What's on your (PHOTO) Friday Menu?

That is a good mystery to have solve! I didn't think about him.

Good morning and Yay, it's Friday!!

QOTD - so many but truly so many of the "mysteries" are just people not liking the obvious answer so it becomes a mystery/conspiracy. I would go with "what dimension does the missing sock go to" or "why are people so wired for conspiracies?". I would also like to know why The Bermuda Triangle was such a big mystery when I was growing up and then it just fizzled out, lol.

After the strong recommendations from both Grim and QJB, I did watch Living last night. It's very good, great costumes, solid performance but very slow; it was only about an hour and half but could have been an hour if they just kept a better pace, but I enjoyed it. I'm going to watch Aftersun tonight and then I will have seen all the Best Picture nominees I care to, all the Best Actress nominees I care to, and all the Best Actor performances....just in time for Sunday's Oscar party!

Hectic day at work today and my personal trainer after work plus a busy weekend ahead with a group theater date on Saturday and then the Oscar party on Sunday. I need to make a dish for the party, I briefly considered just bringing one of the boxes of the new raspberry thin GS cookies that should be delivered today or tomorrow but I think I will actually just pick up some mini fruit tarts to take. I also have a long endurance row scheduled for Saturday, a bit over an hour which will make a nice dent on my mileage for the month.

menu today

coffee plus half and half X 2

egg and English muffin

skyr

RGF chicken strips

my picture today is a meme that is me.

Yes! The Bermuda Triangle, quicksand, and amnesia have not factored into my life the way I thought they would as a child!

When AIDS first started there was a theory that it was a result of the first polio vaccines. The story was that the original vaccine destroyed part of the immune system and it took many years for those people to develop AIDS. The US government fought very quickly to deny that as it would have been a terrible thing to do to Dr. Salk's legend. I still wonder.

When I got married in 1969, many of my Catholic friends practiced the only method of birth control allowed by the Catholic church which was called the rhythm method. You took your temperature every day and only had sex on the days when your temperature indicated that you were not ovulating. That way you would not get pregnant.

I remember my young friends giving birth to babies that were mentally and physically deformed. Many of the babies died very young, some are still alive today, living in homes for disabled. The church had to face the fact that the rhythm method was causing women to get pregnant when their eggs had gotten too old and deteriorating. That was causing all the birth defects. The church quietly gave up the rhythm method campaign, and stopped telling us we would go to hell for taking birth control pills, getting sterilized, or using condoms. Instead they spent the time and money to fight abortion.

was DES still given to pregnant women then? I think they stopped prescribing that sometime in the early 70s. That caused a lot of serious birth defects, too.

It was prescribed for things like morning sickness in the 1950's. I don't personally know of anyone who was affected by it.

I think I was thinking of thalidomide - that was a little later than DES (women were still taking thalidomide in the 60s). But I think it was stopped sometime in the early or mid-60s - so maybe before most of the people your age started getting pregnant.

Thalidomide was gone by then, but I do know a lady whose son was born with legs due to her taking it once during her pregnancy.

The reason I know about the church involvement with the rhythm method is because my cousin was a bishop and told me when I got married to go and get birth control pills because the church was aware of what was happening with the rhythm method and trying to find a way to stop people from using it without making it a public scandal for the church. It was quietly withdrawn, but took several years and many more tragic births.

My family was strong Irish Catholic with many who had religious vocations. We had priests and nuns around all the time. I remember the nuns looking the doors and then sitting in the livingroom enjoying their cigarettes and highballs. After a certain amount of Irish whiskey had been consumed, the would talk freely about various political situations in the church. I remember finding it confusing that my father and mother were strong union members and their priest relatives hated unions and talked about how they should be abolished. But it was important not to argue with the men of God because God was speaking through them.

Growing up, I was convinced that quicksand, cave-ins, amnesia, and evil twins were going to be huge problems.

Evil Twins: