Down but never out

Well, I'm back.  It looks like the house and I have both recovered from our recent upsets.

The bathroom remodelling project took longer than originally projected but finally concluded to the satisfaction of all.  We now have a nice shower enclosure that can be entered and exited with ease, a spacious new vanity, and even a new medicine chest.  The old wallpaper and old floor are gone, and everything looks clean and bright and new.  Probably because almost everything is new.

When the tiled walls that surrounded the old tub came down, we found an interesting souvenir.

Judging by the old-fashioned pull-tab, the can appears to be the same age as the house (early 1970's) and must have been walled in at the time of construction.  I was hoping it would be full of precious gems or hundred-dollar bills or something, but no such luck.

Once we got the house back to normal after that, I promptly fell down (in the garage, not the shower) and hurt myself, and then I promptly caught my partner's nasty cold, although unlike hers, mine did not turn into pneumonia.  But even that has run its course, and I am now more or less fit as a fiddle and just as sassy and irreverent as usual.

Mr. Collins, where have you been all my life?

I love my sidecar (cognac, Cointreau, lemon juice) and I love my vodka sour (vodka, sugar syrup, lemon juice) and I love my relatively dry vodka martini (4:1), but they are what you might call sippin' drinks.  Unless you plan to have several, you need to sip 'em, or they're gone.

Enter Tom Collins.  Nice guy, Tom.  Two ounces fine gin, 3/4 ounce sugar syrup, 1/2 ounce lemon juice, tall glass half full of ice, and about 5 ounces of club soda.  Or, on a day like today, substitute vodka for gin for the classic Vodka Collins. 

Drink, don't sip.  Gulp down a couple good swigs at a time if you want.  Yum.

Logic and the FDA

Seborrheic dermatitis is a minor skin ailment with which I have been afflicted since I was about 11 or 12 years old.  Mostly it makes red, itchy, oily, scaly patches on my scalp.  I've always used a medicated shampoo that contains 1% selenium sulfide to handle the problem.

Most of my life the only way to obtain the medicated shampoo containing 1% selenium sulfide was with a prescription from a doctor, which was filled by a pharmacist.  The first few bottles of it that I got, 50 some years ago, said POISON over a skull and crossbones.  Later they gave that up, but it still required a prescription.  A hairdresser I knew told me the reason it was controlled was that if you get it in your eyes, it could blind you.

So I had to assume that as long as a prescription was needed, I wouldn't get it in my eyes.

Well, I'm no longer safe.  The restriction came off a few years ago and you can now find shampoo containing 1% selenium sulfide in any hair care aisle (I use the Head & Shoulders version).  I suppose the FDA knew what it was doing, but I tremble every time I go to use the stuff.  What's to keep me from getting it in my eyes now? 

You might say I don't know whether to shampoo or go blind.

Hot Buttered Toast

I just treated myself to a breakfast of hot buttered toast.  There is nothing like it.  I made three slices for myself, which I justify because that's all I'm having.  No eggs, no bacon, no nothin' else.  Just toast.

There is an episode of the British television series "Upstairs Downstairs" (the one from the 1970's) that I have seen numerous times in which a young man moans about longing for hot buttered toast.  One of his companions finally goes to the housekeeper to ask for some, and after an interval, the toast arrives.  Every time I see that episode, I always wonder exactly how hot that toast would be by the time it was removed from whatever Edwardian heat source had toasted it, was buttered, stood up in one of those little racks, and carried up two flights of stairs on a tray.  I'm guessing not very.

I toast only one slice of bread at a time, butter as fast as I can, cut in two with a quick, deft motion, and start eating.  That's how you get hot buttered toast.

As I've mentioned before, my father wouldn't eat toast.  He said it was just a quick way to make old bread.  It was probably not the only thing he didn't know he was missing.

Calling on the 13th

Yes, it is Friday the 13th.  I am not worried.  I've lived through my share of them, and so far nothing bad has happened to me.  Of course, I might be tempting fate with that statement, but, as I always say, if you take care not to walk under any black cats, you should be fine.  I also recall the wisdom of a blackjack dealer who once told me it was bad luck to be superstitious.

Therefore, on to my original choice of topic for today, which is the expression, "Call, write or phone."  Businesses still do say that nowadays:  For more information, call write or phone XYZ Company.  I said it myself this morning in an email, and I realized how woefully out of date that is.

Of course, back in the day, "to call" meant to go there.  You called upon someone, you made calls, by going to see them in person.  Later it was possible to talk to someone by telephone instead of going there, which was making calls by telephone, which became known as telephone calls.  I think most people, especially young people, consider calling and phoning the same thing.

I remember stores and restaurants with small signs on the door as you went out that said, "Thank You, Call Again."  I wonder if there are any of those left anywhere.

So, anyway, we started out being able to call or write.  Then we could call, write or phone.  And now -- call, write, phone, fax, email, text, or tweet.  Cripes.

I'll have some of that

Once long ago -- I was in my early twenties, probably -- I was an overnight guest at someone's house, and the next morning when breakfast was in the offing, I was asked if I liked my eggs fried country style.  I said that I didn't know what that meant and was told it meant that the eggs were fried in bacon grease.  I said, "What else do you fry eggs in?"

No, I wasn't being a smartass -- I really didn't think there was any other way to fry an egg.  At our house there was always a small glass dish with a lid that sat near the stove into which any left-over bacon grease was deposited.  When making eggs, if I didn't fry some bacon first, I availed myself of the grease jar.  I even recall a period in my life when I was trying to cut calories and decided bacon shouldn't be on my diet.  When making eggs for myself, I would fry a couple pieces of bacon to render the fat but leave them for someone else to eat.

I have since, of course, learned you can fry eggs in margarine, butter, oil, vegetable shortening, and cooking spray.  What with making bacon in the microwave, I generally fry eggs in butter now.  This morning, however, I did something I haven't done in a long time -- made scrambled eggs in bacon fat, and, oh my, they were good.

According to what I can find on the Internet, the "country style" term is most often applied to eggs cooked by starting the frying process, then turning the heat to low, adding water, and covering the pan until the eggs set (which sounds like steaming to me).  So, I have no idea why my hosts of long ago thought "country style" meant frying eggs in bacon grease or whether that method even has a name.

Well, whatever you call it, bring it on.

Gauche, yes

I wonder who began referring to the southern bank of the Seine River in Paris as la Rive Gauche, the Left Bank.  It must have been somebody with limited logic, foresight or mobility because it is only the Left Bank if you are facing west, looking downstream.  If you turn around and look upstream, it is the Right Bank.

It's sort of like determining if something is concave or convex, which depends on whether you are on the outside looking in or the inside looking out.

For unambiguity, one may turn to Palestine where that most famous side of the Jordan River is called the West Bank.  It will always be to the west regardless which way you are facing, avoiding all confusion, except, of course, among any tourists from Iowa who might be looking for a place to cash travelers checks (West Bank, serving Des Moines since 1893).

Those are the thoughts that occupy me this morning.  Amazing, isn't it?

Oh No

While reviewing previous posts to see what I had said about something (so I don't say it again), I found that in November I actually used "it's" when I meant "its."  I was mortified.  Just last evening several of us were rolling our eyes at how many people don't know the difference between "your" and "you're," and there I was, making an equally egregious error.

I hate it when I do things like that.  It's not like I don't read and re-read and spell check and re-read before I hit the publish button.  It must just have been a momentary lapse.

But it makes me think I should go back and re-proofread everything.  Because, after all, I want to be absolutely grammatically correct at all times, mostly just because that's how I am, and also because I think I owe it to you, my loyal readers -- your the best.

220 Years Ago Today

Today is an anniversary that fills the hearts of American numismatists with joy, for it was on April 2, 1792, that President Washington signed into law what has become known as the Coinage Act of 1792.  It set up our monetary system, stating that our unit of currency would be called a dollar and would be divided into tenths and hundredths and thousandths (dimes and cents and milles, although no milles were ever minted or even designed).  A decimal system of this sort was in itself revolutionary among the world currencies of the time. 

The Act called for the building, equipping and staffing of a mint, to be located in our nation's capital.  Our primary mint is located in Philadelphia because that was our capital at the time.  A few years later, when the District of Columbia was established as the seat of government, the lawmakers of the day, in a rare display of common sense that modern politicians would do well to emulate, decided the mint was doing just fine where it was and that there was no point in moving it.

Specifications were given for the denominations of coins to be produced by the mint, with explicit specifications as to their size, weight, and metal content.  The Act even addressed itself, in broad terms, to the general design of the coins.  The obverse of gold and silver coins, for instance, was to bear a design "emblematic of liberty" while the reverse was to show a "representation" of an eagle.  To this day, it takes an act of Congress to change the general design of a coin.

Well, happy birthday to the United States Mint.  Any many happy returns of the day, for all our sakes.