Never Mind

I was going to bring back armadillos to selected friends who expressed an interest in having one, but have changed my mind.

Armadillos can carry leprosy or Hansen's disease.  That is why you never touch one, let alone eat one.  And I wouldn't let my dog mess with one if I had a dog.

So - maybe little chocolate "armadillos" instead.  If such a thing is made and thinking about it, almost anything is possible in Texas.   

Extreme Timing

Richie and I are flying to San Antonio to attend the 96th birthday of my cousin Bill.  My sister and bro-in-law are flying in from Chicago.  We are both flying the same airline.  They leave ORD at 10:30 a.m. and land at SAT at 1:11 p.m.  Our flight leaves at 8:20 a.m. and we land at 1:25 p.m.

How cool is that?

So This Wedding Cake Goes to the Supreme Court ...

A gay male couple tries to hire a local bakery to make them a wedding cake..  The baker-owner declines. 

Instead of having gone to a gay-owned bakery in the first place, and keep substantial money in the gay community,  the pair now have a hissy fit and demand that the baker make the cake.

The baker points to the sign in his establishment that reads "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."  This is perfectly legal unless a person is refused service for race, color, national origins or religion.  Being gay is "none of the above."

Naturally they took it to a court as is the wont of apparently everyone residing in the United States.  Not happy about something?  Sue the bastards!

Ever curious, I began to wonder if this was the only bakery in Denver - gay or straight or catering solely to giraffes. 

The Denver city limits contain 663,862 souls as of 2014.  Metro Denver counts 3 million residents.  Are all of these people gay haters?  Not on your tintype, toots.  The Denver Gay Friendly Business Directory is so successful that they charge $$$ to buy a copy of it.  Travelogue et al have sections touting gay amusements, restaurants, discos and mention specific sections of the city where gays gather or are reported to gather.

Given all of this, the gay couple's suit is one of the purest examples of a frivolous lawsuit possible.  Is this what the Supremes have come to?  If so, it is a sorry day for America. 

The Pleasures of Conversation With a Great Wit

Quite some time ago, looking to buy an oxygen mask that the flight attendants are issued  to carry on board any plane that I took, I ran across the proprietor of a site that sells gently-used airplane parts.  I was tempted by the control panel for a 747, but budgetary concerns kept my hands out of my purse.

During the dialogue that subsequently ensued, I became friends with the former pilot who runs this charitable (and not for him) enterprise.  He is screamingly funny and every missive is cause for great roars of laughter on my part.

I got into the habit of consulting with him on anything aeronautical. Today was no different.  We're flying to San Antonio soon.  The aircraft will be an Embraer and I'd never heard of one.

So we discussed the Embraer, a jet made in Rio, that is being used for some American Airlines short hops.  I wondered if it was a make he liked to fly  (God knows he's flown everything with wings) and here we go ....

Not to worry, the planes are fine, and even though it's probably really Mesa or some other regional line wearing an American paint job, they do a good job.  Relax, keep your feet off of the seats and don't speak Arabic and I've heard, flying down in that area, they have a chef roast an armadillo, no trouble as those are found dead on the highway about one per mile in Texas.

And I wrote back:  You never disappoint.  No, I was asking you about these only because I always liked the S80 - very whippy, apparently responsive and they don't seem to need a 10-mile long runway. 

Armadillos are a bitch to peel.  I shall ask for mine to be shelled in the kitchen/galley. 

If I spoke French (am fluent) in Texas, they'd probably think it was Arabic.

Oddly enough, despite many journeys to South Texas, have never seen an armadillo (dead or alive) by the side of the road.  Either the Highway Commission is on it or they have a lot of hungry poor people. 

Re asking for it to be shelled in the galley, he wrote back, "Just as you'd order lobster, ask for the tail (meat) only."

I wish I'd seen this - our correspondent in Texas wrote that she had seen a dead armadillo  by the side of the road, lying on his back, holding a beer can. 

Our mothers were right - the evils of drink - lying on the side of the road like a dead armadillo.  Can't you see them shaking an admonitory finger? 

How Hot Is It?

If you live in Phoenix ... it's inhumanely H O T.  Ditto for Palm Springs and Las Vegas.

Never mind showing us pictures of your breakfast cooking on the sidewalk - eggs sunnyside up and pancakes - I saw a shot of a person's hands in oven mittens on the steering wheel of their car!  That's hot!  Damned hot!

Rest In Peace

Doug and Jackie, his wife of 61 years

Doug and daughter Sandy

My cousin, Warren Chapin "Doug" Vermillion    July 24, 1935 - June 20, 2017

Doug left his soul mate, Jackie, of 61 years, three adult children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.  He was a retired LA County FD Fire Captain, who completed his military service in the Army and for fun he served and then led the Safety Crew at the Ontario Motor Speedway.  In all of these occupations, he was said to be fearless and I myself once saw him run across the track to get to a car up in the fence before the yellow flag had quit waving.  He was moving pretty good, I must say.

However, despite this great loss, and it is, we are not short of Doug Vermillions.  His nephew was named for him and he is Doug Vermillion, MD, a well-known and greatly respected orthopod and burn specialist in Anchorage.  

Another cousin is Doug Vermillion, a retired history teacher in Anderson, IN.    As he is the family genealogist, he can probably find some more should we run short of them, God forbid.  All of ours are handsome, intelligent and have great senses of humor.  "Bob" or "Dan" as Dougs just wouldn't be the same.

If Your Kids Are Adults, You Can Still Lie To Your Grandkids

boredpanda.com is a favorite site of mine for a smile or three.  Today this was featured - lies your parents may have told you.  See if any of these are familiar, eh?

"If the ice cream truck is playing music, that means it's out of ice cream."

One kid asked his Dad about the coconuts at the supermarket and Dad said, "Don't touch those!  They're bear eggs!"

"Oh, no, honey, we can't have French fries - we're not French."

"If you wake us up before 7 a.m., Santa will take all of your presents back to the North Pole with him."

In a store - "If you can kiss your elbow, you can have it." 

If you eat more than one marshmallow, you'll blow up!"

"We only have white milk; the brown cows aren't working today."

"Oh, this isn't Coca Cola - it's black water and you wouldn't like that!"

"That? (pointing to cemetery) "those are people farms."

"If you swallow that gum, your poop will bounce in the toilet!  Spit it out."

And the hands down, no question ever for Guaranteed To Put the Child into Therapy for a minimum of 30 years, 5x a week:  A deranged mother ran the video of the child being born backwards and told the kid, "This is where bad children go."

Paleo-Okay Cookies

Richie is taking a French lesson class.  The other week it was the professor's birthday and  a small party was planned.  So he got out his crowd-pleaser recipe for Chocolate Sparkle Cookies and whipped up a batch.

They were a big hit and two of the women asked for the recipe (always so flattering.)  One said that she had a taken a few home with her and her family loved them - "And that's not easy to do," she said, "One is a vegetarian, another other is on the paleo diet ..."

Paleo diet?  What are "paleos"?  Something to eat that I didn't know about when I could have been feasting?  Hmmmm... 

Research pulled up the Paleo Diet or as it is affectionately called by some "The Stone Age Diet."  It is a program where the diner eats only those foods that would have been available in those days.  Such as meat 19 to 35% of the diet, vegetables and fruits high in fiber for 35 to 45% of the diet.   Eggs, nuts, seeds, avocado or olive oils, but NO alcohol or coffee.  I for one can't believe they never let a piece of fruit sit out until it turned to some version of alcohol.  Granted they were thought to be a primitive people, but ...

I think it might be a great deal easier to make a batch of cookies than wander into the supermarket and ask at the butcher counter for 3 lbs. of dinosaur ribs,  a dozen raptor eggs and a bunch of avocados to grind down into oil. 

CHOCOLATE SPARKLE COOKIES
1/2 lb. semisweet chocolate
3 T soft butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar plus some set aside to roll the warm cookies
3/4 cup ground almonds

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and add the butter, stir well.
Beat in the eggs one by one while adding the sugar
Fold the chocolate into the eggs, butter and sugar and gently add the ground almonds  Mix well.
Refrigerate overnight

Next day preheat the oven to 325 and form the dough into small-ish balls.  Bake for 9 to 12 minutes.  When they've cooled a little bit, roll them in the loose sugar. 

Fathers' Day - "It's Just a Second Christmas For Dad"

So the newspapers scorned this holiday.  It took awhile for it to become a holiday, too.  Sonora Dodd, of Spokane,  wanted to honor her Dad, a Civil War veteran, who single-handedly raised her and her five siblings and she got the ball rolling for this holiday in 1910.

It wasn't until 1972 that it officially became a U.S. holiday when Nixon signed it in to law. 

Merchants were thrilled as the "traditional" gifts for males went zooming out the door - namely ties, amusingly-decorated socks, cufflinks, golf balls, slippers, wallets, after shaves, belts, tools and cute mugs flew off of their shelves.  In 2014, in Great Britain, loving children spent more than $770 million on dear old Dad.

I cruised Real Simple, the magazine, for guidance despite the fact that my own father would be 113 were he here to celebrate.

A Yeti Tundra Cooler which holds 14 cans of beer plus ice for $250.  Styrofoam from the supermarket at 99 cents makes more sense.

It's not a Harry & David Fruit of the Month, but it is three pairs of socks every three months for $89.  This must be for Forgetful Dad or the unfortunate father that owns the Dryer That Eats Socks.

And another monthly treat is a box of custom beauty aids for him including pomade, after-shave, etc. designed to suit if Dad is a variety of offered personalities - you know, like Lumbar Guy or Dancing Dad ...

Lastly there is the Sausage Bouquet - three salamis - one each from France, Spain and Italy, all individually wrapped in butcher paper, folded in to a larger sheet, like a bouquet of flowers for $50.  You can do twice that number of sausages at Trader Joe's or Hickory Farms for a lot less than $50!

Apparently Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone - You Have to Eat Sunlight

Or rather doesn't need to live by bread alone.  Comes now a new resurgence in a century's old cultish belief which is that man can lively solely on air (breatharian)  or sunlight (sun eater.)   Just different names for the same thought - that man can exist solely on the sun's energy absorbed through the eyeballs which converts to vitamins, minerals, etc. in the human body and can maintain this happy (if wildly unhealthy) state of being.   As the eyeballs are not able to photosynthesize energy or anything else other than vision, this is a very dubious claim before anyone has begun the practice. 

This is how these believers purportedly live:  they start by staring at the sun for 10 seconds at one hour after sunrise and one hour before sunset.   Check your local newspaper.  Gradually the wanna-be practitioner moves up to 45 minutes per day and that much closer to complete and total blindness.

It is also necessary to walk around barefoot on bare dirt or sand; pavement need not apply, for one hour per day.  This is to put the practitioner more closely in tune with nature (and dog poops for those with their gaze fixed lovingly on the sun.) 

The colors of the sun are believed to heal/improve specific areas of the body.  Green light goes directly to your liver where it cures whatever might be wrong with that.  Since the French as a nation are obsessed with the state of their liver, a  crise de foie or liver crisis is blamed for car wrecks, mass shootings, and for all I know infertility.  Thus I am surprised not to find whole café terraces filled with people sitting quietly with sun reflectors up to their faces, greedily "drinking in" the sun.   Maybe we didn't pass the right cafes or were on the wrong street. 

Red deals with your kidneys and yellow goes to the heart. 

Interested readers asked questions - If I eat too much sun will I get a sunburned stomach if I vomit?  Does this diet work if I'm wearing sunscreen?  What if you live in a cloudy climate like San Fancisco or Seattle? 

Delusional practitioners (every one of them) claim not to have eaten or drunk water for incredible periods of time - three years here, nine years there ... I think that the claimants, if they are sincere, would agree to have the toilets removed from their homes.  They aren't (supposedly) using them ...so they wouldn't need or miss them, right?

Comparative Sentences OR Justice Is At Least Near-Sighted

Two cases, two rapists - what will the verdicts be?

Roman Polanski, born 1933, age 83.
Crime committed:  1977, age 44, rape of a minor age 13 with collusion of child's mother
Number of victims:  one who is quoted, "He owes me nothing."
Punishment so far, banishment from USA for past 40 years.

Bill Cosby, born 1937, age 79
Crimes committed from '60s, age 30 +/- use of a date rape drug, sexual battery, child sex abuse, sexual misconduct, three felony counts
Number of victims:  60+
Punishment so far, payment of $1 million bail.

Maybe Not Something You'd Consider Eating ...

But presented for your consideration anyhow.  One of my many bad habits is the enjoyment I get from reading a good book (no others need apply) and eating little tidbits of this'n that.  Recent discoveries:

A bag of carrots - the little ones which are the trimmed part of the carrot that left the dirt last.  One whack, splitting them, then  into the saucepan, cook and drain and toss in a tablespoon of honey.  Not a snack. 

How about a container of bar cheese, in this case, cheddar and jalapeno?  Great dip!  And by using carrots instead of Evil, Fattening Salty Chips, you are getting roughage and vitamin C.
 
Carambazola cheese is a wonderful blend of Brie and Bleu, creamy, slightly salty with that ineffable bleu flavor.  Good with baby pippin apples ($3/lb!) or dried apricots. 

Peach Bellini jam is made with peaches and sparkling prosecco (cooking boils out any alcohol) and is wonderful on a well-toasted English muffin.  It's also good like this:

sea scallops, muscle removed and fed to our cat Streak
Butter to saute
Strip of pre-cooked bacon, nuked (20 seconds here) and crumbled
Jar of Peach Bellini jam

Cook the scallops, slather with jam, dust with bacon chunks.  Eat.

Let it also be noted that cooking the dish this way instead of in the oven for frozen packages of bacon-wrapped scallops is not nearly as messy.  In fact it isn't messy at all.  In store-bought bacon-wrapped, the bacon deposits grease, and burns and using aluminum foil is the only way to deal with the mess after cooking them.

Tying One On

Richie is a great fan of British police dramas.  The other evening while watching George Gently I saw a necktie on a character that looked very much like Fred's collar, Fred being our tuxedo cat.

His is a regimental stripe tie with alternating red and blue stripes with a yellow stripe thrown in for variety every now and then.  Very smart he looks in it, too.  I take it off every night and put it back on every morning because during the night, who knows what cats get up to, but one activity re-occurs with nagging regularity.  Went to bed in a collar; woke up without it.  We pretend he's going to the office when he's wearing his "tie."

But as I stared at the TV character's tie, I began to wonder where did neckties come from and when?

To my utter amazement, there are a great many things you can find out about a very ordinary clothing item. 

When did someone get the bright idea of tying a piece of cloth around their necks?  Why that would be during the 30 Years War in the 13th century when Louis 13 hired Croatian mercenaries to fight on his side and it was a custom of theirs quite probably as a form of identification. 

Another story is that women would tie a scarf around their soldier's neck as a sign of ownership.  This may have stemmed from the Camelot times when a lance contestant would wear His Lady's Scarf tied to the lance indicating the knight was protecting that lady.  . 

In WW2, due to silk and other fabric shortages, ties grew narrower to use less material. 

Many men are anti-tie and one bitter commentator wrote, "Did we learn nothing from the women's movement?"

Other commentators were anti-tie because it can so easily be used against the wearer as a weapon.  Every time I've ever seen a long-haired police woman with a pony tail, I've thought, "You're giving the bad guys a handle ..." 

After a parade of ascots, bow ties, Windsor knots and more, there is a new product on the market.  It is called a SHORTTI and it appears to be a normal neck tie until about four inches below the knot.  There the tie has been cut into a sort of V-shape that makes it look as if the tail of the tie has been tucked inside the shirt front.  Whether or not it will become the latest must-have of the fashion industry remains to be seen.  I'm not holding my breath.

They Don't Wear Dresses Here!

This afternoon (Sunday, 6-11-170 is the monthly South Bay New Orleans Jazz Club's live music fiesta and I was mulling over which of my outfits I would wear to dazzle them.  And as I mentally flicked idly through the hangars in my closet, I suddenly realized something.

The jazz club is the only place I ever see women wearing dresses.  Granted we never go to church unless it's a wedding, christening or funeral so regular attendees could be wearing dresses every Sunday and we wouldn't know anything about it.

But in the course of daily life - supermarket, library, doctor/dentist appointments, French lessons, Thurs. Writers - there is only a sea of pants, yoga pants, tights, shorts ... nary a skirt to be seen. 

Is this a nationwide thing or merely beach-local?  Is there a reason for it?  Are dresses really that uncomfortable?  Write if you know ... this column always welcomes knowledge and/or information. 

Beach Read

Not that we here in Redondo have any reason to go to the beach ... we are now in the season known not-so-fondly as June Gloom.  Since this period is a well-established situation, any climate change zealots reading this, cool your jets. 

When our summer does come though, this struck me as a particularly good beach read.
 "Jackie's Girl - My Life With the Kennedy Family," by Kathy McKeon 309 pages   $26

McKeon came to America from Ireland in 1964.  She and her older sister were sent to an aunt and uncle who had established a beach head in NY.  Through a family connection,  she got the job as personal assistant to Ms. Kennedy (as she was then.)   Later on her duties included babysitting the children Caroline and John.  Her service lasted for 13 years and thus she was able to see the young Kennedys growing up.

What she did for Madam (she was told to address her as such) was pretty much lady's maid - sort the clothes, lay out the outfits complete with shoes, purse and matching underwear.    The shoes hit McKeon's lust button - pairs and pairs of them, all with an "x" incised on the shoe sole so that Madam wouldn't slip on the marble floors.  One shoe always had a 1/4 in. lift.

McKeon was by no means alone in her service.  In addition to Maud, the children's long-time governess and McKeon, Madam also employed May, the waitress, a series of cooks/chefs and Charlie who cleaned the six bathrooms, polished the floors and the heavier work.  McKeon says that because most of them were Irish (Provi whom McKeon replaced was Puerto Rican) and as the Irish are said to do, fought all of the time complete with running to Madam, little tricks on one another to make the recipient look bad.  Altogether a lively household. 

Of equal interest to me was the home from which McKeon came.  They had no electricity and no running water.  In the early '60s!  It's a brief section of the whole, but nonetheless interesting for a contrast in life styles.  

Wino Alert!

Tomorrow - Saturday - is National Rose Day.  And if this laptop was smarter, it would have added the little funny mark over the "e" in rose.  Or if I were smarter, I'd have figured out how to do it.  We are dealing with rose-a  today.  We're all clear on that,  right?

Special products have been created to mark this auspicious occasion.  As listed in the Daily Mail:

Rose-infused white chocolate bar $9.95 but it looked to be a good size, not one of those little mini-bars.

Rose donuts - $3.50 each  For that much for a donut, I think I'd rather buy a nice glass of icy cold rose.

Rose lollipops - they cheat and add fruit juices - 10 for $35.  But they are wrapped in gold foil.

Rose cupcakes - the cupcake is soaked in rose and frosted with strawberry cream cheese frosting.  $3 each.

A different rose ...

Not to be outshone by the above (located mainly in Manhattan) Redondo Beach has a source for rose water and rose ice cream and that is the Artesia Produce and Meat Market, at 2322 Artesia, Redondo Beach.  It used to be Sam's Int'l Market and it hasn't changed a bit except for the addition of a weekend open pit barbecue out front selling tacos and quesadillas.  The guacamole and hand-made salsa are back in the (refrigerated) meat department every day. 

Many of the canned goods have Arabic script writing on them.  This is very exotic if you are a person who grew up in Kansas City, MO, where the only French-fried shrimp we ever saw came out of a box.  Because they were frozen.  Downtown had a very popular Italian restaurant which did a landslide business because no one had ever seen spaghetti and meatballs.

Back to the market.  I noticed most of a shelf of bottles marked rose water (the flower) and I asked the cashier about them.  She told me that Arabic women consider it a beauty treatment and splash their clean faces with it.

I didn't need any explanation for the Rose Ice Cream.  Out of sheer curiosity I bought a pint of it.  It was rich, creamy and tasted like vanilla which is not a bad thing, but it is not the same flavor as, say, chewing a handful of rose petals.   And if you own the rose bush, considerably cheaper. 

I must have been prescient because last week, long before I'd ever heard of National Rose Day, I bought a bottle at Trader Joe's.  it can loll in the refrigerator the rest of today and through the night and it will be properly chilled tomorrow.  Rose on high-fiber cereal do you think? 

An Unlikely Birthday Party ...

After a quick skim of  the headlines and either a few disbelieving snorts or else a frown, I turn to Today's Birthdays.  Many mornings I am somewhat surprised to see that so-and-so is still on our side of the grass.  Without having given the person much, if any, thought - there is the reminder.  I often have a kind of guilty feeling for having not paid attention and just assumed the worst .

  Such was the case with today's list, namely Jerry Stiller who turned 90.  He's Ben Stiller's Dad.  He and Ben's mother Anne Meara, who died in 2015 age 85,  were a famous comedy duo back in the day and if he's 90 today, it was some days ago.

Much better know and certainly much more visible is Barbara Bush who is 92 today.  Husband George H.W. will be 93 next Monday.  Both have been in and out of the hospital for some time, which was always reported in the media.  Given today's media attitude, it may have been wishful thinking on the part of such as CNN, the NY and LA Times or the Washington Post that they could finally run the obits they had been feverishly clinging to, for a long time. 

Nancy Sinatra, 77, and Boz Scaggs, 73, might favor the crowd with a musical number or two.

Scott Adams is 60 today.  Don't recognize the name?  He's the cartoonist and hero of the cubicle crowd who creates "Dilbert."

The person that is truly deserving of our best birthday wishes is former U.S. Rep, Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona who is a hard-fought 47 today.  Being shot in the head can really slow down the aging process.

Carbon Dioxide Emmissions

Citing a June, 2016, Forbes report:

The US leads the world in reducing carbon emissions for the most recent five and 10 year periods. 

The US is down 270 million tons, followed by #2 the UK with 93 million tons for the past five years.

Conversely, China leads the world in carbon emission production accounting for 1.1 billion tons and India #2 with 540 million.

Paris Accord my sweet patootie. Let all of the "world leaders" who jetted in for this exercise in futility try riding a donkey next time.  Word of advice to them - start early.  Donkeys aren't what they used to be.

1921 Doings

My cousin Bill, down in South Texas, will be 96 on June 30th.  Naturally there is a party planned.  You don't go empty-handed to a birthday (usually) but what do you give a man 96 years old?!  Surely, he has plenty of "stuff"? 

I looked up June 30, 1921, but nothing appealed.  When I widened the search to June, 1921, I found better stuff than limiting it to one day.

The Southwark Bridge, London, was dedicated by King George V and Queen Mary.

Brazil adopted women's suffrage.

There was a race riot in Tulsa, OK, that killed 21 whites and 60 blacks.  I thought race riots were a '60s-'70s thing ...

Bessie Coleman reached France.  She covered a number of firsts - first black woman, first Native American, first woman - to have earned a US pilot's license.  In 2013, she was listed as  #14 on Flying magazine's 51 Heroes of Aviation.

She was born in 1892 as the 10th of 13 children.  Early on, she was fascinated by flying and worked two jobs to get the money for flying lessons which were denied her in America.  So she went to France where she was allowed to train. 

On her return, she performed in aerial circuses, but she was dead at 36.  Prior to an air circus she and her mechanic and PR man, William Wills,  took her plane up because she intended to do a parachute jump from it the next day and wanted to see her route to get out of the cockpit.  For that reason, she wasn't wearing  seat belt when the plane (which had been having mechanical difficulties) suddenly went into a dive, spun and ejected her.  She fell 2,000 ft. and died instantly on impact.  Wills was unable to control the plane which crashed and killed him, too.

Looking for one thing is so often the start of learning something new that you had never considered or heard of before. 

Man the Barricades, London!

London has a number of bridges, many of which are tourist "must sees" and probably "must have selfie."

They also carry cars and trucks not only for transportation of goods, but as people movers. 

They are vulnerable to attack.

Twice people have gotten killed on or very near them. 

How can they be defended?  Water-filled temporary barriers. 

Now is the time to install them and separate vehicular and pedestrian traffic.  They are portable, practical and quick to install.  I can understand why the British might look tardy in their protection efforts after the fact, but who could possibly have guessed that IS would target a second bridge?  Obviously, they did.

If traffic across the bridges is disrupted for a couple of days for installation, stiff upper lip, and be grateful such defenses exist.   

Incidentally these water-filled barriers are not expensive - a California firm offers 32" x 72" for $249.95.

Well, That Didn't Last Long

Yesterday Scumderella apologized seemingly sincerely - or as sincerely as an entertainer ever gets -for her low rent sad attempt at an imitation of those Bible greats Salome and John the Baptist.

Today I read that she and her lawyer - ever notice how quickly the celebs (and I use that word sarcastically) lawyer up? will be holding a press conference to moan and gnash their collective bridgework that the Trump family is bullying Scumderella!  O horrors!  Scumderella?  The 56 year old little daisy?  This is just not to be borne!

Scumderella's lawyer is one Lisa Bloom, the daughter of Gloria Allred.  Water and scum clearly seek their own level. 

10 a.m.  The radio news on the hour interrupted themselves to broadcast live a press conference with Lisa Bloom and Scumderella.  More nerve than a government mule.  Beyond disgusting - the whole affair.  We didn't listen; Richie clicked it off instantly.

Since, Hopefully, We Won't Be Seeing Her Again ...

Kathy Griffin, age 56,  became an ordained minister in the Universal One Church, of Carrabelle, FL in 2008.

Her father was 91 when he died.

She married Matt Moline in 2001; they divorced in 2006. 

Her Bel Air neighbors are Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

After the first New Year's Eve ball drop, Manhattan, we forever after watched it with the sound muted.  Her vulgarity was stupendous which is, I suppose, something of a compliment.  It was not intended as such.

The best that could be said of her is that she (however temporarily) united both parties against her tasteless and decidedly UN funny decapitation of a sitting President of the United States.  Her work is done.  Now she can retire.  CNN has already started the process.