One Book Everybody Should Own, Read, and Absorb

Whether you were born in the 30s, the 50s, the 70s, or even the 90s, you have to agree that morality has steeply declined through the years. The comfort of those fortunate to live through the 50s, when they were able to leave their doors unlocked and when neighbors could drop in uninvited, has disappeared.

Admonitions to "honor your elders" and "trust adults" no longer apply to this new world of instant gratification replete with avenues to pornographic highways, admission to which is so easily accessible all you have to say is, "yeah, I'm 18 or older," and you're in. Children are being subjected to a world wide web of deceit filled with poisonous spiders ready to strike at prey that unwarily touch upon one of its threads.

We now have to protect our children and ourselves in ways we never thought we would. Seemingly simple questions, such as, "Do you know how to get to (name a place)," can mean a swift grab and run into a tinted-windowed van and a tortuous trip to hell. No longer can we blindly trust anyone. 

The sad thing is most of us aren't (or at least haven't been until now) equipped with the necessary tools to handle these precarious situations. We might recognize when we – or our children – are being manipulated or in danger, but we don't know how to handle the manipulators, because we have been raised to "be nice to people."

How can you tell the difference between somebody who is being friendly and somebody who is grooming you so that he or she can molest your sons or daughters? Not until Dr. Phil's Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World, have we had a manual that tells us exactly how to detect frauds and exactly how we can protect ourselves and our children. 

Life Code is more than just one book. It could have been titled, How to Live Your Life Authentically, AND How to Protect Yourself and Your Children from Criminals, AND How to Recognize a Manipulator AND… (I could go on and on). I wish I could have read Life Code when I was in my teens. It might have saved me from a lot of grief over the years. 

Life Code could save you or your children from experiencing situations that would lead to emotional problems later in life. If I gave stars on what I expected from this book and on what I got from this book, on how much I learned from this book, and on how valuable I believe this book is, Life Code would get every star possible and then some.

I highly recommend Life Code. I plan to read it again and again until its message seeps into my pores and becomes part of me.  

Olive Garden's Breaded Shrimp Scampi

One Friday night, as I was serving drinks at the cocktail lounge where I worked as a waitress, a regular customer walked in with his dinner – breaded shrimp scampi.

"That smells sooooo good," I told him.

"Wanna try it?" 

Of course I did, and he obliged. What I tasted had my taste buds dancing. It had the perfect combination of butter and garlic, giving the scampi not only the flavor I didn't even know I was craving, but also the texture that felt so good in my mouth. 

The restaurant where my cocktail lounge's patron ordered these delectable shrimp was located in Calumet City, Illinois, a few miles from where I worked. 

Throughout several moves to different states and several decades later, I have searched – in vain – for breaded shrimp scampi that matches in excellence the ones I tasted so long ago. I almost gave up searching, but I never gave up hope.

Good thing, too, because now, FINALLY, I found it – on Olive Garden's new menu. 

I don't know if Olive Garden uses the same recipe as that long ago Calumet City restaurant did or if the owner of the restaurant in Calumet City moved to Orlando to open an Olive Garden chain, but when my taste buds rose to attention and started dancing that familiar dance, I knew I'd found that same p-l-e-a-s-u-r-a-b-l-e feeling again! 

If you haven't tasted Olive Garden's breaded shrimp scampi, you owe it to yourself to experience possibly the best breaded shrimp scampi ever. You'll find it on their appetizer menu.

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