Old Folks Home

I was out in the patio watering my minature Lime tree. 

I noticed that my neighbor, a 92 year old lady, was out tending to the flowers by her door.

I like living here.

Tags: Things to do when television gets boring

Sucess Story

One one my high school classmates became a sucessful farmer. Part of his success was due  tte clever name he chose for his chief product.

   Bunny Love Carrots.

It all began about 16 years ago when Mike Yurosek of Newhall, Calif., got tired of seeing 400 tons of carrots a day drop down the cull shoot at his packing plant in Bakersfield. Culls are carrots that are too twisted, knobby, bent or broken to sell. In some loads, as many as 70% of carrots were tossed. And there are only so many discarded carrots you can feed to a pig or a steer, says Yurosek, now 82 and retired. "After that, their fat turns orange," he says.

Yurosek has always been a "think outside the carrot patch" guy. In the 1960s, Yurosek and Sons was selling carrots in plastic bags with a Bunny-Luv logo, a cartoon that got the farmers in trouble with Warner Bros., which was protective of its Bugs Bunny brand.

Instead of bringing in lawyers and spending a fortune, Yurosek recalls, "I said to my wife — she's a pretty good drawer — 'Hey, draw me up about 50 bunnies, would you? Then we'll send 'em to Warner Bros. and ask them to tell us which ones we can use.' "

The entertainment giant picked one, and Bunny-Luv lived on for the price of a pencil.

The farmer continued growing carrots — and throwing them out — for decades. But in 1986, Yurosek had the idea that would change American munching habits.

California's Central Valley is dotted with farms, fruit and vegetable processors, and freezing plants. Yurosek knew full well that freezers routinely cut up his long, well-shaped carrots into cubes, coins and mini-carrots. "If they can do that, why can't we, and pack 'em fresh?" he wondered.

First he had to cut the culls into something small enough to make use of their straight parts. "The first batch we did, we did in a potato peeler and cut them by hand," Yurosek says. Then he found a frozen-food company that was going out of business and bought an industrial green-bean cutter, which just happened to cut things into 2-inch pieces. Thus was born the standard size for a baby carrot.

Next, Yurosek sent one of his workers to a packing plant and loaded the cut-up carrots into an industrial potato peeler to take off the peel and smooth down the edges. What he ended up with was a little rough but still recognizable as the baby carrot of today.

After a bit of practice and an investment in some bagging machinery, he called one of his best customers, a Vons supermarket in Los Angeles. "I said, 'I'm sending you some carrots to see what you think.' Next day they called and said, 'We only want those.' "

The babies were an economic powerhouse. Stores paid 10 cents a bag for whole carrots and sold them for 17 cents. They paid 50 cents for a 1-pound package of baby carrots and sold them for $1. By 1989, more markets were on board, and the baby-carrot juggernaut had begun.

Fron Lifestryle USA Today

 

Tags: bunny love carrots

Food Fare Straight from the Movies

In a recent thriller, a guy and a girl have to run from the "bad guys".  hey have many narrow escapes, including on in an ice boat on a frozen lake.

Finally they take refuge in a resort home, closed for the winter.  Alas, all they can find to eat is sardines and crackers.  Poor dears.  But, beause they are falling in love, they enjoy the sardines and crackers, and say, because they are having them together, that they are the finest cuisine.  Love can do that.

The is exactly what I ah having for a late lunch.  Sardines and crackerrs.

Im not on the run, exactly, but I am out of sync with the rest of the old folks home.  But Sardines and crackers will doo nicely, thank you..

I Amused my Family

When I was coming out to the anesthetic following surgery, I got the impression I was on stage at American Idol.  And was I indignant.  They kept asking me what song  I was going to sing, and I thought they should be asking me how the surgery went.

"Why do they keep asking me what song I am going to sing?"

My familty thought that was hilarious.

Tags: pipe dreams

Another LONG night

Post operative nights are l-o-n-g. But this post operative night is going faster that previous ones....because I am HOME.

It is five-thirty am.  I am up already. Oh, I had a nice sleep several hours long. But I did not have to lie in a hospital bed and turn and toss this night. I got up, sat in a reclining chair and watched late night television.

And when I got bored with that, I turned on the computer and fired up "Dribble". 

Dribble started when I was in junior high school.  It was a simple little gossip column in a mimeographed newspaper.  You know... "Who was seen following Marisha Thompson around the quadrangle at lunch? Well, if you ask Jeff J. who it was, he will tell you about his new crush."  Stuff like that.  The editor thought my column was drivel, and so named it Dribble...and the name stuck.

Later, when I became editor of the high school newspaper, I used the name for my editorial commentary

When blogging became possible, I revived Dribble and used it as a platform for all kinds of commentary.  My range is wide, and I explore science, art, politics with equal amounts of whimsy.  When a game occurs to me, I include it.  If Hillary appeals to me, I endorse her.If the world needs changing I promote it.

I pour out my personal feelings too. I am sometimes taken to task for revealing too much of myself and my family;s personal stuff in this too public arena.  For instance: All my life I have ridiculed dignity. I said and did things that polite society just "does not do".  And have been in trouble for it.  Now, after my recent health crisis, I no longer want to be the butt of my own undignified humor.  I want to be proper.  I want to regain my lost dignity and make my exit "stage right", not tumbling over the footlights into the orchestra pit to get a laugh.

Once when I was a kid, I took my dog, King, to a pet show at the movie house. I led the dignified old Irish Setter on stage and he got a smattering of applause, except, I led him too close to the footlights, and blinded, he fell into the orchestra pit.  It took the manager and an usher to lift him out.  When they called for a vote again, the "poor dog who fell into the orchestra pit:" got enough sympathy votes that we brought home a prize. (Fourth place I seem to remember)

Oh, well, If I get the sympathy vote, on the stage of life, that will be okay. I made em laugh, I made em cry.  Curtain.

Tags: Life is a stage and we are merely players with our entrances and our exits.

Lookijg Back...

...Looking back, it doesn't seem so long.... but while I was going through it, it seemed forever.

   On Friday, February 15 I stopped by myDoctor's office.  I was bothered by what I thought was gout, an inflammation of .the knees. "By the way," I added casually, "my blood count has been a little low, lately.  What's going on?"

   That's all I said. The doctor took the reins in his teeth and ran away, so to speak.  He ordered me th the hospital...do NOT pass GO, Go directly to the hhospital. Then and there there the process began.  A day's preparation, and a "lower GI" exam. The doctor who looked inside found a bleeding tumor.

   He took pictures.  He scheduled an operation....  No more talk of gout.  My knee was the least of my worries.

   Then the surgeon took over and put me "under" and took out a malignant tumor. 

   Then it was recuperation, and then off to a different hhospital for rehab.  Then LONG hours of resting and struggling in bed to reach the bed controls, the tv controls, and some way to forcer yourself to lie still on your back for days.

   When I could get to the toilet by myself, I struggled to be independent again.  And then I had to do battle with the powers that be who control our release.

   Looking back, it was not so long...but in the midst of it all, it seemed forever. 

   I am back, weak, being vy careful, typing the best I can, struggling with the typos.

   and OH, how the Big C has changed me and my outlook on life.  New things seem important.  How wonderful it is to have friends to greet me online and wish me well.  Thank you thank you.

   Everything seems more important...don't sweat the small things/ Not even all the typos I made writing this.

  

    

wow

   Wow.i AM BACK.. aNC DO i HAE ADVENTURES TO TELL  YOU ABOUT..

   It has been a month.... I have been away in the hospital.  But here I am,  I am home just three hours..  I am resting and recuperating.  Just give me a little time ane AI"ll tell yo all about it.

   I have to ease into this Dribbline in little baby steps. My head is in a whirl.  It is not as easy to get foing as I thought it was going to be.

   Thanks, daughter Kate for filling in for me while I was gone.  It was so nice to get all hose wonderful comments you poseted on the site while I was gojng.  You're my best threapy.  Believe me.

   Lovve...Chuck

   Stay turned...I am back.

Tags: glorious return.