Tag: Animals

Seven Things I Love (7-25-2022)

1. This Country Music Group on America’s Got Talent – I’m not a regular AGTT watcher. I tend to watch the truly amazing performers who go viral via YouTube weeks or even months after they’ve been on the show. But I managed to catch this performance just a few days after they were on. Most likely you’ve already seen it or at least heard about it.

Chapel Hart is a KICKASS trio from Poplarville, Mississippi. Their performance was so sensational that the judges (Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara, Simon Cowell and host Terry Crews) made an exception to the rules and gave a “Golden Buzzer” to the group even though there were no more Golden Buzzers left to give.

CHAPEL HART; PHOTO CREDIT: ALEXIS CARTER

Chapel Hart (sisters Danica Hart and Devynn Hart, and their cousin Trea Swindle) performed an original song called “You Can Have Him Jolene” which is a tribute to their idol (and America’s idol) Dolly Parton.

You can watch the video (again and again) below and also read the lovely tweet from Dolly herself!

(Side note: a little history behind Dolly’s Jolene. One day Dolly met a little girl named Jolene and she said to the girl – such a lovely name, I should write a song. And she did! But she decided to use a little bit of her own life for the story. Going all the way back to just a year after she was married to her husband Carl – 1996. It seems there was a bodacious redhead making goo-goo eyes at Dolly’s hubby and that was the inspiration for the song. Needless to say, Dolly ain’t gonna let Jolene have him.)

In addition to getting this fabulous recognition from Dolly, Chapel Hart also has been invited to debut on the Grand Ole Opry. It’s been quite a week for these three young women.

(One more side note – Dolly Parton made a cameo on this week’s The Orville. She plays herself, even though it takes place in the 25th century. It’s clever how they work that out in the storyline. It was fantastic!)

If you’d like to watch the video directly on YouTube here’s the link.

[Shared with me by my friend Meta]

2. This Emu named Emmanuel Todd Lopez, and his adorable caretaker, Taylor Blake of Knuckle Bump Farms

Taylor had been making education videos when Emmanuel made an unplanned cameo and since then Taylor and Emmanuel’s videos have gone viral. People are scrambling to get a hold of some of the “Emmanuel, don’t do it!” merchandise! Taylor says – it’s coming!

Who doesn’t love emus???

[Found on LGBTQ Nation]

3. This Editorial About Why It Matters That J Lo Took Ben Affleck’s Last Name – Honestly, I don’t know why a 50+ year old (especially one who’s been married like four times) would want to take their husband’s name.

Here’s the thing – I get that it’s easier four couples to share the same last name, especially if there are kids involved. In this day and age I feel like at the very minimum that couples should hyphenate their names and both take each other’s names. There are also couples who figure out how to merge their names into a single name.

And I get it – from a family legacy thing and ancestry and all that (carry on the family name) that doesn’t work but really, the whole family legacy thing is bullshit. It’s just men and their egos.

Anyway, this article explains very thoroughly why it is problematic for Jenny from the Block to take Ben’s name.

You’re a feminist Jennifer!

4. These Coffee Pods – I have one cup of decaf coffee every morning which is why I don’t really like to make a pot or futz with a lot of different appliances.

Recently I have been using a small pour-over and it’s fine but it still takes a bit of time and effort, sometimes more than I want to put in first thing in the morning.

But I stopped using k-cups for a couple reasons, the main one being that they are bad for the environment. The second reason being that drinking a hot beverage that has been poured through plastic is not healthy. After all, we avoid putting items in plastic now in the microwave. Why would we think it’s okay to run hot water through k-cups to make coffee?

Enter Cometeer. These are “pods” in that they are pod-shaped but that is the only similarity. The contents are high-quality beans that are ground and brewed and then flash-frozen into a small sphere. The spheres are put into the pods. Cometeer sends your package in dry ice so it arrives frozen (you receive notification so you can watch for it as soon as it’s delivered and can get it into your own freezer.)

All you need to do is drop one of the spheres into a cup of hot water and you have a perfect cup of coffee. I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever had such a smooth cup of coffee.

I signed up for a subscription (every four weeks) for the decaf package and have only tried two of the types included so far. It comes with four different varieties.

Seriously, this is life changing. Also, it makes fabulous iced coffee drinks!

[Discovered in Wired and ]

5. This Milwaukee-Themed Collage – Only Milwaukeeans will understand how wonderful this is.

Can you identify all of them?

Starting at top going clockwise: The Purple House, Brother Ron and his Religious Car, superfan Mike “Freeway” McCarter, the late year-round sunbather and nudist Dick Bacon, John Hamann aka “The Milverine”, the late Frank “Pepperoni Cannoli” Pecoraro, and in the center, TV attorney David Gruber.

[Found on On Milwaukee]

6. These Vintage Home Gadgets – Why can’t they figure out a way to make things that we use everyday that look pretty, like they used to. Okay, maybe not the mixer, but the other things are wonderful! I love those Bosch coffee grinders.

[Found on CNN]

7. This 60 Minutes Story on the 21st Century Public Library – This made me actual miss being in libraries and it’s been a long time since I felt that way.

Word of the Week


Quote of the Week


Song of the Week

Seven Things I Love (3-1-2021)

Happy Women’s History Month!

  1. 1. This Video on the Accents of All Fifty States – Myself, I know I don’t have an accent. Well, at least I didn’t think I did (except that one time I had a bunch of people stare at me when I ordered a pop instead of a soda but that was more dialect than accent.) But then a few years ago I went to this conference in California. The first day I was there, before I had been introduced to anyone else, before I had even checked in, I was waiting in the lounge with some of the other conference attendees while they slowly checked us in one by one. I was chatting away with several of the people, most of whom were from California.
  2. After about five minutes the woman across from me said, “It’s so to be with someone from Iowa again!” I looked at her and said, “Wait, how did you know I was born in Iowa?” And she replied, “You accent! It’s great hearing that Iowa accent again.” I couldn’t believe it. Not just because I thought I had some sort of universal (and semi-classy) accent but because I had been living in Wisconsin twice as long as I had been living in Iowa. Though I moved to Wisconsin when I was 18 so I guess the accent was already pretty much permanent. You know what they say, people don’t lose an accent unless they move by 16 years of age, at the latest.

2. This Dance Compilation – I’ve seen a lot of compilations like this but when Kevin Bacon, THE Kevin Bacon, posted it on his Facebook page and wrote, “What a compilation! This might be the best of all dance numbers. Feeling inspired to watch one of the greats tonight. Are you with me?” I thought – I need to watch. And he wasn’t kidding. It’s FABULOUS!!!

3. This Nature Photographer, Tim Flach – this guy is a genius.

4. This Interview of Jason Mantzoukas by Seth Meyers – Been watching a lot of the talk shows – Seth Meyers (probably the most religiously), Colbert, Trevor, Drew Barrymore, the two Jimmys (Fallon and Kimmel) and James Corbin (the last three not as regularly as the rest). During the pandemic I’ve seen scads of interviews and I must say I don’t think I’ve seen one as entertaining as this.

5. This Canadian Artist, Tom Thomson – I recently discovered this artist because of a show called the ‘Murdoch Mysteries‘ (which I obsessed with) and now I’m looking for everything I can, not just about his art but about his life too. It turns out there was quite a bit of mystery surrounding his death and that just makes this all the more alluring.

IN THE NORTHLAND, WINTER (1915-1916) by Tom Thomson

6. These InStyle Virtual Elevator “Entrances” for the Golden Globe Awards – you can see more of them here but my favorite was Nicola Coughlan’s (and not only because she was wearing a fairy princess dress):

7. This Photographer, Kristina Makeeva – her work is truly magical. (Trying to only choose a few to highlight was incredibly difficult, you’ll want to look at more of her photos here, trust me!)


Word of the Day


Quote of the Day


Have a LOVELY Week!