08:47 – It was 51.7F (11C) when I took Colin out at 0645 this morning, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and no wind. Oddly, when I looked out the door 15 minutes later, the south tree line was almost invisible because of heavy, very brightly-lit fog. By the time Barbara came out to the den at 0730 the fog had pretty much dissipated.
Barbara came back with most of what I put on the Costco list. One exception was the vanilla extract. She said Costco was out-of-stock on it and had a sign posted that it might be quite a while before they were back in stock.
I’m tempted just to pick up a bottle of the artificial stuff. The real stuff at Costco costs $15 or $18 for a one pint (473 mL) bottle. The artificial stuff from McCormick costs more like $5 for a one quart (946 mL) bottle. I’ve taste-tested real versus artificial, and there isn’t much difference tasting them directly. Once they’re mixed in a cake or cookies or whatever, I defy anyone to reliably pick which one’s which.
I’m increasingly running across truly disgusting news articles. Here’s one from the morning paper. FTA:
A Winston-Salem woman was convicted Thursday of forcing a 12-year-old girl into prostitution, resulting in the girl being raped by adult men over two years, getting pregnant and contracting a sexually-transmitted disease.
Twelve Forsyth County jurors found Flora Riano Gonzalez, 39, of the 1800 block of East 25th Street, guilty of sexual servitude, felony child abuse involving prostitution and felony child abuse involving sexual acts. Judge Richard Gottlieb of Forsyth Superior Court has scheduled a sentencing hearing for 10 a.m. today.
In any rational society, this woman would be dangling on the end of a rope by now.
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