Merry Christmas!
Life in Mexico
They love to drink and drive here. It’s not uncommon to see someone heading to work in the morning with a can of breakfast malt in their left hand. The cops certainly don’t care. You could strap a keg to the roof rack and run a hose through the driver window and they wouldn’t bat an eye.
This may explain the forest of white crosses that sprout around every major intersection. You notice them most in November, because that’s when surviving family members spruce them up with a coat of paint and a plastic floral wreath during Day of the Dead celebrations.
I asked my Mexican friend David about these memorials and he explained that there is a whole industry devoted to venerating loved ones killed in road accidents.
“There are actually little coffins underneath the cross with a boy or girl doll inside, depending on their gender,” he explained.
I asked if they were dressed in clothes that reflected their occupations, like Combat Camo Ken or Barrister Barbie. “Of course.”
I’m not sure if he’s pulling my leg, but I kind of like the idea. If I’m ever lucky enough to be hit by a drunk behind the wheel of a Corona beer truck, I’d like to have a bobble-head of Shakespeare in my tiny coffin.
Now Available at Amazon!
FBI AGENT JACK KENYON is back! When a bomb in Myron Buckstar’s software lab kills an innocent woman, Jack and the crew are called in to find out if terrorists are targeting the flamboyant billionaire. They soon discover that the victim was a member of Scotland Yard working undercover on a mysterious case. As Jack pursues her murder, he uncovers a race to steal the Crystal Ball, an invention that allows its owner to peer into the future. Follow Jack from San Francisco to London as he pursues a host of murderers, conmen and criminals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.
Recipe: Stuffed potato skins
I’m addicted. This is the easiest recipe in the world to make, and everyone loves it!
Ingredients
2 baker potatoes
1 Tsp of olive oil
½ cup of sour cream
½ cup of grated cheese
½ cup of diced onion
1 tsp of salt
½ cup of chopped bacon
Directions
Rub the potatoes with olive oil and bake them whole for one hour at 375F. Let cool for half an hour and then cut in half and scoop out the insides, leaving the skins intact.
Mash the potato and mix with sour cream, grated cheese, onion, salt and bacon bits. Refill the potato skins. Place on a baking tin and bake for 30 minutes at 350F. Enjoy!
TV Series
Man on the Inside
Streaming on Netflix
This is a series that you’re going to find either very funny and enjoyable, or dumb. It stars Ted Danson of Cheers as Charles, a widower and retired professor who is rattling around in his house all day, much to the distraction of his doting daughter Emily.
Meantime, a valuable ruby necklace goes missing from the room of Virginia, a dotty resident of the Pacific View Retirement Community in San Francisco. Virginia’s son is mad as hell, and hires Julie, a private investigator, to get the necklace back.
Julie, in turn, does a cattle call to find a senior who can blend into the retirement home and spy on the residents. Charles, hoping to placate his daughter, applies and, to his surprise, gets the job.
So that’s the setup. Charles spends the next few weeks in a classic cozy whodunit, investigating and eliminating the unsuspecting suspects.
We enjoyed it so much that we binged all eight episodes in two nights! If you like charming and witty mystery series with nary a corpse or pint of blood in sight, then I highly recommend Man on the Inside!
Book Review
Happy-Go-Lucky
By Dave Sedaris
This is a very sick man, which is probably the main reason we’ve been reading him for several decades.
Dave writes humorous essays about his life, his loves, his addictions and his family. He first came to the public’s attention with Santaland Diaries, an expose of his job as an elf at Macy’s Santaland Village. The job entailed dressing up in baggy green pants, a yellow turtleneck and a green vest, then guiding kids through their visit with Santa.
“You look like an asshole,” said a Dad on the first day of his job.
“Well, at least I get paid. You’re giving it away for free.”
Sardonic, witty, trenchant and laugh-out-loud funny, his latest book covers topics like the death of his father, the perils of swapping toilet paper with coffee filters during COVID hoarding, and bad jokes sent in by faithful readers.
Two priests are in a car when a cop pulls them over.
“I’m looking for two child molesters,” says the cop.
The two priests look at one another then turn to the cop. “We’re in!”
I highly recommend Happy-Go-Lucky!
Bonus TV Series
Goliath
Streaming on Netflix
This is a great series if you’re looking for a courtroom drama fix while awaiting the next season of Lincoln Lawyer.
Goliath follows the trials and tribulations of Billy McBride (played by Billy Bob Thornton), a hard-drinking lawyer with a penchant for shooting himself in the foot. Once upon a time, McBride was the driving force behind Cooperman/McBride, until his boozing got the better of him and he burned out.
Now, McBride runs a small shop out of a motel on Sunset Blvd with the help of his daughter and a reformed hooker. They stumble upon the wrongful death of an engineer, killed by an explosion on a boat owned buy his defense contractor employer.
McBride takes the case and almost immediately gets into a barrel of shit. It turns out his ex law firm, now run by Donald Cooperman (a delightfully evil William Hurt), is main counsel to the dead man’s employers. Spooks and crooked cops soon turn his personal life into hell and kill his client.
Undaunted, McBride risks it all in search of the truth.
Created by David E. Kelley, the series features a delightful cast with lots of feature roles and the excellent dialogue one comes to expect from the creator of Boston Legal and Big Little Lies. I highly recommend Goliath!