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Ask Luke’s Mother-in-Law: Pumpkin Pop Tarts, Phoenix and Pro-Wrestling


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Martha Boyd is not just Luke’s mother-in-law – she’s also an ex-cop, a landlord, a self-described crazy cat lady, a major Star Trek geek and the widow of a green beret. So go ahead: ask her anything. And we mean anything. Either comment below with your question, or email boydappraisal at yahoo.

Well, I hope we all survived the transition from the old to the new comment posting thingy. It did not have an impact on me, as when I first joined the site I did it with Facebook as I did not know any better. At my age it is good that I can do Facebook. Anyway, I hope all of my friends are still on board even if you had to make up new names. I mean, FB lets me use boydappraisal – I guess it is sort of a real name, as it’s my company mashed together.

So on to my stuff this week. I think I will start something new here as LYT lets me get away with almost anything. From time to time, I will do things I found to eat at a 99-cent to $1.00 stores. You know you can actually live out of stuff from one of these places. Today I give you Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts. This is a limited edition, so as it is in 99 Cent Only in Yucca Valley I would guess they put these out for Thanksgiving. I never did find a “best if use by” date on the box, only a “distributed by Kelloggs” date of 2014. However, as most of you know, Pop Tarts are like the cockroach and stay good until you pop the interior foil packaging.

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I will for this purpose assume they were made some 8+months ago to make it for Thanksgiving, and it is now the end of May 2015. They cost a whole 99.99 cents for a box of 12 (family size box), which gives me 24 pastries. Roughly 0.08 cents per tart. The morning coffee I had this with was from my own pot and flavored with Pumpkin Spice creamer, also from the same store. So I got breakfast for, oh, under a dollar. Not bad.

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The tart is covered in the typical white frosting with little orange, yellow and brown specks. The pastry was still nice and fresh, then the layer of pumpkin filling goodness. It is typical pop tart thickness, and had a nice little pumpkin pie taste. It was like eating a small piece of pie with frosting. I liked these and will probably go back and snag a couple of more boxes to put in the pantry for later enjoyment. I’ve sent along pics of the box, tart and filling for your enjoyment. Hope you all liked my tiny fast food review – let me know. OK please, begging here, etc. LOL

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We had a great Memorial Day weekend here in the desert. The weather was beautiful. Nice community parade and service at the cemetary. Hope you all had a great holiday too if your land has this day.

So let’s see what we get this week. LYT told me to get online early last Thursday to save the comments/questions elsewhere, as he did not know what would happen with the transition. I get up generally somewhere in the 6:30 to 8:30 time frame so started checking at 7:30. Hope I did not miss anyone. If I did, send the question to TR and LYT will get it to me.

BrandoLars:

Why the hell do crawly things creep us (me) out so badly?

I’m right there with you. I hate to feel something crawling on me. Uggggg!!!!. We have lots of bugs out here in the desert and most of them bite so I am a big fan – yeah sure. I always have a can of Hot Shot Kitchen Bug Killer handy in every room of the house. I use this brand as it is botanical and I can spray it around the cats. Red ants seem to be attracted to the dry cat food in the summer, so I can kill the ants without hurting the little ones.

davelog:

Dear Luke’s MIL,
Here in Phoenix, the streets are littered with empty buildings from failed businesses. I don’t understand the logic of property owners that are perfectly content letting buildings stay empty for years rather than drop the rents and make them available to more people, allowing small businesses to get an easier foothold. Same with empty houses from the boom/bust.
Isn’t it better to make a little less money at a continual pace rather than no money for years? What’s the reasoning?
Yours in non-facebookness,
-dave

I totally agree with you. Phoenix turned into pretty much a ghost town with the bust several years ago. Even if the building is empty you still have to pay taxes, maintenance etc. I’m sure some of it is a business/tax decision. But I would rather have tenants then no tenants in my rentals. I don’t have any commercial properties, but do have houses and apts that I rent. From time to time I have adjusted the rent down or given a rent concession like the 6th month free with a 12 month lease. Keeping them rented keeps vandals out. Out here, when people find out something is empty, sometimes they come in and strip the places out down to the drywall. So I would rather have a tenant then have to reconstruct the unit.

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GallenDugall:

Western movie lot false fronts? Are you sure it’s not some quantum state trickery?

Could be – never looked at it that way. But these in Pioneertown have all 4 sides now and people live in them. Now the ones in Hollywood are totally false.

dnjscott:

Do you think the current pro sci-fi, pro comic book trends will continue much longer or they’ll burn out soon like most trends?

Well they may, but I hope that we can keep them going for awhile. Comics are a great fantasy. Everything runs its course, but luckily after a span of time they generally come back, the parents take the kids to see the new versions and we get a whole new group that loves the stories all over again. Just love how things tend to recycle.

TheRealDE12:

Question: Are you a fan of Professional Wrestling, and if so, who are your favorite wrestlers?

So much a fan. Used to go every month to the Anaheim Convention Center when Wreslting was there. Back in the 1970s, wresting generally alternated with Roller Derby (also a big fan) Go T-Birds. I cut my teeth on Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Macho Man, Andre the Giant etc. This was in High School, so our parents would drop a group off at the convention center and pick us up after the evening. They knew it was a safe place for us. Now I don’t live anywhere close that has wrestling – but I do have the WWE network on my TV so I get to keep up with all of the new shows and love to watch the older shows that were taped. I love the pic that LYT and Julia have with the Ultimate Warrior just before he passed. They even got to see the GLOW gals recently at DragCon. So in answer to your question, a big YES.

LYT:

A competing website recently ran an article called “MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, As Reviewed By My 70-Year-Old Mother-In-Law.”

Do you think they came up with that idea, totally independently, on their own?

I did read the article and it was pretty good. I don’t know if Mr. Wamplex reads TR or not. If he does – stolen, if not, independent idea. But he did say his wife asked Miss Mary to go to the movie on her 70th birthday. Note to LYT and Julia: when I hit 70, please don’t ask me to see something similar. Would prefer to keep what will be left of my hearing at that point. So you have 11 years to find something else. I like Mary and the fact that she agreed to go and see this – what a trouper. If Helen Mirren is still making movies 11 years from now that would be a suggestion.

GallenDugall:

QUESTION! They’ve changed Trek a lot over the years in ways both subtle and overt. What change to Trek has been most glaring to you?

Going back to pre-Kirk; I was not too in with that. Wished they had just kept going forward rather then back. But for a Trekkie almost anything is better than nothing.

GallenDugall:

QUESTION! I have… a friend, who has won a no-prize and is wondering how to best display it. At first I was going to… I mean I recommended that he or she, hang it on the wall, but now I’m… and they are thinking that maybe it would be more impressive on a shelf. How do you best display a no-prize?

Well, as they don’t take up much space I would say that nice little gap on the shelf would be the best, front and center.

FreeHat:

So Have To Ask What’s A no-prize?

No prize, bupkiss, nada, nothing. Gallen just asked 4 questions that week and is such a tease and I am the straight (wo)man.

That is all for this week. I hope I got everyone saved before it all went into cyber la la land. Hope everyone liked the Tony Ortega podcast – I thought it was really good. I can remember when we first moved to LA and would be down on Hollywood Blvd seeing the sights. Scientology had a center on the blvd and would always be trying to get you to come in and take their tests. I have also sent along a couple of more Pioneertown pictures for your enjoyment. Keep those cards and letters heading my way. Let me know if you like the finds from the 99 cent stores. I have one already for next week, so you will need to tune in again for find out what I found. As always be good to each other this next week and HUGGS.

As always, keep your questions coming, be they foolish, philosophical or anything else! Any questions submitted in comments below – or emailed to Martha directly for publication – will be included in future columns.