Timelies all!

I can hear the rumble of thunder in the background, but it hasn't started raining yet.

It looked like all hell was going to break loose at 6:15, so we rescheduled the futon pickup. And so far, threatening was as much as it got. Ah well, it probably would have poured otherwise. But I'm getting rid of the old futon mattress tomorrow! Yay!

It's thundering here too. Bring it on!

because it's hard to get people behind preventing a cancer that many view as the "fault" of the victim.

My sister had lung cancer about 10 years ago. She never even tried smoking. Her doctors all said it was caused by smoking - her father's smoking. She never was interested in the habit, but she smoked involuntarily the 18 years she lived with Dad. My mother never smoked either, but she has significantly diminished lung capacity for the same reason - 39 years of involuntary smoking. Dad died of lung cancer. And I smoked for many years too. Hope I got the good gene set.

Step away from the crazies, Hil. One of the doctors I interviewed for a pediatrician when I was expecting Brendon said he would refuse to be a doctor for child of a vegetarian mother. Yeah, like I was going to choose you, dude.

I have to motivate myself to go out to the bookstore and pick up the textbook we're going to use in class tomorrow. But it is just so nice out here on the patio that I don't want to move a muscle -- it's just this side of warm enough not to sweat and there's a mockingbird trying to see if he can run out of songs.

There are some really dark red splotches on the weather radar map.

Tom - one of them was just us - it was awesome. and I'm glad the trees stayed put

We just had a ton of lightning and thunder, but still no rain.

We didn't get a lot of rain, but the big heavy stuff is over Lake Okeechobee right now and we need that.

My parents flew from FL to NY today and we had big thunderstorms in Fort Lauderdale right before they took off and they had tornado warnings in Otter Lake. My sister has been without power much of the day because of downed tree limbs. I don't think there was ever a tornado warning when I grew up in Utica. Odd stuff this weather.

Lake Okeechobee

This lake always gives me pause because my grandmother used to sail on Lake Okoboji in Iowa, and they took the kids there on occasion. Try saying one after the other. Okeechobe Okoboji Okeechobe Okoboji Okeechobe Okoboji Okeechobe Okoboji . Hee!

The article that prompted the vegan kids argument: [link]

One bit is bothering me. (Well, several pieces are, beginning with how the disease could progress that far before anyone noticed -- did she not go to a doctor? Rickets is pretty easy to diagnose.) But this:

In 2001, British vegans Hazmik and Garabet Manuelyan, from Staines, were sentenced to three years’ community rehabilitation after they admitted starving daughter Arenai, 10 months, to death. She had been fed nothing but breast milk, raw fruit, vegetables and nuts.

There's something more going on there. Breast milk plus starting some fruits and vegetables is what plenty of ten-month-olds eat. Either they weren't feeding her enough, or there was some other problem going on, or something. It's not only the selection of foods that could have led to that baby's death.

t edit: also, their statement that Vitamin D is in dairy products is wrong. It's in liquid milk (and most soy milk, rice milk, etc.) because it's added. Once they figured out that lack of Vitamin D was what causes rickets, they figured that putting it into milk would be an easy way to make sure that most kids got it. There's no Vitamin D naturally in milk, and there's none in cheese and other dairy products.