Off The Desk 3/19/26

And happy Friday, Junior. Thanks for joining us for another exciting edition. I'm Julia O'Keefe. And I'm Chris Bozakis. Yes. Happy. I love to say Wednesday. It's Thursday. Friday, Junior. And the last day of winter. Yes. Yeah. It is the last day of winter. We made it. It's been a long winter. It's been a very long, cold, snowy winter. Looking forward to the start of spring and some nice weather to come. Yeah. It looks like it's not going to be too bad tomorrow. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow we're going to get into the low 50s. And I think for the weekend, we'll be in like the mid to upper 50s, maybe even near 60 on Sunday. So, yeah, not too bad for the parade. We'll cool things back down a little bit more towards next week, back to the 40s. But at least the weekend won't be too bad for the road race and the parade. And at least, you know, it's spring. It's not winter anymore. Yeah. Spring has sprung. Love it. Awesome. Yeah. So you have a different role in the parade this year, but you won't be here for off the desk tomorrow. So you want to talk a little bit about it? Sure. I'm going out to Ware Elementary School tomorrow morning to participate in Ware Community Reading Day. It was supposed to happen on the day. There was a bunch of school delays. It was supposed to be in the beginning of the month, but because of the ice and that morning, they were delayed. So it got postponed. But it would have been March 6th, which was the week of Dr. Seuss's birthday. So this is all. Yeah. In honor of World Reading Day, which is on Dr. Seuss's birthday. So, yeah, it'll be exciting. I'm going and so is Adam Stremko. Fun. Yeah. And I'm reading to fourth graders. I don't know what class Adam's reading to, but I'm excited. I went last year. Last year, I read to the first graders. Oh, that's cute. And we read Horton Here's a Who this year. I bring or I'm reading Claudia, The Chance of Meatballs. Oh, nice. Yeah. That'll be in it. They said that there was a book. Yeah. I figured tie in like news and weather a little bit. And they're finishing up a unit on tall tales. I talked to the teacher and she said, well, yeah, that's a that's a tall tale that I can share with the class. So it's fun. Then they like to ask questions, you know, like about 22 news and what's it like, you know, being on TV and then things like that. So I'm excited. That'll be fun. I wonder if there's any kids in that class that are aspiring meteorologists or journalists. Well, they have some aspirations to learn a little bit more about that. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. See what their interests are. It's just one class is like the whole. It's just one class. Yeah. They have a bunch of guests coming like last year. There were some elected officials there, representatives from like the police station and fire department are there, too. So a lot of different areas and everyone goes to a different class. It's a lot of fun. It is fun. Yeah. Then busy weekend ahead. After that, it's parade weekend. If you haven't heard of say on 22 news, but we're excited. I'll be out there hosting with Patrick Berry and I'll just be out on the street kind of grabbing people as they march in the parade to ask, how's it feeling out here? Parade Day is finally upon us. So it'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. They have a lot of good stuff planned. It's going to be a good one. And the weather looks like it's going to hold up. I know it looks like it's a it's going to be a nice year. I mean, people will come out and they brave the weather no matter what it is. Year after year. There's always like thousands of people that attend the Holyoke St. Patrick's Parade. But it's always nice to look a little bit nicer outside. Yeah. To be standing outside. Yeah. Especially if it's going to be in the 50s, maybe near 60. I think it'll be quite comfortable, especially for you. You're the one that's to be out there. Yeah. At least like walking last year, it wasn't warm, but it was nice. But when you're walking, it's like, ah, we're good. But I'll be standing. So hopefully it's not too bad for us. But yeah, right. And we usually have different camera crews that are set up at different spots throughout the parade room as well. And then you get to a certain area where our whole 22 News posse is walking together and gives a little wave. Yeah. You know, because we have our broadcast that if you can't make it to the parade and you're interested in watching it starts at noon on Sunday, so you can catch all the parade excitement by watching it right here on 22 News. So you can see people out marching and there's plenty of other, you know, local representation from towns and cities across western Massachusetts that take part in the parade every year. A lot of local high schools, they're marching bands and stuff come out. So it's really exciting to see everybody get so into it. Yeah. Local and regional. I mean, the mommers come from Philadelphia. There's also bands coming from Connecticut this year, all around New England, from the eastern part of the state as well. So, yeah, it'll be exciting. And of course, our we have representatives coming from Ireland as well. So there's going to be some people coming all the way from across the Atlantic. We had West Springfield representatives out in Dingle for their parade. That was cool to see. Yeah, that was awesome. Sister cities. They did something similar with Holyoke and Tralee last year. Mayor Garcia was the grand marshal of the Tralee parade. Oh, I remember. Yeah. So. Yeah, pretty cool. Connections are the connections run deep here in Western Mass and the Irish heritage. So it'll be exciting. There's also a lot of places just with celebrations and like live Irish music this weekend. So for sure, if you're downtown in Holyoke or in Springfield, go check some of those out. Lots to do this weekend. And of course, the road races on Saturday as well. Yeah. The road race. I didn't know that you did that. Oh, yeah. I did it like four times. Really? Yeah. But I was young. Like I started and I did it sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. And when I was a freshman in high school. Yeah. Wow. It's. Yeah. It's a long race. It's it's tough. It's tough. I actually funny thing last year. I think just the adrenaline on the day of the parade last year got to me and I covered the road race last year, which I had a super fun time covering that. But then I was like, I want to run this next year. Next year rolls around and it happens to be this week. And I did not train to run the race. So also I don't want to be I don't want to be sore to then have to come back and host a parade parade. That's what my friends and my mom and my sister did, too. But my mom's like, she's a real runner runner. Yeah, she was far ahead. But you go, mom. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's super fun. I would love to. I mean, if I speak it out on off the desk, I'm going to have to follow through. But I would love to do it. Or is it different? It's a little different than the parade. Yeah, it is all hills. It is. That sounds one. Actually, I want to say it was the first year I did it. I started off running with my mom and my sister and like my friends for the beginning. We all stayed together. And then all of a sudden they looked back and they didn't see us anymore. And they're like, oh, no, where are the girls go? And there was a house that had a a litter of Golden Retriever puppies on the front lawn in a little playpen. And because they were trying to sell the puppy. So during the road race, runners are running. How do we get one of these? So I stopped to pet the puppies. Of course. And yeah, it added a little bit to my time, but they're Golden Retriever puppies. You've got to stop. They had to. They did it on purpose. Obviously. But yeah, it's a ton of fun. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be a, you know, packed weekend. A lot of fun activities to partake in. And we're excited for it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. All right. We'll take a quick break here and come back with some other things that are going on today and some stuff in the news. Yeah. All right, welcome back to off the desk on this Thursday. I almost just said Wednesday, too. That's weird. Well, yeah, like a Wednesday. Yeah, it's kind of nice when you're a day mentally, you're a day ahead, but it's actually closer to the weekend. Speaking of Wednesday, well, is your Wednesday? Yeah, I was on Monday. I was going to say, so it feels like yesterday. You were like, today is my Tuesday. So I'm having my Tuesday tires. And I was like, no, you're having the Wednesday Whoppers. So Wednesday Whoppers came up with a new one. You guys give me like, like sass for making a corny joke at the end of this newscast. Things like Wednesday Whoppers. OK, yeah, but that was that was I couldn't I couldn't not say it. It was funny. It was good. Yeah, I feel like you have to for our well, we're talking about morning news. We're talking about the chance of rain for this upcoming weekend. And Chris was like, I'm not too concerned about it. You might be like a little spot shower on Sunday, but nothing that's going to like, you know, ruin the parade or something like that. And so I said, yeah, no raining on this parade or something like that. While it's raining, they both were like, oh, really? You just ruined somebody's life. But like, it's kind of fun because you know, people at home are rolling their eyes and. We had to acknowledge it. You got the mom jokes, got the mom jokes. I'm getting ready, getting ready to get closer to getting my girl into the world. Yeah, I have my mom. I'm happy. Obviously. But yeah, happy that Thursday, Friday, Junior, we are chugging along here. What else do we have going on today? It's National Nurses Day. So that's I think it's technically National Certified Nurses Day. But if you have a nurse in your life, as Chris does. Yes. Thank them for all they all the hard work that they do. And they're on the front lines. Yeah. Nurses do a lot. Got to give them credits. The stories that Maddie tells me. And I will. I can never do it. I could never do it. The things that she has to deal with and has to see. I'm just like, nope, I'll tell the weather. I will stick to the news, yeah. My sister's a nurse. Shout out to my sister. Same here, my sister too. Funny enough, I have aunts, cousins, a lot of people that in my life that are nurses and a lot of respect to all of them. Yeah. Me too. A hundred percent. Yeah. And obviously, you know, we can't even complain about our hours because they work horrible hours, too, and then have to deal with what they deal with. So shout out, nurses. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And yeah, I can never complain about having to wake up early to do my makeup to my sister. Yeah. To deal with, yeah, you know, medical situations. It's all perspective. So thank you, nurses. You're heroes. You are heroes. It's also National Let's Laugh Day. Look at that, guys. We're doing it. We're on a roll. We're doing it. Yep. You guys got any go-to jokes? None that I can share. What is Michelle Obama's favorite vegetable? I don't know. I don't want to. Broccoli. Good one. Broccoli. That's pretty funny. That is funny. That's a good go-to one. I heard that a few years ago. That's good. But yeah, it's a day to laugh. Laugh. I love to laugh. Live, laugh, love. True. That's all I had for what was on the National Day calendar. I think there was another. Yeah, I think National Ag Agriculture Day, which is. That's rag. It's ag. No, it is. It says ag. OK. Do people like in that field just call it that? Yeah. Like, like if you say like you're an ag major or like, OK, like you're going to school for ag. Yeah. So that's important to the region here. We're the big agriculture region. Celebrated at the Eastern States Exposition at the Vickie every year. Right. So happy National Ag Day. National Ag Day. Yes. So, yeah, what's going on today? We've talked a little bit about, obviously, St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but we have a celebration this weekend with the parade. And then the next holiday after that is Easter. So obviously people are, you know, gearing up to celebrate Easter. I recently saw that KFC is getting in the holiday spirit by they launched fried chicken and gravy deli meat. Yum. Yeah, actually, I probably would. I think I would try it. Have you ever had the weird ones like the bean boozled? Yeah. There's like all those the Harry Potter ones. Yeah. Where you pick one and they're not they're supposed to be one good one and one bad one. Like if it's blue, it's either like blueberry or toothpaste. And then it's like fruit punch or vomit. And they're so gross. But then there are weird flavored ones, like actual ones, like the butter popcorn flavored one. Oh, yeah. They have those. Some people say it's not that bad. I like that one. So I feel like this goes on par with that. I'm also like it's a little weird and a little salty. I'll try it. But I would try it. It's just probably more of the texture thing. Get over the texture of the Is it good? Is it like a different texture than a regular jelly? No, but like think about like eating a jelly bean and it's tasting like fried chicken. It's not consistent. Yeah, yeah. Right. Gravy. It's kind of like mentally Maybe we should get them to try them off. We always say we're going to do that with things. Yeah. I like the Starburst jelly beans. Me too. Oh, those are good. Yeah. Sweet tarts ones. Oh, the sweet tarts. Yeah, those are good. Are there other like Easter candies that you guys really like? I love the Reese's eggs. Oh, yeah. Those are good. But speaking of chocolate and I guess another another special deal or something for Easter. Costco has a 10 pound chocolate bunny out this holiday season for one hundred forty dollars. Oh, my God. I mean, I guess we get it for like your whole family. You guys can. Yeah. You have to hit it with a hammer to get it. I don't. Yeah. Because it's not hollow. But Chris, you said that you have a story about a chocolate. Yeah, it was. Probably about two years ago now. Maddie sent me out to go get a few things from CVS and I walked in the CVS and right in front of me is this massive chocolate bunny called Big Banks. Big Banks. And he was huge. He's like three feet tall. So what I do, I bought it. You had to have it. I saw it. I was like, I got to get this. So then. Yeah, I bought it and brought it home, and of course, Maddie was expecting to come home like the one or two things she sent me to go get, and then I walked to the door with a massive chocolate bunny and to go and like, that's Maddie with it. Look how big it is. Oh, that's huge. That's huge. And its name was Big Banks. I put it in the front seat. It was so big. The selfie with it. Did the airbag light pop on? I just dropped it in. We only took a few bites out of it, and I was like, this is a lot of chocolate. So we brought it to Easter and gave it to my younger cousins. There you go. You know, the young aides that they can eat all the sugar they want. I'm sure they were happy about that. So, yeah, they thought it was so cool that it was just a massive chocolate bunny. I just love that thing. I feel like I get a lot of chocolate bunnies, but I never end up eating them. Yeah, I know. I don't really eat a lot of chocolate. I like the like the Rolos or the mini Cadbury eggs. Those are really good. Not a Peeps fan. Me either. No, no. My brother loved them growing up. I don't know if he still does, but growing up, I remember he would, my mom would specifically get Peeps for him and he would eat them like he loved them. I think they're like cute to add to an Easter basket. But as far as actually eating them, they're too sweet for me. I'm not a big marshmallow fan in general. Me either, Chris. And then this has like hard, the hard and sugar on the outside too. It's like, I only like marshmallows, like with s'mores. Yeah. I don't really ever crave marshmallow otherwise. Yeah. Or like in a hot chocolate, maybe I'll put a marshmallow in it. Yeah. It's the last day of winter. You still could. You could. Yeah. I do like a peanut butter and fluff sandwich though. Like marshmallow fluff. I feel like peanut butter balances out the sweetness of the marshmallow enough. That's true. Yeah. That's like such a regional thing that people, my cousins who, um, they lived out in California and they never knew what it was. Really? So then when they would come here to visit, they would be like, we have to go get fluff. We have to go get fluff. Cause it's like a New England delicacy. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's not made anywhere else. I can't remember the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly or fluff sandwich. I had a lot of PB&J. I had a peanut butter and jelly like a month ago. I just randomly thought about it. And it's so funny because when you think about making a PB&J, you're kind of like, eh, you make it if you don't really have Right, it's last resort. And then you eat it and you're like, wow, this stuff is really good. Yeah. And Uncrustable, we had like a whole episode about Uncrustables in the beginning. I forget why, but I don't remember either, but they're good too. They were good. Oh, I think cause they were gonna, the Trader Joe's. Oh, that's what it was. Trader Joe's made their version. Yeah. Yeah, what happened with that? Wasn't Uncrustables or whoever creates them like going after them? Yeah. We'll do a follow up. Yeah, maybe we'll do a follow up. They were mad because the packaging was too similar. But I mean, it's the same kind of. I feel like it happens with a lot of different, we've used the McDonald's CEO term for food. Products. It's a great product. Product. Yeah. Which I've definitely seen even more CEOs getting on that trend with the trying burgers and stuff. Has anyone tried the burger? No. I still haven't. No. I haven't even gotten a Shamrock shake. Oh, it's over. It's over? It's already over? It's the 17th. What? Yeah, same episode. That's annoying. Don't they know that in Western Mass, St. Patrick's Day lasts through the weekend after? Yeah. And isn't the month of March? You could try. Maybe they still but but Maddie went to go try one to get one yesterday. Actually, she wanted she wanted to get a what they call them Shamrock McFlurry. Oh, and they didn't have it. I a long time ago. I made a Shamrock shake. You didn't like at home. Yeah, it was pretty good. It wasn't as green, which is probably because without all the the dye and stuff. I didn't put that in, but it was just like mint extract and a vanilla milkshake, basically. So maybe I'll try to make one in the spirit of forgetting to go get one by March 17th. Well, I'm sure they're going to have other seasonal stuff now that it's almost spring. That's true. Well, yes, we'll have to see. We could take a break and then come back and talk about this video that you have. Yeah, piercing video that I saw in the AP. So it looks funny. All right, we are back. We're back on this Friday, Junior. Before the break, we were talking a little bit about this video that I saw on AP that I thought was kind of funny. So this was at a gift shop at an airport in Australia. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. And so it was a, I guess, a surprise visitor at on their shelf of stuffed animals. Huh. Let's take a look. Oh, he's just hanging out. He probably thinks the other ones are all real. Yeah, he thought they're his friends. No, he looks, he looks scared. Aw, he's scared. Aw, oh, they're sledding. That's fun, sledding. Aw. Yeah, it was a possum, a real possum that was among all these other, you know, stuffed animals. But I don't know how he got there. He looked a little scared. He looked scared. Fake animals there. But he's cute. I never realized how cute possums can be. Yeah, that looks like a different type than the possums I've seen around here. You know, they have a lot of different animals in Australia. So the second that you said this happened in Australia and immediately clicked like, oh, that makes sense. I've seen like crazy videos. I could never deal with. Have you seen the videos in Australia of people who have those huge spiders? Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, my gosh. And they're just like, how do I get this spider out? And they're they're bigger than like the size of your hand. They're like dinner plate size. Oh, I couldn't do it like that. That or I've seen one of someone like opening their toilet seat up and there's a bunch of tree frogs in there and then they start jumping everywhere or like snakes in the toilet. I couldn't do all the animals wildlife they deal with in Australia. I know. No. Yeah. Australia is not a place to be if you hate bugs. Yeah. And like snakes and lizards. Things just creeping up on you. Yeah. I don't even like dealing with the types of spiders that sometimes fall on our microphones. Yeah. Some guy in Australia would be like really. Yeah. We've been thinking about like the lantern flies when those would sneak up on us and couldn't tell when things were crawling on us. Imagine that was like five times more than the size of our typical lantern flying you don't know if it's crawling on your back. And they got massive centipedes too. Like huge centipedes. Yeah. I'm not a bug person. I used to be way more afraid of bugs and spiders and things when I was younger. But still not a fan of them. Yeah. No one likes to just be chillin and feeling something crawling on you. You know what happened to me the other day. Last week I went to go take a nap after work and I was looking for my sleep mask. Couldn't find it. It indeed did. I grabbed the sleep mask and spider crawls off of it. I was like I'm not using this. Oh no. I mean they're the washable kind. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah. And when that happens you really wonder like how many bugs are in my house. Like yeah. Like where are the spiders crawling. Yeah. I'm like well if I fall asleep is this spider that crawls onto my bed. You know. Yeah. Or seeing videos of people when bugs do like crawl in their ears at night and then they have to go get it removed. And it's like. That is like a. That happened to my cousin. She had to get a bug removed that it crawled in her ear when she was sleeping. She had to go get it removed. And it was like fluttering and stuff. Cause ever hear like that. That's gonna bother me. That myth. Of like on average. How many spiders eat. You'll eat eight spiders in your sleep. Like they're crawled to your mouth. I feel like that probably does happen. I don't know if that's a real statistic. I mean I can tell you that there's definitely been a spider in my bed before because I. Woke up once to a crawl on my leg. I had recently. We've seen. We've seen ladybugs popping up around. And I had I was sleeping in a lady bug thing. It was flying. So I felt it but it flew and landed on my face. I think I heard the buzz of the wings and like woke up and I just went like that. Oh and my face went through it across the room. It was just a ladybug. So I wasn't that scared. But. You know what I would hate. When I was growing up. My aunt had an. In ground pool. So we spent a lot of the summers just swimming at my aunt's house. But. They would have the issue with the water beetles. Oh yeah. You always have to like. Yeah. Take them out. But you know you're swimming under the water and you come up and then there'd be. A water beetle would get like stuck to your hair. They're so hard to like get off of your hair. That was. You got to get the skimmer. Got to get the skimmer. Yeah. Water beetles out of there. Oh but those ones are like hard to get off of. They cling. Or if you're like you live in an older house. My grandparents old house. And they only come out at night. But. You. They were like the little house centipedes. Oh yeah. They're like. Oh like the ear wigs. Yeah. They're like very lanky looking and have big legs. And you can see they're on the ceilings. Yeah. Get a screen grab of that. Chris White lanky feet. We're like. That's what the web can use today for our posts. Yeah. We would have those all around dorm rooms and call it into our dorm rooms too. Yeah. They were just like. Silverfish. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean ants can be a problem in the summertime too. But I don't know. Ants don't bother me as much as. Red ants. Yeah. You had those bite you. When I was a kid I think. Yeah. Especially when they get all over your legs. This is a great conversation to start off spring with as these start to become real. Tick season too. That's not fun with. Actually that's a thing because our dog comes to the bottom of our bed. There have been ticks that we have found in our bed because. You got to be extra careful about the ticks. That's nothing. No. My house is clean. I don't always have ticks. But on a happier note. Yeah. Tomorrow is the first day of spring and then we're heading into a pretty nice weekend for the St. Patrick's Day parade. Make sure you join us if you're not going to be there on Sunday. You can watch it right here on 22 News. Exciting things happening. Right. Have a great rest of your Thursday. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye.