cell, not as in stock but phone...

An e-mail I sent to my daughter...


Hi Julie,

My cell phone bill came today and had an extra charge of $34.00 for text messaging!!!
Who me? Who has hardly texted before?
77 incoming and 97 outgoing!

In the past the bill hardly ever exceeded the total cost of $129 for everything...
And you know what? It's worth every penny for all the fun I've had...

Thanks

Dad

p.s. Julie and I text each other during Dodger games...she started texting me the first time she was eating in a fancy restaurant and couldn't listen to the game...and she'd text me when I was doing something else...inning by inning with comments...when the season ends I'll get her interested in the Ducks...

SOME KIDS ARE THE COOLEST…

Animals are as important as trees, grass and flowers…really?

Yup!

Bringing lunch to work most days gives me a good opportunity to read but yesterday I forgot to bring the current book I’m reading…in my office library I picked up an old favorite book: ‘Patterned Language’ and while thumbing thru it discovered a chapter on animals saying there is some evidence which suggests that contact with animals may play a vital role in a child’s emotional development…

When our kids were young we always had a cat or two and a dog…I remember the good times as well as the times I had to pick up a stiff cat who had died in our back yard or on the next door neighbor's lawn...

They often came home with ‘free’ cats picked up from the front of the grocery store or when they drove cars, a dog would be brought home from the pound…hard to forget Gina and her dog Duke…we were all shaken up after Duke was run over on Muirlands Blvd. the day before her wedding…

Later we bought Sadie, a Springer Spaniel, at the pet store and she was one of our favorite dogs for many years…

I’m sure now that all the animals we had were somewhat responsible for our kids being so well adjusted and brilliant!!!! but at the time had no
idea how important it was to have pets…

And unknowingly until now, but thankfully, I’ve given all our grandkids hundreds of horsey back rides for years…

Di LALLO BURGERS AGAIN?

It's been too long since I posted...here's a quickie...

A few Fridays ago we welcomed Mario and his daughter Vanessa to our home; Mario is my cousin's son and Vanessa his teenage daughter, and he has always been employed by my other cousins' Di Lallo Burger restaurants in Montreal almost since he could walk...he and others claim he makes the best burgers and he's proven it by cooking them at our house a few times...a few days after he arrived we visited his brother Anthony in Riverside who cooked the same deliriously delicious burgers...(they are not as huge as the photo) but include capicola and various strengths of hot peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and relishes...they are too big to eat as Rodney used to say in his commercials...

Our visitors love to eat out at their favorite restaurants like Lucille's, Fuddruckers, Sizzler and surprisingly In & Out...I happened to mention that I long ago loved Sheppard's pie and was happily treated to this good stuff when I got home that night...he also cooked a few dozen cabbage rolls that we ate for several meals, along with some roasted peppers...
Man, am I getting hungry!!!

Mario and Van are fun loving people; Vanessa loves to shop...I forgot to mention we've gone to the O.C. Swap meet twice already and they've gone to the Laguna Hills Mall more than twice...and they love Laguna Beach!

They have to fly back this Friday and we'll all miss them...they've been visiting us twice a year for some time...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

My French / Italian childhood 'food memories' were brought to mind this past weekend as I stayed home and was constantly hungry for something different…we had dinner at a friend’s house Sunday night…the hostess’s son brought over fresh tuna…we ate the tuna sashimi style and some cooked…freaking fabulous…

Childhood foods I remember and loved…

it wasn't necessarily exotic food...

On Fridays…a Catholic obligation…we got used to:
Fish
Tuna casserole and sandwiches…
Salmon patties…
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Fish and chips…I remember eating T-bone steaks on Fridays when it no longer was a mortal sin…

Jell-O bowls filled with fruit…simply tasty…
Homemade pizza baked in square pans…plenty of hot peppers…
Pasta with meatballs, sausage or chicken spiced up…

(My Dad was one of those Italian guys who had to have tomato sauce and pasta almost every day…my Mom occasionally cooked what she called French Food like roasts, steaks, vegetables and Sheppard's pie)

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches
Baked chicken… my Mom would cut up whole chickens into un-identifiable pieces except for the legs…I remember a ‘one-chicken ‘dinner that must have had at least fifteen pieces…it tasted like chicken…
Home made apple sauce
Liver and onions piled on a plate…I still love liver and onions once in a while…
BBQ’d hamburgers with hot peppers…a family tradition every Saturday night…

My Mom is French...She made delicious Italian Christmas cookies and pastries…recipes she got from my Italian aunts…for other Italian food recipes, especially tomato sauces, the aunts would leave out an ingredient or two because they all fought for the best tasting tomato sauce…

Mom wasn’t into deserts…most cookies she made were awful and it was because she never tasted anything she made…Dad was always the ‘taster’ who tested foods like the pasta firmness and the need for salt…but never cookies...
From the local bakery Dad used to bring home éclairs and cream puffs all the time and we knew why…was like Happy Days for us...she put her cookies in our lunches but after trying to trade at school a few times there were no takers… On our way to school snow banks were an ideal dumping place…

Foods I wish I could forget about:

‘Chabot’: an Italian poor peoples’ dinner…made by simmering tomato sauce all day with some cheese and hot spices, then about a half hour before it was time to eat whole uncooked eggs were dropped in the large pan until they were ‘almost’ cooked…it was deemed ready to eat when the egg yolks looked like eyeballs peeking out thru the sauce…it was eaten like a thick soup with tons of Italian bread…I always loved the aroma but didn’t eat it too heartily… was a good time to eat leftover spaghetti

(Italian cooking always began with a tomato sauces prepared in the morning to simmer and cook all day…halfway thru the day lightly fried meat was dropped in the pan and then eaten for dinner…I think it’s been proven that simmering food all day does not a difference make…I call it a fake Italian tradition to keep women happily in the kitchen all day, which Canadian women loved doing to please their husbands)

Most Saturdays my Dad and I went to the Italian market and bought fruit, vegetables...and he usually bought some creepy, hideous and dreadful looking things…I’m almost sure the market gave these away but none of us touched this stuff…he had a fondness for food his family ate in Italy like goat heads, pig and ox tails… his family was very poor; they were goat herders and I guess during hard times they killed off a pet or two and had it for dinner…of course they ate all the pet parts and saved the hide for rainy days…

When a goat head was the main entree my sister and I would have a bet to see if the critter’s eyeballs were still attached…scary sight with or without...

Was another night for life saving left over pizza…

IN A HURRY FOR WHAT?

When I left home this morning I found myself in a hurry to get to Starbucks to get coffee and drive 33 miles to the office…then I hurried to the Toll Road but didn’t speed too much... every day I see cars pulled over and I don’t want to get a ticket…it’s about the only slow thing I ever do and often get harassed by my wife for driving like an old guy, which I am…she’s a speeder…

I hate being late…even getting to my own office when I can take the whole day off and play golf, which I should do more often…
Keeping people waiting is not my style so I leave with plenty of time to spare in case I get a flat tire or get caught in traffic…this post will surely put a curse on flat tires and I wouldn’t be surprised to get three flats in the next month…

When I got to my office this morning I couldn’t wait to write this blog…
I hurried thru my voice mail and called back the ones I needed to and answered a few important e-mails…I write almost all my blogs straight away with short sentences because it’s faster…

But today, as I was only semi-speeding on the freeway, I thought about reasons I’m always in a hurry...
Could I blame technology and high speed Internet connections that take split seconds to download?
How about my BlackBerry so I can read e-mails before getting to work?
What about having a few books in my briefcase in case I finish reading the one I’m currently reading? I don't to have to hurry to the bookstore for a new book...

Sorry, gotta go now…

Bed in Breakfast

Once upon a time we planned a weekend escape to a Bed & Breakfast place in Cambria, on the coast near Santa Barbara…B & B's in and around Santa Barbara were supposed to be the Mecca of the world and who would want to miss that…
Donas was thrilled to go and looked forward to it …me too…

I forgot the name of the place but it was called something like Miss Molly’s B & B and it was modeled after either a French or English country manor or an authentic log house…I remember the manor was at the end of a long dirt road with four or five private houses in a row, and as we parked our car I saw a man sitting on the front porch next door trying to suppress a laugh…

We were met at the door by Miss Molly (delightfully dressed in bib-overalls) and after checking in she escorted us to our bedroom…the room looked like any other grandmotherly room...I felt like if I touched anything an alarm would go off…I couldn’t help but notice there was no TV and hoped I got to love the smell of potpourri…

After setting our bags down we were escorted to the ‘activity room’ where we found out that Scrabble was the activity…we played for a while as I sipped the vodka I brought in case of an emergency…
We went to town later and had a nice dinner, then came back and hit the sack…

The next morning we went down to breakfast, while all along I thought they served breakfast in bed but that never happened… we found three couples enjoying oatmeal and bran muffins…no eggs, bacon or sour dough toast…I never saw any of the garden fresh bread they were famous for…all these thirty-something’s were wearing walking shoes, hiking boots, backpacks and sweaters tied around their shoulders no doubt dressed for hiking, bike riding, walks on the beach or whatever… no one spoke for a while but eventually the word shopping came up to liven things up for some of the women…others talked about saving water, saving our land, trees, spotted owls and clean air…they’d all be driving hybrid cars these days…

(Good Golly) Miss Molly told us that a gift shop was available on site and antique and gift shops were all over town…later in the afternoon she promised Hors D’oevvres and wine but we missed that…she also pointed out a few books on a shelf, some of which were titled ‘The Beast, the Ghost and the Haunting of Cambria’…my favorite one was titled ‘The Mystery of the Dark Lighthouse’… enchanting novels huh?... …another thing Molly mentioned was to watch out for bears in the area…we walked two days around town but never saw one…

To this day we talk about how romantic it was and how much fun we had…we ate lunches and dinners together with wines, nineteen flavors of iced tea and delicious desserts…she bought quilts and bedspreads that she still has and she bought me a hat…I scored points that weekend and I’m thankful she and I were able to do it…we are living happily ever after…

But I still can’t understand the fascination of B & B’s. We were not senior citizens at the time so maybe it’s something you acquire in time…like the taste for prunes…

Falling for Fall

Every year about this time I start getting antsy about the arrival of fall…
Even if it’s still hot and will be even hotter next month there’s coolness in the morning that’s a sign there’s relief around the corner…

But before taking a trip to your local nursery plan to add some organic matter to your soil that will bring the soil to a rich dark color…mulch it into the soil a good twelve inches or so…not an easy job so you may want to hire a gardener to do it…planting is much easier and more fun...

Now you’ll be about ready to plant but do a little homework before you head out and buy those flats of color for your garden…typical fall annual plants are plentiful…
The list includes the usual multi-colored pansies, snapdragons, petunias and the border plants alyssum, and blue lobelias. Stocks are good for adding fragrance to the bed and don’t forget the ever-popular kale and cabbage…directions for spacing the plant apart are usually in the plant trays...

Don't forget that these plants look swell in pots too...

If you’re caught for time try seeding some annuals to create a nice wildflower bed… a good low maintenance alternative…don’t forget to irrigate and keep weeding until the plants begin to touch and grow together…apply water soluble fertilizers to keep the nutrition up…

I bet you’re like me and can’t wait for fall…