K-K-K-K-K-Kathmandu!

On the other hand last week's $232 million dollar lottery ticket was bought in South Dakota by a 23 year old rancher who just recently had his mobile home repossessed. [link]

The name of the town? Winner.

He said he recently told his horse, Eleanor, that "It'd be nice if we go for a longer ride than usual on a bigger ranch of our own."

I bet he will.

My dad just told me next year for my mumbledeesomethingth birthday, he'll take me on a 10 day trip anywhere in the world I want to go. Now I have to figure out where to go.

Greece! Turkey! Thailand! India! Madagascar! Israel! Egypt! Morocco!

I'm not helping, am I?

Wikipedia is dangerous. I went to find out the year that Germany became a country, and ended up clicking through everything I could possibly want to know about nationalism in Europe. (This was prompted by looking at some immigration records for my relatives, and realizing once again that our modern concepts of "race" and "ethnicity" and "nationality" are pretty modern. On these older forms, there are plenty of people whose race is German and they're citizens or subjects of Hungary, or their race is Polish and they're citizens or subjects of Austria, or something like that. My ancestors' race is listed as Hebrew. One thing I found really interesting -- of the several different columns for race and nationality and ethnicity and everything, there isn't anywhere where "white" would be a possible answer.)

Can I have some -ma for my friend T? She had a minor stroke the other day at the age of 31. She's going for a ton of tests and it sounds like her doctors are on top of things, and she doesn't have any lasting damage. T has been my bff since we were six, and I can't stand that she is on the other side of the country and I am not there to be there for her.

My paternal grandmother didn't know how to cook when she got married, her mother and older half sister were terrific cooks and somehow she never learned. So my grandfather taught her, she's a good cook as long as she has a recipe and specific instructions. My great grandmother cooked a lot with "a pinch of this" or " a handful of that" and my grandmother couldn't learn that way. She needs precise. 1 tablespoon of this or 2 cups of that. And she doesn't know how to really subsititute for things or omit something.

I take after my great grandmother (who I never met, she died a few months before I was born) and deviate from recipes all the time or just make things up.

I did not get any of the talent of fixing up or creating things (besides food). My Mom is a great one for home improvement jobs, partly out of necessity (being a single mom) and mostly because she likes it. She redid her entire half bath, including replacing the toilet, with minimal help from her best friend.

My brother is a good at making things -he's made a coffee table top, a bookcase, and other things. Plus he's handy with repairs -- and can cook! People think he takes the home repair and building stuff from my dad. Nope, Mom. Although both of my grandfathers were good builders and creators.

Mom taught us how to cook and do laundry and other things. It baffled me to realize when I was out of high school that people my age didn't know how to do laundry or even how to write a check.

When SLNRLBF was here he did most of the cooking. He's a good cook even though he says he's not. And we helped doing dishes.

Lots of ~ma for T.

Lots of ~ma for your friend sj.

Yikes, sj. How scary!

Lots of ma~~~~ for T!

T~ma!