Not to egg you on, but rack your noodle and you can do it. There's mushroom for improvement.

 Ya know, a dad joke one liner is an amusing way to start the day.  Right kid?




 The frog and the loan

A talking frog shows up in the offices of a posh downtown Manhattan bank. He proceeds to ask a bank officer for a loan of $1 million.

Patty Whak , the loan officer , said she didn’t understand and he says “well, My name is Kermit and my father is Mick Jagger. We have banked at various branches of this institution several times .”

The loan officer still protested and said for that size of a loan they would need some type of collateral, so Kermit produced a small ceramic elephant and placed it on her desk.

Patty was very confused and excused herself to go speak with the manager carrying the trinket with her . When she relayed the crazy story to her manager, she showed him the small ceramic elephant and said “I don’t know what to do, what even is this?”

The bank manager replied “it’s a knickknack, Patty Whak. Give the frog a loan . His old man is a Rolling Stone. “

I’ll leave now….

I’ve trained my dog to go and fetch me a bottle of wine. He’s a Bordeaux collie.

As I sit here on an aging laptop contemplating my navel and how to repair a tiny USB C Port, I'll drop this beast of a story on you. 

For the laptop, I'm leaning towards removing the hard drive and simply mounting it in a new-to-me machine.  Just like the way we used to do things in the 1990s, Linux to the Rescue.



 The Scottish painter

There was a Scottish house painter named Smokey MacGregor who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further.

As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Baptist Church decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of one of their biggest buildings.

Smokey put in a bid, and because his price was so low, he got the job.

So he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, buying paint and yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with water...

Well, Smokey was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, the sky opened, and the rain poured down washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Smokey clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.

Smokey was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got down on his knees and cried: "Oh, God, Oh God, forgive me; what should I do?"

And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke..

"Repaint! Repaint!* And thin no more!"*

Right Sized Brownies Recipe. Not Too Big, Not Too Small!

205+72+400+126+153 = 956

956 /  8 = 119.5

What that blather is about is a calorie estimate for a "right sized" brownie.

See, I needed a snack, that was between 100 and 200 calories.  I needed something that I would look forward to in the middle of a very intense workout.  I needed it to survive being in a closed Jeep Wrangler sitting in summer heat outside in a park in South Florida summer.

Brownies!

I also wanted a simple recipe.  Got it!  See below.

The realization was that all I needed to do was to cut the recipe into 8 pieces, put the batter into cupcake papers, and bake. 

12 minutes at 350F/175C and test with a toothpick.  That should be early, close the oven and retest in a wee bit.  When it is done, is when that toothpick comes out reasonably clean.  You probably will want to account for different oven "speeds" and adjust your cook time.

And finally, these were good.  I mean Gooooood.  I don't know what the common vegetarian/vegan substitutions are for eggs, so this is "conventional".  Martha Stewart to the rescue - this link suggests Banana/Applesauce/Yogurt at 1/4 cup per egg.

As always with substitutes, Your Mileage May Vary!

For each cupcake paper, use 1/8 of the batter.  In my case, it worked out to be 42 grams or 1.4 ounces.  It's also 3 tablespoons level and measured off the top of my head.

Also, this is a shameless copy of a recipe I put out about a month back.  I used an air fryer to cook it and while it was awesome, this method is more to my needs.

Note:  I measured everything with a gram scale.  I have one and it works well, however typically volumes are used.  Maybe next time, huh?

I followed the recipe below faithfully and got some wonderful treats.  It fell together in about 10 minutes.  Cooked in 15.

They. Were. Excellent!

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup (42 grams) whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (29 grams) Cocoa Powder (sifted if needed)
• 1/16 teaspoon salt (nobody has one of those, I eyeballed "half" of a 1/8 tsp)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons (65 grams) coconut oil or unsalted butter (melted and slightly cooled)
• 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar or coconut sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg (about 50 grams, out of shell)
• 1/4 cup (43 grams) chocolate chips, plus extra mini chips for the top

How to make them:

1. Prep your pan: Line cupcake pan with 8 cupcake papers.
2. Mix the dry ingredients: In a bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Mix the wet ingredients: In a separate bowl, stir together the melted coconut oil or butter with the sugar and vanilla.
4. Once blended, mix in the egg until just combined.
5. Combine everything: Add the dry mix to the wet bowl a little at a time. Stir gently until almost no flour is visible. Fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Preheat the oven: Set it to 350°F (175°C).
7. Pour and top: Transfer the batter into your prepared pan. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top for extra gooeyness.
8. Cook for 12 to 20 minutes. The top should look set with a thin crust.
9. A toothpick in the center will come out a bit wet. The edges should have soft crumbs.
10. Cool before serving: Let them cool completely in the pan. They’ll continue to firm up as they sit.

If you give these a try, let us know how they turn out. They're dangerously easy to make.

No Snowflake Feels Responsible In An Avalanche

I just don't need to be reminded that Restaurants actually Exist.  Just came back from a half marathon (13.24 mi) on my Inline Skates.  Now I need to refuel.






 Sitting in a posh restaurant, a man spots a gorgeous blonde at the next table...

He spends ages checking her out, but doesn't have the nerve to speak to her.

Suddenly, she sneezes and her glass eye comes hurtling out of its socket towards him. He reaches out, grabs it in the air and gives it back to her.

"Oh,l am so sorry, the woman says as she pops the eye back in. "Let me buy you dinner to make it up to you."

They enjoy a fantastic meal together then go to the theatre, followed by drinks. They talk, they laugh, she shares her deepest thoughts and he shares his.

After paying for everything, she invites him back to her place. Next morning, she cooks them both a gourmet breakfast.

The man is amazed. You are the perfect woman, he says. Are you this nice to every man you meet?"

"No,' she replies. You just happened to catch my eye."

Apparently you can’t use “beef stew” as a password. It’s not stroganoff.

I have a dear friend who speaks often of Beef Stroganoff.  May she have all the Stroganoff she wants!


 
 My Girlfriend and Uncle Eddie

I called my girlfriend earlier today, but all my calls went straight to voicemail. So, I decided to call her from a coworker’s phone.

When someone picked up, I heard a sweet little voice say, “Hello?”

It was my girlfriend’s daughter.

I said, “Hey, honey! I’m at work. What are you and Mommy up to?”

She goes, “Well, I just ate a sandwich, and Mommy’s upstairs with Uncle Eddie.”

I paused. “Uncle Eddie? We don’t have an Uncle Eddie.”

She confidently replied, “Yes, we do! Uncle Eddie is upstairs with Mommy in the bedroom.”

At this point, my alarm bells were going off. Something was fishy.

So, I calmly asked, “Hey sweetheart, can you leave the phone downstairs, go upstairs, and tell Mommy that Daddy just pulled into the driveway?”

I heard little footsteps running upstairs. About 65 seconds later, she picked the phone back up.

I asked, “What happened?”

She said, “Mommy ran downstairs naked, but she slipped and fell. She’s not moving.”

I was like, “Oh, shoot… okay. What about Uncle Eddie?”

She replied, “Uncle Eddie jumped out of the window, but he barely missed the pool. He’s not moving either.”

And that’s when I realized…

We just lost two people today.

And I don’t have a pool.

So, I hung up the phone… because that was the wrong number.

Congratulate me, It's A Boy And A Girl, And they're Orange and Black. More Monarchs Visit Me.

Ok, I'll admit it, good idea, poor execution.

The cage I slapped together did keep Momma Monarch away from my personal stash of Milkweed.  What it didn't do is keep Momma's little babies from wandering in and eating their fill.

What is this blather?

Lather, rinse, and repeat. 

In this case what I had done wrong was to leave some exposed Milkweed on my front porch.  I used up my supply of hardware cloth to build an ugly steel cage around my personal Milkweed. 

Caterpillars don't share.  Just ask any farmer.  The milkweed I left on the porch drew lots of Monarchs.  Beautiful critters, really.  That is why I plant and propagate the stuff, to help the butterflies. 

Very low effort hobby.  I can watch the little beauties fly in on the breeze from my easy chair in the front room of my house.  Momma floats on in, finds the exposed Milkweed, drops an egg on a leaf, and moves on to the next plant.

In reality she drops a couple eggs and lets Darwin take charge.  You hatch first, you get the tasty leaves.  You hatch last, you get eaten by a brother or sister who eats the plant you are stuck under.

It has worked for millennia this way.  I can't change them. 

You see the issue.  My personal stash within the milkweed cage was adjacent to the exposed plants.  The caterpillars hatched, ate those plants, then moved on to mine.

Only two caterpillars got in the cage, and ate about half of my milkweed.  Greedy little beauties.

They left their jade colored chrysalis behind.  One was inside the cage, the female.  The male came back out of the cage and wandered up the leg of a plastic chair on my porch.

Both did hatch from the pupa.  Both fledged and flew away. 

My neighborhood in the land named after flowers has lots of butterfly friendly flowers.  Who knows, maybe my butterfly's children generations removed may come back and grace my yard.

Hopefully I will get my seeds that I was looking for in the first place.  You know, so I can grow some more milkweed?

Greedy little beauties that you are.

Just leave me a little, Huh?

Potatoes are "apples of the earth" in French but maybe apples are potatoes of the tree

This reminds me I have to prepare some potatoes for dinner.  2 hours 15 minutes at 375F.  Luckily the oven has a timed bake feature so that it will finish when it is good and ready and turn itself off.


 An elderly woman visited a produce store.

She requested 6kg of potatoes. The owner was delighted to help and started packing the potatoes. However, the woman stopped him and requested that each potato be wrapped individually. The man complied and asked if there was anything else he could help with.

The woman then decided she needed 4kg of onions to be wrapped in a similar manner. The shop owner packed the onions and asked if there was anything else. The woman asked for 8kg of carrots.

"Let me guess," said the owner with a sour face, "you want them wrapped individually."

"Oh, that would be grand." she said.

The shop owner fulfilled her request and packed all her items in a bag.

The woman then asked: "What are in those crates behind you?"

The man flushed red and said "Madam, these are grapes and they are not for sale!"

I have an entomology joke, but it clearly bugs everyone.

 Apparently I have a property that is perfect for raising interesting insects. 

Congratulate me, it's a boy and a girl.  Twin Monarch Butterflies.  The girl flew off.  The boy is still resting on my front porch at 830 in the morning.

And in the back yard, there is a colony of bees who have decided that an old cabinet we have there is perfect for them.  They will be dispatched with the utmost prejudice.  As big as I am, I am terrified of bees.  This is Florida.  They could well be africanized.  Dunno, don't want them.  They are swarming all over that cabinet and my backyard is pretty much blocked off.


Anyway...  Unless I used this one before, here it is again!



 A man tells his doctor "Doctor, my girlfriend is pregnant, but we always use protection and the rubber never broke. How can she be pregnant?"

The doctor considered his question for a moment, and then began to tell a story:

“I have a friend who is an avid hunter and never misses a season. One day, he was setting off to go hunting. In a bit of a hurry, he accidentally grabbed his umbrella instead of his gun. As he neared a lake, he came across a large beaver sitting at the water’s edge. Since he only had his umbrella, he couldn’t shoot the magnificent creature."

"Whimsically, he raised his umbrella, aimed it at the animal as if it were his hunting rifle, and said ‘bang, bang’. Miraculously, the beaver flinched twice as if it had just been shot, then fell over dead.”

"Now, what do you think of that ?” asked the doctor.

The man said, “Logic would strongly suggest that somebody else pumped a couple of rounds into that beaver.”

The doctor replied, “Exactly! Next patient, please.”

Looking Inward, Watching Me.

The view from the rocker is furry. 

It would be much less furry if I could stop procrastinating and actually run the vacuum.  More frequently, of course.

Here I sit in my rocker.  No, I am not off my rocker, but I am being watched.

Every day.  No matter where I am.

The view from the rocker is out the front door.  Actually out of the front of the house but from the rocker, I look out to the driveway.

It's impact glass.  A Step or three less thick than what you see in the bank.  When I tell people that I live in a bunker I mean it. 

None of this prepper post-apocalyptic nonsense.  We have codes here to try to make a hurricane survivable in South Florida.  Roofs are tied down with extra straps.  Walls are made from CBS.  The house is a Concrete Block Structure.  Windows with Impact Glass. 

Where a Californian won't worry about an earthquake over a certain strength, I don't worry until a hurricane is above a Category 2.  Cat 3 or stronger. 

I have had birds fly into the windows with a resounding "thump".  They generally need time to at least clear their heads.

Cats.  *Sigh* There is no such thing as an outdoor cat.  No matter what you think, you are wrong.  It will be a much safer kitty if it is inside your house.  Why?

Coyotes.  Yes, most places have "yotes".  They will eat little kitty cat if they find them.

Two legged vermin will do dastardly deeds to them as well.

Love your cats, keep them with you.

They look in on me too.  I am blessed with all sorts of critters coming up to my front door and looking in at me.  Typically I will walk to the door and flick the lock and they scatter.  I'm not welcoming I guess.

But Rack.  He's doing his job.  He watches the front door and scans for intruders.  Letter Carriers, package delivery, Pizza deliveries.  They all set off a cacophony of barks.

Luckily he's losing his hearing.  Selective deafness. 

If I want to go out to that Jeep in the great outdoors, he won't like it.  Nothing loud, I am the alpha after all.  I'll just get sad dog eyes.  So I either slink out the "Illegal Door" in the car port, or I will step over him.

"You're a good boy, watch the house".  I tell him.

Not that a mostly toothless almost 14 year old dog will be that much of a guard but we humor him. 

If he spots anything outside, he'll "let us know".

Just back from a dog walk and dinner, he has been pacing for a half hour and finally settled.  Right back at his place.  In front of the door. Looking inward and watching me.

Why don't you find hippopotamuses hiding in trees? They're really good at it.

Strange thing about summer in South Florida.  We get rain storms float through.  It looks like a Leopard's hide on Radar.  Green Blobs.  It's also 90F and 65% humidity when it isn't raining.  If you want to go outside and work on the yard and you are doing it casually, you wait for the rain to get close but not here, then get in a little bit done in the clouds just before the rain hits.  

It's a strategy game.  If you will excuse me, I have a mango tree I have to attack!




 2 roofers at work

Two roofers, Bob and Dan, were putting a new roof on a barn when a bundle of shingles slid down the slope and knocked the ladder over.

Bob and Dan decided since it was early they would continue working because someone would surely come around by quitting time.

It was nearing 5 PM and they hadn't seen hide nor hair of anyone. So they walked around the roof a few times and finally decided there was only one way down.

On the west side of the barn was a big manure pile.

Bob said, It's the only way down. I will go first."

Bob jumped.

Dan heard the squishy landing and yelled, “Hey Bob! How deep did you go?"

Bob yelled back, “I went to my ankles Dan, come on – JUMP!"

Dan jumped and sank clear up to his neck in manure.

“I thought when you jumped you went up to your ankles!” he shouted at Bob.

“I did, explained Bob, "but I landed head first.”