To be fair, he gave me a very nice set of knives for our first Christmas together.

He trusts me. Lots.

Luckily we were able to leave our respective young children at home with our spouces instead of having them make the trip too.

The slight problem with that is that I'm a food source for one of them. And while I'm trying to ramp up production, there are certain limits.

However, when it comes time to bury my mom, I think I'll fly down there alone (versus a 8-9 hour drive). The issue is that I'll have to leave Z alone...with the kids...for days. I think he'll need to start drinking!

Unless you don't drink coffee, in which case you certainly can taste it.

Same goes for alcohol -- if you don't drink, you can taste very small amounts of alcohol in food or drinks.]

Now I'm wondering if Z knows of all the cooking I do that has alcohol in it. He's never remarked upon it.

Beauty is truth; truth beauty - that is all ye need to know on earth...except TCP/IP.

I bet that Mrs. Blue adds a touch of coffee or espresso to the brownies. That amps up the chocolate favor.

Thanks to Blue and to everyone that has expressed their kind thoughts.

We're just chugging along here, preparing for the worst. Right now, Z and our younger daughter are napping upstairs. Our elder daughter and I are watching the Polar Express (for the gazillionth time this month). It's not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Thank you, TorTorden.

My mom has end stage liver disease from cirrhosis. She got it from many years of drinking and not taking care of herself. She grew up in the generation where women were supposed to grow up, get married, and have kids. The problem is that there was not a good plan for "what do you do when the kids head off to college." She drank to entertain herself, got divorced from my dad, and married a guy who liked to drink as much as she did.

For the last several years, her health was obviously on the decline, but she avoided going to the doctor for fear of what they would find. (The lack of logic behind that attitude stuns me, but ...) She had a local doctor who would "diagnose" her over the phone and supply her with various painkillers and psychotropic drugs.

She finally went to see a real doctor when her eyes were gold, she was very swollen, and she was itching so badly at night that she couldn't sleep. They diagnosed her with cirrhosis, and gave her a number of lifestyle changes to make to help her live longer. She's not abiding by them.

It kills me that my mom refuses to do what is needed, but addiction triumphs all. So now we get to watch her decline with her body and mind failing her.


This comment was edited on Dec 16, 08:27.

After getting an Apples and Pears combo pack from Harry and David a few years back, I could totally see one of their pears being worth $4. Those suckers are good.

Warhawk - that was me.

Damn, Z's throwing me under the bus!

In the first sesason, Damon Linderhof claimed it was all explainable by real-world constructs. This was during the height of the OMGWTFPOLARBEARSMOKEMONSTER?


This comment was edited on Dec 10, 23:20.

This article shows exactly how over-mined the area of Literary Criticism has become. When you have oodles (or the more accurate term of "metric fuckton") English grad students fighting for the scraps of unanalyzed culture and its tie into all of literature...it gets messy.

I think this article shows why I bailed halfway through my university's masters program in English.

I hope you are having a great day.

I think it's a cute little car. Plus it's prominently featured on "Heroes", my favorite new show!

(I wanna be Claire when I grow up, minus the Sylar thingie...)

Should I bring up the dreaded "compost pile" again?

Cruciform is my role model!

I keep hinting to Z about #9....

Odd. We had our first frost earlier this week. Apparently, Georgia is colder than Blueland!

Gratz!!!

Z's underselling our technical library here. We have a good amount of UNIX, network security, and systems security books.

As for our pleasure reading, it was/is large. My undergraduate degree was in English, so I had so very many books. Z had a huge amount of books as well. The great purge of 2002 helped us whittle it down from "obscene" to merely "large".

Just a few more hours!

*happy dances*

I'm so sorry, Enahs.