Two Pineapples

 

David Hahn was born October 30, 1979 in Royal Oak, Michigan. His parents divorce when he was nine. David stayed with his dad, who remarried. He developed an interest in chemistry, fireworks and model rocketry. His family encouraged him to join the Boy Scouts, and David became obsessed with achieving a merit badge in atomic energy. He read everything about it he could get his hands on. He began collecting smoke detectors (they contain americium), lantern mantles (for thorium), and old glow-in-the-dark clock hands and dials (radium). He used it to create a reactor in a potting shed in the backyard. When David was 17, a routine traffic stop put an end to his fun. Police found suspicious material in his car and traced it to his backyard. The EPA showed up in hazmat suits. The shed was dismantled and buried as nuclear waste. David never did earn that merit badge.

Five Bird Houses

 

When he was thirteen, Gabriel García Márquez walked up to the prettiest girl on the dance floor and said, “I just realized all my poems are about you. Marry me.” Most girls would have laughed and walked away, but Mercedes said, “Alright. But I have to finish school first.” They married thirteen years later. Gabriel’s dream was to write an epic novel. He shut himself in a room and wrote while Mercedes dealt with the real world. After 18 months, Gabriel’s enormous manuscript was ready to ship to a publisher. The only problem: there was no money for postage. Mercedes pawned the last two things she owned – a hairdryer and a blender – and the rest is history. That manuscript became One Hundred Years of Solitude; one of the most influential novels of the 20th century. After it came Love in the Time of Cholera, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold. And a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Four Dozen Butterflies

 

Insulting people is a dying art:

“He had delusions of adequacy.” – Walter Kerr

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” – Forrest Tucker

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” – Jack E. Leonard

Pineapple

 

We had these Sunday, with cheese burgers. Honestly, they’d be a great accompaniment with any grilled meat.

 

Marinated White Beans

 

2 (15-ounce cans) white beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs (I chose fresh basil.)

2 roasted red peppers, finely diced

1/3 cup finely diced shallot (Out of shallots; substituted red onion.)

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

 

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least two hours; preferably overnight. Will stay fresh in the fridge 3 or 4 days.

Four Dozen Pine Trees

 

More thoughts about a 13-month year: If each month had only 28 days, some holidays wouldn’t fall on the same days they do now. New Year’s Eve, for instance would happen on the 28th of the month – either December or March, depending on which came at the end of the year. Thanksgiving would always be Thursday, November 25. Valentines Day would always be a Sunday, like Mother’s and Father’s Days. I’ve read the Kodak company used a 13-month calendar from 1924 to 1989. Their extra month was called Sol, and it came between June and July. Leap day, when it happened, was December 29, and it was an extra weekend day. For years, George Eastman (Kodak’s founder) tried to promote worldwide acceptance but was unsuccessful. I’m not awfully surprised. We’ve been trying for ages to do away with Daylight Saving Time; something absolutely EVERYONE hates. Yet here we are, still adjusting all our clocks twice a year.

Four X Blocks

 

“Each Sabbath we invite all to come worship Jesus Christ in the community of His restored Church. In the sacramental ordinance, we covenant that we are willing to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, always remember Him, and keep His commandments. He promises we can always have His Spirit to be with us. As we witness and remember Jesus each week, we abide and walk with Him. Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus ask Jesus to abide with them, Jesus Christ promises to abide with us. In the Gospel of John, chapters 14 and 15, Jesus teaches His disciples and us how He can remain, belong, walk with us. His faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death. When we have a question, problem, or joy, Jesus Christ says, ‘I am your answer—your way, your truth, your life.’” – Elder Gerrit W. Gong

Four Bird Houses

 

Antoine-Joseph “Adolphe” Sax was an inventor and musician from Belgium. Adolphe was the eldest of eleven children, only three of whom survived to age 13. He studied flute, clarinet, harmony and solfège at the Royal School of Music in Brussels, but he abandoned a career in performance to create musical instruments in his father’s workshop. Adolphe made changes in the design of the bass clarinet that are still in use. His most famous invention is the saxophone, which combines elements of both woodwind and brass instruments. Adolphe designed a massive family of saxophones in 14 distinct sizes, from the tiny sopranino to the massive contrabass. Only four sizes are commonly used today: soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. The saxophone may be made of brass, but it’s classified as a woodwind instrument because it generates sound with a reed. Adolphe also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, but somehow, none of them caught on.