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I’m 51 today! Yay! This means that I have spent one year alive for every point scored by the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship Game following the 1990 season. (They beat the Raiders 51-3.) I have one year in for each point scored by both teams combined in Super Bowl XLVIII (Seattle 43, Denver 8). My age is the uniform number of Dick Butkus, Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Bernie Williams, and former Buffalo Bills guard Jim Ritcher, who played 16 years in the NFL and was on all four Buffalo Super Bowl teams. I am as old as RogerDown the rabbit hole….

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“Don’t put your elbows on the table!” Anybody know where this shit came from? Because it’s dumb. Back in my college days, our musical groups all had their own odd quirks and traditions. One of the Wartburg Choir’s stranger ones (I do not know if they still do this) was that when they were traveling as a group someplace and they were eating or having some kind of fellowship time, usually in a church’s fellowship hall, if any choir member spotted another with one or both elbows on the table, they’d shout something like “Hey [Name], get your elbows off theDown the rabbit hole….

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I’m going to stop counting the COVID days after today, because I think it’s pretty much done. I’m back to work Monday, so…yay. I have a bad feeling about what my Inbox is going to look like when I get back, but that’s Monday’s problem. It’s still the weekend. Because COVID struck me before I could get our week’s groceries (over time I’ve evolved into less of a “Buy it all in one trip” person and more a “a few things here, a few things there” person), we’ve been cobbling things together here and there. My mother was gracious enough toDown the rabbit hole….

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As of this morning, I am pretty much completely symtom-free. Huzzah! Unfortunately, as of this morning, according to the test I took when I got up, I am not yet COVID-free. Boo! I assume this just means that my immune system still has some work to do in escorting the hangers-on and the squatters off-premises. It’s a work-in-progress, and all that. So the timeline was basically this: Last Friday: Attended the Erie County Fair. Toward the end of the day, noticed a throat tickle and a bit of stuffiness. Attributed this to occasional seasonal allergies and being outside and not havingDown the rabbit hole….

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Yeah, I’m pretty much back to normal this morning. I’m not planning on testing myself again until tomorrow, but it’s really looking like I’ve weathered my own personal COVID storm pretty well. I’m one of the lucky ones for whom it was “just a cold”. Since the worst of my cold passed on Monday, I’ve basically been enjoying what is turning out to be a lovely August week–albeit, a week when I can’t interact with anyone except my immediate family. It’s like house arrest, but without the ankle monitor. Oh well! Writing is also starting to go passingly well again,Down the rabbit hole….

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I’ve seen nothing from the CDC on the subject, but I cannot see any reason why lap time with a warm dog would not be part of a COVID treatment program. Also, it occurred to me yesterday, as I was eating a bowl of Ramen noodles–still one of my dietary mainstays when I’m under the weather–that the Campbell’s Soup Company really could have made a killing when the COVID crisis started, had they returned to production with one of the finest of all therapeutic soups, Pepper Pot. Alas! I’ve still not got round to making my own. At this pointDown the rabbit hole….

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So, you’re cleaning out your house. It’s a pretty big house, and you’ve got a lot of stuff to get rid of. But you’re sure the town trash service will be perfectly happy to deal with all of it, so you start piling it up down by the street. And you keep piling…and piling…and piling. It’s a giant pile you got there. Think of the biggest garage sale you’ve ever seen, and imagine all of that stuff…in one pile, down by the street, with the idea that the town’s trash service will cheerfully pick it all up. Naturally, the town’s trash service does notDown the rabbit hole….

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Mr. Carlin on germs and disease (play through headphones if you’re at work and you share a desk with some easily-offended Karen-type): Obviously I’m not in total agreement here, but it’s fun watching an artist at the top of his game. Carlin’s language had such music, such rhythm to it. He’s an icon of comedy, but I don’t think he gets his due as a prose-poet. As for me this morning? Feeling better! As I’ve said, this cold has been proceeding in exactly the same fashion that my colds normally go, and if not for COVID I’d never have thought much aboutDown the rabbit hole….