I avoid all of this by arbitrarily filling up once a month whether I need to or not, or when I’m going on a trip out of town (unless I’m headed to place with cheap gas, like New Jersey used to be).

Confession: I recently made cream of mushroom soup with 2 cans of Keystone (totally rotgut) which I had gleaned unopened while I was picking up cans after a campus party, seven or eight years ago. I wouldn’t drink the stuff, but the soup tasted fine.

Presumably a circulation problem.

When I think of him I automatically remember his beautiful folky “Today” on that album.

20-year-old Indian tech guy (who is adorable) gets all excited at seeing Murphy’s flip phone. Mine doesn’t even flip - it looks like a small remote control. I don’t know what he would make of it.

In Light of Recent Events, I thoroughly enjoyed nurturing my schadenfreude, but man, the producers don’t care that they blatantly alienated millions of potential viewers (“deplorables”). Still, I plan on settling back with a drink every Thursday to watch “Mom” and “Murphy Brown” for as many weeks as MB survives.

And we are seeing this practically on a weekly basis. The number of charming, talented, generous men who have also been serial rapists/abusers/you-name-it would fill a prison. that’s how they get away with it. When OJ Simpson’s wife was murdered my ver first thought was, “He’s so nice! I can’t believe he would have…

In a slightly different vein (comic strips, really), I recommend the Sarah’s Scribbles collections of Sarah Andersen: “Adulthood Is a Myth”, “Big Mushy Happy Lump”, and “Herding Cats”. Teens and young adults would enjoy them, but I’m old enough to be her mother and I find them hilarious and so so true.

My educated guess is that on the whole, Bronze Age hands wouldn’t be smaller but probably larger, due to having to use them for constant physical labor. Look at the hands of a plumber or other workman.

Hm... I just opened a packet of Tang-like drink powder from an MRE that I believe dates from the first Gulf War (camping supplies). It was still good! But now I think I’ll just make a screwdriver out of it, and toast my late hubby.

We used to go well into the Canadian wilderness with our Toyota. Got a couple of cracked windshields from the gravel, but we made it. I’d hate to take something as pretty as the Volvo into the woods to get scratched up.

Yes, but where else can you get candies that say “Bi” or “Nancy” or “Boi” (that last one I had to have explained to me).

Or just drink it - half a shot can take the edge off.

I.e. dry vermouth.

Oh pooh, I finally found a series I wanted to watch, on a network that I get, and it goes away. Well, I’ll just have to do what I usually do on a weeknight: read the book!

And with 24/7 news on TV, we hear about events far away anyhow.

(Mine doesn’t even flip!)

Good points. It’s always been a mystery to me that when the electricity goes out the landline phone still works.

I’ve gotten emergency robocalls on both, but of course I wouldn’t be getting a text on the landline.

What is your recommendation for non-smartphones - landlines, older cell phones? I wish mine would tell me who the message is from before I open it.