kochleffel

I think that the Junior Cat qualifies as a rescue cat, because the MSPCA took her from the home of an incipient hoarder where she was terrorized by older and larger cats. I could envision making the vegan shepherd's pie, although an older friend from Newfoundland would be distressed by calling it that. She argues vociferously that it can only be called shepherd's pie if made with lamb or mutton; she would call the beef version cowboy pie, although cottage pie is a more common name for it. I actually have the ingredients for the recipe with a sweet-potato topping, but I don't think I would like that combination of flavors so much. The drink and the wine would also be OK with me. I'd like to visit Trondheim but it's not imminent. I need to organize medical visits for myself and the Junior Cat. She needs the vaccination that she missed during her gastric upset; I need to get labs ordered and have a blood draw, see my PCP, and see the oral surgeon.

This Friday evening is Shabbat Across America and Canada, when hundreds of synagogues offer dinner and special services. I have a paid-for reservation, but was somewhat afraid to go, because of what else I might catch. But there's a reprieve: because of the unfavorable weather forecast, the dinner is being postponed. I feel the same way. For a TATL this fall, I used almost all of my American Airlines miles to book a business-class seat. I didn't especially mind using them, because American no longer flies from the three nearest airports to me.

Rabbit, rabbit. As usual, the Junior Cat asks, "Where?" The pigs will have to celebrate without me. Many friends have served in the Peace Corps, most on Caribbean islands but one in the Ivory Coast. @grapau27, I know that peanut butter isn't ubiquitous in the UK, but the one time I tried to buy it in Austria, the only brand was a UK import. It was very different from American peanut butter. No pork chops for me. I don't think that I would like the cocktail. I do like Australian Shiraz but would likely buy it in a three-liter box. I haven't been to Saguenay. Yesterday afternoon I felt less sleepy, and rested a bit but didn't sleep. Unfortunately, I felt even less sleepy at bedtime.

When I used Uber to travel from Port Canaveral to Sanford, the driver received a message for a pickup there to go to Port Canaveral just as we were entering the airport. This should be typical mid-morning.

But it would be OK not to post them.

Many of us have s-n-o-w right now. I suspect that many of us have also been on cruises that called at Palma de Mallorca. When I was there in April 2018 it was already uncomfortably warm. Guess what they have now in Palma. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/28/mallorca-snow-spain/ This is Valdemossa, at a higher altitude than Palma.

I still want to do nothing but sleep, but I'll stay home to do it. I would enjoy the meal if it could be made with turkey sausage; at home I'd need to use vegan sausage. I'd probably enjoy the wine, but I suspect that a St.-Julien would be above my means. The cocktail is a waste of good whiskey. I haven't been to New Zealand. Do I get any credit for old Zealand? It's the island in Denmark that includes Copenhagen.

Soon after we moved into this house, the Senior Cat in Charge and the Junior Cat saw a black bear in the garden, and after that were on the alert for bears all the time. They were especially alert in the winter, when black bears hibernate, because polar bears could hide in the snow. The Junior Cat still spend a part of every day checking for bears (through the patio door; she doesn't go outdoors). My digestive tract seems to be settling down, but I still want to do nothing but sleep. Tomorrow I'm supposed to attend a Zoom meeting called by the governor, but there will be about a thousand people in the meeting and I can turn my camera off if need be.

And if, having seized the day, you don't like it, you can carp about it. The cousin of the Tom Collins (made with gin) and the John Collins (with bourbon). Any of them would be OK with me right now. I'm being daring: asparagus was the next vegetable needing to be cooked (chard is beyond saving and will be composted), so I cooked it even though I don't think it's highly digestible, but I ate only three spears. I'll save the rest for salad. My digestion is still unsettled and I'm a bit afraid of eating anything that might upset it again, which is almost everything, but I also feel that I won't recover without adequate nutrition. I stayed home from the synagogue--I was concerned about what else I might catch--and only hosted Zoom from home. The other members who led the services also caught the norovirus or whatever it was but recovered faster, although they condensed some of the liturgy. This morning I taught two classes over Zoom and attended a third after lunch.

Yes. Sadie might teach Milo that it's their job.

Wilde isn't a favorite of mine but I agree with the quotation. I wouldn't object to the meal, cocktail, or wine, but wouldn't go out of my way to get any of them. I was at Aarhus in August on the Voyager of the Seas and visited the city center, the Moesgård Museum, and Den Gamle By.

In 1992 I bought a house that had an avocado green electric range and a harvest gold refrigerator, right next to each other. I replaced the range within a few months because no part of it worked well; the fridge stayed until I remodeled the kitchen. To make it worse, the range was beside a doorway (the kitchen had four doorways). I'm planning a remodeling here that will go to all stainless steel. The appliances probably won't all be the same brand, because I have different brand preferences for different appliances. What is currently preferred on HGTV won't influence anything, since I specifically don't want an all-white kitchen or a marble backsplash and those seem to be mandatory on certain shows.

I would be delighted to have the halibut and the Chardonnay for dinner this evening, not that I have either one on hand. Dinner might be salmon and rosé, the latter because it's what happens to be open, plus something from the too-many vegetables on hand. I'm still experiencing a little nausea. According to anecdata, half the population of the county had norovirus this week, if that's what it is. Yesterday I worked at home in the morning, went to my office for half an hour after lunch, then made brief stops at the bank and grocery. When I returned home, I got into bed and slept until 7:00 p.m. I think I posted my Reykjavik photos the last time it was the port. I had an unplanned stay there a few years ago when I missed a flight connection to the Faroe Islands on a Friday, and the flight didn't operate on the weekend because Atlantic Airways, the national airline of the Faroes, used the plane then for holiday flights to the Mediterranean. The first day in Reykjavik, I got slightly sunburned, not because of the intensity of the sun, but because of the length of the day.

The Junior Cat doesn't appreciate dog biscuits but thinks that they might be OK for dogs. If digital learning means counting on your fingers, I learned that a long time ago. Do we need to send Graham and Pauline CARE packages of lettuce? LONDON — Some British supermarket chains are rationing lettuce. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The country’s shortage of salad ingredients, including tomatoes, stems from poor weather in southern Europe and North Africa affecting harvests and energy price hikes hitting farmers in Britain, government and industry officials say. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/23/uk-tomato-salad-shortage-supermarkets/ We still have some you-know-what on the ground but the temperature will reach 51° this afternoon.

I was able to get out to Target and CVS-in-Target before the you-know-what started, but I had a TCM appointment this afternoon and it had begun by then. When I was on the way home just now there was about an inch of it everywhere. Fortunately, it's only a mile away. Waking once during the night and staying awake for a while is a normal, but pre-modern, sleep pattern and is natural for some people. For others of us, it can indicate some anxiety or distress, especially if we can't get back to sleep at all.

By this afternoon I felt well enough to go out to the grocery store and to the pharmacy (to pick up a new supply of covid tests), and then a thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere. The Weather Channel said that it would end by 4:00, which left enough time. I got the makings for pancakes, plus some vegan sausage, but dinner so far has been just soup. I have a board meeting in 20 minutes and I don't expect it to be pleasant.

I slept nine hours and feel better today, but I'm still eating very cautiously. Many other people who also had lunch at the synagogue on Saturday were also sick and the suspicion falls on the salad since it's the only thing that all of us ate. I would be happy to have flank steak but none of my kosher supplies has it. I'd also be happy with paczki or fasnachts or pancakes, not that I have any, but the Misfits order that's due today includes maple syrup, so maybe pancakes are in the offing. I've been to St. Thomas and St. Croix but not St. John.

Today is Washington's Birthday according to Federal legislation. I would try the birria (have eaten goat a number of times) and would definitely try the Sancerre. I haven't been to IJmuiden. I'd be delighted with some cherry pie if the day hadn't started with fever and nausea; the fever abated but the nausea persisted. Even the amount of water needed to take prescriptions threatened to produce violent results, so I ate nothing all day. Early in the evening I felt even worse and realized that it was because my blood sugar was so low. Hard candies relieved that without making the nausea worse. I don't think it's a covid rebound--a repeat test was negative--and I'm leaning toward an old-fashioned "stomach virus."

The Junior Cat has had both female and male veterinarians and doesn't seem to like any of them very much. More seriously, I think that "Vet Girls" might be what a group of female veterans called themselves. I would like the salad but would have trouble making it: radicchio is readily available here, but never of very good quality. The cocktail is a waste of good Bourbon. I'd probably like the wine. Haven't been to Tanzania. Yesterday I was well enough either to attend the morning service in the synagogue, or to attend the rabbi's class in the afternoon. I wasn't well enough to go in the morning and stay for six hours, which was what I did. It was a relief when it became late enough in the evening that I could go to bed. This morning I taught a Hebrew class online, and at 12:30 I'll attend a demons class. I have another online meeting at 6:30 p.m. that will be tedious, but if I skip it, the co-chairs will think that I am mad at them, which I am but won't admit. I completed the Johns Hopkins course with 100 on the final exam, earning a certificate that is probably not good for anything.

I'm confused about the special days. Battery is a crime, so why are we honoring it? Drink Wine Day? What else would you do with it? The soup and the drink would be OK with me, but I'm not alone in wondering whether naming a wine after a Poison Creek is a good idea. I haven't been to Japan but I have lots of whale photos from Alaska, not that I'm going to post them again. Dinner is probably going to be broccoli as a first course, followed by pizza. This morning I tested negative again, so went to the synagogue and stayed through lunch and a class with the rabbi. At this point I need a nap but it is too late for one.

This afternoon I participated in something that could probably be considered public science, the NASA Earth to Sky Partnership. Its purpose is communication between NASA scientist and educators, artists and writers, but today's presentation was by a professor of public health, about effective science communication and trusted sources of information. This afternoon I opened my last package of government-supplied covid tests, in preparation for re-testing tomorrow morning. I have an order under Medicare ready for pickup at a pharmacy. Then I opened a bottle of kosher rosé from France. I would have been satisfied with cardboardeaux, but haven't been able to go out to buy any.

I had a negative antigen test this morning! I'd like to go to CVS-in-Target, but the weather this morning isn't nice and it's predicted to improve this afternoon. Which didn't sound bad to me, but probably wouldn't be my first choice, either. Sort of a handheld panzanella? Pass on the cocktail. My first thought about Scrabster--I may not be completely awake--was that a scrabster would be a person who dealt in scrabs, and that scrab would be to crab as scrod is to cod. I've completed two more modules in the asynchronous online course, and I think there is only one more. It's a course on psychological first aid, given by a professor at Johns Hopkins, that was developed for first responders but the current thinking is that in a disaster, first responders are already busy, so there needs to be a backup corp of people living in or near the region. PFA is not considered therapy and the professor keeps warning therapists, if any take the course, not to go straight into therapy mode. One of my worries is that others who down a twelve-pack of Bud might feel obligated to shoot at anything and everything that they see in the sky. They're too high to hit even without the 12-pack, but bullets shot into the air come down somewhere at high speeds. (OTOH, I also think of the episode of Harry's Law in which Harry shot down a drone.)

Never mind ditching cable TV; I still have a land-line phone, although it's VOIP using the cable TV company's Internet service. Many people consider me a grouch. I might like the chicken, but the thought of adding whiskey to tomato juice doesn't thrill me. I resumed work today, only from home. Although I was well enough at least to keep up with office email, I read none of it for the past week, feeling that the stress would impede my recovery. Reading it today, I think I made the right choice. I was in Barcelona in 2018, during my very first cruise. The itinerary interported between Barcelona and Rome, with most passengers embarking from Barcelona, but I embarked from Rome in order to have more time there. So two-thirds of the passengers were disembarking, and an equal number embarking, at Barcelona. I took a tour with Spain Day Tours that included all three groups. There were a few others for whom it was an ordinary port call, some bringing luggage from the ship who would be dropped off at the airport after the tour, and some being picked up at a hotel, also with luggage, who would be taken to the ship along with those of us making just a port call. I have relatively few photos, because it rained through the first half of the tour, and those I have from Park Guell are like those already posted. BTW it was soon after I had dislocated my shoulder and I was very much afraid of falling at Park Guell. I left the tour on the way back to the ship in order to visit the Jewish quarter, and walked to the old synagogue. Today the synagogue is mostly below street level, but it wasn't built that way; the street level has been raised many times. And two kosher restaurants nearby. After lunch--not at either of those, as it was Sunday and on Sunday in Barcelona, one eats paella, not pizza or shakshuka--I walked to the Ramblas and got a taxi back to the ship.

I'm feeling a lot better. I would still rather sleep than do almost anything else, and I'm continuing to rest as much as possible. It's 68° and sunny. I've been out to bring in the mail, but that's all. If I had outdoor furniture on the deck I would sit outside for a while, but it's all in the garden shed.

I never drop gum, and I'm already aware that I'm single. The meal and the drink don't interest me, and the wine would be above my budget. Susan B Anthony (the B does not require a period, because she added the middle initial herself and did not use a full middle name) lived most of her life in Rochester and before that was politically active in the region between there and here. She was close to Frederick Douglass, for whom the Rochester airport is now named, and they are buried in the same cemetery. Her initial activism was toward the abolition of slavery, and the women's rights movement began within the abolitionist movement. In women's rights, her earliest concern was not voting, but equal pay, and then the protection of women from abusive husbands. She shifted to voting rights after the Civil War, under the influence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She and 14 other women in Rochester voted in the election of 1872; they were all arrested but only she was prosecuted. She was convicted and fined $100, which she never paid; because the judge didn't jail her or make any other attempt to collect the fine, she could not appeal the conviction. President Trump offered a pardon in 2020, but the president of the Susan B Anthony House and Museum declined it, responding that to accept a pardon would wrongly validate the trial proceedings in the same manner that paying the $100 fine would have. The opera The Mother of Us All is about her life, sort of. The libretto is by Gertude Stein.