Since coming “out of the pantry” re my love of Spam, I’ll confess today that I also think that “Ball Park” weiners (aka franks) make a fine paper plate lunch, too. They’re even more convenient than Spam — just rip one of the individually wrapped weiners off the pack of eight, put it in the microwave (leave it in its self-venting wrapper), and 25-30 seconds later, it’s done! Box says “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” The box also says “Ingredients: Beef and pork, mechanically separated turkey, water, corn syrup . . . .” Now, I’m wondering what exactly is in “mechanically separated turkey.” Oh well, if I’m not feeling very well in a couple of hours, I’ll let you know.

September appears to be a very popular birthday month — in addition to Betty’s birthday on the 10th, here is a BIG “Happy Birthday” to:
Eric Guentzel (belated greeting to him — he was ONE on Sept. 8 )
Carol Godwin (my long-time friend since grade school) — Sept. 11
“Dad” (Carl) Palmer — Sept. 12, 1920 – Jan. 11, 1998
Grandson Keegan — Sept. 16
“Daddy” (Gus) McCoy — Sept. 20, 1915 – July 1, 2002 (Still miss him so much!)
Nephew Justin Metzger — Sept. 23
Grand-daughter McKenna — Sept. 27

My good friend, Judy Mega, just missed the September month by a couple of days — belated birthday greetings to her on August 30. So glad that my two school buddies finally caught up with me — welcome to social security!

Probably shouldn’t do this, but it’s interesting to count backwards nine months to see what might have been going on to prompt these birth dates — and guess what — it would be December — Christmas — time to be “jolly.” When I count back for my birth date in June, it comes up September (my dad’s birthday month — hmmm). Interesting that Terry’s birthday is also in June and that his dad’s birthday month was also nine months before that — tee hee. Now, my children will do this and learn that our April anniversary is nine months before Kelby’s January birthday. Can’t explain Randal’s June birthday — except to say we were newlyweds (married 5 months in September) and probably not looking much at the calendar. Enough of this, I guess!

Tonight is STAN night — big problem, however ’cause Ann and Nick are gone. They took off in “Flyer” (their RV) and should be out of Texas by now. So, I’m going to cook tonight. Yes, “cook.” I’ll fix “rouladen” — a German dish; we picked up some rouladen (very thinly sliced steak) at a wonderful meat market in New Braunfels on our way home from a glass show in San Antonio last Saturday. We also bought some strip steaks, and Terry grilled those for us on Saturday night — excellent! They were enjoyed even more so as we watched our Texas Longhorns (rated #2) beat the Ohio State Buckeyes (rated #4) — a very exciting football game! Attendance at the Ohio stadium was over 100,000 and Texas fans were only allowed about 4,000 tickets — so, our little splashes of burnt orange hopefully made some big waves when the game ended! Way to go, Horns!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday, dear Betty,
Happy Birthday to you!

Each month a group of ladies gather to play Bunco (a dice game).

Last night was Aunt Pink’s turn to be hostess, and I was invited to attend as a “sub.” Aunt Pink is the mother of my dear friend, Ann. Sometimes I call her “Mom,” because she makes me feel so much like a part of their family.

Most folks outside the family call her “Aunt Pink.” Her great grandchildren call her “Grand Pink.” Two of them live next door to her, and get to visit her often — and get to enjoy one of her delicious fried pies each time she gets the skillet out. That was our treat last night — apricot, apple, or cherry — all home made and wonderful. In days past, she has been known to make, fry, and sell hundreds at a time — up to eleven different fillings.

Her theme last night was “Red, White, and Blue” — a memorial for 9/11. She printed special score cards from her computer! Even the M&M’s in each bowl on the Bunco tables were red, white, and blue. She had everything decorated with these colors and even had a “Welcome” sign on her front porch with a vase of roses. She, of course, gave credit for much of the work to her helpers — Amy, Brad, Ann, Freda, and Barbara.

Bunco is a fun game that I learned through this group’s invites for the past couple of years. To hear someone describe it, you’d never believe it is any fun — you throw 3 dice trying to get a six. Each time you get a six, you get one point, and you get another throw. If you throw all sixes, you have a “Bunco.” BUT, when a Bunco occurs, any one at the table can cover the dice and thus add that count to their score. If all three dice are close together, it’s fairly easy to cover them all, but usually they are spread out and we are all scrambling trying to cover each one. It is fun, and you move to another table with a different partner after each game, so the visitation is spread out.

We all had a very good time at Aunt Pink’s, and she was gracious to send home two fried pies home with me for Terry. They are both “gone” now!

Next Tuesday I’ll pick Aunt Pink up at her home and we’ll go to our monthly investment club meeting. She is a very active member of that club as well — makes quarterly stock study reports on her assigned stock, Home Depot. She keeps track of it using her computer!

Thank you, Aunt Pink, for a fun Bunco night and for being such an inspiration to all of us! Happy Grandparents Day!

When our 1999 Expedition hit 115,000+ miles, we went shopping for a replacement. That was in July, and we drove a pretty red Explorer home.

The first day we had it, maybe we should have suspected something wasn’t right. Our dog, Beau, peed on the back leather seat as soon as we put him inside to come home from the vet’s office. Needless to say, we did everything possible to make sure it was cleaned up and deodorized.

About ten days ago, a light started appearing each time we turned on the ignition that said “oil check required.” Since we only had about 2000 miles on it, Terry said to just ignore the message and hit the “reset” button. Then a few days ago, a different message appeared — “oil change required.” Terry looked at the oil, and it was a bit low, and it was a very dark color — too dark for a car with only 2700 miles on it. So, he called the service department of our Ford dealership and was told to bring it in today. The service guy also said that they had been having trouble with the transmission of these cars and would like for us to plan to leave it a few days.

So, do we have a “lemon?” Actually, it is more like an “apple” red!