Balloon Bursting Dog

What would I do without my good humored and “forward” friends. Since I rarely stay up late enough to watch Jay Leno or David Letterman, I’d miss out on cute animal trick videos like this one. This is for my animal loving friends, especially those with a special fondness for small feisty dogs. You could watch it while it while you’re waiting for the fourth of July fireworks tonight. (Thank’s, Bobbie!)

Beauty is as beauty does … by One o’the Nine

Here’s another story from one o’the nine, first published in a Florida community newspaper on November 5, l987. It’s not clear which uncle laid claim on this article. This story was probably written by the Baptist minister. The other uncle was the first in my father’s family to go to college to become a horticulturist for the state of Florida and always–to my knowledge anyway–referred to himself as an “agnostic.”

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I was visiting a man named Cleo Bailey in the hospital in Jacksonville a few days ago. Mr. Bailey had just had open heart surgery and was able to return to his private room. When I went in to visit with him he had just put away the FREE PRESS and greeted me with, “hey, I just read ONE OF THE NINE and I want you to know that is the first thing I read when I get the paper.”If I can bring just a moment of joy or happiness to someone’s life, then that is what I have always wanted to do. I have always wanted to make people happy.

I remember once when I was a boy only about our or five years old. We were in a great depression, and as children we did not see many pretty things. There was not even any flowers growing in our yard to bring beauty. There was no grass, no flowers, only a naked yard with dirt and sand that had to raked or swept clean.

One day as a small boy I was playing by a ditch that had lots of mud in the bottom of it. There in the ditch I saw a piece of cloth that someone had thrown away. It was perhaps ten inches square, and on the piece of cloth was [printed] the most beautiful red rose that I had ever seen. I picked up the cloth that was no more than a filthy rag someone had thrown away, and although it had lots of mud and dirt on it, to me it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I ran to Mama and in my childish way said, “Mama look! Ain’t this pretty?

Mama took the old piece of dirty cloth and said, “Can I have this pretty cloth?”

I was very excited and assured her that I had brought it just for her, and when I saw it brought her happiness it made me twice as happy. I did not know what my mother was going to do with that piece of cloth with the bed rose on it.

About a week or two after I had given it to her she called me in to show me someting, and I can assure you I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life than what she showed me that day. You see, Mama had taken the old filthy rag and washed all the mud and dirt off of it and then she had sewed it to lots of other small pieces of cloth and made a quilt. I said, “Mama, this will always be my quilt. It has my piece of cloth in it.”

Then Mama took me and told me a Bible story that was more beautiful than the quilt. She said, “All of us are like that ole dirty piece of cloth you gave to me, but Jesus took us and washed us clean in his own blood, and then he kind of sewed us together. Not as a quilt, but as a beautiful church, and we will always belong to him, just as this quilt will always belong to you.

The day I gave Mama that dirty old cloth I thought I had brought happiness to her, but I found it brought happiness to myself. It still works that way. When I try to bring happiness to someone else, it always bring more to me.

Postscript: I was very fortunate to have my grandmother in my life for 23 years. She was such a gentle soul; I never heard her say anything bad about anybody; it was from her I inherited my love of reading. She remembered my birthday, gave me small presents from time to time–one of them being the plastic harmonica that led to my discovery that I could actually play the thing! But best of all I remember our chats after school as I sat swinging in the porch swing while she sat with a book in hand in a rocking chair nearby. Unfortunately I will chastise myself to my dying day that I became a typical self-centered teenager and visits were few and far between. After I moved away with my parents to Gainesville when I was 15 years old, I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I visited her. In my mind at least, she’s still there in that rocking chair on her front porch reading to find out the ending of the book she had read about midway at the time of her death in 1965, “The Legend of the Seventh Virgin,” by Victoria Holt. From that day to this, that book has held a place on my library shelf.

A Thomas Crapper Original

Over the years while traveling, I taught my daughters the cardinal traveler’s rule, “you go” when you have the chance.” I was reminded of that rule often during our recent road trip. In fact, that rule led me to a discovery of sorts that now makes me almost want to re-do my bathroom at home.

We were in Seattle and had decided to walk from our hotel to the waterfront and downtown, taking public transportation as and when needed. They have a great public transport system and even offer free bus rides to everyone within a designated area of old downtown, and a transfer pass can get you in and out within a certain period for $1.50 or $1.75, depending on whether it’s “peak rush hour” or not. Our onfoot foray was to turn into a daylong adventure, and I was often reminded of my traveler’s rule.

Since we’d read drastically conflicting reviews on the underground tour of Seattle, we were resting our tootsies and sitting on a bench in Pioneer Square and trying to decide if the underground tour of Seattle was worth the ticket price of $12 for seniors. Anyone who knows me also knows my seriously weird, some might say “warped” sense of history. The more ridiculous or seedier it is the better I like it, and my head is full of useless facts about various things. I was very curious to learn more about the seedier side of the old underground city destroyed by fire in 1889 and gave Pioneer Square the reputation that eventually gave rise to the expression “skid row.”

We more or less had decided to give it a go and learned that there would be no sitting down for this tour. Turns out we’d be on our feet for a full hour and a half or more–depending on how verbosity of our actor guide–so we decided we weren’t quite up to it after walking all those blocks already. Since we were already inside and nobody seemed to be kicking us out, we opted to have a look around first in the attached Rogue’s Museum and antique shop instead.

Soon I noticed the sign that pointed to “Women’s” and automatically turned to go in since all I’d seen so far were signs in every storefront saying “wash rooms are for customers only.” The “facilities” were so pretty that I just had to take a picture to remember. Even the wash basin and the matching backsplash were equally pretty.

Back outside in the museum, one of the first exhibits I saw was either “the” or “an” original toilet designed by Thomas Crapper. While propriety or a certain sense of decorum prevented me from photographing the interior of the toilet above, this one was fair game.

Aren’t they pretty? I found you can order one for your own bathroom from the U.K. at a ballpoint figure of $1,000 American dollars. Guess I’ll be keeping our old crapper toilet instead. By the way, in doing all the research about Thomas Crapper, I found out that he really wasn’t the “inventor” of the modern flush toilet after all. I just may flush out this story more fully in a future post, but for now I hope you like the pretty toilets.

Back on Track and Hygenic Too!

We arrived back home yesterday–safe and sound–from our two week plus road trip to points north to Butte, westward to Spokane and Seattle, Portland, Seal Point and other Oregon notables, then down the Oregon coastline on U.S. 101 all the way to northern California. We clocked 3000 plus miles on the car, and suffered through numerous fill ups at gas stations along the way, paying from $4.16 a gallon before leaving Utah, all the way up to $4.69 in California–and that’s just medium grade regular, folks! We were almost elated to see the pump prices here yesterday at a little less than when we left. Seems like such a bargain now! Gas wise it was a fairly expensive drive, but we thoroughly enjoyed the trip in our Hybrid with a highway mileage of nearly 50 miles per gallon for much of the time.

Also enjoyed the satellite radio we finally broke down and suscribed to. We made a few new discoveries about the little lady who lives rent-free in the dash (she’s part of the satellite route mapping system that came with the car) who helped us navigate our way around the hectic traffic while we were in California. The bad thing is that you have a lot of road noise in a smaller car, and that means the little lady had trouble understanding us when we’d tell her the XM radio channel we’d like to listen to. Frustrating to put it mildly! The Honda people need to add a regular knob dial along with all the other fancy doodads on the satellite dash.

Now that we’re home, I’m struggling with the laundry accumulated through two weeks on the road, plus all the sorting and putting travel things back where they belong, etc. I have about a million pictures to sort through and organize, which I’ve already started, so I can tell you there’s some really beautiful shots there! You can be sure I’ll be sharing lots of those with you in good time. I’m also more than two weeks behind in my blog reading; it will take some time to catch up, but eventually I will, I promise.

In the meantime I’ll share a lesson with you that I learned on the road just yesterday! Too bad I didn’t have this instruction earlier.Next time I travel, I’ll know the proper hand washing process, which means I’ll have to start carrying an old toothbrush in my purse–no, not for brushing my teeth but to clean my fingernails whenever I use the restrooms. Don’t say no one ever told you! This sign was posted near the sink in the toilet at a restaurant we stopped at yesterday. (Referring to Step 3 below: 20 seconds is about the time it takes to sing “happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear uh umm, happy birthday  to you” twice!) Check it out:

A Little Bit of Roadside Americana

Rerun from September 31, 2007:

One morning I was cleaning out the storage section of my car’s passenger door to find all kinds of hidden treasure… a script for HELEN, yet another play written by Euripides about Helen of Troy, several receipts, notes on different kinds and styles of humor from my humor class, some Costco coupon books, and one more that I decided is a “keeper.”

It’s a complimentary roadmap I picked up at a Cracker Barrel country store. This is a map of the United States, and lists the locations for 550 locations of its restaurants that cover 41 states, with more opening all the time. Lest you think this post is an advertisement for the restaurant chain, it isn’t, but this is one of the few cheap restaurants where you can order real vegetables to eat whenever you travel.

What struck me about this particular map was the mention of four wayside attractions for travelers who like to check out the “oddities” and “wayside wonders” that make America’s back roads and its people so varied and interesting. Here are those and more I discovered in further research for the post.

As with any trip, a good place to begin is with a hearty breakfast. How do you like your eggs? Did I hear you say BIG? Well, in Winlock, Washington you can see one of the world’s largest eggs sitting in the center of town, but it would be pretty tough for you to crack this one! This concrete egg is over 12 feet long and weighs an astonishing 1,200 pounds. But is it the biggest?

Not if you ask the residents of Mentone, Indiana. Their egg stands 10 feet tall, and weighs 3,000 pounds. Okay, I’ll just give them a little plug here seeing as how they gave me the map and all, Cracker Barrel recommends you visit both eggs the next time you’re “scrambling around the country.”

Now that we know where the largest eggs can be found, why don’t we find the world’s largest frying pan? Anyone who’s ever been in a Cracker Barrel knows that you can find frying pans of all sizes, but the largest one known is In Rose Hill, North Carolina. Theirs is completely functional, and in fact they use it several times a year for charitable cooking and community celebrations.

Now that we’ve had our eggs, how about a cup of tea? You can find the world’s largest teapot in Chester, West Virginia. It sits on Route 30 next to a highway on-ramp, surrounded by a fence. Apparently the fence is a good idea since there “used to be” a matching creamer too.

In order to get the cream for that missing creamer, we’ll have to criss-cross the country to Wisconsin where we’ll find the world’s largest talking cow. There’s a larger cow in Salem Sue, North Dakota, but Chatty Belle in Wisconsin is a “talking” cow, though the word is she hasn’t actually talked since 2002. When she does feel like talking, this is what she says,

“Hi, so nice to see you. My name is Chatty Belle and beside me is my son, bullet. Bullet doesn’t talk yet but he’s learning. What’s your name? Well, nice to meet you. Did you know I’m the world’s largest talking cow? I’m 16 feet high at the shoulders and 20 feet long, seven times as large as the average Holstein.”

We all know that Texas likes to brag about how big things are there, right? Well, check out these really big heads someone discovered near Houston. Apparently there’s a sculpture storage in the warehouse district near Summer Street where, if you’re lucky, you might see these or other really, really big heads. Actually, they’re giant heads of U.S. Presidents by a Texas artist named David Adickes.

If you like snakes, and while we’re in Texas, you could check out this snake and exotic animal farm just south of Austin off Interstate 35 on the way to San Antonio. Since I personally don’t care for snakes, I’ll wait this one out while you go ahead.

Now we near the end of our virtual roadside journey. Here’s a sobering thought. With all the cars that traverse this big country of ours, you can bet on a fair number of traffic accidents that result in a whole lot of bent car bumpers that will eventually wind up in a scrap metal heap someplace, and then what? Brundidge, Alabama has an answer in one of the most unique sights the highways and byways has to offer. It’s a large rooster made completely with old car bumpers.

I first published this as an article at http://www.Elderstribune.com on Saturday, and oddly enough new entries about roadside travel attractions started popping up everywhere. A reader comment on that post reminded me of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota which she had first seen years ago. Then lo and behold when I opened the travel section of my local newspaper this morning, there it was again–the world’s only Corn Palace. It has just undergone an extreme makeover that you can read more about here. You won’t find stuff like this in Europe, folks!

Then last night, as I was TV channel hopping, I chanced to see a presentation about still more roadside oddities. If this sort of thing interests you, check your local public television listings to see if the Rare Visions & Revelations roadtrip show is available in your area. Or go online where you can read about the peeing concrete ox named Old Faithful at the Prairie Schooner Cafe in Three Forks, Montana. When the clerks inside happened to notice people gathered around the oxen in front, they would turn on the spitgot and the tourists would get a big surprise.

But the Prairie Schooner and the oxen have since been bulldozed in the interest of new development. And who knows how long the other oddities mentioned here will survive progress. With McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Subways monopolizing the landscape and making one little town pretty much like any other, it’s one thing that makes American backroad art uniquely American. Enjoy it while you can.

Sawed in Half

This is one of those “how’d they do that” offerings. But again, just as I don’t need to know how the airplane stays up there to enjoy flying, I don’t really need to know.

Shall We Gather at the River?

Rerun from October 13, 2007 with minor gramatical corrections:

The sermon was about sin, and at the end of it Preacher Pat reminded everyone about the baptism service that would take place the following Sunday afternoon. I knew my folks planned for me to participate.

Now it was true that I’d fibbed about stomach aches to get out of weeding tobacco beds, but that wasn’t a big enough sin to need baptizing, was it? Besides, I’d already been punished for that since I really did get a stomachache before the end of the day. Made more sense to to me wait until I’d racked up more serious ones so they could all be washed away in one dip.

At least let me learn to swim first, I begged my parents. But the choice was no longer ours to make. I was about eight years old, long ago passed the age of being responsible for my sins. I knew that if I died before being baptized, I would go directly to hell with my unwashed sins on my back.

So on a warm afternoon in August we gathered by the river at Camp O’leno wearing swimsuits or, since I didn’t have one, a dress it was okay to get wet in. I tiptoed into the water in the flowered dress Mama had sewn from chicken feed sacks. Worried that people on the riverbank might see my underpants through the water, I kept struggling to pull the skirt down around my legs while goosebumps gathered up and down my arms, but the fabric was so porous and heavy, it kept soaking up the river water, and consequently floated up higher and higher around my hips like a great flower covered fabric balloon.

I shivered, feeling colder and more exposed than if I’d gone in naked.

By turns people edged closer to Preacher Pat, who waited waist deep in the tea colored water looking for all the world like John the Baptist, in bib overalls. He pinched their nostrils, placed his left hand on their backs for support, and dipped them backwards until their faces disappeared beneath the water’s surface.

They gasped, once as the water closed over their mouths, and again when they appeared seconds later, looking relieved that it was all over. From somewhere on the shore, Sister Dorothy shouted hallelujah as her husband surfaced.

I was afraid of water, and hoped I wouldn’t cry when it was my turn. Suddenly I felt the preacher’s hand on my nose. “I baptize thee in the name of our heavenly father,” I heard him say, and barely had time to close my eyes before I heard the glub of water closing over my ears.

Cut off from the sounds in the world above me, I opened my eyes and in a flash second I saw oak leaves and waterbugs floating on the river’s surface. There were miniature bubbles drifting upwards from my face, and I discovered the world of minnows and tadpoles was quiet and peaceful, nothing like the black swirling chasm I’d imagined. Eternity ended with a swish as the preacher raised me from the water–a born again Christian, with water pouring from every crevice. I was never to forget the sensation.

At school later that year, I looked around the playground at recess one day, hoping to find something more stimulating than rope jumping. The wind stirred the shrubs lining the school building and they quickly became a river of swaying green leaves. I thought about the river and my recent baptism rites. Suddenly I had an idea.

I was the preacher and my friends were all the sinners. Kids all sizes and shapes were soon lining up for a dip in the green water. One by one I lead them over to the bushes, pinched their noses, and dipped them backwards into the bushes until their faces disappeared. “Trust in the Lord God, Almighty,” I said.

Well, in real water you keep your mouth shut so you won’t drown, but in green bushes–when the preacher doesn’t weigh as much as you do and you feel yourself falling–you scream, like Helen June did, and the teacher comes running.

The teacher, Miss Myrtice, was Helen June’s first cousin once removed. Her lips formed a little oval and her eyes squinted at me through her thick glasses. “Just what in Heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?” she asked, so I told her. “Why, that’s BLASPHEMY,” she said, and sent me to the cloak room to sit by myself and think about that big new word until recess was over.

I didn’t know what it meant, but I felt fairly sure it must have been a big sin, so I decided there–among the clutter of baseball bats and books with tattered covers–that I wouldn’t ever play Baptism again. And to this day, I haven’t.

My Public Toilet Tales

Rerun from October 25, 2007:

My blogger friend Ruthe, who is a tad older than me only by number, is on an amazing solo trip to Japan this month, and I’ve been tagging along with her via her special posts enroute. She’s got the keen, observant eye of a photographer (in fact that was her profession once upon a time) and her photographs add a lot to her stories.Here’s how Ruthe described a recent experience with the toilets in Japan.

“The ladies room at the station had 2 squats. When I saw that, I walked out. Another woman showed me the handicapped toilet-western style. The only trouble was I couldn’t get the door to close. Somehow I finally managed it. It took all of my strength to get it open again. I wanted to use it again before I boarded the train. Couldn’t get it to close at all. I don’t know what I did the first time. I can’t imagine how anyone who was really handicapped could use it.”

Having traveled a little myself, I’m always reminded of my own paradigm shifts regarding “facilities” offered by various cultures not our own. I can’t think of a place in the U.S., unless possibly in the deepest south, that doesn’t have public toilets, not always clean and not always what you would hope for, but at least “facilities” when you need them. If you’ve been to Las Vegas, you know that the casinos there seem in competition with each other to provide the fanciest toilets imaginable. And there’s always the fast food restaurants where you can run in and use the bathrooms and then buy a cup of coffee if you feel too guilty to leave without buying something.

Problems can and do often crop up when we travel in foreign countries, however, since we have been so spoiled by the availability of public restrooms in this country. Since my first foreign travel, I’ve learned quite a few things about toilets in general, and no doubt have much more to learn in future travels, but for now, this is what I know to be true:

Toilets are not always free. Like the one in Germany where the female attendant chased me out of the damen toiletten because I didn’t have any deutchmarks to pay her. She had graciously opened a stall door and indicated that I was to enter and use it, but wasn’t so kind afterwards when I tried to tell her that I had no money to pay. Luckily Hubby, upon hearing the commotion, sensed the problem and came to my rescue with the proper German coinage.

There is much confusion as to toilet terminology. When I asked the local English speaking “tourist attendant” during a tour while in the Himalayan foothills of Inda in Simla, he seemed perplexed by the term “bath” room, not quite understanding why–I now realise all these years later–I’d be needing a bath at that particular time and place. “Rest” room, I tried. Still he seemed puzzled. Finally I came up with “toilet” which was the term I’d tried hard not to use because, where I came from in the U.S. south, that’s a slightly unsavory term very close to outhouse that we try to avoid using (at least where I was growing up). Voila. Toilet he understood. Mission accomplished.

Expectations can and do vary widely from one country to another. On another visit to India, the tour bus we were using was forced to make a stop at a bus garage because of a mechanical problem. I guess there was no such thing as a rescue bus taking us on and continuing the tour, so we were forced to sit for what could be hours inside the bus in a barnyard like place with old bus parts, wheels, tires, etc., no nice office buildings nearby or anything resembling a toilet anywhere.

Since my nervous stomach always acts up in situations like this, I soon had to go. Finally getting the driver’s attention, I was duly directed to a makeshift, windowless, corrugated tin building. I peered in cautiously, not sure what to expect, but hoping against hope for a western style toilet. Not in this lifetime! The stench that hit me was nearly overwhelming.

There, all over the hard dirt floor, were various “deposits” presumably made by patrons before me. They were here, there, and everywhere, to be stepped around and in between in order to find a choicer and, hopefully unused, spot! Wide open room. No privacy but luckily no one else was there at the time. Who said, desperate times call for desperate measures?! I understand the term perfectly now. I was so desperate, that’s exactly what I did.

The last toilet story I have in my bag of tales is at the airport in a large Indian city. I was elated that we were at last on our way home to the U.S., but during a long delay waiting to depart I decided to visit the ladies room. I was used to seeing sleeping bodies of women toilet attendants by that time, so thought nothing of stepping around one to go inside.

After I’d washed my hands later, however, one of those ladies kept pressing a hot towel in my hand. I knew she wanted rupees, none of which I had with me since I rarely carry a purse in India, so I refused it, saying over and over “no paisa, no paisa” while looking for another way to dry my hands, even if it meant using the folds of my skirt. She finally succeeded in forcing the towel into my wet palms. I thought she was just being nice, since she knew I had no money (I’d told her so often enough), so I accepted it.

I thanked her, and shrugged my shoulders and said no paisa when she pressed me again for money. She followed me all the way back to the gate where Hubby was waiting, angrily grabbing and shouting at me in Hindi all the way. When he realised what had happened he shouted at her in Hindi to leave me alone. Only then did she relent and stop harrassing me.

So those are my toilet tales. Do you have any toilet tales to share? In case Ruthe decides to write a book on foreign toilets, maybe she’ll want to include them along with those posted here. The travel market just might be ready for a book like that.

Driving Rules for Las Vegas

More from the email forwards. If you’ve never been to or lived in Las Vegas, it may not mean much to you, but I’ll bet you could write your own rules for wherever you live. Since we lived in Vegas for 9 hot summers, I can verify this one. Thanks to Bob in Las Vegas for sending it along to remind me the drivers here aren’t any worse than anywhere else.

1. First, it’s pronounced LOSS-VAYGUS. It doesn’t matter how they say it in other places. And its NEV ADDA not NEV AH DA. . .Get over it!

2. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Las Vegas has its own set of traffic rules. There’s no book about them. All you can do is get in your car and hope you survive to learn them.

3. All directions start with, “Go down 95…’cause you don’t want to get on I-15.”

4. Las Vegas Blvd, Charleston Blvd, and Torrey Pines have no beginning and no end.

5. It’s impossible to go around a block and wind up on the same street that you started on. The Chamber of Commerce calls this a “scenic drive.”

6. The 8:00 am rush hour is from 4:30am to 11:30am. The 5:00pm rush hour is from 11:30am to 10:15 pm. Friday’s rush hour starts on Thursday morning and ends sometime late Sunday night.

7. If you actually stop at a yellow light, then you cannot be from Las Vegas. You may only apply your brakes when the end of a yellow light and the beginning of the red light create a “pumpkin-orange” hue.

8. For the most part, you can do anything you want, as long as it isn’t in a school zone.

9. Just remember that Camino Al Norte is Martin Luther King Boulevard, Boulder Highway is Fremont Street, Eastern Ave is 25th Street or Civic Center Drive, Desert Inn is Lamb Blvd., Spring Mountain and Sands and Twain are all the same street. And don’t forget that Ft. Apache turns into Rampart and then turns into Durango. Don’t try to figure it out. Just accept it. If you question the intelligence behind this naming convention, people will simply tilt their heads to the right and stare at you.

10. Henderson is the only place in the world where THREE “parallel” streets intersect at one traffic light. That would be the 4-way of Green Valley Parkway/Eastern Avenue/Maryland Parkway. For laughs ask your middle school Geometry teacher to try to explain it.

11. Rainbow Boulevard has THREE exits from the 95; this just makes giving driving directions to newbies more entertaining. There is also a Lake Mead “Drive” and a Lake Mead “Boulevard” and both run east/west but are 30 miles apart. You have to be specific when you say “the corner of Lake Mead and _ _ _ _ _” Again, this is just another way to harass the 5000 newcomers every month.

12. Many major roads just end abruptly in somebody’s garage, a Home Depot, a Casino or McCarran International Airport Runways and start again after the interruption. That was done to encourage you to “see the sights” and meet new people. For fun, just try to take Harmon Avenue from Rainbow to Nellis.

13. If moisture at hand is determined to be rain, not sweat, all traffic must immediately cease. Ditto for daylight savings time, girl applying eye-shadow across the street, or a flat tire 3 lanes over. Do not attempt to access any road after an apocalyptic event like snow, blowing dust, or a 3-day weekend.

14. Once a year, when it rains, the Las Vegas wash and the City of Las Vegas are one.

15. The wind blows every day, and it is impossible to live in Las Vegas without some kind of allergy drug.

16. Construction on I-15 and US 95 is a way of life and a permanent form of entertainment. They actually move the construction cones every night to make the next days drive a bit more exciting for you. I-215 will never be completed. Get used to it!

17. Stay away from the corner of Nellis and Las Vegas Blvd. if you do not like the thought of being in a remake of the movie “Top Gun.”

18. And, yes, we all know that man in a teddy and a tiara on Fremont Street. His name is Leslie and he probably makes more money than you do.

19. And always remember, when driving in Las Vegas in the summertime, it is a good idea to wear pot holders on your hands!

New Talent from the UK

Recently I discovered a new singer, Adele, a new singer (to me anyway) from the United Kingdom who is highly touted by Catch Her In The Wry in a recent post. Funny how you “meet” these people you’ve never heard of before, then suddenly see them everywhere. Now she’s scheduled to be on Dave Letterman’s show. I watched and listened through Catcher’s link and agreed that Adele is the real goods all right. She’s got a great voice! If you don’t believe it, you can use one of the previous links and hear for yourself. Then I remembered a singer I discovered in 2003 while we were living in Las Vegas, and decided to see if I could find some videos of her that I might share with my readers. Thanks to Youtube I found so many! She even has two albums I didn’t know about.

Katie Malua comes from Russia where she was born to Belfast, then to Britain where she sang one of the numbers below to the Queen, and became pledged her allegiance to the queen when she became a citizen there. Hats off to these phenomenal talents from the United Kingdom. (To preview Adele go to the links above.)Here are two of my favorite songs and one of my favorite new singers. Tell me what you think.

The Closest Thing To Crazy

and Call Off The Search (Now That I’ve Found you)