Grace Should Be Relieved......

....but she's not. Last night we went to our parent's house to ambush Grace with a party. She turned 44 and wouldn't celebrate. Isn't that silly? I turned 46 and the festivities went on for a week and included 5 birthday cakes. Anyway, Jen and I picked up a cake at White's Pastry Shop in Hingham and took our Crate & Barrel presents (thanks for wrapping Jen) and met her at our parent's. I had forgotten to tell my parents we were coming and there was some agitation. They had the dining room ripped apart, with all the furniture in other rooms. My mother questioned where we would sit. I just laughed. There is always chaos where I am! Anyway, I made a big show of returning the pan the fudge was made in (my father protested giving it to me because so much of his stuff never gets returned). Then I gave my Dad the CD version of "Victory at Sea" that I got for a song on EBay. I am the favorite daughter of the moment!

So Grace is telling us about a conversation she had with her husband. She explained that she needed to go to Costco for TP. Dave pointed out that there was a ton of TP in the attic. Grace was almost apopleptic at the suggestion of dipping into the bird flu supplies! LOL That reminded me of an article I read in The Atlantic.

A worldwide outbreak of bird flu that followed the pattern of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic would kill between 51 million and 81 million people, according to a new study—but if history repeated itself, very few of the dead would be Americans or residents of other wealthy nations. The authors compared death rates across 27 countries during the period 1915–1923 and found that the rates varied wildly from place to place, even within a single country: In British India, for instance, the mortality rate ranged from 2.1 percent in Burma to 7.8 percent in the province of Berar. The best explanation for this variation turned out to be per capita income alone; for every 10 percent increase in income, the death rate declined by roughly 10 percent. Given present income variations, a flu pandemic that followed a similar pattern would claim just 4 percent of its victims in the developed world—here defined as members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

So, I said "Don't you feel better?" Her answer, "No, no."

Oh well, I tried.

By the way, recently the Pope came out with a statement re-iterating Hell is a real place. I told Jennifer. She said "Good, now we know where you'll be." Grace agreed. Why should I try to be nice now? It will be too little, too late anyway.