Not much you can't make booze from if you try hard enough. Elderflower champagne? Actually rather nice if you can do it without exploding bottles everywhere
My first taste of poteen was during the beginning of my second career (in comms) sitting at my desk, offered by my boss. Sadly all I could smell were rotting potato peelings, an odour I'd had a professional interest in since my first career as a lab technician, analysing waste water from veg processing plants. I guess if you're desperate for a drink then it'll do the job. or you could put it in tea or coffee.
Strange idea of your PR boss coming around with something a) homebrewed b) alcoholic c) of uncertain content and expecting you to drink it - was he an Irishman trying to pick you up?
Sorry that I've been amiss. Things with Briana (Giertrude) haven't been great and I've been job searching. Briana has gone back and forth. They had her eating, but things were getting beyond difficult for me with being a caretaker. I've needed space for years, but I love my sister, so I wouldn't NOT take care of her. They got her into a group home and she's had to be transferred to a different one that is not as close to me as the first one. She was at the first one and eating and she started having problems breathing, so they sent her to the hospital. She had aspiration pneumonia. They did some swallow tests on her and they found that her epiglottis (the part that closes off in your throat so you can swallow without choking on or breathing in your food) isn't working. She has a PEG tube (feeding tube) inserted into her stomach so she can be fed. She needs 24/7 nursing care, so that's why she is now in a different group home, but it's a two hour drive from where I live. She's had to have her dogs given to a foster who is looking for a new home for them. And I'm still job searching. I can't get out to see her if i don't have money.
[Superman] I don't have a fund page. Whenever I have one, people don't tend to chip in - I may get a few dollars here or there, but it's never enough. I hate fund pages by now, partly because of that, but then I learned that they basically run by taking money that is donated because they all take a percentage from what is donated that could be going to the person or people who really do need that money. It's not like a hope thing with Kickstarter. Sadly, things are not going well. She's been admitted to the hospital out where she was. Then she's been released. I've not been given updates like the group home organization promised. I only found out that she had been admitted to the hospital because a nurse called me when Briana (Giertrud) was asking to talk to me.
(Dujon) Forty-three? Faaaakinell. 8.3° here - rather mild, a bit misty, hardly any wind, boring really. Rainfall 141 mm this month so garden a bit sodden. Swapsies? I hope the inferno is nowhere near you.
[Rosie] Temperatures in the mid 40s are rapidly becoming commonplace here. At this point the amount of Australia that has burned is about 44,000 km2. That's more than the area of Switzerland. Or more than two Waleses, if you prefer. Here in Melbourne we have so far been spared any serious impact, but I suspect things are much scarier in Dujon's neck of the woods.
(Rosie) We're fine at the moment, thanks, other than some pretty severe smoke being intermittently in evidence. That doesn't mean that we are not alert to what is going on around us; the 'local' fires are not all that far from us, and we are practised in packing suitcases and shoving the cat into its carry basket. (CdM) I don't think your comment regarding the mid-forties becoming more common is true - not here anyway. In fact it's not common to have max. temps. at 40ºC. I shall have to dig into my data base to check that, but I am sure that I am correct.
[Dujon] I'm glad that you are OK (at least for now); I do always keep a particular eye out when fires seem to be approaching your neighbourhood. I should know better than to present to you and Rosie a vague impressionistic generalisation about the weather in the form of a fact-checkable statement! Guilty as charged. I suppose it all depends on your definition of "mid" and "commonplace". :) We do know that Australia has just experienced its hottest year on record and in December experienced the two hottest days on record. We had two days above 40 here in Melbourne last month, and while that's certainly not unprecedented, it's definitely unusual for December.
(CdM) Fires are more caused by extreme dryness and the density and type of vegetation than by heat alone though of course heat and dryness are often associated. There have been fires in Britain, nearly always in early spring after a very dry winter. This is the problem of using proxies - some are very sensitive to environmental change whereas others have a multitude of causes and may tell you very little. By far the safest assessment is to use measured and quality-controlled data and proper analysis will tell you if anything's happening. (It is. It's getting warmer)