C is for Cookie

Dreams can sometimes come true. Usually they do not. However, this past week I dreamed that the Girl Scouts implemented several new kinds of cookies for their fund raiser. Now, maybe I saw an ad somewhere along my wanderings about this. It's rare for me to pay attention to ads, but who knows what my subconscious does when I'm not looking. But yes, the Girl Scouts do have several new kinds of cookies they added a few years ago, although two of them (Toast-Yay! and S’mores) will not be returning after this year. So order yours now and support a good cause.

2025 cookie flavors

•     Adventurefuls: brownie-inspired cookies topped with caramel flavored crème
•     Caramel Chocolate Chip
•     Caramel deLites/Samoas: Crisp cookies with caramel, coconut and chocolaty stripes
•     Do-si-dos/Peanut Butter Sandwich: Crunchy oatmeal sandwich cookies with peanut butter filling
•     Girl Scout S'mores: Crunch graham sandwich cookies with chocolate and marshmallow filling
•     Lemonades: Savory shortbread cookies topped with lemon-flavored icing
•     Lemon-Ups: Crispy lemon cookies with inspiring messages
•     Peanut Butter Patties/Tagalongs: Crispy cookies layered with peanut butter, covered with a chocolate coating
•     Thin Mints
•     Toast-Yay!: Toast-shaped cookies full of French toast flavor dipped in icing
•     Toffee-tastic: Rich, buttery cookies with crunchy toffee bits
•     Trefoils: Shortbread cookies 

 

 

He rocks in the treetop all day long

My mother has informed me that twice in the past week she has seen a bunch of robins, once in someone else's yard and the second time in her own. So spring must be around the corner, right? Well, the internet seems to have squashed that old wives tale. Maybe. Apparently American Robins stick around throughout the winter but aren't seen unless you're in the right place to see them. Their diet changes from the earthworms to berries so they move location to forests and wooded areas rather than your yard. When they return to yards, it means they are once again able to search for food there, so the earth is no longer frozen. Which sure sounds like a sign of spring to me.

 

Where everything flows

Last month conceptual artist Rutherford Chang sadly passed away. This was brought to my attention via the music world because he spent many years collecting the numbered editions of The Beatles White Album and sometimes displaying them as a form of art. In addition to collecting the albums, he also listened to it every day, which is an impressive feat. I bought a non-numbered White Album in the mid 70's and played it a lot, trying to like it more than I could. While there are many good songs on there, let's face it, there are also some clunkers. Where his collection IMO gets really interesting is when previous owners decided to create their own cover art or just doodled on it. I confess to having little to no imagination and am not very artistic as this never occurred to me to do. Some of the albums he obtained now have wonderful cover art. I hope this labor of love he worked on has or will be kept together and continued. 

Hanging on in quiet desperation

 Movie: Here. Reuniting Tom Hanks and Robin Wright after all these years. Based on a 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, the film stays on one piece of land (eventually house) throughout until the very end. That they used an AI technology called Metaphysic Live to digitally de-age the actors is disappointing but the alternative of using other actors who could not match the excellence of Hanks and Wright would never have worked. The plots proved mundane, but that is a huge part of real life and perhaps what they intended to show. We're born and we have dreams that are squashed in favor of hard work, a little love and in the end, we lose it all. So, yeah, a little depressing but I stayed awake and did appreciate the acting.

Not ready for prime time

 Movie: Saturday Night. Details the moments leading up to the first episode of the now 50 year and still running sketch comedy show SNL. Before there was the phrase water cooler talk, this was the show us kids at school in 1975 asked our friends first thing Monday morning if they had seen. It was new, edgy and hysterically funny. The movie about it isn't those things, but it is insightful. The cinematography makes you feel like you were there, experiencing the nerves, worries and uncertainty that the show would ever air, much less be one that would end up so iconic and long-lasting. I didn't recognize any of the actors. They did a good job, especially with the voices. I wish the three girls had more air time. (Kudos to Curtain and Newman for bringing Radner's photograph to the 50th anniversary show on Saturday.) Recommended to any SNL fan. While there have been so many great comedians on that show, the originals stole our hearts and stay there forever. 

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

I happened to stumble upon the live stream of Punxsutawney Phil's prediction on Sunday morning just as he was being encouraged out of his hibernating hole. Not surprisingly, Pennsylvania's favorite groundhog says there will be six more weeks on winter. Well, this is not really a disappointment. We here in the north should be so lucky to have only six more weeks. And if you look at the calendar, six weeks from February 2 is March 16. The first official day of Spring this year is March 20. So, according to Phil, we will have spring 4 days early. Sounds good.

I started to wonder why on earth anyone would think a groundhog could predict spring. From Wikipedia, I learned that way back when (year not stated) in Germany, if a hedgehog saw its shadow on February 2, it meant six more weeks of cold, wintry weather. German immigrants in Pennsylvania brought their tradition or superstition with them, transferring the power of weather prediction from hedgehogs to groundhogs. The really strange part of the current festivities is not the top hats and tuxedos. It's the head of the "Inner Circle" who supposedly receives Phil's message in something called "groundhogese." So it has nothing to do with seeing a shadow. It has more to do with one guy's whims? Feel free to correct me if I've misunderstood this.