I was driving home from the supermarket when I dreamed up an amusing April Fool’s joke to play on my husband. The day before he had sweat through an entire Saturday planting annuals along the path leading to our front door. And April Fool’s Day was right around the corner.

The day finally arrived. I strolled along our walkway after work and entered the house. My husband was sitting on the sofa sipping a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. I cleared my throat and said, “What happened to all your beautiful flowers?”

“What do you mean, what happened to my flowers?”

I put on a super-duper gloomy face and replied, “Well, they’re all sort of drooping and dying.”

He threw the paper aside and hurried out the door with me trailing close behind.

When we were both standing looking down at his still-blooming flowers, a real explosion of color, I clapped my hands and shouted, “April Fool’s.”

My husband turned and stared at me. He didn’t think it was funny.

(I still say it was a great April Fool’s joke.)

1. If you’re on-the-go, grab one of those six packs of crackers. I like Lance brand the best and most of them are only 130 calories.
2. Since summer is right around the corner, I like to eat cantaloupe and cottage cheese.
3. Any other time of the year, you can eat one of those Cottage Doubles that Breakstone sells in the dairy section of your supermarket. They’re only 100 calories. I spread the mixture on 3 or 4 saltines or graham crackers.
4. I also like peanut butter and sliced banana on rice cakes or whole wheat toast, but remember if you’re trying to keep your fruit per day down to 2, then a whole banana counts as 2 fruit. Your daily intake is done for the day, but if you like peanuts and bananas, it’s worth it.
5. 1/2 large bagel (or a small one that you can find in the supermarket freezer) with cream cheese. Go for a little zing and use some fruity cream cheese. I love the strawberry. Plus this is a pretty filling breakfast. Or you can forget the traditional cream cheese and exchange it for a slice of Swiss cheese and warm it in a toaster oven.
6. Another good idea is to keep frozen fruit in your freezer i.e. blueberries, bing cherries, pineapples. Throw a couple of them into a packet of Instant Quaker Oatmeal, add water and microwave. You’ll be surprised how wonderful oatmeal tastes with plump cherries. Try a different fruit each morning. It’s addictive.
7. On the weekend, when you have a little more time, spoil yourself and prepare an egg, some turkey sausage and a slice of toast.
8. My one last suggestion to you is to keep a supply of fresh vegetables in your freezer. They’re every bit as important to have as the fruit. I always have chopped onions, scallions, bell peppers and chives in my freezer. I chop them when I bring them home from the supermarket. The beauty of having them handy is, you can whip up a really great breakfast with them. Scramble 1 large egg and 1 egg white with any or all of the above veggies mentioned. Serve over a toasted English Muffin or bread of your choice. You won’t feel deprived at all.

Each of the breakfasts above can be topped off with a cup of tea or coffee. Personally, I forego fruit juice because I don’t like to drink my calories, but if that’s your passion, go for it. Just remember if you have apple juice in the morning, you can’t have that apple in the afternoon.

The other thing you’ll find missing from my list is cold cereal. That’s because I like all the “wrong” kinds of cereals–all those sugary flakes and stuff like that. My best defense is to leave them on the shelves at the supermarket.

My final word of caution–if you’d prefer to grab a granola bar in the morning, check the calories. Some of them are deadly.

We tend to take really good care of our faces, but we neglect our hands. Facial products are big business, as well they should be, because it’s important to put your best face forward. But every bit as important are your hands.

I encourage you to buy hand cream and not the cheapest brand you can find. Invest in a good, creamy product, not a watery lotion that will do nothing except make your hands feel sticky. Rub in some cream every evening. It’s never too late to start making this a nightly habit.

And while you’re at it, be kind to your feet. Every once in a while, slather some of that cream onto your feet. Wear socks to bed that night to insure that the cream doesn’t rub off. Trust me, you will never have hard, rough feet if you treat them to a little loving care. It only takes a minute–if that.

When I think of “Runway,” I think of glamor and extraordinary fashion. I want to see some gowns and cocktail dresses coming down the runway, not tailored pants and jackets constantly. What fun is there in that?

The avant-garde challenge should have been evening wear.

There should be a different red carpet challenge every season. Let’s see the difference between a Grammy Awards red carpet as opposed to what we might see on Oscar night.

With so many Hollywood-type events to choose from, the best they could come up with was the Nina Garcia challenge? I have never seen Nina wear anything electrifying, and why in the world would I want to see her in clothes she would wear to work?

And the challenges themselves are getting old and stale. Okay, making a garment from stuff you can buy in a pet store was fun the first couple of times, but come-on! And then to put one designer down for using umbrella material, while rewarding the designer using fleece wasn’t even a fair assessment of the project, especially when the guy who made a dress out of birdseed was the clear winner.

And by the way, the bully in the playroom should’ve been kicked off the show, not one of his victims. But, oops, I forgot–the ratings. Maybe people are looking forward to more hysterics and mood swings. I, for one, would like to see more “out of the box” design and less drama.

photo from

Every year, it gets harder and harder to find an awful looking, ugly tomato–the ones that are grown to taste good, not to look good.

photo from

If you’re lucky enough to find one, don’t expect it to be bright red. Sometimes they’re more orange. And don’t bother to look for a perfect stem sticking out of its misshapen body, because there probably isn’t one.

If you’ve ever bent over and picked a tomato direct from the plant, you’ll know the minute you hold this ugly baby in the palm of your hand that it’s been sun-drenched and grown outside and maybe it hasn’t even been sprayed with “who knows what.”

So, the next time you pass the tomatoes in your supermarket, try to figure out why you don’t see those hideous looking tomatoes in the store anymore. Are we so enamored of beauty that our food has to look gorgeous, while real taste suffers?

Oh, well. Pretty is “in.”  So, I won’t even get started on our pretty, pretty red beef, or our pearly white eggs, or …

]]> http://francesellenspeaks.com/2011/08/11/tomato-tomahto/feed/ 0 http://francesellenspeaks.com/2011/07/11/space-the-end-of-an-era/ http://francesellenspeaks.com/2011/07/11/space-the-end-of-an-era/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:57:19 +0000 Frances Ellen http://francesellenspeaks.com/?p=1267

NASA Photo

Rockets!   Shuttles!   They were glorious. They were exciting.

First manned flight. First man on the moon. Maybe some day first woman on Mars.

If you’re old enough, you’ll recall Sputnik, the first Russian satellite to be put into orbit back in 1957. Sputnik’s launch started the Space Age Race.

Sputnik

We’ve come a long way since ’57. Space was all the rage back then. I remember my prom’s theme was Starlight Melody. I was in charge of creating little sputniks, which we hung high from the ceiling surrounded by yards and yards of blue tulle. We danced under the stars, the skies, the moon and those tiny, glittering sputniks. Fun times.

Over–for now.

On to new heights!

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered… I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies… The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” – Thomas Jefferson

His show didn’t begin with an announcer’s usual warnings, “There will be no flash pictures allowed during the show” and “Turn off all cell phones.”  Once the show started, I understood why. Because if a cell phone rang, no one would’ve heard it anyway.

Only one prior statement was made–”Chubby will be available in the lobby after the show to sign autographs and say hello.”

Then his band walked out, took their places and the sax player walked up to the mic and simply said, “Chubby Checker.”

Chubby walked out onto the stage and proceeded to sing non-stop for an hour and a half. He embraced the audience and they embraced him back.

By the mid-point of his concert, it became obvious he needed no back-up singers or performers, because his audience filled the bill. People were dancing in the aisles, standing at their seats dancing and those who couldn’t get out of their seats were dancing in their seats.

Whenever he sang a song that came complete with its own dance, he’d shout, “If you know how to do the Pony, come on up.” People of all ages went up to the stage and danced. At one point, he had over 20 women onstage teaching them how to do the Fly. Toward the end of the show, he had 20+ men on stage doing the Twist.

He encouraged people to sing and since everyone in that audience knew the lyrics, everyone in that audience sang. He didn’t just perform his own songs, he sang songs that were well-loved in the 60′s. Songs by Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, Bill Haley, and so many more I couldn’t keep track.  He sang Blue Suede Shoes and he didn’t massacre it. He did Elvis proud.

At other concerts I’ve attended, when a recognizable song is about to begin, there is a hushed sort of “ahhh” that permeates the audience. At this concert, every time Chubby started to sing, people screamed their approval.

Senior teenagers! It was a night to reminisce, to do things we hadn’t done in many years. Some folks who climbed up on stage had to be helped up the steps. In one case, a man actually used a cane to get up on stage to join the rest of the guys.

Inhibitions be damned! Everyone was a kid again.

Many people stayed to talk to Chubby after the show and get his autograph. Some held old 33 1/3 record albums for him to autograph. Others just wanted to tell him what he meant to them when they were growing up.

I was there well over an hour and there were still people waiting to talk to him. They took pictures of him with their cell phones. He was gracious, never rushed anyone, and he signed every autograph requested.

It was a party!

Maybe it means old people feel they are entitled to receive money from the government after they reach a certain age.

Or maybe it means after people work their entire lives and contribute money to Social Security and Medicare that they are entitled to receive some of their money back after they retire.

Either way, where do these old folks think all this moolah is coming from? Can the federal budget be balanced while these freeloaders siphon off tons of cash from the government?

Here are the facts. Read carefully so this sinks in.

Social Security is NOT part of the budget. It sits in a fund that was set up when Social Security was created. (That is unless the government hasn’t misappropriated the money to use for other purposes. I remain hopeful that hasn’t happened, but maybe I’m an optimist.)

According to Paul Owens writing in the Orlando Sentinel on May 6, 2011 … Congress has been raiding the Social Security trust fund for years… To read his entire article go to Orlando Opinionators.

Over the years, Social Security has collected more money than it has paid out. The surplus funds have been invested in U.S. Guaranteed Treasury Bonds. AARP states that in 2009, the trust fund had $2.5 trillion in bonds, earning 4.9 percent interest.

Perhaps the finger-pointing should be aimed at Congress — not at Entitlements.

Remember the lollipops that didn’t come with a stick? Instead they had a loop of something or other so you could fit your fingers through it. I got ‘em.

How about the coconut watermelon slices? Uh-huh!

Do you remember those wonderful wax bottles? I loved them. But no, I held myself back and didn’t order those.

Here’s what else I got:

Marshmallow Ice Cream Cones, Candy Lipsticks (they tasted sooooo gooood), Chocolate Gold Coins, Anise Bears, Turkish Taffy, Atomic Fire Balls.

I should’ve bought some Candy Buttons. Maybe next time.

Now all I have to do is wait for my package to arrive. You’re jealous, aren’t you?