Thrilled that Hillary was nominated tonight! First female nominee from a major party in the United States. I hope she makes it all the way to the White House. #NeverTrump
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You don't need the X-rays
I just read a New York Times article about bite wing X-rays at the dentist's office. The article said that dentists tend to overuse them. According to the American Dental Association, you only need them every 2-3 years unless you are unusually susceptible to cavities or gum disease. My dentist does them every 6 months! I turned them down when I was pregnant. The level of radiation in a bite wing x-ray is relatively low, but the effects of radiation are cumulative, so each x-ray is an unnecessary risk, increasing the chances of cancer down the road. Brain tumors are more prevalent in those who have frequent bite wing x-rays. This was all very interesting to me because my mother always asked for fewer x-rays for me. My Massachusetts dentist said, "You would get more radiation walking through Danvers Square." Turns out he was wrong...what matters is the cumulative effect, not the level of the individual dose. My mom was right.
I re-followed The New Yorker & The New York Times...I don't want to be uninformed...but it really is a lot of bad news. The first thing I saw was an article about the nightclub shooting in Fort Myers, Florida. It's really high time for meaningful federal gun control. Hawaii is the hardest state in which to get a gun, with strict background checks and a registry of gun owners. Of course, it helps that Hawaii is very isolated and they can control their borders. But I believe the nation as a whole should follow its lead.
I'm trying not to obsess about politics too much...but I find it outrageous that David Duke, former KKK leader, enthusiastically endorses Trump and praised his speech at the convention, claiming "it said it all." Why is anyone voting for this man???? And don't get me started on the third party candidates, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. If you vote for them, they are not going to win (they have a tiny share of the overall vote). So if you vote for them, you are voting for Trump. Even if you don't love Hillary, you have to acknowledge that Trump is a nut and a fascist, and keeping him out of office should take precedence over everything else. So vote for Hillary!!!! She's the only one who can keep him out of office.
I grew up in Danvers but never really learned my way around Boston. I knew the basic T stops. But my niece, who goes on long jaunts with my brother, is already comfortable parallel parking on Newbury Street (for ice cream). I was impressed! I never really learned to parallel park. It's on the New York driver's test, but not the Massachusetts one. We just had to do a three-point turn.
I just made the chilaquiles from the Moosewood Lowfat Cookbook. Now I wish I had made them before. I made some changes (less cheese, skip the second layer of salsa), but they're really good. (I also used pinto beans because I like them better than black beans.) I've had that cookbook since 1998 or so, and I never tried that particular recipe. I wish those recipes were flagged somehow..."psst, don't flip past us."
I just finished Siracusa by Delia Ephron. Some people compared it to Rashomon because of the shifting viewpoints. It reminded me more of The Bad Seed (an old, campy, yet chilling movie about an evil child) or a Hitchcock movie (To Catch a Thief comes to mind...set in France, not Italy, but had a similar feel).
She was wearing sandals!!
So D's friend J had a low-key bachelor party tonight (something called Escape the Room, where a team has to follow clues to escape a room, then a meal at a restaurant where we used to go a lot, but haven't in a while, so the waiter was asking D where he had been). Anyway, J had been married once before, but it ended badly. When we went to his first wedding, I apparently wore a dress and sandals, and his wife privately flipped out, saying to J, "She was wearing sandals!" I can't even remember what sandals they were. Maybe Birkenstocks. That seems like the only kind of sandal worth flipping out over. And I used to wear them all the time until they started hurting my feet. I'm wearing sandals to the 2nd wedding, too, though they are black and a little fancier.
I'm reading First Women, about First Ladies in the White House. Lots of interesting details. LBJ proposed to Lady Bird the day after they met, but she wasn't sure. (She was smart and shy...she purposely answered questions wrong on tests at school so she wouldn't have to be valedictorian or salutatorian and make a speech.) So he kept writing her letters and finally showed up on her doorstep with a $2.50 ring from Sears Roebuck. I guess that did it. Then he was a jerk for a while, criticizing her appearance and telling her not to wear "saddlebag" clothes. He changed his tune after she nursed him back to health after a heart attack, and she also became more assertive (handing him notes that said "That's enough" during a long speech, and when that didn't work, tugging on his lapel to make him sit down.)
Well, I just watched FBI Director James Comey's statement about Hillary's email. I was quite worried especially because of Bill's ill-advised meeting with Loretta Lynch and the fact that Comey is a Republican. Fortunately, he seemed tough but fair. He said that Hillary and the DOJ as a whole were careless about classified emails, and some of her emails were top secret, but there is no evidence that "hostile actors" got a hold of it (though they may have without our knowledge) and there is no evidence of intentional misconduct, and therefore no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. I was immensely relieved. I really do think Hillary would be good...she's the only candidate with a strong, consistent gun control record. Bernie voted in favor of the Charleston loophole, which enables you to purchase a gun after 3 days regardless of whether your background check was completed, and his vote helped make the Charleston church shooting possible. He also vote...
Well, that helped me relax. The Poconos aren't glamorous or exciting like Miami, but there are a lot of tall shady pine trees and winding streets that are good for biking. It helped me forget the whole possibility of a Hillary indictment (based on Bill's bad judgment). Maybe I should just not read the news. We went to the pool today and will probably go there again tomorrow. And then we'll take a train back around 5pm.
Just saw an article saying that the attorney general will accept the FBI's recommendation re: whether to press charges against Hillary for the email. The FBI is seen as stricter than the DOJ. I wish everyone would shut up about the email. Don't they realize the alternative would be President Trump, the biggest disaster the country has ever seen? (Second only to W.)