December 14th: Electoral College Day

I keep worrying about whether I am showing a face that is too obnoxiously cheerful, because so many of our fellow-citizens (and, very likely, so many of your actual neighbors) are probably dealing with grave and painful sickness, and even death.  At the moment, we're leading quite drab and boring lives, but nobody we know personally has died---yet.  This must be the case for a large proportion of our fellow-citizens, judging from the scorn they direct towards the entire subject of the Pandemic.

The other day, our son went out and got a string of lights, because we want to keep up with the Joneses, and the Joneses had the entire front of their home simply drenched with Christmas lights.  Pretty soon, our home looked pretty respectably lit up, but still somewhat short of over the top.

We have four pets, and I want to place on record that, if not for them, we would be a lot less sane than we are.

The dogs have fairly straightforward messages for us.

• I want some food.
• I want more food.
• I want your food.
• I want you to take me for a walk!  I'm excited!
• I want to go out, and obey a call of nature.
• I want to go out, and check on a noise I just heard.
• I want to go out and bark at the neighbors.

The cats have even simpler requests.

• I want water.
• I want food.
• I want to go out.
• <Bang, bang on the door> I want to come back in.
• I want something; you have to guess.
• I want to climb on your lap.  In fact, I'm doing it now.

 I'm diabetic, as some of you know, and am not supposed to eat anything that has ordinary refined sugar.  (For example, eating a banana is sort of OK, as long as I don't do it every day.  But eating regular ice cream is a complete no-no.)

So, when today I got the munchies late in the morning, the only way to deal with it was to go upstairs.  Downstairs, 30 feet from where I was sitting, was the refrigeratador, as we fondly call it, and inside Mr. R. was---guess what?---a container of <gasp> Eggnog.  I love eggnog, but they never make low sugar eggnog; oh no; each swallow of the stuff contains close to three tablespoons of sugar.  (There might be sugar-free eggnog somewhere, but it probably tastes sweeter than ordinary eggnog.)

Well, my daughter called me, as she often does, and I whined at her about the eggnog problem.  And she said: she mixes the eggnog with plain white 2% milk!  Reduces the sugar, reduces the sweetness, and doubles the quantity!!!  How come I had not stumbled on this solution before?  I only drink a tiny bit at a time, in a 2-oz glass.  (Or maybe a 3-oz glass.)  And only half-filled.  I just need to have a mouthful of the stuff, after eating something spicy, for instance.

You're welcome.  That must be an idea that other eggnog addicts (who don't like all that sugar) can use.

Well, come tomorrow, I suppose there will be plenty to talk about, but at the moment, we still don't know what mayhem went down at the Electoral College shindig.  So until tomorrow,

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