WTF-Beta

That sounds absolutely terrible and I’m sorry you are going through it.

I met her when I worked at a bookstore where she was doing a signing. She was absolutely lovely and gracious and spent far more time than she needed to chatting with all of the folks (like me) who worked there.

For what it’s worth I also wear Hanes quarter ankle socks (in women’s size) and love them. I order them from Amazon in packs of 10 pairs.

My recent favourite (within maybe the last 10 years) are ambrosia apples. But they don’t store terribly well so they are best in the fall.

@AdagioM said in The fruit detective:

@dolmansaxlil I guess that’s why I can now tolerate jalapeños!

Speaking of which, I’m enjoying the cilantro/lime/jalapeño dressing in this avocado blueberry quinoa salad.

That salad sounds delightful! Saved! We have a corn blueberry feta salad with mint that we eat frequently in the summer. I love the idea of adding some quinoa to add protein and bulk!

Shiro I have a Sperax brand walking pad that is also a vibration plate. While I haven’t used the vibration feature myself Rob did tonnes of research before we bought it and it is very well reviewed (and relatively inexpensive).

Mcintosh apples deserve it. They are my least favourite, alongside red delicious. I’m worried Mutsu are also going to go away though - they are the very best apple for pie.

The other disappearing produce I’ve noticed (in my neck of the woods) is yellow sweet corn. It has all been replaced with peaches and cream, which I don’t find as flavourful.

I recently listened to an episode of the Sporkful where they talked about jalapeños and whether they are getting less hot. The answer was yes, and it turns out it’s because they cultivated one that was very mild but very flavourful and had a consistent heat to use in commercial salsa, where they just add pure capsaicin to meet the desired heat level. But those jalapeños weren’t really meant for consumers. Of course because the demand for them is so high, eventually they became the only ones available in most grocery stores.

The Sporkful podcast just did a reheat episode and it was about bourbon. One of the taster expert people said that you take the first sip they way you would a hot coffee and basically you’ll just taste alcohol. Then you take a second sip and you get the flavours. I don’t like any brown spirit, but this made me wonder if I just take that first sip, grimace, and give up before actually tasting the flavours???

Is 5d recess?

@ShiroKuro I think that type of situation happens to a lot of people. Hopefully your foot issues are resolved soon and you can get back to your active self! Maybe talk to your PT or doctor and see if there are yoga positions you can try that won’t irritate your foot. There are some studies that show yoga can increase bone density, and a slow flow may be more manageable for you than a jarring higher impact activity.

@ShiroKuro My mom has severe osteoporosis. It’s no joke. She spontaneously broke her spine (while literally sitting on the couch) a few years ago, which is how she was diagnosed. They did the standard treatments to try to reverse it and increase her bone density, but they were ineffective. She is now on Teriparatide, which she will inject daily for two years. Do everything you can now to reverse it! I take a daily vitamin D supplement as well as calcium. I’m also trying to incorporate more impact exercises to strengthen my bones.

Luckily nothing has ever spread beyond skin, so he has only had to undergo surgical treatments. His last major bout was a Mohs surgery two years ago to remove a chunk that had been removed several times before. They seem to have gotten it all from that section now. The surgery to reconstruct his cheek was a long time ago - maybe 10 years? They took a triangular piece a few inches across out of his lip and cheek, moved some of his inner cheek out to reconstruct his lip, and sewed him back up. His doctor was incredible! The scar is quite noticeable - I’m sure people wonder what happened to him when they first meet him - but the initial assessment was that he would lose half of his upper lip and they wouldn’t be able to reconstruct it. The doctor changed his mind during the surgery and did the reconstruction. Now he just has little bits blasted off about every 6 months - always on his face. His dermatologist and plastic surgeon’s preference would be that he lived in a dark cave

After watching Rob’s battle with skin cancer (including having to reconstruct his cheek/lip) I’m going to stick to my daily regime of sunscreen on all exposed skin, wearing a hat when I’m outside during peak sun periods, and staying in the shade whenever possible. Luckily for me I rarely burn (even back in the 80s when sunscreen wasn’t a thing). But I’m still very cautious (and Rob even more so).

@Axtremus said in Long Connection at Heathrow ... what to do?:

@AndyD said in Long Connection at Heathrow ... what to do?:

If you chance to there on a Friday or Saturday evening, some museums and galleries stay open late.

Indeed it will be a Friday when I arrive at LHR. The idea to just walk around sounds good too! Yeah, I am also leaning towards booking a hotel in or close to LHR.

@dolmansaxlil wrote:

If it were me and I had one night in London I would go out for Indian food

Oh, yes, I have had Indian food in London before and continue to hear good things about it since; though this time I may skip the Indian food in London for the simple reason that I will traveling to London from India.

Bwahahahaha! Did I miss that in the original post? Also I completely reversed your trip, thinking this was on the way to your destination rather than coming home. Ignore all of my thoughts!

If it were me and I had one night in London I would go out for Indian food (obviously you can sub in your cuisine of choice but the Indian restaurants in London are top notch) and see a show (unless it’s a Monday). However jet lag could be an issue for a show so you could always go into the city to eat, take a wander around one neighbourhood, depending on what you want to see, then head back to the airport for an early night and hopefully to get enough rest that you won’t be jet lagged the next day!

I was a PC user. I then got heavily involved with Apple education with iPad so eventually got a Mac. It took some time to figure out how to do things on my Mac that I already knew how to do on PC. But once I learned those things, I found I far preferred Mac. Now I have to use Windows at work and I HATE IT. I find it is not as intuitive but also that there are so many things that Mac comes with that it just does better than Windows. For example, Mac’s “preview” program has elements of Adobe Acrobat built in. Stuff that you have to buy Acrobat to access on PC.

I fell in love with using Mac by taking a class through Apple to become a trainer on MacBook. But similar courses are available at Apple Stores, and they also have online courses you can take. But until I had direct instruction in my Mac I didn’t realize how many cool things I was missing out on. I was just using it as an Internet machine (as well as using Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, which are included rather than being a separate purchase). Once I actually had someone teach me I became a huge fan.

Apple News drives me a little bonkers in their headlines for this news story. Any time this happens the headline is “French government collapses”. I live in a place where this exact same thing can and has happened and it is a FEATURE of our how government works. It’s actually a good thing that means folks have to cross the aisle to get things done. It’s not a “collapse” of government. Obviously the government in France is currently unstable - but the system is working as it was designed to work.

/rant

My understanding of “natural flavours” is that they are things found in nature rather than straight up chemicals. But sometimes the “natural flavour” is actually ground up beetles that happen to taste exactly like cherries (not a real example, but not far off).

@ShiroKuro

Remember I’m in Canada so my insurance is probably different. I am with TD Insurance. I’ve been with them for 23 years for auto and home insurance and while I haven’t had a lot of claims I have been very happy with the level of service when I have had to make a claim.

I’m so glad you’re okay Bernard.

This doesn’t help now, but maybe will help someone else in future. Rob’s car was hit in a parking lot in July. He called the insurance company immediately - before anyone else. They told him to call the police and they would deal with everyone else. Within two hours the police had come to look at it, the insurance company had arranged for it to be taken to a local body shop, and they had pre-arranged a rental in case we needed it (we did not). While we were on our trip the insurance company dealt with the estimate, approved paying for it, and kept us up to date about when it would be ready. It took a week after our trip for it to be finished so I emailed the adjuster from the airport and asked them to arrange a rental for our return. Our only contact with the body shop was to pick up the car at the end.

I had never been through the process and was shocked at how helpful the insurance company was and how little we actually had to do. They just handled everything.

Obviously it depends on your company, but if I were ever in an accident I would definitely call my insurance company first because they may be more helpful than you’d think!