Cutback on heavy metal consumption

 

Hayter for Jan 8, 2023

Suggestions from the February issue of Consumer Reports

          Here it is the first week of January and I just got my February issue of “Consumer Reports”. Those people are way ahead of me. I’ve yet to read the April 2022 issue.

          I don’t mind supporting Consumer Reports because they have directed me to some very good buys. And a few stinkers. For instance, The 1977 issue of Consumer Report assured me that the ’78 Plymouth Horizon was the car of the year. I’m assuming second place went to the Yugo.

          I consider that a message to Mark: “Do not buy a product that has yet to be placed on the market. Wait for reviews, you gooberhead!” I often apply very little patience on important stuff.

In this day and age, people are buying automobiles and trucks that have yet to be made. Electric vehicles are being purchased while they’re still in the planning stage. Me? I’ve learned my lesson.

          So, in 2023 I’m going to spend a little more time researching stuff. That’s why I pulled Consumer Reports January mail-out of the February edition. I must keep in mind that a lot of the information might change by the time February gets here.

          What say, we start with butter? –Hey, work with me, will ya? – Butter is expensive nowadays, so I go strictly by the price tag. My favorite brand of butter is Hill Country Fare. I don’t know why they spelled “Fair” wrong. – (I jest)

I like Hill Country Fare because it’s usually cheaper than the other brands. “Cheapness” is an important qualifier for a majority of my purchases. Even though HCF was not in the run for Consumer Reports “Top 11” butter brands, it remains number one for me… unless they raise the price a quarter.

Of the top 11 brands, I only recognize one -- Land of Lakes. It came in fifth. The judge(s) said it was greasy and hard to spread. Call me crazy, but I’ve found that if you keep butter at room temperature it’s much easier to spread.

The Numero Uno butter on the planet is Finlandia. It’s made in North Yemen—I mean Finland. I get ‘em mixed up. Finnish butter is “silky and has a glassy sheen”. It spreads like butter and is made from grass-fed cows. They may have meant that it was made from the milk of grass-fed cows, not the cow itself. I don’t know what Hill Country Fare cows eat, but whatever it is, it doesn’t do much for the silkiness of the spread. And you know somethin’? I don’t give a rat’s rump

          Having eaten too much butter, here’s some info on exercise bikes. Those things are for people who want to inflict more pain on themselves during their longer lives. I’m sadly in favor of a shorter life with less pain, so let’s move along.

          Mattresses? I’m not yet ready for a new mattress, but for your sake I’ll share what’s here. CR rated Avocado Green the best mattress. Yes, the mattress is named after a color and runs for a mere $1900. The cheapest mattress is only $200 and is named “Yellow Spot”.

          Oh, no! It was bound to happen. Here’s a list of dark chocolate candies with high levels of heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. I use cadmium to sharpen my garden rake, so I’m around it a lot. Well, heavy metals aren’t meant to be ingested in any quantity. With regard to lead and cad, they’re in much of our soil. Cocoa plants, carrots, spinach and such grow in soil containing heavy metals. Cacao has a bit of both lead and cadmium in it. And dark chocolate has the  most.

By the way I never cared much for dark chocolate until Christmas this year. I was gifted several brands of dark chocolate, and soon became partial to it. I don’t know if you’re aware, but chocolate has gone up in price considerably… like most stuff. So, my heavy leaded chocolate has two things going for it. I like it and it’s too expensive to toss. Bottom line, I’m going to eat the stuff.

A part of my decision comes from the fact that  there are no federal limits on the amount of lead or cadmium foods can contain. Obviously, our elected officials are bowing to the will of the people. “Dark chocolate and other good stuff are not to be tampered with!

As for me, I’m not worried about my dark chocolate consumption. After all, I’m sleeping on the last mattress I will ever own. However most of the people I know need to worry about their chocolate consumption. That’s why I refuse to give the chocolate away to family members or friends.

There are so many other recommendations in February’s Consumer Reports. I didn’t bring up the best ways to use your huge load of coupons, because I don’t use ‘em. I’m too afraid of becoming a fanatic like a few people on the news

I am by no means well to do, so one might think I should use coupons. The only thing keeping Kay and I alive right now is the fact that we never had children. If we had children, I’d have to save coupons just like a Mom or Dad. Likely I would be raising my grandchildren. I’d love ‘em to pieces, but not for an entire day

That’s it for now. If I helped even one of you… well, I’d be real surprised. Right now, I’m going to finish off a Dark Chocolate Power Bark. I have to believe that eating bark is good for you. Trees love the stuff. – Next time.

end

hayter.mark@gmail.com

 

New Years Past

“A look at Old New Year’s Eves”

Hayter for Jan 1, 2023

            This is my 73rd New Year’s Eve moment. I can’t remember the other 72 of them. I could come up with several Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July gatherings. New Year’s Eve never registered much with me.

            I imagine we watched a lot of TV on New Year’s Eve. Other than that, I don’t—wait a minute! I think it was New Year’s Eve about three years back when the neighborhood had a big fireworks display. I remember that because I donated $50 for fireworks. Hit me hard, it did.

            I don’t remember any big event or any article I wrote for the New Year. But, I do have a collection of several of my earlier New Year’s articles. Hey, I keep records. They’re hard to find, but they’re here somewhere. – Ah, here it be.

            My 1982 piece included my predictions for the year. One of which was that Idi Amin would not be given a role in “Different Strokes”, and no movie with the name “Smokey” in the title would win an academy award. I stuck my neck out on that one. For the last one, I predicted that it will not be discovered that the members of the rock group KISS are actually the Gospel Goodman Family. I was right on two of those predictions. I never dreamed how versatile the Goodman Family was.

            For 1983 I predicted that, in separate incidents, three local youths and an elderly woman would turn up missing. The only clue in each of the cases will be that each person was last seen looking for Reece’s Pieces in Conroe’s remodeled Safeway Store. – By the way, five years ago when Kay and were staying in Washington I applied for a Safeway card and they already had me on record. From 30 years back! Of course, they had the wrong phone number.

            I also predicted that an episode of “That’s Incredible” would feature an Idaho man who will construct an artificial heart out of the carburetor of a ’62 Rambler. The only problem will be that the recipient will have to be jump-started after every sneeze.

            In another January 1983 article, I mentioned the famous people who had died in ’82. The young among us won’t remember these people. Henry Fonda (One of my top 10 favorite actors), Vic Morrow (Sargent Saunders of the ‘Combat’ TV series. He and a young boy he was carrying filming a scene of a “Twilight Zone” movie were killed by a helicopter blade). Hugh Beaumont (Wally and the Beaver’s Dad. Such a nice guy.)  Marty Robbins, a country western singer with one of the most pleasant voices you’ll ever hear), and John Belushi, (one of the original Saturday Night Live crew. To me, the guy was more crazy than funny. I don’t remember ever seeing him smile. Likewise, I don’t think I ever saw Bill Murray smile.)

            I’m sure things were less ridiculous in ’84. Let’s see:  I predicted that the aging actor Richard Harris would star in a new movie called “The Next to the Last Return of a Man Called Horse.” I considered it a movie that in no way deserved sequels. 

            In January of ’85, I didn’t make any predictions, but I did mention how much trouble I had applying for the Challenger Teacher in Space Shuttle Mission. That was one tough application. Among other things I had to come up with lesson plans for teaching students while I was in space. You see, I had never been in space, so I was pulling lesson plans out of my rear. I mean ear. Sorry.

I realized there was little chance of me getting selected, but I was still a bit discouraged when I wasn’t picked among the finalists. And sad as all get out about the Challenger disaster. 

            The worst ever New Year’s came in ’96 when I was on crutches for tearing loose my achilles tendon during our ’95 Christmas family football game, and having a volleyball-sized kidney stone removed shortly thereafter. Not to be totally outdone, Kay had gallbladder surgery in the same month. We were one sick couple on New Year’s Eve of ’96.

            Let’s zoom over to, uh, New Year’s 2000. Look at this. Kay and I were with Virginia and Freeman Pliler in Natchitoches, LA. This was where the movie “Steel Magnolias” was filmed. In the movie, there’s a scene downtown near the Cane River, where people are getting a combination of corn on the cob, crawfish, onions, and other stuff tossed on a plate. I’d hafta watch the movie again to know what all was in the kettle. Not happening.

            The place was so lively and everyone was happy. So, we started 2000 with a visit to Natchitoches. The actual location was every bit as lovely as in the movie. The townspeople not so much. Finding a public restroom took a good while. The different shops had a sign on their doors that read, “No Public Restroom”. If a shop didn’t have that sign, it didn’t have a restroom either.

            No corn on a stick or big kettle filled with a wondrous mixture. Regardless, from what I wrote, we had a good time in Natchitoches. The girls walked into each of the three billion shops. Freeman and I left the women in search of a restroom. We didn’t see them again for a couple of hours. It was a good way to start 2000. – Well, that didn’t flow well.

            That was a look at earlier New Year’s Eve events. Much earlier. I’m glad I’ve got a record of the happenings, otherwise, I would hafta be hypnotized to recall a lot of that.

end

hayter.mark@gmail.com

 

Christmas Day 2022

Hayter for Dec 25, 2022

"How 'bout that Christmas?"

          So, how is Christmas going for you? Are you one of those open-gifts-the-night-before people? The Hayters have always been “morning-of” people. Just the way we were raised.

I don’t know which Hayter started it. The furthest Kay has gone back to is John Hayter, born in 1655, in a place called, Winterborne Earls located in Wiltshire, England. I don’t know if Santa Clause was even alive in 1655. I don’t mean to burst anybody’s balloon, but I have trouble believing there is a Santa.

If there is one, I doubt he came from England. Those people wouldn’t tolerate an old man with flying reindeer landing a sleigh on their houses. A lot of their roofs were made of straw back then! I’m not joking! I’ve seen the movies.

By the way, there is a John Hayter who lives in Conroe. A nice guy, too. I’ve run into him twice. Both times, it was my fault. (Ta dum dum) I don’t know if the Conroe John Hayter has Scottish blood in him, but according to my DNA, I’m 46 percent, Scot. My middle name is even Scott. I was named after Mom’s oldest brother. He was Cleodis Scott Teegarden. He went by the name “Bud”. I’m sure glad I dodged the “Cleodis” name.

I have difficulty believing I’ve got Scottish blood in me. Those people eat haggis. That’s a dish made from what’s left of a sheep after it’s been butchered. You know, stomach, lungs, heart, liver, tongue… The good stuff.

Scots chop all of the internal organs up, add some spices, fat, and oats, shove it into the sheep’s stomach, and tie the thing off? -- Beg pardon? Well, I assume they used oats because they didn’t have any celery. After that they bake or boil the daylights out of it. When they cut that buddy open the contents are referred to as “pudding.” My 54 percent of non-Scotish blood has a different view of pudding.  I think I may need another DNA test.

          Before we get past the recipe portion of the article, let me say that everything I wrote about haggis is, to my knowledge, true. The part about me not wanting to have any Scottish ancestry was pure fabrication. I’m quite proud to be a part of the Hayter Clan.

About eight of you are wondering why I put all of that stuff into my Christmas article. Well, it’s because, right now, I’m sitting smack dab into the Thursday before Christmas. The freezing weather hasn’t yet happened where I am. I don’t know a thing about the big freeze. Was it called off or was it so bad that your Christmas feed at Grandma’s was called off?

I’ve never written an article the day before, or the day of Christmas. That’s cause I don’t write news articles. I write what’s called General Interest. The news articles are as current as can be. My articles, not so much. I’m not saying that there’s no important stuff in my column. It’s always loaded with important stuff. That’s one reason I write dangerously close to my deadline.

 Even at that, I’m right now in the dark about Christmas. For all I know, Santa could’ve called the whole thing off due to the weather.  But you? You already know what’s happened with Christmas. You know if your water pipes busted.  

Mine sure could. Kay helped a bunch with wrapping the pipes. She’s a great wrapper. Of pipes. She can’t rap on stage worth beans. But forget about us. It’s you, I’m concerned about! Did you end up with frozen pipes, icy roads, and goats in your house? Well, some of you might have outdoor animals inside. That’s one reason I don’t raise goats.

I do hope that at this Christmas moment, all is fine where you are. By all accounts, we didn’t get any snow. I’ve made no mystery about the fact I love snow. I’ve seen it, uh, maybe five times.

The only snow problem I ever had was with my feet. That’s back when all I had were a pair of tennis shoes and church shoes. The thing about my church shoes is they never got as much wear as my tennis shoes. If my feet hadn’t grown I could probably wear the same pair when I started high school.

Church shoes were only worn Sunday mornings. Sunday and Wednesday night worship weren’t as sacred enough to merit nice shoes. I don’t know what I’ll wear on Christmas Sunday. If the cold lingers longer than expected, they may call it off. Did it happen to you? Sure wish you could communicate with those of us living on Thursday. There are a bunch of us. You were even there. – I’m beginning to confuse myself, so let me stop that nonsense right now.

I don’t know what I’m getting for Christmas. Kay already bought both our gifts. I just kept putting it off and putting it off, until she came home from shopping and told me not to worry about getting her anything. She said we were both taken care of. I don’t know what either of us got, but I’m sure she will like what she got.

Me? If it’s a toy or a bag of Chocolate Peppermint Almonds, I’ll like it. Kay got me a bag of CPAs at Sam’s. I’m not a big fan of peppermint, but when sprinkled on an almond and covered with chocolate… well, it makes life that much better.  – Okay, my next stop is – 2023. The question is, will I still be awake at midnight? No, I don’t give a hoot, either.

 

end

hayter.mark@gmail.com