News of note...

There was an item on our local television news about a wild animal park that is running an elephant car wash. Literally. Their elephants will wash your car. They don't guarantee results, but it sure looked like a lot of fun.

And another story about the poor folks in Spokane (in the far east part of the state of Washington) who have to drive east into Idaho in order to buy dishwasher detergent. It seems that the state has enacted a new law - being phased in starting with Spokane County but coming soon to all parts of Washington state - that bans phosphates from detergents. And the 'green' detergents (the non-phosphate alternatives) currently on the market do not, in fact, actually clean dishes. Evidently it is difficult to get phosphates out of water in the water treatment plants, hence the ban. But it is even more difficult to get grease and food off of dishes without phoshpates in detergents. It might be interesting for our little community, which has a 'state of the art' water treatment facility so sophisticated that it seems to justify our water bill being literally 10 times more than we have ever paid anywhere for water - all in 'fees.' Hmmmmm. I bet it won't matter. High costs AND dirty dishes too. Now that's progress for you.

Another news story on the internet this week was about a parrot who managed to attract a babysitter's attention to the fact that a baby was choking - by yelling "Mama, Baby" over and over, flapping his wings and generally kicking up a fuss until 'Mama' came around to do the Heimlich maneuver. (My son's fiance's parrot is not particularly popular with my son. I wondered if this heartwarming story would help the relationship.)

Another 'feature' from the internet this week was a recipe for a 3-minute (start to finish) chocolate cake that you mix up in a coffee cup and 'bake' in the microwave. I, of course, tried it. Good flavor but odd texture, on account of the volume of a whole egg matched to only a few tablespoons of sugar, flour and cocoa etc. Also I think my microwave was too strong and it 'baked' too long. I threw the recipe away because, when it comes down to it, I really don't need to be only 3 minutes away from a piece of chocolate cake.

Back to the TV 'news,' one of our favorite ads on TV is the one for ProActive acne medication - the part in which the guy says "I put it on at night, and in the morning... you don't have acne." (He puts it on and then we don't have acne?) We think this is marvelous - and hope he keeps using it because, goodness knows, we don't want to have acne in the morning.

Isn't it nice to be informed?