Friday Randomness

4 out of 5 ain’t bad. I’m not a fan of In-N-Out Burger, except that they pay better than most fast food places, and supposedly they use better quality ingredients. But the food is meh. And Maya likes to tell the story of when she went with her cheer squad, and she asked for a veggie burger. She didn’t know that their version of a veggie burger is a standard hamburger, sans beef. Bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, and sauce. Needless to say, she was hungry soon after.

Anyway, what else is going on? It’s hot. It’s been over 100 for the last several days, and I’m tired of it. I dislike the heat, though I’m thankful that it’s a dry heat and no humidity. So it may be 102, but it FEELS like it’s 97. I’ll take 100 and dry over 85 and humid any day, so I guess it’s a good thing I live here. We’re supposed to get a break starting tomorrow, with temps in the 90s, and then into the low 80s for several days after that. I can’t wait.

Do you ever get cold sores? Have you ever wondered whether Abreva works? I’ve been trying Abreva for several years now, on the occasional cold sore that pops up. Maybe one every 2 years. Generally I feel the cold sore coming, and I think, “Gah, I’d better buy some Abreva”, but then I don’t get there for at least 12 hours. I put it on and hope for the best, but generally the cold sore still bugs me. Well, a few weeks ago I woke up feeling like I might be getting a cold sore, and I had some new (not expired) Abreva in the house, and used it right away. I applied it maybe 2x a day for the next few days. I barely got any cold sore at all. I don’t think it was visible, but in any case, it was much less uncomfortable than usual. The stuff works! Consider that an endorsement.

Do you like cooking shows? I sometimes do, and one chef that I really like it Jacques Pepin. He has a new series starting tomorrow on our local PBS station. I’ve only watched him on PBS, locally, so I don’t know if all (or most) PBS stations carry his shows, but if yours does, give it a try.
Update: Jacques just alerted me, via Facebook, that his show will start here tomorrow, and nationally next Saturday, Sept 19th.

Did you have a nice Labor Day? We had some friends over on Sunday for a swim in our very cold pool. Monday I pretty much relaxed…Ted had to work. Labor Day is always worth stopping and thinking about the labor movement, and the benefits that it has brought us. Safer working conditions, 5 day work week, overtime pay, minimum wage. I’m thankful for all of that, though I’ve never been the member of a union. Ted’s a member of SAG/AFTRA, which gets us free DVDs of award nominated movies every winter. Not as important as safe working conditions, but nice nonetheless.

I’m plugging along on my inflammatory arthritis treatment. I’m optomistic that it’s working, though it’s slower than I’d like. I still can’t really go for a nice long walk without suffering for it for hours, and I can only dream of wearing my rings again someday, but I’m much better than I was seveal months ago, and I do think it’s working. I’m very glad for that.

Since my Uncle Forrest passed away, my cousin and I have been asked to serve as trustees of our Grandma’s estate. So we’ve been helping her to plan for her eventual death, and trying to plan for her wishes to be carried out when that sad day comes. That motivated me to buy an urn for my mom’s ashes. It was too much, emotionally, for too long, and her ashes have been sitting in the closet, quietly waiting. When my Grandma dies, she wants to have her ashes buried in the grave with her first husband, my mom’s father. My mom said, off-handedly, that we should scatter her ashes on her father’s grave if something were to happen to her. Well, I haven’t done that, and I don’t really like the idea of it. So I talked to my Grandma, and she said we can bury my mom’s ashes in with hers and my Grandfather’s coffin. So now at least I feel ready for that. I will say, Amazon is a lovely thing. I got a very nice wood urn for $89, with an engraved plate with her name on top. I think she would have liked it, and I know she would have been happy that I didn’t pay the $600 – $700 I would have paid if I bought it at a funeral home.

Maya did the 23&me thing, as did my dad. Pretty interesting stuff, though of course no real surprises. You send in a vial of your saliva, and they run it through some DNA tests, and they tell you who your ancestors are, genetically. Not any famous names or anything, but ‘56% Britiish, 23% French’, that sort of thing.

Lastly, (but not least) here we are, it’s September 11th again. What an amazingly horrible day that was, and the reprecussions have been horrific in the extreme. We can never forget that day, even if we wish we could. Our world has been changed in so many ways, and I don’t know that any of it has been for the better. Not any. Such a somber occasion. We are flying our flag in rememberance. It doesn’t feel like enough. Likely because it isn’t. I don’t know what would be enough, other than staying involved, politically, and trying to make this a world in which such atrocities do not happen again. It feels like we keep saying that, doesn’t it?