Good Monday Morning and welcome, once again, To Filosofa’s Jolly Monday!  In the interest of keeping you jolly, I will not mention that Christmas is exactly two weeks from today and that there is very little time left for you to finish your Chrsitmas shopping, bake cookies & other treats, make a cheeseball, wrap afore-mentioned presents, address & mail cards, decorate the tree, hang the mistletoe, and plan your Christmas dinner.  No, friends, it would just stress you, so I will not mention any of that!  I will, however, mention that I baked fresh treats for you this morning, so help yourselves!  And now, let’s find some fun things to start our work week out, shall we?

After Christmas, I swear I am cutting back on these snacks, for every week somebody requests something else.  The latest request was to add milk!  I love you guys, but I am not running a bloomin’ restaurant!

Do you make homemade pizza at home?  We do, for I do not care for frozen pizza, and it’s pricey to order a delivered pizza, though we do that sometimes also.  But we make pizza at home once or twice a month.  It isn’t hard, just a bit time-consuming with cutting onions, peppers, mushroons, chicken, pineapple (always use fresh!), but not hard at all.  Well, the astronauts on the International Space Station have a bit more difficulty, as you might imagine, but watch this short clip, for they have a system and it looks like they have a lot of fun with it, too!

One day not long ago, we were walking into one of our favourite restaurants when a group came out and advised us against going in, saying they waited twenty minutes and never so much as saw a server.  We reversed course and decided we had better things to do, so we went elsewhere, but we speculated about what might have happened.  I jokingly said that perhaps a serial killer came in and murdered all the staff in cold blood.  Well, we checked the news the next day and no such thing had happened, but now I think I might know what did happen.

Alex Bowen, of Columbia, South Carolina, had been drinking and was, in his own words, ‘pretty inebriated’ when he decided to visit his local Waffle House restaurant at 3:00 a..m. for a bite to eat.  He went in, waited about ten minutes, but nobody came to take his order.  So, he wandered back to the kitchen area and found the lone employee … asleep!  Well, Alex was hungry, had his heart set on a sandwich, so he set to work and made himself a Texas bacon cheesesteak melt and then even cleaned up after himself!  He went out to the dining area to eat, left the employee sleeping, and returned later in the day to pay for his food!  Not only considerate and enterprising, but honest too!

A spokesperson for Waffle House said in a statement. “We are reviewing this incident and will take appropriate disciplinary action. In a related note, obviously Alex has some cooking skills, and we’d like to talk to him about a job since we may have something for him.”  Anybody care to guess what position might just open up?

How old were you when you stopped believing that Santa really brought all those presents?  I officially stopped believing when I was 8 and asked for an electric typewriter and a piano, so my parents sat me down and explained.  But unofficially, I quit believing long before, however it was to my advantage to let them carry on the myth, for I learned that if you asked your parents directly for a race car set (no, I did not do ‘dolls’ – I did cars and horses), you were likely to get socks and underwear.  But if you asked ‘Santa’ for a racecar set, you got a racecar set, for Santa wouldn’t dream of giving you socks and underwear.

One precocious six-year-old was told to write a letter to Santa for a school assignment, and here is the letter he wrote:

Dear Santa,

Santa I’m only doing this for the class. I know your notty list is empty. And your good list is emty. and your life is emty. You don’t know the troubles Ive had in my life. Good bye.

Love,

Im not telling you my name.

His mom couldn’t resist posting it on Twitter, with an explanation …

“My 6yo Santa skeptic was told to write a letter to Santa at school. So he did. PS – the ‘troubles’ in his life? His brother. Don’t call child services.”

I occasionally eat a Pop-Tart, though I mostly only like the ones with brown sugar and cinnamon, and rarely eat them at all.  But, I have never even once considered putting condiments upon the pastries.  I suppose if I were to put anything on them, it would be peanut butter, for I put that on everything, and even in my oatmeal.  But somebody in Illinois happens to like mustard on his Pop-Tarts.  I say, ‘so what?’ and don’t care at all, so long as he doesn’t put mustard on mine, but apparently Illinoisans were offended.

It all started when a Twitter user who goes by the handle @adumsteeves tweeted: “You guys aint from Illinois if you dont put mustard on your poptarts.”  The official Pop-Tarts account quoted the tweet with an appeal for help from the Illinois State Police: “@ILStatePolice can you guys handle this?” The State Police did not respond, for they were likely out catching speeders driving 1.27 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.  But the Dixon, Ill., Police Department offered its assistance with a tweet reading, “Let us know if they don’t handle this @PopTartsUS, WE will… Ain’t nobody puttin’ mustard on their Pop-Tarts in Illinois.”

Perhaps it was the threat of a visit from the police, but for whatever reason, the origina tweet was removed, and Pop-Tarts (aka Kellogg’s) claimed victory.  @adumsteeves, however, does not concede the issue, tweeting, “I didnt [sic] delete it and honestly dont know what happened… someone sabatoged my tweet.”  Who knew a bit of mustard could cause such a stir?  And who knew Illinoisans were such food purists?

Well, my lovely friends, I think we better all get moving, for there is much to be done today, and if we sit here around the cozy fire munching cookies all day, nothing will get done except we will all need naptime soon.  So, I thank you all for taking a bit of time from your busy Monday to drop by and I hope you enjoyed our time together.  Please do remember to share smiles and hugs today, for it costs us nothing and we never know but we might have brightened someone’s day with a simple smile.  And I give you all any hugs and much love!  Keep safe and warm, and have a wonderful week!

‘Heck, this is nothing, why when I was a kid, we’d have snow clear up to here.’