Ouch, ND. I'm at least glad it isn't the pancreatitis.

I'm home and exhausted.

Ouch, ND. May it be resolved quickly and painlessly.

Now I'm thinking about drinking less of my somewhat-hard tap water. And giving my cats bottled spring water. Ouch, I say.

We don't buy bottled water anymore--no ripping off tribal lands for corporate profits, thanks. But we do filter our tap water, and I think it makes a difference. Brita filters, FTW!

We have water bottles in the fridge, and we carry one with us when we're out--no exorbitant spending for water or soft drinks, that way. We've done it for twenty years now. I wonder how many filters we've consigned to the landfill?

The bottled water I buy is from a spring in the mountains above Salt Lake City.

That does sound picturesque, Connie.

The most popular brand of bottled water when I lived in NC was "bottled in Salisbury, NC," according to the fine print. I'd been to Salisbury. I imagined somebody out in the back yard with a hose, filling up bottles from the municipal water supply--which may have been a Northern Exposure episode one time.

Speaking of springs, though. There was a place in the NC mountains where my dad loved to go for Sunday dinner, and at least one partial week during the summer. They had one-room cabins strung around a small pond, and an old farmhouse, where the owner-operators lived on the second floor. The first floor had become a small general store, kitchen, and big dining room. Meals were served family style--fried chicken, mashed potatoes, beans and corn, biscuits, and pie or cake for dessert. There was absolutely nothing to do--not even canoes for the pond. It was patronized by old people, who sat around on the porch and dozed between meals.

The place was famous, though, for its spring. People would bring quart milk bottles and thermoses (before plastic milk jugs) to fill with spring water to take home. Another time, entirely.

There's a brand of locally-sourced spring water here, I've forgotten the name of it. And I do have a Brita pitcher, which I forgot about! What else have I forgotten? Was the source of the Nile under my kitchen?

Glad you're home, Drew. So sorry about the whomping kidney stone. While I'm very happy it's not pancreatitis, kidney stone isn't any fun either. Much healing~ma

On a highway over the mountains from my town to Portland, there is a faucet/tap on the side of the road that has the best water I have ever tasted (and I generally don't like the taste of water), directly from some mountain spring. In the summer, you can see a line of cars with 5 and 10 gallon containers pulled over, waiting their turn. It greatly confuses the tourists.

How did it become 2015 already? I keep looking at dates like 2002 and thinking "That wasn't that long ago," but that was 13 years ago. I've done this at least five times today, and it's kind of weirding me out. I've also been working on some Javascript lessons, where for a bunch of examples, you have to enter your name and age, and I keep entering my age a few years too young. Why has my brain decided that the past 5 years haven't happened? (I mean, not that I'd mind a do-over on several of them, but I am aware that time has progressed.)

Speaking of springs, though. There was a place in the NC mountains where my dad loved to go for Sunday dinner, and at least one partial week during the summer. They had one-room cabins strung around a small pond, and an old farmhouse, where the owner-operators lived on the second floor. The first floor had become a small general store, kitchen, and big dining room. Meals were served family style--fried chicken, mashed potatoes, beans and corn, biscuits, and pie or cake for dessert. There was absolutely nothing to do--not even canoes for the pond. It was patronized by old people, who sat around on the porch and dozed between meals.

I've been there. Dad swore the water helped his eczema. We didn't stay long when I visited, but Dad use to go back now and then to fill up his jug.