On Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (aka JBER aka "J-Bear"), a literal bear broke into a storage room and ransacked the MREs inside.

While not unusual to have bears encroaching onto base, it is unusual to have them breaking into buildings.

Another bear was discovered in the motor pool building... sitting in the front seat of a Humvee!

(...when you're a bear and you can't do drugs but you wanna go whee!)

I feel giddy. I had an idea and it worked beautifully.

Are you a fan of canned cinnamon rolls? Even as a half decent baker, I frequently don't want to spend the time making rolls from scratch and I just want one ▪︎right now▪︎. It never mattered if I made the 8 pack from Pillsbury with soft little delicious puffs of dough or the 5 pack of actual rolls holding generous shmears of cinnamon filling. Neither of those varieties ever comes with enough damn icing!

I scrape and I scrape the little plastic container but it empties too fast. I tried warming it a bit, liquifying the icing just barely and drizzling it over the buns to make sure I got every last molecule of sugar out. Too soon and the hot buns finish melting the icing and it all pools down on the plate. Not enough. It's never enough!

Then about a week ago, I had an epiphany during an all-nighter sugar craving. I recalled the tubs of cream cheese icing I hoarded from Lidl for when I want to make a quick batch of cupcakes.

I know. I know it's stupid easy to make. I have developed a recipe that is pretty damn good IMHO. But the tedious clean up from making icing, powdered sugar coating everything, even my lungs, sometimes I opt for convenience.

Anyways, tub of icing in pantry. Check.

Then I recalled in my college years when an early internet forum suggested slightly microwaving a tub of icing and drizzling it over bundt cakes. My cake game got an immediate boost in approval from friends and family. I eventually moved away from store bought icing for most cake applications and this technique got shoved to the bottom of my brain stack.

So now... what if I microwaved that cream cheese icing tub and drowned some cinnamon buns with it? Holy Jesus on a cinnamon stick!

Yes, precious. That did it. THAT made the dopamine flow just as the sticky sweet slightly tangy cream cheese icing gently enveloped my buns cooling down from the oven. And now I share my little franken-roll hack with you.

!The most demanded Christmas-exclusive recipe that my late mother in law kept from everyone (but meeee!)

In memory of an amazing mother in law. Love her to pieces.

Chef's notes: grease a dish with butter before pouring the fudge. And !!DO NOT!! put it in the refrigerator to cool. Leave it on the counter to cool. Fridge = brick of sad chocolate. Also also, MIL's preferred brand of peanut butter is JIF. I couldn't care less what brand I use, but this mattered to her. ❤️

Edit: Canned milk = evaporated milk.

"Mars" creme = marshmallow creme aka Fluff.

!Sunbeam

DETAILS:

• Friday, October 25, 2024, 6:00-10:00pm
• Colley Avenue between Shirley Avenue and Brandon Avenue (essentially in front of the Naro)

Masquerade in Ghent is free and open to the public. Ample parking can be found along the streets and parking lots.

• Pre-Judging for Costume Contest: 6:00pm
• Parade: 6:30pm

After the parade, get ready for a monster mash with live music. Plus, there will be activities for kids, refreshments and adult beverages.

DETAILS

• October 25 @ 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT
• Virginia Zoo
• 3500 Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23504

Note: "For the wellbeing of our animals, all trails and the Goat Yard will be closed during the event."

OP's thoughts: so what the hell is the point of going to the zoo when you can't walk around and see the animals? Well it looks like they will have other activities available to enjoy {laser tag, escape room, tarot readings, etc}, and TBF it will be close to dark when the event starts, so the animals really do need to come in to bed down for the night. The World of Reptiles will be open, and the train will be running. If you are a fan of the zoo grounds, then you'll enjoy this event. If not, then see my other post for Oct 25 events.

ZooBoo Kid-Friendly dates are Oct 19 and Oct 20

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Mine would be the time my dad rigged a harness and "hung" himself from the carport beam, dressed to look like a stuffed Halloween decoration. He would grab at the bigger kids and parents when they came up to the door for candy. Scared the living bejeezus out of them.

Husband sent me this pic that he found on the site formerly known as Twitter. I'm impressed that they either found sock yarn/#10 thread in dayglo yellow, or that they used basic cotton thread and found dayglo yellow fabric dye.

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...The semi was headed west when its raised bed slammed into the overhead sign near mile marker 200 as it approached the I-64/I-295 split.

Virginia State Police said the crash happened shortly after 9:30 a.m.

"The cab continued on and then stopped, obviously, because it had separated from the bed of the tractor-trailer," Matt Demlein, a spokesperson for Virginia State Police, said. "We're still investigating as to what led up to it actually hitting the sign. It was empty at the time."

Troopers do not know why the bed was raised or how long it was up before the crash. But officials said the truck had stopped at a weigh station about a mile earlier, which is equipped with cameras...

This might fit better in the DIY group but here goes.

How do I know when it's time to have the septic system pumped out?

We had a new one installed 3 years ago. It was an upgrade in size. I'm not sure the capacity. It was negotiated to be done as part of our purchase contract, and the old owners didn't give us a copy of their contract with the installer. Just the inspector's report that plans were adequate for the number of bathrooms we have.

There are only 2 of us. We don't put that much water into the system. But we've been having a LOT of rain. Over 5" in the last week and a half, and over 9" since Jul 1. Our elevation is between 1 and 4 ft (not a typo), so the water table is very close to the surface here.

I'm getting periods of methane smell in the house off & on for about a month now. I've run water to make sure all the traps aren't empty. It's possible it could be coming from the vent stack for the washing machine, but it's not all the time.

So with not a lot of use put into the system, is 3 years too early to have it pumped out? How can we tell?

I think I'm learning about myself that no single solution will be my miracle solution. I try things and they work for a bit, then it just wears off.

Well I'm in that place where I'm fed up and looking to try something new.

What apps or non-digital tools do you use to keep yourself on track?

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Imagine a moonshiner so notorious, so untouchable, that even the law couldn’t haul her in. Picture a whiskey queen who ruled from a rugged fortress in rural Tennessee, and that’s where history buffs will learn of the legendary Mahala Mullins.

Catch-able, But Not Fetch-able Mahala Mullins wasn’t your average moonshiner. In fact, through the mid-1800s she was one of the most notorious bootleggers and sellers of illicit whiskey in Tennessee. It wasn’t that the government didn’t know about her. They did. It’s just that, whenever they came to arrest her, they couldn’t quite get her out of the house and down the rugged Appalachian Mountains.

Records report that she had a dozen warrants for her arrest, and numerous treks by officers were made through the 16 miles of remote Hancock County backwoods to her cabin. So even if the revenue agents made it all the way up to her house, they’d never be able to lug her back down. Because of this, lawmen would say she’s “Catch-able, but not Fetch-able” due to her tipping the scales at more than 600 pounds. Mullins would even taunt them by saying, “Take me if you can.”

!Mahala Mullins sitting in her bed

Working from Home Sometime after giving birth to her 19th child, Mahala was infected with elephantiasis, which permanently enlarged her. Eventually, she grew too large to move from bed. And from her bedside, she’d pour and sell whiskey in large quantities to locals, confident in her immunity from any sort of punishment. At the time, moonshine was noted as a way to “let loose,” medicinal, a cleaning agent, or a preservative. Mahala’s famous pear brandy brought in customers from all across the mountains.

Mullins was too large to be moving around the home. So, she took on the entrepreneurial mountain woman spirit of conducting operations that supported her large family from her bedside. She was often open in saying that it was not wrong for her to make a living in that manner. Mahala’s cabin was a special reserve for her, as her husband and sons had lost their lives in mountain fights and were buried in the backyard so that she could gaze at their gravesites from her bedside.

Mullins always seemed to be confined to the mountaintop ridge in which she lived, having spent her childhood and adult life within a three-mile radius, never venturing to town or seeing a railway train. However, she delighted in visitors and conversations, having been known for telling a great story and offering cookies and milk to her guests.

Around age 75, Mullins passed away and was removed from her cabin through a hole that is now occupied by a chimney. She was buried in her four-poster bed beside her late husband and sons along the ridge on the homestead.

Melungeons in Appalachia Mullins was also noted as one of the most famous Melungeons of her time. Melungeon is a term that first appeared in print in the 19th century, used in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina to describe people of mixed ancestry. The Hancock Couny area was known to host one of the largest populations of Melungeon people in the country. Melungeons were considered to have a mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry. And, Mahala Mullins was just as about as mysterious as her heritage.

!Mahala Mullins Cabin

Mahala Mullins Cabin The cabin has been relocated to town and into a museum that tells the story of Mahala and the area. Vardy Community Historical Society 3845 Vardy Blackwater Road Sneedville, TN 37869

When I was a kid, it'd have to be Memorial Day. All the extended family would convene at the old family cemetery to decorate the graves. That isn't the weird thing... the weird thing was we treated it as a family reunion and picnicked together among the head stones.