numbers

If you are female and manage to not die by the time you get to be my mom's age (96), you are predicted (by our government) to live another 3.16 years. Me, at 66, I have another 19.69, so though I am thirty years younger than her, I'm likely to die about twenty years from now, while she's likely to totter along to a ripe old 99.16.

Oh, numbers! I tell Ed -- if I want to make pizza for 14 people, I'll need to bake at least six large pizzas. Wrong! -- he proclaims. Just five!
That's chintzy!
No it isn't! There's a website that tells you how many square inches of pizza per person to make. For a 16 inch pizza, you only need five!
My pizzas are more like 15 inches.
Five.
Six! 

It is a day for calculating things.

Bleak, gray, warm, with storms hovering to the north of us and more storms barrelling right through Madison this weekend. It makes for an interesting set of days.

(Breakfast)






I drive to my mom's place... (steely gray day)

 



... and attack her kitchen today. I empty out just one of her kitchen cupboards plus her freezer. No comment on her frozen foods. We have different tastes. Understandable. But the kitchen cupboard is, I think, indicative of her demographic: dozens and dozens of empty plastic containers. The kind in which you would buy humus or prepared foods. All washed and neatly stacked, though most with mismatched lids. Out they go. My favorite words these days: give it away or throw it away!

It's a beginning of a slow process of moving out.

(I have no news on where she goes next. Her current Rehab Facility called today: have you heard anything?- they ask. Um, no. And I don't expect to. Not for several weeks. The facility wants her room. I'm happy to hand it over, just show me where you intend to place her.)
 

(Snack, before heading out to pick up the kids. A question to mull over: if you bake an Italian panettone  bread in November with no added preservatives, seal it up and ship it to Madison Wisconsin, and a delighted person opens it up on Christmas Day, how long will it stay fresh? The answer -- at least until January 9th. Mmm, so good with an afternoon cup of milky coffee!)

 The kids are bouncy, happy, playful. Sparrow is 19 months old today. Snowdrop is five years and four days. These are such sweet ages!











(Snowdrop has a bunch of questions for Ed. He often answers with an experiment. Here, his answer was: because wood is lighter than water. It's all in the numbers. The experiment:  Do you have a book? Let's see if it will float!)






Evening. After supper, I look over the NY Times' 52 places you should visit in 2020. You could twist my arm to go to nearly any of them with Ed. But right now he's unbudgable.
Okay, this is off the list, but would you go north of the Arctic Circle? In Finland, we could stay in a cabin with three walls made of glass. 
All the way in Finland? 
I go back to reading about travel to places I am not ever likely to visit.