I am really proud of myself. For the first time ever, I made a meatloaf and it came out really good. I used ground turkey instead of beef, since we rarely eat beef. Making a meatloaf is relatively easy, but it's a lot of work.
Saturday morning, I called a gift shop in Frankfurt, Germany because I had bought one of those ceramic buildings for Wendy's husband, Steve, who has a huge model train village that he sets up every Christmas.. At the time I ordered it, I was told it would take about six weeks to get here which was not a problem. Unfortunately, the postman wouldn't let our neighbor sign for it and they sent it back to Germany. I waited to see if they would call me, since I had already lost the receipt and any other information I had. According to the woman to whom I spoke, they didn't have my phone number nor email address, so it was a good thing I found them on the internet and contacted them (using Google. of course. It cost me all of twelve cents for the call.) She told me she kind of remembered my name on the package and would email me on Monday to let me know the status. I asked if it would be possible to remail it to me and she said it was not a problem.
Then we called Jean-Michel in Paris to see what apartments he might have available in the Marais in June.
I no longer have a smart phone. Tiger Direct wouldn't meet the reduced price of the other site and in the meantime, I had received my first bill from Sprint. I would have been paying almost $200 a month. That's a bit much for what is basically just a toy. And it's not like I would be spending several hours a day playing with it. Plus I discovered that tethering to use it as a wifi hotspot wouldn't work all that well either, and that was one of the major reasons for getting it in the first place. There is a mobile service that charges very reasonable rates, the kicker is you have to buy one of their phones, and I don't really like any of them.
Robb continues to regain his health, though it seems to be taking longer than either of us thought. He is mostly pain-free but still has an occasional twinge. I took him for his two-week check-up with his surgeon on Friday. He is pleased with Robb's progress thus far, but indicated that he's at least a couple of weeks away from anything strenous, like driving or carrying anything that weighs more than twenty pounds.
I have no idea how I got them, but I now have 45 music channels on my TV. I have two classical channels, two jazz channels, a Big Band channel, hip-hop, rap, easy listening, a ton of rock channels both old and new, and several spanish music channels (of course, no French or German, or any other European country representation).
I love how the media coverage of "global warming" is slowly switching to "global climate change". It's only a matter of time until they'll be back to predicting a "global ice age". It was bound to happen. After all, Gore's ridiculous film, An Inconvenient Truth, was so inconveniently full of misinformation and outright lies, there was no way it could stand the test of time. Most of the scientific community (those who weren't looking to add a few bucks to their endowments) always argued against "global warming" in favor of climate change.
OK, it’s no longer a well kept secret. Answer To An Age Old Question. Why are Jewish Men Circumcised? Jewish men are circumcised because – Jewish women won't touch anything unless it's 30% off.
Reason number 1001 why there should be no pets in the house:
Wednesday afternoon, around 16h30, I went back to the hospital because Robb had been told he was definitely scheduled for release. We were still there at 18h00 when they brought dinner around. He wasn't going to eat, but I suggested he might as well. That reminds me of an interesting thing that happened during Greg's last meal there. They brought in his lunch, but they had given him whole milk which he doesn't drink. He asked for skimmed milk and the woman said it would not be a problem, then promptly forgot it. But Greg had asked her to take back the whole milk and she told him she couldn't do that. Once she puts it in a room, she can't take it back, even though it had never been opened. That was only one example of the runaway waste I saw while I was visiting. And we wonder why it costs so much for medical care. Hospitals (and doctors) are just as bad, if not worse, than the government when it comes to wasting our money.
The good news is we finally got out and drove home around 19h30. We stopped at the drugstore, but when I told Robb it would be a twenty-five minute wait, he asked me to drive him home. I did that, and then went back to get the drugs. Wow, talk about getting ripped off. He got three drugs, two antibiotics and a pain killer (Percoset). It was over two hundred and fifty dollars. It's a good thing we don't need socialized medicine in this "greatest country in the world".
A friend who has a house in the Loire Valley of France, posted the following in his blog. I thought it was interesting enough to share. "A friend from Blois called last night just to say hello and see how we were doing. She said the school buses around Blois haven't been running this week, so all the kids are staying at home. Teachers are posting lessons for them over the Internet to keep them busy and productive. That's the 21st century, I guess."
I don't know how many of you may have watched those really stupid drug commercials, but I love them. I'm referring to the ones that always have a disclaimer at the end in which they more often than not, indicate that their drug's side-effects are far worse than the reason you're taking them. They always have a section near the end during which they tell you to tell your doctor about various things. My absolute most favorite of these is the one for Plavix, in which they tell you to tell your doctor if you're planning any surgery.
As if we didn't have enough about which to worry, here's another:
