't seen them at that low a price for quite a while.
For me it brought back memories of our first visit to the one-day-a-week street markets (tianguis) we visited in our first days living in Mexico and the low prices for everything by U.S.A. standards.
Anyway I was determined to make Jalapeño Poppers and yesterday I did.
Being careful to wear protective gloves, I split the peppers and scraped out the seeds and membrane to avoid the heat.
Then I filled each half with a mixture of cream cheese, cheddar cheese and garlic powder.
Each was topped with Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) mixed with a little melted butter and then baked in the oven.
They looked pretty good.
But surprisingly the flavor was kind of "meh" - only so-so.
I think I could have left some of the heat in the peppers.
But, accompanied by some (Costco) Spanakopita, a couple of Kalamata olives and some sliced apples, it made for a pretty good International dinner.
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