Warmer but fog developing. Upside to the deep freeze. Food/diet.

And rain for later.  The city street crew was out yesterday making sure the sewer grates were clear.  We'll see how much of the various snow mountains melt with the warm up.  And 'warm' means we get back to seasonally normal--mid 30s. The postal service got through yesterday.  I had a couple of new gardening catalogs.  Something fun to look at.

When our recent freeze was starting out I wondered if this would be the upside.  And perhaps other noxious insects will also die off.

I saw this item on the evening news last night also and it is no surprise.  We take these stories with a grain of salt.  We don't eat out often so the excess calories don't have a big impact on our weight.  The holidays were worse.  Also, more often than not, we wind up taking half of it home and finishing it the next day.  Several years ago we found we could no longer eat the full restaurant meals without feeling very uncomfortable.  So we don't.

Another story claims that Americans are switching from margarines and such spreads back to butter.  The reporter speculated that the phenomenon is driven by health concerns because most contain transfats.  As one who has made the switch, I can tell you that the decision was more complex.  I have always hated how soggy my toast became when I used margarine.  It didn't matter if I used stick margarine or the soft.  My toast always turned into a soggy mess.  It doesn't with butter.  And frankly the butter tastes so much better.  What about the calories, you ask?  Well, the margarine we used (and still use for cooking) contains only 30 fewer calories per serving.  We actually use about half as much butter so we actually consume fewer calories.

I haven't said anything about Chris Christie although I have followed the latest kerfuffle lackadaisically.  This piece at Firedoglake has a couple of interesting points--especially the question about what in the relationship between Christie and his aides led them to think their actions would be acceptable.  To me, it has the whiff of Henry II and Thomas Beckett.

Fascinating phenomenon!!

Given all the brouhaha over Muslim women's veils in parts of Europe (including the recent conviction of a British woman for wearing niqab) I found this article interesting.  In Cairo, a Muslim woman's religious fervor may be judged by her style of veiling while in Chicago a woman's serious commitment to her career may be judged by her hair style.  Either way the woman is judged by social norms and both may be oppressive.