I have a tube of toothpaste with a taste that triggers my gag reflex hardcore, and yet I am all, "But it's almost brand new! I can't throw it out!"

I have at least one tube of toothpaste that's artificially sweetened and two or three things of hand soap or lotion whose scents make me migrainey. Just sitting there, taking up space. In case of...something I haven't worked out yet.

Luckily, I am now able to enjoy my artificial sweetener addiction ... but it was unpleasant while it lasted. Aftermath of the stroke or the medication? who knows. I asked the neurologist and he'd never heard that one before. Hey! I made medical history! in a teeny tiny way.

It's always tasted dramatically crappy to me--even so far as an unpleasantly slippery mouth feel. I'm not sure when I worked out it was a migraine trigger, but I wonder how tied in that was.

Most of my trigger foods that I've identified taste bad to me, so I've never had to give up anything nummy.

So what did people have for lunch today?

(I thought I'd change up the question, since we covered the weekend yesterday.)

The prosecutor would ask her a question, and she would look pleadingly at the translator and say "Ay, dios mio," or she would look at the prosecutor and say, "Ay, senora."

This breaks my heart.

So what did people have for lunch today?

Vegetable soup and tuna salad sandwich. I lucked out when I picked up my diet food yesterday--the distributor was short a 1200-calorie bag, but had an extra 2000-calorie bag, and asked if I would like to swap for the weekend for no extra charge. Hell, yeah! So, I wasn't hungry this afternoon, like I normally am.

Anyway, the robbery victim testified as well. This was the only time the defendant spoke at the trial. While she was testifying, he sort of muttered something, and the defense attorney said, "Shut up!" In the jury room, a couple of the people who spoke Spanish said he'd called her a liar.

There was yet another robbery at the same complex. This guy had a busy morning. A woman testified that he walked into the apartment while she was breastfeeding her child and stared at her. When she screamed, her husband woke up and the guy took off.

We heard from a nurse who did a sexual assault kit on the second rape victim. A crime scene unit was called out to this second batch of crime scenes. They found fingerprints and blood at two of the three scenes, I think. We heard quite a bit from a fingerprint expert, but the short version is that they found his fingerprints and palm prints at those scenes. Both witnesses identified him in the courtroom.

I forgot to mention that the second woman who was raped was a Katrina refugee. She was originally from Honduras, had lived in New Orleans, and evacuated here. She has no family with her. She lives alone.

So what did people have for lunch today?

Nummy calamari linguine, with garlic bread.

That whole story is just heartbreaking, Dana.

I forgot to mention that the second woman who was raped was a Katrina refugee. She was originally from Honduras, had lived in New Orleans, and evacuated here. She has no family with her. She lives alone.

Ack.

Now, so far it looks like the physical evidence matches up. Like if there was that one in a trillion chance the DNA was someone else's, there were fingerprints at both scenes. I don't envy the job of the defense.

Dana--do you know if the defendant was using court-appointed representation? I do wonder in what %age of cases that happens.

Oh, man, when is naptime?

I had most of a side of fries.