Timelies all!

Never heard of slap/fifth disease before. Learn something new every day.

I got fanmail for Cold Kiss! Such a delightful thing to wake up to a Saturday morning. I feel all warm and fuzzy.

WindSparrow, a lot of library systems have Ancestry for free, although it's usually only available while you're in the library. In case that helps you decide how to allocate your genealogy funds!

Yay, Amy!

I am about ready to give up on Danskos

I have a pair of Ariat clogs I've been wearing the hell out of the last few weeks. My plantar fasciitis had flared up again (note to self: do not wear supportless ballet slippers to walk two miles/day for a month!), and the clogs are really the best thing for it. They have plenty of support and they don't flex, which is apparently one of the problems.

ION, I'm out of work again. I'm sort of looking forward to spending most of next week doing errands and projects around the house. Less excited about updating my resume and figuring out the job-hunt strategy going forward.

Maybe I'll get inspired to do some writing, which would be nice.

This weekend is the Eat Real festival here, in which food trucks and restaurants sell snacks, and there are steer- and hog-butchering competitions. I love living in foodie heaven...

European-sized shoes like Clarks and Danskos are never quite big enough for me. My feet are not very wide, but long; I wear a 10.5-11 in American sizes. The European equivalent of size 10 (42) is too short, and size 43 apparently doesn't exist. So I cannot share in the Danskos love.

Dansko's makes men's clogs! Not as many styles, but they size up to Simply Enormous (i.e. 48). [link]

I always liked Clark's when I worked in Footwear. Nice leather. I should check them out again.

What does the sentence "half the population was decimated" even supposed to mean??? Within context it's nu-decimation, but still

If it doesn't mean 5% wiped out, maybe a whole bunch of men?

Thank you, flea. I will try to find out if the local library has it.

Having traced my ancestors back to the Plymouth colony, I find that one of my forefather's other wives' first husband was (most likely) the forefather of a former coworker. Most interesting. And if I were to have to choose coworkers to have a randomly distant connection with, this guy would be on the short list.

I've tried to put together a family tree, but the software made it so exasperating it wasn't fun. Everyone could have only one first name and the middle name didn't show up, and it was really difficult to keep track of multiple marriages.