I tried half of a Trazodone last night around 7, and started feeling really sleepy around 8, which was pretty amazing. (OTOH, I've been sleeping really badly and probably running something of a deficit.)

Definitely not as awake as perhaps would be desired today, though caffeine helped some.

Whee! Science experiments with my own brain!

I am making my own fancy cocktail at the moment and would be happy to make one for you.

Yesterday, I made Negronis for my next door neighbors and left them on the back porch table. Because they had a trip to Italy planned, half of which would have been paid for by her job. And the COVID killed that. Which is pretty tough for young parents who didn't have much hope for international travel until their kid was in middle school.

Anyway, I made Negronis and we talked on the porch (at a distance).

Currently I'm drinking a Ginger Rogers which requires: Gin, Fancy Ginger Ale (on the dry side), fresh mint leaves, lemon juice, lots of fresh mint leaves muddled at the bottom and a tablespoon of sweet ginger syrup.

And I can't say enough for the Bob's Red Mill flour that I got last week. Two amazing loafs of bread, seriously. It's left the King Arthur Bread Flour in the dust.

OTOH, the Bob's was definite overkill for my pizza dough. Using regular all-purpose flour for that would not make a noticeable difference.

I may yet end up as someone with several different containers of flour around.

Oh, Calli, that sounds delish!

Hooray sleep, Theo! And good flour/bread. And all y'all's cocktails.

I'm going to try cooking grits and split peas together in the same pot for tomorrow's breakfast. I think it might be good. With some pepper jack melted on top?

OK, this is a really weird thing to delurk on after not posting in awhile, but I don't feel comfortable talking about this on Facebook even locked down, so...I just found out about an hour and a half ago that my oldest brother died by what appears to be suicide either yesterday or today.

I'm much younger than all of my brothers--I'm 49, and D was 66. What with the four of us living in 4 different states and the fact he was never as active on FB as the rest of my family, I'd kinda lost touch with him the last few years, though. I've since talked to my other two brothers, M and J, and apparently there was a lot going on over the past year or so that I just wasn't up on. He and my SIL had separated, and it sounds like he'd kinda walked away from everything and everyone, hadn't even been that much in touch with his kids and grandkids. J said that he suspected, from various hints over the years, that maybe D had a gambling problem. (J also apologized for not telling me all this when we met for dinner when he and his family were in Seattle for a conference last spring, but we agreed that it would've been a weird conversation to have in a noisy restaurant/sports bar.)

It's just a lot to take in. I have so many memories of D from when I was a teenager and he was the one brother who lived close to my parents and was advising me on college and career stuff. We went to an Alabama-Auburn game in Birmingham together, just the two of us, while Bo Jackson was playing because D had gotten sweet seats as a work perk, and I have so many vivid memories of that day (even if more of them are to do with how miserably cold and wet it was than of the game itself). I'd always felt like he and I were the closest in personality of the four of us kids, that we were the (relatively) mellow ones of our decidedly non-mellow family. I'm sad and angry and mostly just very stunned.

Goodness, Susan. How awful. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry Susan. My condolences to you and your family.

Oh, Susan, that's staggeringly hard to find out suddenly. I'm so sorry. But I'm glad you can enjoy memories of him.

I am so very sorry, Susan. I hope that you can get some comfort from your happy memories. That is a lot to take in for sure.

Thanks, y'all. It's a lot to take in. I almost didn't pick up the phone when it rang, because I was so sure it was yet another person wanting me to donate to some campaign or other, but I did just in case when I saw the Alabama area code. It was my nephew, D's son, and when he told me D had passed I was so SURE he was going to say it was covid.