LET’S EATSA SOME PIZZA

Posted on August 17, 2026 by abcsisters

Have you ever thought about what food you would choose if you were ever stranded on a desert island and had to eat the same one or two things every day? Well for us it would be pizza and ice cream. We already have a favorite place for each.

Currently our favorite pizza place is Angelo and Vito in Plano. Hailing from New York City, we expect pizza to have thin – not like cardboard – crust and when we fold it to eat the oil should drip down. No fork and knife for us. A&V fits the bill perfectly. We go there so often they know our exact orders, our names, our sister relationship – they could be family!

We tried two other places that were new to us but recommended. The first was Goodfellas in Addison. Before we walked in, we noticed a sign on their door that we meant to take a picture of but in essence it said if you were hungry and had no money, they would feed you. We were quite shocked by that, but it made sense when we read about them online as there was a section on being guided by their values which read: The mission behind the business is rooted in faith, kindness, and the way people treat one another. Love God, love others, prefer others, speak kind words, and set an example are not just statements on a wall, they shape the way Goodfella’s serves guests and builds community every day. The pizza was actually quite good (but of course like us they were from Brooklyn). We got the Smokin’ Goodfella which is one of their popular ones. Smoked fresh mozzarella, roasted pepper cream sauce, sausage, woodfired red & green peppers, caramelized onions, topped with shaved parmigiano reggiano & fresh basil. Nice crust and one pizza was more than enough for us. We’ll definitely be back any time we’re near.

The next place we went to was New York Pizza & Pints in Allen. Again, surprised to find a place that we liked nearly as much as Angelo and Vito. We could definitely tell it’s New York Style, the crust was easily bendable to allow drippage. It’s someplace to look for again when we’re in the vicinity.

But all in all, Angelo & Vito is still our favorite. We can smell it as we write.  Hey, paisan, we’re comin’.

But wait….what about the ice cream on that desert island? Back we went to Tongue in Cheek which has become our favorite ice cream place now and we tried the PB Buckeye Brownie. Oh My G_D! Delicious once again. We think we’ll be very happy on that island.

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PREMIERING “P” WITH PLAYS

Posted on August 13, 2026 by abcsisters

We’re getting a late start to “P” month but better late than never. Because we’ve been lazy, we decided to do something first that gets us out and about… so we went to two plays. Unfortunately, our track record with local theater has not been particularly good recently – mostly due to being disappointed in the quality of the acting. However, the most recent two we’ve seen this month did not disappoint in the acting area.

We both went to see a performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Before going, we read a synopsis of the play Hamlet, since those were two characters from that play and we had not recalled with their role was. The play was performed by a troop of youths, and we were amazed at what good actors they were and how much they had to memorize and spew out in language phrasing that was not commonplace for modern youth (or for anyone nowadays for that matter). The main negative about the play was that the dialogue went so fast and again, spoken in old English language, that made it hard to understand what they were really talking about.  What sayest thou oh brave readers? Wouldst thee agree this play hast a five for acting and alack a two for understanding thy speech?

Barbara: I went with a group to see the play Inherit The Wind at the Irving Art Center. I had seen the movie years ago with Spencer Tracy and it was pretty powerful. In contrast, I found the play a little hokey in the first act but the second act made up for it in that the main characters – prosecutor and defense attorney -were played by really good actors  and very professional so by the end of the show, I had given it about four out of five. 

New art exhibit: POPUL VUH

Barbara: While at the Irving Arts Center, I was introduced to the Guatemalan myth of creation called Popul Vuh or Book of Community, in which a pair of hero twins must descend into the underworld to save the next and final generation of humanity. The pictures by Jaime Arredondo were quite interesting and I wish I had had the time to read all the descriptive plaques to learn the whole story.

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OH N/O, IT’S TIME TO GO

Posted on August 1, 2026 by abcsisters

New Restaurant: ONO Hawaiian BBQ

What a perfect restaurant name to end our N/O month with. It took us a while to find it since we put in the wrong address in our Maps app, but after a whole lot of laughter we reached ONO. The food was surprisingly good, a bit pricey but the combo portion was so large that the text time we go we will be splitting a plate. Laura got the BBQ Beef Combo and Barbara got the Fish Combo and both were really, really tasty. An added plus is that they make their sauces and prepare their food fresh daily, cooking to order when you come. We’re glad we put in the effort to find this place.

New movie theme: OBITUARIES

If given the chance, most of us would opt to have “the last word.” In most cases this refers to the final thing or thought said in an argument or a discussion. However, in the 2017 movie “The Last Word,” the reference is for control over one’s OBITUARY – specifically the words used to sum up your life. This movie stars Shirley MacLaine as Harriet, an 80 plus seemingly friendless woman who is a control freak and a former successful businesswoman. After reading a few obits that tout peoples’ achievements, she realizes that she needs to commission her own obituary, so it reads exactly as she wishes. She hires a journalist (Amanda Seyfried) and the strength of the movie lies in the journey of their relationship. Each helps the other and true respect grows. Add in a delightful local little girl (Ann’Jewel Lee) who they mentor and you have a film that isn’t great but did manage to hold our interest. But perhaps the true benefit of the film is that it leaves you with a specific key takeaway: what do you want to be remembered for?

LEARNING CENTER

Speaking of obituaries, we found out that there is actually an award called The Grimmy which is an industry award given biannually to the best obituary writer. There seems to be an award for everything so we’ve decided to give The Best Word award to New Zealand because it is the home to the longest name of a place in the world. Taumatawhakatangi­hangakōauauotamatea­turipūkakapikimaunga­horonukupōkaiwhen­uakitānatahu is Māori for “the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as ‘landeater’, played his flute to his loved one.”  Put THAT one in your GPS!

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ADDING A NEW OPPORTUNITY FOR LEARNING

Posted on July 26, 2026 by abcsisters

We’ve decided that in addition to our LEARNING CENTER and our MORE OR LESS sections of our monthly blog, we want to add a new section each month that reviews short films. Barbara enjoys going to the live action and animated short film Oscar nominees each year and we both have always enjoyed short stories as well, so why not make it a plan to see some of the ones available to us.

SHORT STOP

This month we watched three short films for the letter N; unfortunately we didn’t have the time to explore any O shorts.

NIGHT AND FOG

Barb watched this one. It is a French documentary short film that was made 10 years after the liberation of the camps. At first, she was put off by the monotone narration but after a while she felt that seeing all the horror of the camps was made even more powerful with that voice because one wasn’t distracted by it. And when they showed the arrival at the camps, they played very dramatic music – almost the kind that you heard in the horror movies of the 30s. She initially thought that was weird but then realized it IS a horror movie. We won’t specify the scenes they show from the camps; suffice it to say they were some of most horrifying she’s seen.

In reading about the making of the film and the resistance from the French veterans associations which wanted them to create a film that would honor the French resistance fighters instead, the filmmakers stated “The genocide of the Jews was treated in French remembrance as more of a side issue” and indeed, Barbara remembered thinking the same thing when she visited a WWII museum in France which had one very little section that even mentioned the Holocaust. All in all it may not be for everyone, but she felt it a film worth viewing.

NIGHT MAIL

Mixed opinions on this one. Although Laura was impressed with the artistic and technical aspects achieved for a short that was filmed close to 100 years ago, she found the film a bit dull but Barbara found that the process of delivering mail during that time was fascinating. This, too, was a documentary and was about the overnight journey of the postal special train from London to Scotland in the 1930s. Along the route the local postmen wait by the tracks to give their mail to the postal special. Local trains would drop off mail into a net that is gathered by postmen. The postmen then put all the mail into a big container that they string up, and when the postal special comes by it hits the parcel in just the right way and the mailbags go flying into the train. They got over 1000 bags of mail that way. It just blew Barbara’s mind. Another interesting thing about the film, though, is the poem sequence that they had at the end, inserted when one of the creators asked, “we documented the “machinery” of delivering letters, but what about the people who write them and the people who get them?”

This is the Night Mail crossing the border

Bringing the cheque and the postal order

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor

The shop at the corner and the girl next door.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,           

Letters of joy from girl and boy,

Receipted bills and invitations

To inspect new stock or to visit relations,

And applications for situations,

And timid lovers’ declarations,

And gossip, gossip from all the nations,

Written on paper of every hue,

The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,

The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,

The cold and official and the heart’s outpouring,

Clever, stupid, short and long,

The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

NIGHT RIDE

This film was both of our favorites and was nominated for the Oscar for best live action short film in 2023.

It starts with Ebba, who has dwarfism, waiting in the cold for a tram to arrive. When it does, the conductor leaves for the restroom and prevents her from boarding without him being present. Due to the cold weather, Ebba sneaks onboard anyway, and curiously plays with the conductor’s controls trying to close the doors. When she accidentally causes the tram to move, she decides to keep going in order to avoid reprisal from the outraged conductor. We don’t want to give away the details of the story but needless to say, Ebba encounters a bit of trouble with the passengers on her ride and ironically it is the shortest person who stands the tallest.

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NICE TO BE NOSTALGIC

Posted on July 23, 2026 by abcsisters

We love to reminisce about growing up, college, young motherhood, etc. Do you ever talk to your siblings about things that happened in the past and find that you each remember them differently? We certainly do. One example was Barbara always thinking Laura kissed the toaster when she was young and Laura firmly stating it was Barbara! We’ll never actually find out who the ninny was that kissed a toaster because she loved toast so much (although Barbara IS terribly afraid of hot things…) but it’s the kind of nostalgia that we love.

This month Barbara acted on her nostalgia both for the 70s and a Jimmy Buffet concert she went to many years ago.

Barbara: Libraries are great for interesting lectures and activities and when I saw that one was having a 70s trivia contest I couldn’t resist. Out came my hippie costume, I grabbed some friends and off we went. Although one member of the group knew a lot of the songs and artists, we fell down on some of the other questions and didn’t win. But the library also gave a prize to anyone who dressed up so two of us got to choose some books. It was a lot of fun.

Next bit of nostalgia took me back to a Jimmy Buffet concert I went to years ago. This time I went to a cover band called Jimmy’s Buffet to try to revisit that feeling. There were parrot heads galore and since I was wearing a cheeseburger on my head I fit right in along with the rest of the group. The concert was great, the audience got right into the swing of things and beachballs were flying.

Never be afraid to let yourself get silly!

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NORDIC NOIR

Posted on July 21, 2026 by abcsisters

Laura: Jo Nesbo is one heck of a talented Norwegian. Best known as one of the world’s leading crime writers, he is also a musician, songwriter, screenwriter and a children’s author of a series of books about Dr. Proctor and his fart powder. Yes, fart powder. It’s fascinating how a writer of Nordic noir mysteries can also write a bunch of humorous books about farts. Some titles: Bubble in the Bathtub, Who Cut the Cheese and Silent (but Deadly) Night. What 8 to 12 year old is not going to love these?

Well enough on that – let’s talk about his adult mysteries, particularly the Detective Hole book series. Hole is a brilliant and fiercely driven detective. Introverted and often stepping outside the boundaries of legal methods, he is focused on solving crimes while sometimes battling his inner demons and struggling with alcohol and depression. Altogether an interesting character who has many sides to him – the softer ones emerging when he is with his on-again, off-again girlfriend and her young son. 

I recently watched the newly released Netflix tv series Detective Hole. Overall I enjoyed it and recognized its excellent writing, acting and realism but occasionally felt uncomfortable with Harry’s internal war between calm and chaos. But I am intrigued by this writer and will try to carve out time to read the Detective Hole series (and maybe a Dr. Proctor book to tickle the child in me).

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OH THAT ODOR

Posted on July 13, 2026 by abcsisters

Barbara: Don’t you just love the delightful odor that hits your senses when you smell a ripe, sweet peach? I just love summer fruit, partly because of that sweet preview of what I’m about to sink my teeth into. So, this month A.D. and I grabbed our friends, Pam and Steve Widom, and went to the Ham Orchards in the city of Terrell. While we usually love little towns, Terrell was somewhat of a disappointment in that so many of the small shops that give a downtown its charm were closed. I did enjoy the many murals on nearly every street.

After spending just a little bit of time in their museum we headed over to the orchards.

If you love peaches, you can certainly get your fill at Ham Orchards. First I had their peach bbq pulled pork, then I tried their peach pickles – tasty but a bit spicy for me – and then followed it off with a cup of peach and strawberry soft serve ice cream. OMG delish. After that there was no room in my stomach for – guess what – a peach! I’ll have to save that for another day.

An afterthought: one thing I learned about peaches is that if you crack open a peach pit, the seed inside smells incredibly similar to an almond. Also that the peach is a major symbol of immortality, longevity, and good luck.  So eat those peaches and you’ll be eating them a very long time!

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N/O OR JUST PLAIN NO

Posted on July 9, 2026 by abcsisters

NO more laziness and putting off things. We have decided to combine N/O this month so that we can cram as much into the month as possible and break up our lazy streak. NO time like the present.

New restaurant: NYC BAGEL & DELI

Being born in New York comes with a loyalty to New York-style bagels. We probably don’t exactly remember what they tasted like in particular but we can surely tell when a bagel does NOT come from New York. These past many years we have been pretty much exclusively frequenting Einsteins Bagels since they remind us of the ones we like (although we’ve been told that Benny’s Bagels are the bomb; wait till B month). A new bagel place opened near Barbara but their bagels were way too fat; but we found a place in McKinney that is somewhere in between thin and fat, NYC Bagel & Deli. Their store motto is Good People, Good Bagels, Good Vibes. They had some different flavors that we don’t usually see so Barbara tried the Rosemary Garlic & Parmesan and really loved it. Laura, being a muffin aficionado, decided to try their lemon and poppy muffin but it fell short. They had some cute signs which we are always suckers for, the coffee was quite good, and since it’s bagels and not muffins we’re after, we will be back whenever we’re up that way.

New bookstore: NEIGHBOR

While we were in McKinney, we couldn’t resist going into an independent bookstore, Neighbor. We had expected a little hole in the wall but we were mistaken! This was one of the largest independent bookstores we’ve been to.

It was founded by McKinney locals Joey and Ginny Honescko as a place for people to stay and read together. They believe (among other listed things) that “in an age of isolation and division, reading invites us to sit and listen to another perspective” and “in the age of machinery, reading invites us to become more human.”  There were books galore, a very friendly store manager (forgot to ask if he was also the owner), little alcoves for puzzles, specialty books, journals, etc. Barbara couldn’t resist buying an earring-shaped pair of earrings for herself and a cute book for her granddaughter; Laura couldn’t resist two jigsaw puzzles. One note about the kids’ section: all the books were displayed so you could see them head on instead of turning sideways to see the spine, so it was very easy to pick something likeable. And for all you puzzle lovers they host a 3rd Friday Puzzle competition. Check it out on their website. We really loved the store and I’m sure the manager will get sick of seeing us!

MORE OR LESS ZONE

We reread some of our earlier posts and decided we’d like to revisit our MORE OR LESS ZONE. Maybe not every month but some months the items we’d like to see more or less of just come to us.

Barbara:

More one of a kind or neighborhood stores. One thing that I always have missed after moving many years ago from California to Texas was all the one-of-a-kind stores. You just don’t see a little elfin-like guy greeting you at Walmart. Dallas seemed to have way too many chains. Chains are good around one’s neck but to really appreciate a store it has to have some individuality and that’s why I enjoyed our outing today.

Less nastiness. In the current divisive world we live in, need I say more?

Laura:

More connection with nature. My mood and sense of well-being definitely improve when I’m outside. So why aren’t I getting out more? Laziness I guess. Going from my house to the car is not “being outside” in my book. And while I love watching nature shows, it doesn’t measure up to admiring the beauty of the flowers and fauna and the antics of the squirrels, birds, cats and dogs that wander the neighborhood. When Kurt and I used to do our morning walks, we enjoyed pointing out nature’s little gifts. Since our world these days is full of noise and an overload of messages, nature holds the promise of adding a bit of peace and quiet to my mind. So what am I waiting for!

Less negativity. Like Barbara’s less nastiness, all the negativity in our world today needs to stop!

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NATIONAL PRIDE

Posted on July 5, 2026 by abcsisters

We’ve decided to combine N and O for July and how can we start with anything else than the 250th anniversary of our country.

We hope everyone has had a great 4th of July. We certainly saw a great deal of flags in neighborhoods. Barbara saw a slight reenactment of the writing of the Declaration of Independence and a bell ceremony where she and others rang little bells after each well-known part of it such as “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” and “all men are created equal.”

HAPPY 4TH EVERYONE!

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MURDER MYSTERY MEMORIES

Posted on June 29, 2026 by abcsisters

New activity: CLUE, LIVE ON STAGE

Growing up we were big board game fans. One of our favorites was Clue and we played it often and never grew tired of its endless “WHODUNNIT” variations.

Back in 1985, the game inspired the movie Clue and then in 2017, the movie inspired the play Clue, Live on Stage. So, when Barbara was lucky enough to win the option to buy two box tickets, it was off to the Winspear Opera House in Dallas.

The gist of the play is that six guests are invited to Boddy Manor for a night they’ll never forget – and an evening we won’t soon forget either. We expected to enjoy ourselves, but we didn’t anticipate being totally blown away by the antics, the acting, the humor, the puns and the amazing physical comedy that had us laughing out loud. Plus, the cleverness of the revolving stage and the characters lining up and marching to the next set were delightful. Truly a 5-star experience!

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