Garage, ginger jelly, chili

Productive day! (It helps that I'm not in much pain so far.)

* Assembled a couple units of steel shelving for the garage and helped reorganize. rfrench spent the afternoon continuing to tidy up in there. It's not looking lots emptier, but it's looking a whole lot cleaner and a bit better organized as well. One set of rickety ancient wooden shelves has already been broken up. The monstrosity nailed to the outer wall is at least almost empty. I'm pretty impressed.

* Went to work for a short time, picked up stuff to pore over tonight. Checked on mail - I had sent several people questions and they all replied "I don't know." Lovely. This means I need to USE THE SOURCE, LUKE... it's good advice, but that method does take time.

* Made ginger jelly by substituting Reed's Ginger Beer for the Mountain Dew in the Mountain Dew jelly recipe. As before, I got five eight-ounce jars filled. Mmm - can't wait to try some.

* Made a big pot of chili for a nearby family who's got just way too much on their hands right now. The last thing this woman needs is to be cooking for the kids. I hope they like chili.

Now I'm thinking of putting in a batch of chocolate chip cookies for this week's square dance group. I'd do it right this instant, but my feet are really starting to gripe at me. Maybe it's dinnertime.

Loma Prieta quake anniversary

Fifteen years ago today, I lived in Paris, France, where during the earthquake here I happened to be asleep there. I learned about it in the papers. That's how I learned the phrase for "smack in the middle of": "au beau milieu de". That's where someone's dishwasher wound up, out in the middle of the kitchen.

My previous employer was in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the time, and he would have a better story to offer. He was collaborating on a software project with some folks in, I believe, Stanford (maybe Berkeley, but I think it was Stanford) and he happened to be on the phone with someone out here. The guy on the other end of the line yelled "OH SHIT!" and hung up on him. My exboss figured he'd continue working, and he noticed that the other guy's campus had dropped off the net. He waited a couple of minutes, attempted to call back, and couldn't. That's when he decided maybe "oh shit" was right.