McCain's calls them Tasti Taters.

We were a french fry family.

I actually had Crispy Crowns, but you get the re-formed fried-then-baked potato idea.

So I wandered over to the lake after dark, danced my ass off to Rihanna, Drake, Kendrick and others this 40something musically dense white woman doesn't know, saw an elephant floating on the lake and fireworks.

I haven't danced in a while. But I never danced like those kids could.

It was fun.

That sounds awesome Sara!!

I went out with friends. But it ended up being really weird and I'm not even sure what happened. Drunkness and crushes and dancing and drama oh my

I bought tots yesterday for next week's consumption.

Sounds fun, Sara!

Sorry about the weird and drama, meara.

I'm finally feeling better after last week's stomach bug. Which was probably food poisoning, so in between that worry and the fact that I didn't eat most of last week's lunches or half-prepped dinners, I'll be spending a chunk of today throwing away food. I do dislike doing that, but I dislike lying on my sofa, wondering what the differences are between dysentery and cholera are, and if either apply personally, more.

One of the fairly common requests we get at the library is, "What did X stock sell for on (for example) March 27, 1976?" Luckily we have all that data - there were books published called "Daily Stock Price Record" for the big exchanges, and if those fail we have the contemporary Wall Street Journal. The callers are sooooo grateful.

Oh wow, that is awesome! Yay libraries.

Oh yeah, my mother just had to find out the value of stocks her father bought her a million years ago, because she sold them this year and had to pay taxes on the capital gains. And that sounds way easier than finding the old value of mineral rights!

We sold some stock like this for the downpayment on our house last year, and the accountant we went to basically just guessed. (We could narrow the purchase date down to the decade, but there was NO paperwork so even that was a guess!)

Also throw in the fact that Tim has executive function issues and my depression kind of sidelined me for an entire year, and -- our house has some exceptionally grimy areas.

Between Paul's schedule and my combination of executive function issues/depression/health scares with the addition of dogs, well. OMG. Such a clusterfuck of gross is our house.

Apparently I am both Teppy and Plei, minus the dogs (but, as of early this afternoon when the Scolapalooza brunch ends, plus a guinea pig or two) and plus rampant mildew. I've spent all of what was supposed to be a vacation week battling the horrid stench by the front windows of our front bedroom. The linen chest and all its contents will probably need to be discarded, and I'm crossing all digits that most of the contents of the bottom two drawers of both dressers can be salvaged.

I also found what was once a lovely leather-and-linen jacket from Hec's young adulthood in the back of the wardrobe covered with ominous grey chalk-dust dots.

And, although the landlady is surely neglectful as hell and I'm positive all the window frames at the front (fog-facing) side of the building need to be ripped out and replaced but that will never happen, all the damage to our own stuff is squarely our fault. It would take a solid aggressive hour of cleaning every week to keep the window area in check, but we should have been able to manage that in more than fitful annual cleaning spasms over the last decade. Our own damn fault.

plus rampant mildew

Oh, our basement is going to need mold remediation. We keep the mold at bay upstairs by putting a fan in the bathroom doorway when we shower (the house was built in 1920 and the bathroom hasn't been remodeled, so there's no bathroom vent/fan in the ceiling) and running a fan in the bedroom. (Even so, some mold spots pop up on the windows and in the pantry from time to time.)