Former Member

Just wait until the sequel where Annie demands something healthier than sugar-coated corn with cow’s milk (since neither she nor Sally are calves). ;–)

Dasani and Aquafina are both filtered tapster with minerals added back in for taste – and cost just as much as the soda sold by the same companies (Coca Cola and Pepsi)! Brita and Pūr both sell filtration systems that produce cleaner water that is cheaper than bottled water. A more environmentally-friendly solution, especially compared with water shipped halfway around the world! And no un-recycled single-use plastic bottles to clog landfills. LifeStraw products are useful for inclusion in a disaster kit. I have a LifeStraw Family that’s useful for disaster situations since it allows you to pour water into a funnel and drains into a container. This makes the water available for cooking and other uses. The classic LifeStraw resembles a straw and requires you to suck the water through the straw-shaped filter. In places where potable water is not available, the LifeStraw is a relatively inexpensive solution. It’s also more portable. LifeStraw does not filter out viruses or salt water. Certain newer LifeStraw products are capable of removing chemicals and heavy metals. But in a disaster they could save you from dying of thirst (remember that in a flood, you’re surrounded by water that’s almost certainly contaminated and undrinkable). And in some places the water table is so low (or contaminated) that wells are not viable. Much of the US West is literally a desert. Water has to be imported from hundreds of miles away to support the population. Reprocessing, reclaiming, and reusing water has extended the available supply slightly, but will need to be intensified and expanded. Desalinization will also help. Wasteful practices like maintaining huge swaths of pointless green lawns and golf courses or washing down sidewalks will need to end.

My mother used to can tomatoes on the ‘hottest day of the year’ when we received crates of too-ripe-to-ship-to-market tomatoes from friends who were farmers. I never watched her cooking the tomatoes, but I don’t think she added any salt (if she did, it wasn’t very much). It was time-consuming and very hot work over a stove in a house in San Diego with no air conditioning. But it was a time-honored way to preserve the excess produce for the winter months when it wasn’t available from local sources. I don’t have a recipe, but I’m sure there are sources online. She also made a Chinese-style Beef Tomato with a curry-based sauce, but I hated it, so I never asked for the recipe. I’m sure I hated it mostly because we had it often while she tried to use up the tomatoes we were inundated by. I don’t remember her serving it again after we moved away from the farmers. I did love the spaghetti sauces and beef stews that she made using the canned tomatoes in the months that followed. ;–)

Fructose is not processed by your body the same way as glucose.

Too much sodium is bad for your health. But many processed products contain salt because it’s a preservative. And because it makes things taste better. I buy frozen chicken breasts. They’re injected with saline. This helps with the taste and preservation, but the water makes the chicken seem juicier! They do it with fresh chicken and turkey too. I buy frozen peas that only contain salt and water. ;–)

There are plenty of ways manufacturers use to disguise ingredients. I don’t partake of those sorts of products, so I don’t know what the legal requirements are. But with actual food-food, the US requires a listing of carbohydrates and a sub-listing of sugar. That sub-listing will count any sugar, no matter if it’s fructose, sucrose, lactose, glucose, or any other form of sugar. This is just one reason why the nutrition label is so useful. It’s shocking how many products contain the insidious high-fructose corn syrup, especially since its production is subsidized by the US government. But things like toothpaste contain sugar to it tastes better when you use it. Even things that don’t seem to be particularly sweet might contain sugar. There might be valid reasons for including various forms of sugar in a product, but you might not realize how much you’re consuming because it’s sometimes hidden. Is the Healthy Shakers product caffeinated? ;–)

I was saving this for a different author, but it fits here too! ;–) Vern, Wayne, and me? ;–)

@Aceinthehole, this is the chapter where Jill Haner mentions her name. Unlike Harrison, Jill is rarely mentioned by name. She is nearly always referred to as Mom or Mrs Haner!

My classmates would never have trusted me anywhere near a football (or any other ball for that matter) and you’re lucky to have had a grass field to play on. In both my high school and junior high, we only had dirt fields. Only the high school teams got to play on grass fields! ;–)

There was that year when my brother’s dog (the last one) found a box of chocolate on the coffee table under the christmas tree. My mother missed one – all the others were on the mantle out of reach of the dog. But the dog was always very good(?) about throwing up so she didn’t die from chocolate poisoning (she was put to sleep when she was deaf and blind at a very old age in her mid teens).

You’re one of those parents who cross-examines whoever their kids bring home, aren’t you? ;–)

In the Nineties, I dated a guy who worked at Tower Records. He saw a stack of my CDs (remember those?) and decided I was ‘Rocker Boy.’ That particular stack included Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Melissa Etheridge, and other rock musicians. But other stacks might have featured the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Tom Robinson, Bronski Beat, and Romanovsky & Phillips; Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Cyndi Lauper, and Cher; the Beatles, the Eagles, Chicago, Doobie Brothers, and America; Alan Parson Project, Al Stewart, and Howard Jones; or any number of other combinations that would have suggested different personalities. I had something like 600 CDs at one point. ;–)

You’re welcome! ;–)

Corelle made a much nicer impression than the unbreakable gray stuff it replaced. I can’t remember what that stuff was called, but it wasn’t Tupperware-like flexible plastic. Ugly gray Melmac (Melamine) plates and dishes! And replacing Corelle was much cheaper than the china set. ;–)

Now I can’t get John Williams’ Indiana Jones theme out of my head! ;–) That’s just one reason why my mother hated cats! None of my brother’s dogs was allowed on the furniture (but there were a few exceptions over the years). They definitely never slept in bed with him. And they were prohibited from walking on our tables or counters! ;–)

Did OItNB’s ‘Yoga’ Jones change her name to get a job after she was released? ;–) I don’t think I’ve ever split my pants. Surprising considering how tight some of them were over the years – especially in the Seventies! But I made up for that by being mortified in numerous other ways… ;–) Besides, wasn’t Calvin wearing compression shorts under the yoga pants that split? In Vicious, Ash Weston (Iwan Rheon) splits his skin-tight pants while dancing, but he’s going commando because the pants are so tight! So things could have been worse… ;–)

;–)

You’re welcome, Ace.

Better verbose than logorrhea, bloviation, or gobbledygook! ;–P

Even though they were supposed to be shatter-resistant, my father managed to break quite a few Corelle bowls (the floor was non-ceramic tile on a concrete slab foundation) – I don’t recall anyone else breaking them. ;–)

Don’t worry, you won’t remember them in the morning anyway! ;–)

‘Exact same’ was one of my mother’s pet peeves – back in the Seventies! She hated the redundancy. She’d say that it should be phrased ‘exactly the same.’ ;–) I’m not sure who has my parents’ wedding rings, probably my older brother. Even if I had a boyfriend to propose to, I don’t think my parents would have approved. I doubt I’d be allowed to give my father’s wedding band to a theoretical fiancé. ;–) But I certainly remember washing and drying our Butterfly Gold Corelle dinnerware… ;–)

Evil! You can’t stop there! That like a cliffhanger finale for a now-cancelled single-season TV series. ;–) So many little interesting details. You do realize I hate French movies because so many of their directors neglect to film the last reel. I need a conclusion – it doesn’t have to be a happy ending, just some sort of resolution! ;–)

Yeah, some of the other prompts have been amuse-bouche-style micro-tidbits of just a couple paragraphs in length. ;–)

Well Parker’s take is radically different from the other two! Each author’s very distinct characteristic style shines through the prompts. Including their favored length of story. I guess if @Timothy M. or @Geron Kees were participating in the game, we’d get a novel-length beginning to a new series. ;–) Parker seems to have made ‘he learns to drive’ a more prominent feature in the story because I don’t really recall anything similar in either of the other stories. I blame my advanced age. I read many stories by a non-GA author from that part of Canada and usually have to reset my brain into ‘Canada mode’ (eg Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, centre, etc), but not this time. ;–) Deliciously different and pure Parker! ;–)