Five Leapfrogs

 

I miss the Ben & Jerry’s that used to be at Gateway Mall (I miss pretty much everything that used to be at Gateway). They carried flavors you couldn’t find at the grocer, like oatmeal raisin, or this:

 

Black Walnut Ice Cream

 

2 cups cream

1 cup milk or half-and-half

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon black walnut extract

1/2 cup chopped black walnuts

 

Stir together all ingredients except nuts. Process in an ice cream maker according to directions. Fold in nuts, then freeze at least two hours in an airtight container.

 

Black walnuts and black walnut extract can be hard to find locally, but they’re both available through Amazon. If you’ve never tasted black walnut ice cream, it has a richer, more earthy flavor that you’d expect. And well worth the trouble.

Forty-Two Rolling Stones

 

Rhonda Watson’s Ten Commandments of Sewing, first printed in Sew News Magazine:

1. Thou shalt put away no ironing board before its time.

2. Thou shalt not expect meals, clean laundry, or a sparkling house when sewing calls.

3. Thou shalt walk through this room as if treading on needles and pins.

4. Thou shalt not use my fabric shears.

5. Thou shalt not covet my sewing machine.

6. Thou shalt stick no unthreaded needles in the pin cushion.

7. Thou shalt always remember a stitch in time saves nine.

8. Thou shalt not touch my organized mess.

9. Thou shalt remember that each item sewn is stitched with love and care.

10. Thou shalt praise God often for all creative talents.

Bear Claw

 

O’Hare – my least favorite airport – is frequently listed among the five worst airports in the U.S. But the guy it’s named for was pretty cool. Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry “Butch” O'Hare was the Navy’s first fighter ace. In 1942, Butch single-handedly attacked a formation of nine medium bombers approaching his aircraft carrier. I say “attacked” because he only had enough ammo to shoot down a few bombers. The rest he rammed with his plane or harried until they ran out of fuel. Then, he crash-landed his bullet-riddled plane on the carrier and lived to tell the tale. When Butch was thirteen, his parents divorced. His sisters stayed with mom, Butch went to military school, and Dad moved to Chicago, where he became “Easy Eddie,” Al Capone’s lawyer. Easy Eddie testified against Capone in 1931, sending “Scarface” to prison. Capone’s henchmen assassinated Eddie on a Chicago street in 1939. I guess that means nerves of steel ran in the family.

Four Prickly Pears

 “’Love one another,’ Jesus said. ‘By this all will know that you are My disciples.’ Very often, a person’s first testimony of Jesus Christ comes when he or she feels love among disciples of Jesus Christ. The Savior declared that He restored His Church so that faith might increase in the earth. Therefore, when people visit our Church meetings, the Savior wants them to leave with stronger faith in Him! The love our friends feel among us will lift them closer to Jesus Christ! That is our simple goal every time we gather. Anyone who is seeking greater faith in Christ or a closer connection to Heavenly Father should feel right at home in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Inviting them to our meetings can be as normal and as natural as inviting them into our homes.” – Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Two Blue Diamond Stars

 

Maria Beasley (1836-1913) patented fifteen inventions. One of them was the life raft.

Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) – the first woman admitted to M.I.T. – was a pioneer in water purification and sewage treatment.

Harriet Williams Russell Strong (1844-1926) was an inventor, suffragette and conservationist. Her innovations made the Hoover Dam possible. Harriet was also a musician, and vice president of the L.A. Symphony Orchestra Association.

Letitia Mumford Greer (1852-1935) was a nurse who invented the one-hand medical syringe.

Anna Connelly (1868-1969) was the first Philadelphian woman to submit a patent. She invented the fire escape, making urban life safer.

Marie Van Brittan Brown (1922-199) and her husband Albert L. Brown, African-Americans, invented the first home audio-visual security system.

Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014), daughter of Polish immigrants, wanted to become a doctor. She took a job with DuPont to earn money for school, and invented Kevlar instead.  “I don't think there's anything like saving someone's life to bring you satisfaction and happiness.”

Scottie Dog

 

The first dog in the White House to receive attention from the press was Laddie Boy, President Harding’s photogenic Airedale. Teddy Roosevelt (and his kids) had several pets, including snakes, dogs, cats, a badger, birds, and guinea pigs. F.D.R. had a Scottie dog named Fala, and George W. Bush had three: Barney, India and Miss Beasley. Lyndon Johnson had two beagles, named Him and Her. Socks Clinton was the white house cat from 1993 to 2001. Barack Obama promised his daughters they could have a dog when they moved into the White House. They selected Bo, a hypo-allergenic Portuguese water dog. Until recently, the only U.S. president without a pet was James Polk. When asked about his pet-free situation, the current president said he didn’t have time to care for an animal, and adopting a pet felt phony. “Besides,” he quipped, “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?”

Four Leapfrogs

 

“In spite of all my good intentions, I was the ‘Believe It or Not’ of the maternity ward. I had quintuplets the hard way; one at a time. That’s a lot of pickles and ice cream. After I had five kids in a row, Fang nicknamed me Bingo. I really never minded being fertile, but I have to admit there were times when I considered crop rotation. My neighbor asked me: ‘Are you expecting?’ I said: ‘I’m not expecting. I’m sure!’ I had so many kids I had dealer’s plates on my baby carriages. At one time our bedroom looked like a used crib lot. One day I picked up a bag of flour out of a shopping cart and burped it. Once I even said to Fang, ‘I’ll bet you don’t even know how many kids we got’ and he answered, ‘Well, when I used to count them it made me nervous.’” – Phyllis Diller