THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

Sorry we didn't post our blog last month, but we were dealing with a reality we all must face one day--death.  A couple of our friends made their transition and it left us reeling.

Of course every living thing on earth must face the inevitable.  That makes the time we have on earth precious.  That time is also limited, so we shouldn’t squander it on petty foolishness, like envying others and holding grudges.  Life should be fully embraced.  It should never be taken for granted, because as the saying goes, tomorrow is not promised.  The next hour, minute or second isn’t promised.  With every blink of the eye a soul is leaving this earth..

I’m no expert on what living life to its fullest might be, but I am in my eighties which makes my days on earth more limited than most.  All I can say is that in my opinion, if a person can live with purpose, goodness and grace, they must be on the right track.  I know in my life I’ve tried to love hard, serve others, and make the world a better place for the next generation.  I may not have always succeeded, but I’ve done the best I can, and that’s probably all any of us can do.

That’s all of the wisdom that I can think of on the subject of life for now.  This is Miss Fanny signing off, and glad that I’m taking my next breath.  Hope it lasts for a while.

A CHOCOLATE A DAY DOES NOT KEEP THE POUNDS AWAY

 

Hello readers.  I’m Beatrice Bell or Bea as my friends call me.  I don’t have to tell those of you who follow our Grandmothers, Incorporated adventure series that my friends and I are detectives.  I ran across something a few weeks ago that couldn’t help but challenge me to sniff out the truth.

Like many people, I wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds.  So, when I first heard that chocolate might be good for weight loss, my ears perked up.  The story was all over the news and the internet.  Happy day!  I didn’t waste my time or taste buds on cheap chocolate.  For a week I ate the good, expensive stuff.  My reasoning was that the quality of the chocolate would probably speed up my weight loss.

My detective sense started to tingle when a little known heredity gene kicked in.  My grandmother called it ‘mother wit’; you may know it as common sense.  Eat chocolate every day and lose weight faster?  Really?  There was another clue that made me suspicious.  When I put on my favorite pair of jeans I couldn’t zip them up!  I knew it was time to investigate this eat chocolate and lose    weight claim because something wasn’t right.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal (yes, I do that every once in a while) and I ran across a story about a science journalist named John Bohannan.  It seems this Bohannan, was a sort of watch dog of other scientist.  With the help of fellow colleagues he rigged a “scientific” study, wrote a paper about chocolate being a weight-loss accelerator and sent it to science journals for publication to see if anybody would challenge the study.

The next thing you know, nearly every media outlet you can name was reporting the story without checking the facts.  According to the article I read, most reporters didn’t challenge a single word of the study.  They didn’t even Google the “German Science Institute” that supposedly did the study.  If they had they would have found that it was phony.  It doesn’t exist!

I’ve managed to lose the five pounds I gained during my week-long chocolate diet.  Like I always say:  if it sounds too good to be true...” 

Thanks Wall Street Journal for pointing out the hoax, but being the crack investigator that I am, I already had it figured out.

LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU

 

            Folks, I got to tell you that as sure as my name is Miss Fanny Mae Collier, it will be a long time before I go to a movie with a teenager or young adult again.  My friend’s granddaughter, Tina, had a birthday a little while ago and I offered dinner and a movie as her present.  Of course, I let her pick the movie.  She chose something called Interstellar.

          There I sat, watching Earth turn into a giant dust bunny, while the hero flies off in a spaceship to save the world.  He’s supposed to find another planet for humans to migrate to.  So this guy flies through worms--a hole full of worms -- or whatever, nearly drowns on a planet full of water, nearly freezes on another planet and jumps into a black hole just to end up...  Hell, I don’t know!  All I can say is that by this time I was too through with this movie!  I didn’t get it and the theater had the music so loud, I couldn’t hear half of what they were saying.  Not that it would have mattered. 

          Tina is a bright girl and she’s into science and space and all that.  For my money, I’d rather have enjoyable entertainment that doesn’t require a PhD to figure it out.  My advice to you blog readers is that you would be better off going to see the play that me and my nutty daughter-in-law, Hattie were in.  It’s called Stakeout and it was funny, even if I say so myself.  Plus it had some touching moments between me and Hattie.

          If the play is not being performed near you, then buy a copy of our latest adventure, Something’s Wrong with Miss Zelda.  Soon we’ll have a new book called Whose Knife is it Anyway?   Both books are delightful--again, even if I have to say so myself-- and at the end you won’t sit scratching your head and wondering what happened.

 

MORE ADVENTURES AHEAD!!

Time is passing faster than a speeding car, and my girls and I are steadily busy.  I'm happy to announce that I--Bea Bell--am working on getting my private detective license, and I'm strutting around here as proud as a peacock.  I can't wait!

Last month, Miss Fanny told you about the case that Hattie was working on in the new play, Stake Out.  It's coming to the Indy Fringe Theatre Festival in August.  Stake Out was written by our creators, Evans and Rhodes, and I hear it's funny.  Shoot, I've got to give Hattie credit for her ingenuity when it comes to drumming up business for us.  I don't care what Miss Fanny says!

Let me tell you what else has been brewing out there in detective land.  Connie, Hattie and I have been invited on a retreat at a conference center, located somewhere out in the woods, with some women we don't particularly like.  Lord knows there will be fireworks between us, but the purpose of the time we'll be spending together is to end the conflicts.  We'll see what happens with us stuck out in the middle of nowhere.  All kinds of mayhem and murder could occur.  That's what happens on TV and in the movies.

Evans and Rhodes are calling our next adventure Whose Knife is it Anyway?   Who knows, I might be able to put my considerable skills to work once again, but this time as a card carrying "real" private detective.  Stay tuned.

WE'RE GOING ON A STAKEOUT

     As sure as my name is Fanny Mae Collier I know that one of these days my daughter-in-law, Hattie, is going to get herself in a mess she can't get out of.

     One reason it's bound to happen is those nutty friends of hers, Bea Bell and Connie Palmer.  Now, Connie ain't so bad, but if you've been following our adventures in the books, Grandmothers, Incorporated, Saving Sin City, and Something's Wrong with Miss Zelda you know that Bea's got the crazy notion that she's a detective.  The lunatic imagines she sees a crime in anything that's just a little off-kilter.  Bea even went and got a private investigator's license.

     The point is Hattie thinks she has to prove that she's just as good a detective as Bea.  private detective--ha!  If you ask me, two things neither one of them know about is privacy or detecting.   

When Hattie decided to take on a "case" for a friend, I had no intention of getting involved but, you guessed it, the fool drags me in it.

     The scandalous affair that Hattie discovers will either establish her as a bona fide detective or blow up in her face.  To see how it all works out, come to our play, Stakeout.  Directed by Deborah Asante, Stakeout will be coming to the annual Indy Fringe Theater Festival in August, 2014.

     This is Fanny Collier and I'll see you at the Fringe.

TWO CINDERELLA STORIES

     Remember the fairytale story of Cinderella?  The poor girl was forced to do all the work in her home while her ugly step sisters went with their mother to the ball in hopes of being chosen as a wife for the prince?

     Fast forward to the year 2014 where the story of a real-life Cinderella unfolds.  A Welsh woman is suing her seventy-five year old parents for a portion of their £7million estate.  She claims, sort of like Cinderella before her that for twenty-five years she worked extremely long hours on the family dairy farm while her siblings went out and enjoyed themselves dancing. 

     According to news reports, the forty-five year old woman claims that as a teen she had to stay and work on the farm while her two sisters went to the Young Farmers’ Club dances.   She says that over the years she says she was told by her parents “You’ll have the whole dam lot one day.”  

     Her parents counter that their daughter received room and board and a fair wage.  They also said they had put her through agriculture school because she said she wanted to stay on the farm.

     Honestly, it would be hard to walk away from any portion of £7milion. (I don’t know what that is in dollars but it sounds like a lot.) But, I wonder, is the estate really “family” money?  Doesn’t it belong to the parents to give, loose, throw away as they choose?  Could the daughter have (gasp) saved up for her own small farm instead of waiting on the parents to die?  On second thought, I guess not since she’s suing for her portion now.

     Meanwhile, on “this side of the pond” we have the New Jersey Cinderella who doesn’t have to contend with ugly step sisters.  Instead she sounds like she could be one, stomping her feet and demanding she be supported in the manner in which she wants to be accustom.  At the legal age of 18 years old, she wants to set her own rules just as an adult can, but be supported as a minor. She feels she is owed the money for her room and board, weekly child support of, and her remaining high school tuition.  Oh, and of course, college tuition. 

     My question is when are our children going to learn self-reliance, respect for their parents, and pride in their own accomplishments?  To me, the obvious answer is--when we teach them.

     At the close of the New Jersey Cinderella case, the judge asked, “Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?”  

     Well, do we?

This is Bea Bell, signing off.

BRAIN FART BY Miss Fanny: BEWARE OF THE GANGSTA GRANNIES

What in the world would make people think that if you’ve got some years on you that you can’t be a crook?  It makes sense to me that being older would make somebody a better criminal. Older people have experience.  So you would think that folks with common sense had already figured out that its character and not age that determines whether a person is honest or not, but I guess that’s not the case.

You see, on the TV news recently they had a story about this 73 year old woman in Oklahoma who was running a drug ring. They put her white-haired mug on the screen and the news anchors seemed to be in shock as they blabbed about how sweet she looked (which was a matter of opinion), and how they just couldn't believe that she ran a drug cartel.  Ha!

The only question that I had about the whole thing was why couldn’t they believe it? From what the report said the woman was busted with 4 pounds of marijuana, worth about $276,000. That’s a lot of money, especially if you’re someone living on Social Security.  The woman told the authorities that she was building a nest egg for her old age.  I might not agree with how she did it, but what she said makes sense to me and from what I heard, she had been running this drug ring for some time without raising suspicion.  I wasn’t surprised by that either.

It also seems logical that the most successful criminals would be the ones who would seem to be the least harmful.  That’s why it would be easier for an older person to fool folks, especially the ones who refuse to give up the stereotypes. Things are changing and so are the times. I guess when “granny” or “paw paw” rip enough folks off, they’ll get the message.

I’m just surprised that there haven’t been more stories like this.  Shoot, for the average person, Social Security is barely enough to live on.  I guess that some folks figure that they have to get extra money somehow.  Come to think of it there are probably a lot more “seniors” who choose illegal activities to make extra money than folks think. They just don’t get caught because they look too sweet. 

And while I’m at it, whose bright idea was it to ease up on frisking blue haired old ladies and little kids at the airport security gate?  I say search those suckers!  Even I can think of a bunch of scenarios in which the most innocent looking airline passengers can be used for the worst things possible.  I won’t give any examples of what I can think of to pull off terrorist attacks by “sweet faced old ladies”, but if I can think of some I’m sure that these terrorist can too.

I think that everybody who passes through the security gate at an airport should be searched with a fine tooth comb, particularly when my life is at stake.  I don’t care how innocent they look.  Any old fart can be a gangsta. 

You can call me a cynic, but I’ll call myself sensible.  So you can muse on that!