Me and Santa, Woodyatt Cherry Jam, Despicable Me, Shameless Commerce

ByJohn Brown

Why I got me a beef with Santa

Okay, men. I’m going to share a secret. Maybe help you avoid my situation. Women love flowers. They love diamonds and other expensive bits of gravel you can’t find out at the road pit. Some relish a backrub. Those are all good. But if your girlfriend, wife, mother, sister, or daughter likes to cook, well, you’d better watch out.

About two years ago, Santa brought my wife a Cuisinart six-quart electric pressure cooker (item CPC-600). Every time she takes that thing out, she talks about what a great gift that was, and how wonderful it is to be able to cook foods in 30% of the time it normally would take, and how pressure cooking is more nutritious because vitamins and minerals can’t boil away. Foods stay moist and flavors stay true. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, how she loves Santa.

I have to admit, Santa was a genius for getting her that gift. But you don’t mess with my girl. This year, if he comes around (you listening, Santa!), I’m going to be waiting with my gun.

For the rest of you, I suggest you go out and find yourself one of these before Santa tries to muscle in. Him and his ho-ho-ho. If you google it, you’ll see it’s only $80 bucks online. A small price to pay, let me tell you. And it lasts a heck of a lot longer than flowers.

Adventure Jam

I’m one of those people who can’t go to a restaurant and order the dish that I know is good. Nope, just before the waitress comes to take my order, a compulsion to try something new takes hold of me. Alas, three out of four times, the dish I order will taste like somebody cooked it in a shoe. I’m thinking my plan from now on should be to lock myself in the car and wait until my wife calls me and tells me that she’s placed my order and the coast is clear.

Of course, that doesn’t prevent me from buying things like kippers and kumquats at the grocery store. Nor does it prevent me from accepting strange gifts. For instance, this last week I was asked if I would like a six-sided bottle of Montmorency Tart Cherry Jam from Woodyatt Cherry Farms. I love cherries, but cherry jam, with big old cherries in it? And what’s with the weird name and bottle?

But it was a gift from a fine friend, so how could I say no?

The next day I made toast and buttered it, and as I reached for the sure-fire delicious creamed honey, I was overcome by that maddening spirit of wild culinary adventure. So I pulled the six-sided bottle from the pantry instead, twisted off the white lid, and looked at the cherries crowded within. I drew back for a moment. What was I thinking?! The answer came: “Tart cherry jam, you wimp.”

So I manned up and spread the jammed cherries on my toast. I took a bite, waited to be disappointed, but it was good. I took another bite.

Dang. It was real good.

That jar of zingy jam is now almost empty. But I can tell you I plan on getting some more.

If you’re a bit adventurous and every now and again want something different but excellent, let me recommend this cherry jam to you. I couldn’t find a website for Woodyatt Cherry Frams, but you can drop by at 7630 S. Highway 89, Willard, UT 84340 or call them at (435) 720-7366  and place an order.

Funny Family Movie

My wife and I took the kids out to the Cinefour theaters this last week. That’s the three-dollar theater that’s nice and clean in Logan, UT. We watched the animated Despicable Me. I know, it came out back in July, but who said I had to review things the minute they hit the market?

Gru, super villain, has his secret hideout in a happy suburban neighborhood. He’s got everything a villain could want: a wicked jet-powered vehicle, freeze rays, and minions. But another villain has just upstaged him with a major heist in Egypt. So Gru decides make a bigger heist, the biggest in the history of the world—he’s going to steal the moon. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Ah, but he’s going to use a shrink ray first. Then he can put the moon in his pocket. The problem is the upstaging villain takes the shrink ray. And the only way Gru can steal it back is with the help of three little orphan girls.

The movie is full of humor (I laughed so hard at one point that I missed a full minute of the movie) and fun action. The orphans and minions are wonderful. Toward the end there was one moment where a sob caught in my throat. (The things cartoons will do to you these days!) The movie is not going to win an Academy Award. But I can guarantee you it will give you and your kids two hours of excellent entertainment and a few funny lines that will enter your family vocabulary.

Brown’s Shameless Commerce Section

I know some of you are at a loss for what to get your teen or adult friend who likes fantasy stuff—dragons, magic, etc. It’s not like you can just go buy them a pet monster or suit of armor. And there are soooo many books in the science fiction and fantasy section of the bookstore. So let me help you.

Servant of a Dark God was recently released in paperback (think inexpensive) and is the perfect stocking stuffer for readers who liked Lord of the Rings. Don’t let the title scare you; the book won the Whitney Awards Best Novel of the Year in speculative fiction and has been getting excellent national reviews. And it just so happens that your humble reviewer is the author.

If you want to read the first chapters or find out more about the book, click on the Fiction part of the site. There are copies in Smith’s, Macey’s, Fresh Market, Raley’s, and other grocery stores. Or you can order it from Barnes&Noble.com and Amazon.com and have it delivered to your door. Whoever receives it will thank you for the epic fantasy thrills.

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    Good Stuff! The actual Christmas story

    ByJohn Brown

    It’s interesting how many things we’ve added to the accounts we have in the Bible.

    For example, nowhere does the Bible say that Mary rode a donkey. Mary might have walked. Or rode in a cart. Or gotten piggy back rides. We don’t know. We do know that there is no donkey mentioned in the record.

    It also doesn’t say she had the child the night they arrived.

    It only says she was “great with child” when they made the roughly 80-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And that “while they were there” in Bethlehem “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.”

    So she had the baby sometime while they were there. That could have been during the first hour. But it could have also been a week or month later. We just don’t know.

    It doesn’t mention anywhere the word stable.

    Christ might have been born in a stable, or he might have been born in a cave, or inside the house, or out on the porch, or on the roof (lots of those places had flat roofs where they hung out). We just don’t know. What we do know is that he wasn’t born in a palace. And that they laid him in a manger because there wasn’t any room in the inn. An odd circumstance for a king.  

    Notice as well that there weren’t multiple inns.

    It just says “the inn.” And if you look up that word in the Greek, it’s translated as “guest chamber” in the other spots where it’s used in Luke. So they could have been talking about the one guest room in the house where they were staying. Either way, we don’t have anything that says there was a mean innkeeper who later regretted turning the couple away or that Joseph went door-to-door looking for a place.

    We have no record in the account of three wisemen.

    It just says “wisemen.” So there might have been two of them. Or twelve. We don’t know. And it appears they came sometime after Jesus had been born because they first saw the star of his birth in the east and only then set out to find him. They might have been coming from Persia, hundreds of miles away. Or they could have been living in Bethphage, a mile to the east of Jerusalem. Either way, they didn’t know they should travel to Bethlehem because it says they went and talked to Herod first, in Jerusalem, and asked “where is he that is born King of the Jews?”

    The question freaked Herod out (if you’re the current king, you kind of want to know who else is claiming your throne), and so he gathered all the chief priests and scribes to discuss it, and those guys said the prophecies said it would be Bethlehem. And so Herod met with the wisemen again and told them to go there. And only then did they go down to Bethlehem. So it doesn’t appear the wisemen were there the night of the birth.  

    There’s no record of camels hanging out with the baby either. Or sheep. Or goats. There’s not a lot there. But what is there is interesting.

    Now, I want to go on record stating I have no problem speculating about the event and imagining what it might have been like. I love to do it. Good grief, I write fiction.

    In fact, for many years I figured I needed to get in on the Christmas noun gig. You know what I mean. Every year we get heart-warming books about new Christmas nouns. We’ve had Christmas sweaters, Christmas jars, Christmas boxes, Christmas candles, Christmas carols. This year I see there’s one about Christmas fudge and other about a Christmas train. So I figured I’d do one. Mine would be about the Christmas rat. A little fellow who decided to snuggle up with the babe instead of giving him a nibble. One of these days I will get that hungry rat story written.  

    In the meantime, while there’s a lot of good stuff we’ve added to make the event special, it’s also nice to know what the record actually does say. Whether you’re Christian or not, it’s helpful when dealing with others to know what was recorded about this event that is so significant to the largest religion in the world.

    And so the last bit of good stuff I recommend this month are the two brief accounts we have. The first one is in Matthew 2:1-16 and tells the story of the wisemen. The other is in Luke 2:1-20 and features some shepherds.

    Merry Christmas!

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  • The Young Victoria

    ByJohn Brown

    Being a crass American I have always considered the current British royalty as nothing more than very expensive mascots. What function do they really serve besides acting as some kind of high-society-reality-show soap opera? 

    Not that this is bad. If the British want to spend their money on queens, princes, and princesses, who am I to oppose them? After all, we Americans have kept the stellar Survivor series going for ten seasons. And when it finally ends, we’ll probably replace it with something else of supreme value like World’s Biggest Belchers or Kids Who Eat Boogers. At least the Royal Family has some modicum of class. Still, the point is that I’m not disposed to feel much sympathy for state-supported rich folk. So when I tell you I just watched and loved The Young Victoria, it should tell you something.

    The movie was sublime. A large part of it was because the story left me edified, left me wanting to be a husband–a friend to my wife–as good as the Albert portrayed in that film. Compare this to Killers which could have been so good, but devolved into dumb sex jokes and dumber action, which then only got worse. When that one ended, I staggered out of the theater having lost half my brain.  The Young Victoria, on the other hand, enlarged my soul.

    The movie is a romantic dramatization of some of the events preceding and following the coronation of  Alexandrina Victoria (Queen Victoria), focusing on her early reign and romance with Price Albert in the 1830s. She was only 18 when her uncle, the King, died and the crown fell to her. Some suggested she was too young and should sign her powers over to a regent. Others wanted to use her as a puppet. The question was: would she fall prey to the political aspirations of others? I will let you watch the movie to find out.

    Emily Blunt does a wonderful job as Victoria. I loved her in the Jane Austen Book Club as well. She’s supported by a great cast, including Rupert Friend as Prince Albert, Mark Strong (the villain in the recent Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood) as the domineering Sir John Conroy, and Paul Bettany as the dubious Lord Melbourne.

    When recently compiling my list of favorite movies of the decade, I lamented the dearth of good love stories. Well, I just found one. This movie was golden.  If you love Jane Austen, you’re going to love this show.

    (BTW, the Royals actually do perform a number of worthwhile tasks. Read this wiki on the British Royal Family. You may also want to read this on Victoria after you watch the movie.)

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    Iron Man, Military Insect Spies

    ByJohn Brown

    Iron Man was wonderful, every bit of what the trailers promised–adventure, humor, and a huge dose of gosh-wow. Of course, the idea of military exoskeletons are not new. It’s been in science fiction for a long time. More recently, Dan Brown used the idea in his thriller Act of War. In fact, if you think about it, it becomes clear that airplanes, ships, and tanks are all exoskeletons. So this is all old hat. But when did we ever need a brand-spanking new idea to have a wonderful and new story? What’s important is what the do with the idea–the characters, problem, plot, and setting. And Iron Man does a wonderful job of imagining new twists on all these parts of story.

    *

    In other news, it appears the future is not so far away. The military is going to be using robot bugs for recon.

    British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives.

    Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.

    Soldiers will carry the robots into combat and use a small tracked vehicle to transport them closer to their targets.

    Then they would swarm into the building and relay images back to the soldiers’ hand-held or wrist-mounted computers, warning them of any threats inside.

    I’m all for saving lives and projecting power while we’re doing it. And robo spies are just cool. Except, of course, when they’re used against you…

    Humm, zing!

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    Brain Nazis and Feeling Good by David D. Burns, M.D.

    ByJohn Brown

    Have You Got a Brain Nazi?

    If you’re conscious, you’re monitoring your environment. You have to. It’s how you survive. This is not something you can turn off. It’s just one of those systems that runs automatically, like your liver. You’re always appraising the situation.

    And as soon as you encounter something that’s likely to be of importance to you or yours, your monitor kicks off a physical response to prepare you to deal with or take advantage of it.

    The problem is that sometimes a Nazi propagandist worms his way into the monitoring station. And like any good Nazi, he distorts reality.

    Sometimes those distortions lead to burning resentment, sometimes to unwarranted shame or anxiety, sometimes to eating disorders, sometimes to grave depression. When I heard of the tragic suicide that occurred in our community a few months ago, my heart went out in sympathy to the girl, her family, and friends.  I’m not a doctor. I don’t know the situation. But I’m positive she was dealing with one of these villains.

    I wished I’d been able to share something that’s been a literal life saver to me. Now, it might not have changed anything. But hopefully it can change things in the future for you and others you know who may have to deal with a Nazi in the brain.

    And you will have to deal with a brain Nazi at some time.

    This is not something that affects a miniscule portion of the population. In any given year you can expect more than 15% of a population to experience some form of this [1]. That’s roughly 238 of the estimated 1,592 people 18 years and older in the little county where I live [2]. Rates for teens are similar [3]. Besides, you don’t have to have a full-blown case of a depression for distortions to affect you. How many of us haven’t made faulty comparisons with others? “Oh, she’s so thin and has such great hair; I’m so dumpy.” “Oh, he’s doing so well, and I’m not. I’ll never be a success.”

    The question is not whether you or someone important to you will have to deal with it. The question is how prepared you’ll be when you do. Everyone deals with distortions now and again.  Which means everyone can find a little more enjoyment in life by showing their brain Nazis the door.

    So how does it all work? How do you show the villain out?

    I’m going to summarize it below, but I’ll tell you right now that the book that saved my life was Feeling Good by David D. Burns, MD. This isn’t positive mental attitude. It’s not neuro-linguistic programming. It’s not the mumbo jumbo of Freud and Jung. This is practical and proven. It is the most prescribed intervention for dealing with these issues in the current medical community. It’s prescribed because it works.

    Your Brilliant Appraisal-Emotion System

    To understand this, you have to understand how emotions work. As I said before, you’re always monitoring your situation. You hear a buzz and see a rattlesnake on the path two feet away. Your monitor immediately responds. Alarm, adrenaline, increased blood flow–all of that to get you ready to deal with the situation. Your monitor writes “alarm” on your face to communicate it to those around you–to warn and ask for help. This happens in less than a blink of an eye.

    But this doesn’t just happen with danger. It happens when we encounter unfamiliar things. When we encounter positive things. You see a great friend who makes you laugh all the time. Boom, your monitor responds. You smile. Feel. Focus. You do so because you not only want to avoid dangers, you also want to seek out the things that make you happy.

    Our emotions prepare us to fight, flee, seek, and pitch woo. Our little monitoring and physical response system is brilliant.

    But there’s more. We don’t rely on just the automatic subconscious monitoring. We also have a cognitive (conscious thinking) part. Let’s go back to the rattlesnake. You walk out into the garden, step on a slither, and immediately go into alarm mode. Then you look, consciously see the slithery thing is not a snake, but the garden hose. You relax. Laugh.

    The quick subconscious appraisals keep us alive, because with snakes and other things, if you’re slow, you’re dead. We don’t have time for thought. If you touch a hot stove, you want an immediate reflex. You don’t want to ponder it for a second or two. On the other hand, the cognitive appraisals help us further appraise a situation. They bring more of our resources to bear on the situation.

    How Does the Nazi Get In?

    So there are three parts of the appraisal-emotion system: the subconscious appraisal of the situation, the physical response, and the cognitive appraisal. Each of the three parts affects the other two. And when things are running smoothly, we don’t have problems. But sometimes we get a distortion mucking up the works. We make a faulty appraisal of the situation. And therefore have a faulty physical response.

    For example, you’re a mother. You’ve had a hard day. The kids make a huge mess with flour in the kitchen. You yell, freak out. When they’re cowering in their rooms and you’re cleaning up the flour, you think, “There I go again. I’m a total failure. I can’t stand it! I never do anything right! I’m a terrible mother.” These thoughts make you even sadder.

    And that’s the propaganda. That’s your brain Nazi with his all-or-nothing thinking, telling you that you either perform perfectly or you’re a failure.

    But is that true? No, it’s not. You might be a B+ mother, filling the lives of your kids with all sorts of goodness. You might have just had a great time reading with the kids not thirty minutes before. But the brain Nazi tells you to forget that. “Vatch dis film,” he says, “und see de horrors of vut you are!”    

    And the all-or-nothing thinking gambit is just one of ten common weapons he uses. Furthermore, this happens so quick that we often don’t notice it. In fact, we’ve often repeated some of these distortions so often than they’ve become almost automatic.

    Mr. Nazi, Meet Mr. Bazooka

    The good news is that you can pull the lid off the lies. You can open the door, spot the brain Nazi that slipped in, and take him out. You can do this because one of the three parts of the system is our cognitive appraisal. This means you can consciously stop the movie, pin the distortion on the wall, and uncover the truth. Once you do that, it’s like the rattlesnake scenario above—oh, it’s a hose, we realize, not a snake, and the appropriate emotions immediately follow.

    But you need to know how to stop the movie. You need to know how to spot the lies. David D. Burns, MD tells you exactly how to do this in his book Feeling Good. (By the way, DON’T get this book confused with his Feeling Good Handbook–you DON’T want the handbook; you want Feeling Good, the book.)  In the book, Burns talks about the theory, the results, and then gets right down to the practical techniques used to blow the brain Nazi to kingdom come.

    A few years ago I hit a bad patch with a brain Nazi that had taken up residence. A very bad patch. He’d been there for quite some time. This book and a good counselor saved me. I thank the Lord for that. By the time I went to see a medical doctor to assess whether chemical issues might be playing a role, I was stable. I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but I had opened the lid and found the villain at the controls. I used the techniques Burns gave me, and I’m happy to say that while the brain Nazi still comes round every once in a while, I can spot him. And I can take that sucker out.

    Go to the library and check out the book and take the assessment test. If you, or someone you know, scores in the mild range, maybe you’ve just experienced a very sad event. But maybe you’ve also got a villain in residence. Get the book. Read it. Be happy. Nobody needs to live with a Nazi at the controls.

    For Authors

    By the way, fiction authors should pay special attention to this stuff. Not because we’re more susceptible to brain Nazis than others, although we do have to deal with our fair share as we develop and share our stories. No, we should because the emotion process is exactly what we’re trying to tap into. Knowing the principles can be very useful indeed. Let me recommend you read the books on emotion listed on the Learning With Pros page.

    Sources

    1. 1. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america/index.shtml
    2. 2. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49/49033.html (find your state and county and see how many folks are likely dealing with a brain Nazi in your area)
    3. 3. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k5/youthDepression/youthDepression.htm
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  • Good Stuff! Some Calm on the Climate

    ByJohn Brown

    Is the sky falling?

    When we politicize science it sure seems that way.

    For example, a while back I reviewed The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. What she found in her research about fat and sugar was that we followed the exact wrong diet path over the last 40 years by (1) rushing to judgment on the science in a field that was tricky and (2) politicizing it. This, in turn, affected the science. And not in a good way. Here’s a quote from the book.

    “Once ideas about fat and cholesterol became adopted by official institutions, even prominent experts in the field found it nearly impossible to challenge them. One of the twentieth century’s most revered nutrition scientists, the organic chemist David Krivtchesky, discovered this thirty years ago when on a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, he suggested loosening the restriction on dietary fat. “We were jumped on!” he told me. “People would spit on us!…they were so angry that we were going against the suggestions of the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health”

    “This kind of reaction met all experts who criticized the prevailing view on dietary fat, effectively silencing any opposition. Researchers who persisted in their challenges found themselves cut off from grants, unable to rise in their professional societies, without invitations to serve on expert panels, and at a loss to find scientific journals that would publish their papers. As a result, for many years the public has been presented with the appearance of a uniform scientific consensus on the subject of fat, especially saturated fat, but this outward unanimity was only made possible because opposing views were pushed aside.”

    For the rest of us, the result has been the highest obesity and diabetes rates we’ve ever seen. And it seems to me that we’ve been doing this same thing with climate science.

    Instead of vigorous and spirited debate and research, we’re rushing to judgment and politicizing it. The media, non-climate scientists, activists, politicians, and others have turned it into a religious eco frenzy. And so we end up with people like Bill Nye the science guy (who was a mechanical engineer and then TV host for a children’s science program, not a climate scientist) suggesting that “climate deniers” go to prison.

    Prison?

    I think Bill had a bad dream about Nazi Germany, socialist Russia, or ISIS.

    We all want clean air and water. We all want awesome rivers and lakes. We all want good science. Is it possible to remove the politics and frenzy so we don’t go off into the weeds again? I don’t know. But I did find these short videos helpful. If you’re interested in the climate, I think you’ll enjoy them.

    In the first one, Richard Lindzen, an MIT atmospheric physicist, addresses the politicization.

    In the one, Will Happer, emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University,  addresses whether we can actually accurately predict the climate.

    This one by Patrick Moore, an ecologist and one of the founders of Greenpeace who subsequently left the organization because of its anti-science activism, explains why CO2 is actually awesome.

    In this one Moore gives more details and argues that maybe we need more CO2.

    In this one, Bjorn Lomborg argues against climate alarmism. Of course, Lomborg isn’t a climate scientist. However, if his facts are correct, then he asks an important question.

    The other thing to ask is so what? So let’s say the seas rise a bit and it gets a bit warmer. We might lose some beach front properties over a number of years. That’s not new. It might accelerate and reach farther inland. Okay. But nobody is going to die. They’ll just rebuilt somewhere else.

    So let’s avoid prison and climate pogroms and disastrous dashes off into public policy like we did with fat and sugar. Let’s simply support our scientists in doing what they do best. Let’s promote a vigorous search for more insight.

    Notes

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  • Gladwell, Dish Cloths, and Higher Technology for Tuna

    ByJohn Brown

    The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

    After reading Made to Stick, I decided to read the book that inspired it—The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. I’d read Blink and Outliers by the same author and found both fascinating.  I’m happy to report The Tipping Point is just as good. In it, Gladwell examines what conditions cause ideas, behaviors, messages, and products to spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. 

    In the book he shares a number of situations and studies, including the sudden drop in crime in New York city in the 1990’s (which started by attacking graffiti in the subway), the dramatic popularity of the Blue’s Clues TV program with pre-schoolers, Paul Revere’s success in rousing the citizens along his route (versus the almost total failure of the other guy who rode that night), the resurgence of Hush Puppies shoes, syphilis in Baltimore, Columbia Record’s amazingly effective golden box ad campaign, and a dozen other outbreaks.  From all of these, he extrapolates three rules of social epidemics—The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and The Power of Context.  

    The arguments Gladwell presents are thought-provoking and powerful, but what makes him such a treat to read is how he writes.  Like the best science writers (in fact, I think he IS one of the best), he tells great stories with interesting characters.  He puts the reader on the edge of the seat with mystery, insight, and humor. He makes things that could be incredibly complex seem like first grade math. It’s as if he’s standing right there with you chatting about the subject. Moreover, he does all this from page one.

    Here’s what I mean. I left the book out on the kitchen table one night after reading a few chapters.  The next morning Super Wife came down to quickly eat breakfast and get herself to a meeting.  She made the mistake of opening the book to glance at the first page. Twenty-five minutes later she came up for air and realized she was going to be late and dashed out the door. The writing is pure mind control.  And I loved every minute of it.

    If you’re at all interested in advertising or how fads and movements start, if you want to affect the behavior of customers or local teens, if you just like to read how things work, I think you’ll love this book.

    Sunflower Dish Cloths

    I used to suffer along with subpar dish cloths.  There were the dish cloths with mesh on one side that were so small you had to rinse them after every wiping stroke.  There were the hand cloths made of terri that belonged in a bathroom but were repurposed and were far too big. Then were the cloths that had some slippery crap in the thread that refused to soak up water.  And there were the crocheted things that I think we should have put out of their misery when we first got them. Folks suggested we go to sponges. So we did sponges and had similar results.

    Oh, woe, woe, woe.

    Then a kind and loving friend gave us a set of mystery cloths that were incredible.  They were large enough that we didn’t need to rinse with every wipe.  They had this fantastic weave that was open, yet absorbent, and dried quickly.  And the weave had enough of a texture that you could use it to scrub.  We received those back in 1999.  They lasted us for years and gave us much kitchen cleaning joy.  But, alas, like all of mortality, those brave cloths finally began to give up the ghost. 

    My problem was that I didn’t know who had made those cloths and where I could get more.  We looked all over and couldn’t find them.  And then, at this year’s Garden City Raspberry Days craft fair, we saw them nestled amidst all the kitsch!  We bought as many as we could afford, and went our way rejoicing, fully expecting these to last us until we have grandchildren.  Maybe we’ll pass them down as priceless heirlooms.  Maybe some day they’ll be featured on Antique Roadshow.  Maybe they’ll be resurrected with us and become the official dish cloth of the Millennium when the world is renewed (it could happen).

    If you’re sick and tired of sponges and crappy dish cloths, let me suggest you pick up some Sunflower Dish Cloths made by Sangamon Mill. You can order them in bulk at http://www.sangamonmill.com/ , or in smaller quantities online from places like Amazon.

    Everiholder’s Veggie & Tuna Press & Strainer

    Do you eat tuna? If so, you know the biggest pain is draining the can. But you don’t have to suffer along any longer using the lid, which doesn’t do a good job at all anyway.  There’s a better solution, which Super Wife discovered. It’s called the Tuna and Veggies Press and Strainer by Evriholder: http://www.evriholder.com/Tuna-Veggie-Press.asp.  With this little blue piece of higher technology you easily and quickly press all the juices away, and nothing slips out the sides. We love our.  You can order it online, although Super Wife found it at our local evil empire Wal-Mart store.

    That’s it for now.  In the next review, I’m going to reveal two killer recipes over which all who partake will salivate and drool—Chocolate Éclair Cake and Dill Potato Salad.

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