BORED AT THE AIRPORT

DOGMATIC, BUT MEOW-VELOUS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbycvPwr1Wg

DEVIL DOG, DOCUMENTED

She ate a hole in the living room carpet, chewed two chair legs on my favorite Queen Anne, and terrorizes our older dog by running up behind her and thrusting her snout between her legs to hoist her onto her back.

DEVIL DOG!



Her rambunctiousness has even affected her big sister, Sunny Bone-O, otherwise the meekest, mildest dog on the planet.

But we love Maisy, who we call "Mai Mai," and enjoy doing that even more now that we know that means "little sister" in Chinese. Wonder how they say "Devil Dog"? Probably "Mai Mai," also.

THANKS AND PRAISE FOR THE ONE WHO WOULD NEVER 'UNFRIEND' YOU!

Happy Thanksgiving, you adorable turkey!!! :>)

Wishing you a delightful day focused on friends, family, food

and the Giver of all of the above!



SOMETHING NEW TO BE THANKFUL FOR

I was telling my dear friend how much I wanted everything to be really nice this Thanksgiving weekend, with the whole gang home for a rare treat. As busy as our young adults are, we only get one or two weekends a year with our whole family of nine together. I wanted them to make beautiful memories and remember the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of our home at its very best.

But there was one snag in this dream: our two Labradors, Sunny Bone-O and Maisy Mayhem. In the evening, they love to lay at our feet just as their dinners are digesting and . . . well . . . nature takes its aromatic course. Ewwww!!!!! Major buzz kill.

The culprits . . . last weekend, awaiting a hunting trip.

By habit, they leap into the car the minute they see the

camo stuff coming out so they won't be left behind.

But my wise friend to the rescue. "Don't you know about doggie fart pills?" she demanded. "Go get some at PetCo."

How far I've fallen! I used to get excited about the prospect of diamonds and pearls, a trip to Monte Carlo, a new Ferrari . . . but now the brightest star in my constellation of hope and enchantment is to know about doggie fart pills.

Oh, well: takes all kinds of blessings to make a happy and memorable Thanksgiving. And I'm already plotting how to sneak a few pills into my Beloved's milk to make our peace and contentment complete.

LONG LIVE TWINKIES!

In the wake of all the Hostess Ho-Ho hubbub, I was telling my dear friend about a nutrition speech I once attended. The speaker, a physician, listed the 10 biggest food no-no's. Of course, I was a "perp" in all 10 of them. I think he wanted us to eat nothing but seaweed burgers on kelp bread with a side of crunchy, natural crickets' legs, or some such ickiness.

One of his no-no's did strike home with me, though. It was about the preservatives in many snack foods. Do you REALLY want to put that stuff in your body? He told of cleaning out his garage one day and finding a package of Hostess Twinkies 'way back the corner on a long-forgotten shelf. It had to have been purchased before his nutritional epiphany. By his reckoning, the Twinkies must have been there for more than 20 years. But he could feel through the plastic packaging that the Twinkies were STILL SOFT!

My friend replied drolly, "And his point is . . . .? I'd say that's a pretty spectacular shelf life, the mark of a very good product!!!"

Ewwww! Then again, maybe the company could reinvent itself as a WRINKLE CREAM!!!

SUPER PREPPER -- READY TO SURVIVE FOR 100 YEARS

I've started to think about having a few extra food products on hand for long-term storage, just in case things go South in a bad way.

So I've started looking at expiration dates at the stuff in our (badly named) Lazy Susan. This one, on a can of cooking spray, made me smile. I'm all set for almost 100 years!

CAN A CHRISTIAN BE A DEMOCRAT?

A friend snapped this photo of a large sign in south Lincoln on the heavily traveled Saltillo Road at 21st Street:



It's on a shared road between two businesses. A spokesman for one of them said that his company didn't put up the sign and he doubted the other business put it up. He said he believes a farmer who also shares the road, and has put up pro-life signs in the past, put up the sign. The farmer couldn't be reached for comment.

The sign is apparently in response to the Democratic National Committee platform mandating that tax dollars pay for abortion and contraception. In some people's minds, abortion conflicts with the Bible's Sixth Commandment, Thou shalt not kill (Ex. 20:13). So if you're a Democrat, the thinking goes, you are violating the Bible, which Christ instructed people to obey.

In other people's minds, this sign is the height of intolerance, attempting to use a religious threat to influence political views and, most probably, votes.

So . . . what do YOU think?

NEBRASKA MEDICAID RECIPIENTS COULD FILL MEMORIAL STADIUM THREE TIMES OVER

Go Big Red Ink! As we focus on Saturday night's big game, Nebraska vs. Michigan, and also on the upcoming elections, consider the impact of the longtime weak economy on the cost of taxpayer-provided services such as Medicaid.

Joblessness, high prices and high taxes create more need for health care for low-income kids and adults, blind and disabled people, and the aged, when they can no longer care for themselves. The economy's stress shows most of all in statistics like Medicaid.

So get this: there are 235,354 Nebraskans receiving Medicaid benefits, according to the 2011 annual Medicaid report of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

Think about it: Medicaid recipients would just about fill our gargantuan Memorial Stadium three times over.



For many years, everybody has giggled about the fact that, when the Huskers are playing at home, Memorial Stadium becomes the third-largest "city" in Nebraska, after Omaha and Lincoln.

Well, if the economy continues southward, and Medicaid numbers go up just a few ticks, the Medicaid population will outstrip Lincoln (258,379 in the 2010 Census).

Let's huddle -- taxpayers, politicians, bureaucrats, medical leaders. Let's elect political quarterbacks who can call new plays to turn this situation around. Let's get our economy back on track so we can all go, fight, win.

CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE EWING IS MISSING A GOLDEN OP

Why didn't John Ewing's campaign committee realize that the Omahan looks a lot like Dennis Haysbert, the State Farm ad guy, who played President Palmer in the hit series "24"?

Democrat Ewing, the Douglas County Treasurer, is challenging incumbent Republican Lee Terry for the 2nd Congressional seat.

It would've made a great campaign ad to have Ewing question a few of Terry's policies and then finish up with a dramatic, "Are you in good hands?"

Or push the "24" connection. If a Democrat can't ride the real President's coattails to victory this time, maybe a TV President will do.

Which is which?

A THREE-HOODIE EXPERIENCE

Last time our beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers played football, they did great in the first quarter, and then folded like a cardboard suitcase and lost to Ohio State by a whopping margin.

Turns out someone I know and love had her grandkids to a Burger King during that game, babysitting. She set them up with their burgers, fries and drinks right by the playground equipment. They commenced to dine. After a few minutes, she hopped up to go get another little cup of ketchup . . .

. . . and when she came back, the 4-year-old grandson was beet red and breathing hard . . .

. . . and as he began to retch, she hurriedly looked around for something to catch "it," and grabbed the hood of his hoodie . . .

. . . but after the first onslaught, he started to retch again, so she grabbed her granddaughter's hoodie . . .

. . . and then, third time's the charm, he retched once again, and the only thing left was HER hoodie . . . making for a rather unpleasant drive home, straight to the washing machine.

So it was a Three-Hoodie Experience, both for Grandma at the Burger King, and for us Cornhusker football fans, that night.

Here's hoping this weekend is a little better for us!

SPELL-CHECK CUISINE

A friend was trying to look up a recipe for "tostadas" but the spell-check mechanism on her computer kept changing it to "asbestos."

Ay, carumba! But her friends put her at ease, saying things like, "It just takes a lot of dip to make it taste good that way," and "Use a circular saw to cut your tortilla disks, and be sure to wear a mask."

I can relate. If I had a dime for every time someone said my meatloaf slices would make nice brick pavers. . . .

THE PUTT-PUTT ADVANTAGE

My favorite girl golfer hit her drive on a par 4 recently. But it happened to bounce down the cart path a lot farther than it would have rolled on the grass.

It bounced and ran downhill for a while, still on the cart path, picking up steam.

Finally, it struck the curb of the cart path and careened right onto the green. She was putting for eagle!

Ironically, she 3-putted from there. She still bogeyed the hole. But boy, it was fun to see the kind of structure that usually guides your ball toward the hole in mini-golf work to her advantage in the real thing!

I . . . KNOW . . . NOTHINK!

Did you see and hear that whole shelf of little mummies, ghosts, skeletons, witches and creepy crawlies at WalMart, mysteriously jiggling and dancing and making a lot of noise?

Maddy and I don't know a thing about it. :>)

SO MUCH EASIER TO RHYME THAN 'MULLET'

Made a collage today of newspaper photos and headline words all about the University of Nebraska football team. Sent it to a beloved young person who's stationed with the military overseas. He's missing all the action of the games, so hope this poster will cheer him up:

Favorite spot: in all different fonts, sizes and colors, I cut out letters to spell out"THROW TO THE FRO" -- a reference to wide receiver Kenny Bell. His Afro hairdo is cooped up and controlled inside his football helmet. But when he takes off his helmet, that 'fro is so big that it shades the entire South stadium.

Bell is a bell-ringer of a player for his team. That slogan is catchy! Hope it rings the chimes of that faraway football fan. His mission right now is much more serious than a football player's, but he loves that game and that team with all his heart. For his military service on our behalf, to us, he is also a . . . BIGWIG!!!

MAN BABIES

These are odd and disturbing, which is why I like them:

www.manbabies.com

A DIFFERENT KIND OF PODCASTING

The Bible speaks of "the day of the locusts." Well, it's the time of year of the locusts around here -- honey locust trees, that is. They're shedding their big, distinctive pods, bigtime.

We just drove under a shower of the brown pods falling from trees because of high winds. Apparently, one of them got stuck somehow in the undercarriage of my Mini Cooper. It was kind of like a playing card clothespinned onto bike spokes.

It was rattling around and making so much noise that I quipped, "We're PODCASTING!"

At the stop sign, we went five feet in reverse, and it fell out, no worse for wear. Didn't even say "Pod-on me." :>)

AT LAST! SOMEONE IN NEBRASKA WHO CAN TACKLE!

Not to diminish the poor lady's injuries, but . . . did you hear about the woman who sued the University of Nebraska after she had been tackled so hard by one or two other women at a ladies' "Intro to Football" event that her earrings flew off and she bonked her head, hard?

http://www.omaha.com/article/20120905/BIGRED/309059787

Heyyyyy! The Nebraska Cornhuskers could USE some strong tacklers. Our defenders sure didn't even come close to making any UCLA players' earrings fly off last weekend.

Maybe they should be recruiting at ladies' events like this, in the future. Gulp! :>)

IN FOOTBALL, AS IN LIFE, TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Wonder if it was just a coincidence, or a wise media buy:

Did you hear the ad for "suicide prevention" during the brutal post-game show on radio station KFAB, which covers Nebraska football, after the UCLA Bruins unexpectedly won, 36-30, dashing the high hopes of the long-suffering Nebraska fans?

If it was deliberate, then someone's wasting talents in the marketing business and should get involved in Vegas, STAT.

WHEN AN 'F' IS A GOOD GRADE

A man told an inspiring story in church today. He told how his life had come back together again, better than ever, after he went through a series of terrible things: a couple of deaths, job loss, home loss, divorce, and on and on.

He said the turning point was when he was in counseling with a minister, and confessed that he felt like he had a big "F" on his forehead -- "F" for "Failure."

But the minister corrected: "No, it's 'F' for 'Forgiven'!"

I was telling Maddy about it when she quickly interjected:

"Or 'F' for 'Effort'!"

Oh, these kids today . . . though I think a good self-image comes from that, too, and I think her humor made the Master smile a little bit.