The ABC Life Blog

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

We hope everyone has had a great 4^th 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 4^TH EVERYONE!

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!

New activity: MAKING MUFFINS

Laura has always loved muffins but Barbara, like the Elaine character in Seinfeld, is fonder of the muffin top (except for her own personal one!). So we decided to try our hands at baking a cranberry brie muffin. Sounds delicious, right? Well, it was awful! They looked good but tasted so bland that we wound up tossing the whole batch. We did give ourselves a consolation prize of an ice cream pop, so the afternoon wasn’t a total loss.

LEARNING CENTER

A MUFFIN MENACE

Do you know the muffin man? Well, you’re probably familiar with the nursery rhyme that asks this very question. But did you know that back in the 16th century, an urban legend was born that swears the muffin man was actually a serial killer who lured children away by enticing them with his baked goods? 

The famous nursery rhyme was created to warn the public of this nasty man. He was Frederic Thomas Lynwood, also known as the Drury Lane Dicer. Since he lived in London, the muffins mentioned were more like what we know as English muffins, rather than the sweet treats we Americans adore.

While this may be an interesting bit of trivia, there is no record of a muffin man killer. The actual origins of the muffin man was most likely the Wikipedia parody site Uncyclopedia, posted in 2007 and then cleaned up by removing the serial killer aspects.

So, rest assured you can eat your muffins safely – as long as they’re not the above Cranberry Brie ones!

This month we decided to try our hand at another art format, the mandala. But first we needed to understand what that art form really is about.

Mandalas are known for their aesthetic appeal, as they are mesmerizing intricate designs.  They date back thousands of years and are said to symbolize harmony, balance, and wholeness, making them much more than beautiful patterns.

When we first looked at a picture of a mandala, it seemed like if you could draw straight and curvy lines you would be able to do this artwork relatively easily. But we soon found out how wrong we were. Our first shot at it was doing it alongside a YouTube video which didn’t give us a lot of time to perfect our technique. Each of us thought our attempt missed the mark and we might try doing it again without time pressure.

Here is what mandalas should look like:

Here are ours:

…which only proves that we lack balance and harmony and should not give up our day jobs!

New activity: Musical Show – Celtic Throne

Barbara: I’ve always loved Irish music and dancing and luckily my guy enjoys it too so I had no trouble convincing him to join me for a performance of Celtic Throne.

This performance was excellent and it was quite different from other Celtic dance shows I’ve seen as it incorporated not only Irish dance but flips, gymnastics, martial arts, and stick fighting. The troop cast ranged in age from early elementary school as young as 7 to young adults. So much fun seeing a stage of kids already having learned the high stepping and tap of Irish dancing. Plus watching the men dance and simulating a fight while wielding and spinning large sticks left me wondering just how many times they had to practice till they didn’t smack each other with the sticks. It was pretty darn impressive. Now I’m off to go through all my old CDs and find the one I got in an Irish pub in Dublin!

New restaurant: Kitchen Master

We love dumplings so it was fated that there was a place we hadn’t yet tried, beginning with the letter “K”. Kitchen Master in Plano was a great find. We shared the chicken soup dumplings, the pork and shrimp soup dumplings and an appetizer of scallion pancakes – all of which were delicious. We both felt like dumplings when we walked out!

New ice creamery: Tongue in Cheek

Then because we weren’t full enough, we went to Tongue in Cheek Ice Cream to try some “L” flavors. Honey Lavender Blueberry was not our thing, but the Lemon Cream Pie was the bomb! The place was started by Brett Smith, a retired firefighter “with a passion for good food and a sarcastic wit.”  He was proud to have served the city of Richardson as a firefighter for 25 years and then he decided it was time to take off his helmet, grab an ice cream churn and “serve” in a different way. Their motto is:

SERVING SARCASM ONE SCOOP AT A TIME

So, we looked up the term “tongue in cheek.” Although it now means an ironic or sarcastic remark meant to be humorous rather than literal, thrusting one’s tongue into the cheek to create a bulge started as an actual physical gesture. Dating back to 1748, it was primarily used to express contempt, mockery, or sly derision towards someone and said to have originated as a way for an actor to show that what he said was meant to be funny or sarcastic. So, the next time someone doesn’t laugh at what you meant to be funny, stick your tongue in your cheek. Just the thought of seeing someone do that would get a laugh out of us!

Since it’s K/L month, we were excited to find that there’s a park in Frisco called Kaleidoscope Park and more so that it was having a Local Vendor Market. We love going to farmers markets in different cities, so we had high hopes for the outing.

As it turned out the park itself offered a fun playground for children, but the vendors market left a lot to be desired. If we had little kids with us, it would have been ok since most of the items for sale were little girl bracelets and furry toys, etc., but as it was, the only thing of interest to us was homemade jam.

So that it wouldn’t be a total loss, we tried Local Creamery. Again, a disappointment. The flavors weren’t very flavorful, and nothing really set it apart from the crowd.

Oh well. You win some, you lose some. But at least it got us out of the house, trying new things and socializing – – which is what our ABC life is all about.

LEARNING CENTER

By the way, did you know how the name “kaleidoscope” was put together? It was created by the Greek words that describe exactly what it does:

Kalos = beautiful

Eidos = form

Scopos = watcher

Put them together we have kaleidoscope – beautiful form watcher