I am deeply sorry for you, I sympathize. I still haven’t recovered from the euthanasia of my cat, and it’s been three years.
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Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. Poor guy, I’m sure it was the right decision but it’s still so painful.
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So sorry Phil 
that’s always so hard.
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Today’s positive: a beautiful sunny day while I was out for my run. Took lots of pictures of the blue sea.
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And today’s: the weekend is here after a long and busy week.
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We think we have a route out of the North Carolina Blue Ridge so we can drive home to Texas. There are so many closed roads up here, but there’s a way. Going to set out Monday morning, but who knows what will happen? We are girding our loins for what we are euphemistically calling “our upcoming adventure.” Anyway, it’s positive that we might be able to get out of the state, and that we’re prepared to end up touring the eastern half of the US to do it.
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I was the 30 minute pacer at a local parkrun (community 5k run) this morning. Ended up pacing for a guy who’d previously been told he’d never be able to run again. He was absolutely delighted with his sub-30 minute finish 
Lovely to be able to help, that’s what pacing’s all about.
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I am making pizza from scratch today. It’s been a while, so I don’t fully remember the method and I’m not quite sure how it will turn out but it’s a fun thing to be doing.
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We used to make individual dough pies, get a bunch of ingredients, and have everyone put together their own pizza. We haven’t done that since we moved. A lot fewer family are nearby these days.
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Here we had a French pizza, which turned out to be a tarte flambée with an Italian topping. Vegetarian for most of the family, vegan for the daughters.
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If you want, I can give the best advice I can about making pizza.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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Went to visit my grandfather for his birthday. He turned 92 yesterday!
This house is also the one that formed the layout for Miss Gosling’s Last Case, so on a whim I took a photo of the pivotal staircase.
Featuring the bottom of the stairs, sealed-up “front” door, grate, phone niche, doors to the evening room and dining room, and upstairs hallway to the balcony. (No stack of newspapers today though. It would be in the corner where the shelf of towels is.)
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92, good number, the number of Johnson Solids, though I’m a bit more partial to 91 as it is a centered hexagonal number, a triangular number, a semi-prime(the product of 7 and 13, which also makes it the product of luck and misfortune in a metaphorical sense).
A positive of my own: got a new stock of lemon drops today after being out for a while. Also a fresh tin of butter cookies.
And an anticipation: I turn 38 on the 14th, and while I can’t think of anything particularly interesting about the number itself, my mother was 38 when I was born and I have the means, so I’ve decided to splurge for my birthday this year. Got party packs of Smirnoff Ice and Mike’s hard lemonade and a couple jumbo cans of alcohol, fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries along with shortcake dessert cups and a gallon tub of vanilla ice cream and 24 packs of Dr. Thunder and Mountain Lightning(I prefer Dr. Pepper and mountain Dew, but consideirng 24 cans of store brand soda is $8.54 these days, I don’t even want to know the cost of name brand soda) sitting in my Walmart.com shopping cart and plan to order Papa John’s. Been a while since I’ve consumed a recreational drug stronger than caffeine(and I get most of my caffeine from tea), splurged on soda, or had pizza better than store brand single serve microwave pizza, not sure when the last time I had strawberry shortcake was, and while I’ve done mixed berries in oatmeal before, I believe this is the first time I’ll be doing mixed berry shortcake.
Though, anyone have any tips for cold prepping the blueberries? Google confirms you just need to deleaf, slice, sugar, an fridge the strawberries to get strawberries in strawberry syrup, I’ve found several sources that say mash, sugar, fridge for raspberries, which presumably works for blackberries as well, but every blueberry shortcake recipe I’ve found suggests cooking the blueberries, and I’m not confident with anything involving a saucepan and a traditional stovetop burner. Will mash, sugar fridge work for blueberries or am I better just serving them fresh. And while I plan to have all four, I want to serve them separately to give the rest of the household and any guests the choice.
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on birthday anticipation, I’ll turn 55 this december 16th
Best regards &c. from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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I made amateur sushi rolls.
I didn’t have any scallions or green onions or they would have been there. It’s an excuse for wasabi and soy sauce.
And no ginger. I’d get some but I can’t afford sticky-rice carbs every day or this is all I would probably ever eat.
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I surpassed my record streak in Worldle - 32 days and counting. (Not Wordle)
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I’m back home, having played and reviewed six IFComp entries so far. It feels good to finally be getting into these, and so far I’ve really enjoyed every one of them.
Which is partially because I looked at others’ reviews and made a list of games I thought would be just my style, but partially, I must assume, because we just have a really good crop this year!
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Always open to tips!
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I got a real-life parser experience in what is frankly some IF- like shenanigans. We stayed at a farm stay which was a bit “how’s your father”. We pulled up, having followed some very confusing (yet 14 pages) instructions. I was starting to unpack the car and we couldn’t find the mailbox where the key would be.
The house did have a neat model version of itself out front. My daughter and wife tried the little door on it, but it was painted on. I went for a walk down the driveway in case we missed it, lugging my 14kg 2yo. On the way back, I was convinced the little house was the mailbox. Aha, I spied a handle from afar.
Me vs Wife (parser)
Me: “Ah, the key is in the house!”
Wife: “Well that’s not very useful!”
M: “No, the little house.”
W: looks at shack we’re about to live in
M: “No the other little house.”
W: “???”
M: “Just open the door.”
W: “I would if we had the keys.”
M: “I’m sure they’re in the house. Just use the handle.”
Wife and daughter both look at front door of shack and model.
By now I was within range. “The handle on the model!”
There was a handle that looked like a drainpipe but let the entire front facade of the model swing open. The key was revealed!
I instantly recognised that feeling of wonder and frustration from parser games.
I spent the rest of the long weekend being a parser response for my son:
You cannot touch the china plate.
Touching that heater would be a bad idea.
Your sister is not interested in the Captain America doll.
Okay, the door is opened. Okay, the door is closed. Okay, the door…
I only understood you as far as wanting the chickens.
There is nothing of interest in the toilet.
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Today’s positive: got the urgent work thing done before lunchtime. Not a morning person work-wise (I prefer to be doing less thinky work in the AM) so this is an achievement. Now have all afternoon to do the less urgent work things.
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