C.J.: Winning on 'Wendy Williams Show' special for Marshall woman

A couple of Wendys made winning $4,000 special for Marshall's Jesmine Sanabria.

The one with the money was Fox's "Wendy Williams Show," which has this bit where the host calls a viewer and asks a question based on information about celebrities that was discussed on a previous show. For delivering the correct answer, the viewer wins a prize determined by senior supervising producer Suzanne Bass spinning a wheel.

Since I rarely see anyone get the answer wrong, I was thrilled to see someone from Minnesota get the call.

Sanabria is a mother of five, a cashier at Wal-Mart and a Southwest Minnesota State University student studying to be a teacher. When does she have time to watch TV?

"I have DVR," Sanabria said.

The day Sanabria got the call, she had a presentation in her classroom management course. "Right after my presentation I had 20 minutes and my wonderful teacher, my professor Wendy Claussen, took us all down to the coffee shop and got us coffee and we watched it on the big screen. It was really nice," said Sanabria, still marveling at her good fortune. "What are the odds? I just filled out this little Facebook thing. No big deal. And then when they e-mailed me saying We see you signed up for Wendy's giveaway, I'm like 'Oh, this is serious.' I got a phone call a couple days later and like 'Holy crap! This is happening.' It was nice because I really could use the money to pay tuition."

When my letter to Sanabria arrived, her boyfriend Charlie Rattler told Sanabria "Wow, you're really famous now."

Although Sanabria loved my fancy stationery (she thought it was a wedding invitation), the woman with the DVR was mildly curious why I contacted her via snail mail. Well, I thought I had a phone number for Sanabria. But she never answered so I crossed my fingers and hoped that USPS employees were in the mood to do their jobs, and they were!

Sylvia's makeup run

It's not unusual to see Sylvia Kaplan out to dinner or at a political fundraiser, but Monday I saw her someplace I never imagined she visited: a Nicollet Mall Macy's makeup counter.

Half of the power couple everybody knows as "Sam and Sylvia" told me that every few years she thinks she should wear more makeup. And she was gushing about all the gift products she received at this counter from buying a few overpriced (the previous words is mine) items. I reminded Kaplan that she's rich. "But I'm cheap," she said, noting that her children are not as frugal.

Kaplan was having lunch with somebody — whose name has been mentioned here a few times — but she asked me not to disclose the name. Just as well, that person still owes me an apology.

More interesting than a makeup routine, Kaplan said, is the time she spends being a dog mom to her lab Sonny Boy. He was a parting gift from "the general" in Morocco, when her husband ended his tenure as U.S. ambassador. Sam's being honored next month by J Street, which bills itself as "the political home of pro-Israel, pro-Peace Americans."

"Exactly right, leadership in doing that" said Sam Kaplan when I read to him what I had seen on the J Street website. "I am being honored along with the former ambassador to Spain and the former ambassador to Great Britain. So what's the bigger story, the makeup at Macy's or J Street?"

Love you, Sam, but today you're getting the honorable mention.

That's in part due to me now needing to complain about how I will never again be seen shopping for makeup at a Minnesota Macy's. After years of watching what looked to me like Macy's on Nicollet Mall inching Fashion Fair closer and closer to the exit, the department store no longer sells my makeup. Fashion Fair's shipping issues apparently gave the Nicollet Mall Macy's a concrete reason for dumping the line.

There is definitely something unbusinesslike going on at Fashion Fair. An October column by Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan was titled "What happened to Fashion Fair? Why the black cosmetics brand is so hard to find." Here's Givhan's piece: tinyurl.com/oqkodjb. Another local store has picked up the Fashion Fair business, but I have had two annoying experiences at two outposts. An employee at a Chicago Macy's claimed to be getting a shipment of Fashion Fair in Tuesday.

Peyton's done

Psychic Ruth Lordan is in denial about Peyton Manning's retirement from the NFL.

A few weeks ago when I called Manning's cousin, retired Hubbard Broadcasting exec Harold Crump, to find out why it was taking so long for Peyton to officially hang up the shoulder pads, Lordan tweeted me that she saw the two-time Super Bowl winner continuing.

BUT PEYTON CAN'T THROW THE BALL, I insisted. Still, Lordan was tweaking me on Twitter.

Sunday I tweeted that Manning was formally announcing his retirement Monday.

"I saw," tweeted Lordan. "Hopefully he heals up and backs up as third string."

Let Peyton go, Ruth.

C.J. can be reached at cj@startribune.com and seen on Fox 9's "Jason Show." E-mailers, please state a subject; "Hello" does not count. Attachments are not opened.