(there is a point to this title, but you will have to read this to find out)

Sunday December 2, 2018

If you were to fall off the planet tomorrow, who would have to clean up after you?

None of us expects to leave our home in the morning and never come back. But what if that happened? What would someone find? And who would that someone be?

This is a reason to make your bed. And to take those clothes off the treadmill or a chair or wherever you put them instead of the closet and put them away–it really only takes a few minutes. And clean the dishes in the sink. I mean, what could be worse than a loved one or friend or, God forbid, a stranger coming into your home without you being able to utter, “ don’t mind the mess”?

Ditto for when we head out on vacation, although hopefully we’re a little more prepared when we go away for awhile. We’re just not planning to go away forever.

OK, so those things are on the surface. But ultimately someone’s going to go through your drawers.

And your computer.

Whatever will they find?

You know, how when the murderer next door gets hauled away; the neighbors say…”he was very quiet….he kept to himself…” Or, “ I always thought he was a little weird”… And then the cops say, “when we checked his/her computer we found a disturbing search history. Frankly, based on what we’ve seen so far, we’re surprised this the murder/bad activity/disappearance/death/general demise didn’t happen sooner.”

So I got to thinking about this the other day, and decided to see where I’d been on line. Here are some highlights.

It appears I asked a lot of questions… about people:

Woman caught going 215 kilometers an hour in Alberta. Well, this was just an interesting story. I mean, my car speedometer goes up to 260 or 280 kilometers (for those of you who work in miles that turns out to be about 175 miles an hour at the top end); I would assume that it goes that fast, but I won’t be checking that out anytime soon.

Bus driver killed at Columbia Icefield. My friend Barbara was visiting and this happened while she was there… literally there. She was on tour at the Columbia ice field, so we looked it up to see what happened. It was not pretty.

Who was Paul Prenter to Freddie Mercury? I looked this up after seeing Bohemian Rhapsody, which in my opinion was just OK. It felt like a vehicle to show us how they came up with their songs, and honestly?  While undeniably talented, Mercury was not a very sympathetic character. Just my two cents.

Is Lillian Vernon still alive? OK I had to check this for my mom. I’m pretty sure that every woman my age knows Lillian Vernon. We’d save our allowances and babysitting money for when that catalog came out which, now that I think about it, was the precursor to online shopping, as there were no bricks and mortar locations for the wares. It was filled with all that stuff we didn’t need but really, really wanted, stuff we couldn’t find in any store anyway. We’d order and then wait excitedly for the package to arrive–her stuff, silly shirts, weird costume jewelry, or something for our moms for the kitchen. Later, there was an actual store in the outlet mall near my mom’s house, and it was filled with all that weird crap.

The answer is no. She passed away in 2015 at the age of 88. Check out this link; she was an interesting woman.

Japan-Fountain-Plensa I looked this up because I saw this image on Facebook:

The digital artist is Chad Knight and it’s not real. Read more here. Sigh.

The image made me think of a work in Calgary called Wonderland by artist Jaume Plensa and you can see why I thought it might be connected.

I can assure you, this one is real. And you should come and see it.

Priyanka Chopra… looks like she married Nick Jonas? Is she an actress? Oh, she was Miss World… in 2000. Why do I care? Why did I look this up? I have no idea.

And places…

Central Restaurant Lima: ranked number six in the world’s best 50 as decided by the World’s Fifty Best Restaurants Academy –who?? I managed to secure a reservation for lunch on an upcoming trip… I also managed to get into Astrid Y Gaston and am on the wait list for Maido (all in the Top 10, all in Lima). Can’t wait!

2024 note: I ate at both Central (this year ranked # 1–in the world)–and Astrid Y Gaston in December 2018. Here’s a little of the food at Central where I had lunch (left); Astrid Y Gaston, where I went for dinner, wasn’t as….friendly? Welcoming? Warm? Maybe it’s a cultural thing and a women having dinner alone is not embraced…I dunno.

House of 1000 clocks in Triberg, Germany. Wanna buy a cuckoo clock? This place at the edge of the Black Forest is the place to do it. Or message me; I have one that doesn’t fit with my life. I looked this up because I am decluttering my e-mail and deleting unnecessary junk mail; I got a quarterly message from the Haus der 1000 Uhren that I don’t think I need anymore.

Iceland, Blue Lagoon… A girl can dream.

2024 note: and she did. Summer 2019.

Events…

Burning Man: this one takes some planning. No idea if I will go, but if you don’t get invited, you can’t go, and you can’t get invited if you don’t plan ahead.

Woman kills mangy coyote in Danville CA… come back next week for the full story on this one.

2024 note: here you go.

Diwali wishes: I went to my first Diwali party this year–it was great fun, the food and drink fabulous and our hosts and Anju and Sanjay were delightful. Of course, I didn’t remember any of these well wishes, so I simply stuck with happy Diwali!

How to volunteer for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Not easy, so checking this out now.

And miscellaneous things:

Allrecipes: waffles. I really needed this the other night. Ah, I now see I left out the oil. They were still good.

Fortnite: Sounds popular. But not for me.

Mortal Engines: Oh, it’s a movie. I did not go see it.

What is azithromycin for? I had this in my fridge, one of the prescriptions for my upcoming trip. It’s for diarrhea. Now you know. And so do I.

What is:

Arracacha: a root vegetable from South America, definitely on the menu somewhere I am going.

Fussell’s: saw this in the store last summer and needed to know what it is. Thought it mussels and something, but it’s actually 23% cream. Heart attack in a can, but probably very, very good.

What is Devil’s Triangle drinking game?  From the Brett Kavanaugh testimony. Had to look it up, sorry I did. Strangely, this is probably the most shameful thing I have in my search history.

And the final question?

Did Timmy ever actually fall into the well? The answer is no. Lassie did, though. Timmy ended up in a tree or stalked by a mountain lion or tied to the train tracks… but he never fell in the well. This came up the other day at work, so I checked it again. He did not.

So… I removed all the benign entries–weather, travel sites, schedules, the odd clothing reference… And it turns out…

I’m really boring.

It looks like I don’t have a whole lot to worry about. Don’t worry Andy, it’s all good. But now, I’d better go load the dishwasher and make my bed.