I Didn’t Know There Was That Kind of Money In Being A Psychic 

    In Boston a psychic, or so she calls herself, got a woman to pay her $3.5 million. For what? She claims that she cleansed this woman of her demons. This happened over a seven-year period. The demon possessed woman was 70 years old when this psychic got her hands on her. So, what sounded like a big paycheck works out to be only $500 per year.
    However, I’m guessing that the psychic had other jobs going on at the same time so it wasn’t like she was going without food or anything. 
    We have no record if the woman feels any better for the treatments, or if the demons are really gone or she has just learned to live with them. They can’t be much worse than this psychic. 
    Now the psychic is in trouble for guess what? Nothing to do with scamming this poor woman out of $3.5 million, but with none other than the IRS. They are taking exception to the fact that she didn’t declare this income. If convicted she could be incarcerated for up to three years. That’s a little over $1 million per year. Who says crime doesn’t pay. 
    Evidently, this psychic didn’t see this coming.

A New Form of Entertainment? Maybe 

    Or then again, it could be a new competitive event, although it might take a while for it to reach Olympic status. What I’m talking about is dropping live turkeys from low flying aircraft. Like in Yellville, Arkansas. It seems the FDA is checking to see if any laws were violated in connection with the annual Yellville Turkey Trot which has included dropping live turkeys onto the festivities below for the past fifty years.
    Why? You ask. The reporter didn’t think we would be interested, so we’ll just have to imagine. 
    What could be the fascination with turkeys falling from the sky? After all, they are able to fly, unless the Turkey Trot officials have clipped their wings or some such, which would just be cruel. But this is Arkansas after all. So, if anyone out there can conjure up a good reason for this tradition, please enlighten me. Thank you.

 His Mother Would Be So Proud of Him 

    In New York a restaurant owner came to work to find that someone had cleaned out the register during the night. Not only that, but after watching the security video, the owner saw that the intruder had also cooked a meal and washed the dishes. 
    The burglar had donned food-service gloves and while a pot was heating, he broke into the register, after which he left a dollar in the tip jar. 
    He cooked up beans, chicken, and shrimp. After eating, he covered and refrigerated the leftover food, then wiped the food-prep surfaces and left. Like I said, what mother wouldn’t be proud of a son who showed these kitchen skills, and the thoughtfulness to clean up after himself---and actually do the dishes. When they catch this guy, I wouldn’t be surprised if the restaurant owner hires him.

But They Keep Trying 

    In my previous blog, I addressed my aversion to eating members of the Cucurbitaceae family, namely squash, pumpkin, or zucchini. During my lifetime, I’ve had countless cooks take up my aversion as a personal challenge to their cooking ability. Why my aversion should bother them so much I can’t explain, but it happens. One of these was my own mother. 
    These cooks go to great lengths to explain that how they fix one of the gourds will make my mouth water in anticipation, and instantly cure me of my aversion. These conversations will go something like this: “Eldon, first I take the zucchini and slice it real thin. Then I marinate it overnight in bourbon/goat’s milk/spring water from West Virginia,” or anything else each cook can think up that makes her dish unique. 
    Then she’ll continue. “Now comes the good part. I brush melted butter on both sides of the slice of zucchini, put enough salt and pepper on it to put your taste buds into shock, then dip it in bread crumbs from the crust of a loaf of Fisherman’s Wharf Sourdough bread, after which I deep fry this abused piece of zucchini in boiling specially distilled safflower oil until it is crispy. If you eat it hot, you’ll never even know it’s a piece of zucchini.” Then this cook will look at me like I’m supposed to fall over in a swoon at the thought of eating this gourmet treat. Then I say, “But Ma’am, you lost me there when you said, “you’ll never even know it’s a piece of zucchini.” 
    Another gamut is for one of these gourd pushers to say, “Eldon, I’ve made this pie out an unsuspecting pumpkin. First, I made this delicious pastry crust. It’s so light I had to use weights to hold it in the pie plate until I could pour in the pumpkin mixture, which is made up of boiled pumpkin, enough sugar to energize a room full of third graders, plus some spices, (and here they will list stuff I never heard of or really care about) and it hardly tastes like pumpkin at all.” 
    My first question is, if pumpkin is so great why go to such lengths to disguise it?
    Another question: if you don’t want it to taste like pumpkin why not just make a pecan pie to start with? 
    But pumpkin pie has another drawback and that is the texture. Now if I could just eat the crust, with plenty of butter on it, and maybe some jam, I’d be a happy camper, but that filling has the texture of---well---ah, it’s almost as bad as pudding. Ack! AND IT STILL TASTES LIKE PUMPKIN! 
    As these cooks regale me with their conversion efforts, in my mind I’m saying, anything that has be to that well disguised to make it palatable has a problem to begin with.
  

It’s Finally Happened 

    All my life I’ve claimed that members of the Cucurbitaceae, or the gourd family if you’re speaking English, are hazardous to my health. And finally, I have corroboration to my theory. 
    I’m talking specifically about pumpkins, squashes of all kinds, zucchinis, and a few other things to be named later. 
    This aversion to Cucurbitaceae comes from the following circumstance, and here I’m depending on the memories of my siblings, and a few comments I remember my parents making on the subject. My family moved from the Portland, Oregon, area up to Sequim, Washington, in the mid-30s. That’s 1930s. They settled on forty acres of prime land. How did they know it was prime? Because it was completely covered with all manner of very healthy trees and brush. So much so that they had to clear a patch of land just so they could build a house. 
    While the house building was going on they also planted a garden so they would have something to eat in the future. As time went on they found that the thing that the garden was very good at growing was squash. For the first couple of years things were tough to the point that one winter the family lived mostly on squash. Luckily, and for some odd reason the rest of the family loves squash. Go figure. In the middle of this great adventure of establishing themselves in this wilderness, I came along. I’m eight years younger than my next oldest sibling, a sister to be exact. So I’ve gathered that my arrival was as much of a surprise to the family as was their predicament of having to survive by eating primarily squash for a whole winter.
    So, there I was, a nursing baby, while my mother was living on squash. See where I’m going with this? I evidently got very tired of squash flavored mother’s milk, even though it seems to have given me a good healthy start in life. So, to this day I would rather eat almost anything other than a member of the Cucurbitaceae family. 
   
    Now for the corroboration - - - 

    Recently in Baltimore a noxious smell permeated a school causing it to be evacuated, the fire department called, and a hazardous materials response team brought in. Five people were taken to the hospital complaining of upset stomachs and/or problems with their breathing. 
    After some investigation what did these professionals find? A pumpkin spice aerosol plugged into an outlet in one of the classrooms. I rest my case.