08:30 – It’s Memorial Day here in the U.S., the day set aside to remember those who sacrificed themselves to protect our freedom. Although the official purpose of Memorial Day is to remember those who gave their lives in the service of our country, let’s also remember all of those brave men and women, living and dead, who through the years have put their lives on the line to protect all of us. As we have our cookouts and family get-togethers today, let’s all take a moment to think about our troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, who can’t be with their families. And let’s have a thought, not just today but every day of the year, for them and the sacrifices they are making and have made.
We drove over to Barbara’s sister’s house yesterday for dinner. Frances cooked and Al grilled. We took Colin along on his first-ever social outing. He was excited to explore a new place, but settled down quickly and behaved very well. I was proud of him.
We also hauled home the bedside commode that Al had been keeping for us in their rented storage. It looks much like this one, and I wanted to check the bucket to make sure a 1/6-barrel t-shirt bag would fit it. We buy those by the box of 1,000 for science kits, so we typically have 1,000 in inventory, if not 2,000 or 3,000. If there’s an emergency that makes flushing the toilet impossible, one of these bedside commodes and a large stock of plastic bags makes things a lot more livable. A standard 5-gallon bucket with a snap-on toilet seat works, but unfortunately the t-shirt bags, which cost something like $14/thousand, aren’t large enough to fit over the rim, so you’d have to stock more expensive larger bags.
The civil unrest in Cleveland appears to be passing with less violence than there might have been, but as Barbara and I discussed yesterday on the way over to visit Frances and Al, this kind of thing could happen anywhere at any time, on zero notice. And the day may well come when a literal firestorm breaks out nationwide rather than just in scattered cities. That’s one of the main reasons we’re going to relocate, although we’d probably have done so even in the absence of that threat, simply because we prefer the small-town environment. Occasional trips into the big city for Costco runs or whatever will be just fine for us.