Brownies and Laughter

Gee, it's above freezing - actually, it's 37 degrees outside and the sun is shining.  The snow is still melting and evaporating away (there are still 5 inches in the back yard); and the weather folks are calling for partly sunny skies until the weekend, with highs in the upper-30s and low-40s.  I've got a head-cold, but am otherwise OK.  I handed out 20 packages of brownies this morning - and I only missed one person that I'm aware of.  And last night, after I went to bed, I was reading and I ended up laughing out loud - a huge belly laugh - sometime after midnight.  Lovey sat up from her position on my knees and gave me a dirty look, while Nedi came to investigate.  It was the description of a poor sea-sick man in extremely rough seas, below decks with quite a few people, and a loose crate of chickens that kept sliding, as the ship was tossed (this was in 1760).  In any event, I easily identified with the nauseated character, and having groaned a few times in commiseration, I ended up laughing when he fell onto the chicken crate, which broke, and the ensuing havoc the chickens caused in the cabin.  It was hysterical.
  And, I have to ask others, did I miss out on knowing something?  I had no idea that actor Eric Fleming had a completely "rebuilt" face - I always thought that his skin looked tight and stretched on his face, but I had no idea that he had a 200-pound lead weight smash into his face while he was working with the Seabees in World War II.  Of course, he had multiple reconstructive surgeries....  so now I wonder what Edward Heddy looked like before his accident and his taking the name Eric Fleming.  I always loved him on Rawhide and in The Glass-Bottom Boat - and he was one of Mom's favorite actors.  And I guess the circumstances of his death are still a mystery, too - he went out of a canoe just before extremely rocky rapids on a river in Peru.  He was due to be married in two days, and filming had been going well.  One of the photographers said that he "dove" into the rocks....  All I know is that Mom was devastated when it was announced he was dead.   (And I think they didn't find his body until two days later?....   Guess I need to read up on it.)
  Not much else going on here.  I am sorry that Whitney Houston passed away at the age of 48, but I am already tired of hearing about it.  Last night, I checked the "Entertainment News" section before going to bed, and all 10 headlines had her name in them.  It's overkill, as usual, with the press.