Robins are almost SWARMING my neighborhood.

Seriously. I don't think I've EVER seen this many robins in this area. I passed a dozen within the last block of my drive home.

And the red-tailed hawk population continues to do well.

The thing is -- growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, I think I almost never saw a hawk. The population of urban raptors really didn't start to recover, that I saw, until the Nineties. So, even though Lis and I see four or five hawks every day that I drive her to work -- that's four or five DIFFERENT hawks, that we see twice, once driving to, and once driving from work -- we're STILL excited by every single one.

And robins are the same way for me.

I think Lis and I grew up during an ecological disaster, out of which we are now recovering. Which is one of the reasons I'm mildly an environmentalist -- I grew up during an environmental disaster; I don't want another one.

Some Pesach thoughts

1. This Pesach, I had to do something I'd not had to do before -- throw out my shaving cream and moisturizing lotion. They had oatmeal in them. Stuff works great, but is unquestionably chametz. (Anything with wheat, oats, barley, rye, or spelt that ISN'T matzah is chametz. Aveeno products with Natural Colloidal Oatmeal pretty definitely count.) I'm glad to get back to my preferred brand: not putting oatmeal on my face for a week was much more difficult for me than not putting it in my face.
   
2. I can think of two GOOD consequences of the custom of kitnyot (Rabbis in Eastern Europe decided to treat beans, legumes, corn, and rice as if they were chametz, as well, even though they're not -- that custom is called "kitnyot". Therefore, in the United States and other areas, people whose ancestors came from those ancestors still follow that custom, and people whose ancestors are from Spain, France, northern Africa, and other places don't have the custom.)
   
   First is Pesach Coke. Since corn syrup is made from corn, it's kitnyot (except for people who follow the ruling that it's not). So, for one week a year, you can get, in the United States, Coca-Cola with sugar instead of HFCS. Tastier, and, as we're finding out, somewhat less unhealthy. Somewhat.
   
   Second is the Maxwell House Haggadah. In 1937, General Foods put together a decent, bare-bones Haggaddah with a big ole Maxwell House Coffee logo on the front.
   
   Why?
   
   Because they wanted to get the word out that coffee "beans" were actually berries, and therefore not kitnyot, and therefore, Ashkenazic Jews could still drink coffee on Pesach. So they made a real simple, real cheap Haggaddah which they gave away free with purchase of certified-kosher-for-Passover-Maxwell-House products. And they still do so today.
   
   And this means that ANY Jewish family -- or non-Jewish family that is interested in the Passover Seder -- can get a cheap free, perfectly serviceable Haggaddah so they can have a seder. Are there better haggadot out there? Heck, yes. Pretty much every haggadah out there is better in some way or another -- because Maxwell House sets the baseline. If you're not better than the free one, you don't play. And, because the free one is perfectly acceptable, it means that EVERY haggadah has to be at least that usable. And it wouldn't exist without a coffee company needing to let people know that coffee isn't made from actual beans.
   
3. I don't follow the laws of kitnyot for myself. And Lis does, and I respect that. So we don't have kitnyot in the house. But, if one doesn't follow the rules of kitnyot, one has to actually actively not follow the rules of kitnyot at some point during Pesach.
   
   I had a bartending gig during Pesach at the MIT Faculty club. Okay, on the last day of Pesach. (Which is technically a holiday on which one is not supposed to work. Ooops. But the gig didn't really get going until after sunset. So, even though I STARTED work before Pesach ended, I didn't actually handle any beers until AFTER Pesach . . . ) Before my shift, I got food at the nearby food court.
   
   I got ma po tofu over steamed rice. No chametz, nothing treif, but 100% kitnyot. I thought that was amusing.

Mumps in the modern First World.

So, nine students at Northeastern University have mumps. At LEAST nine students. One of whom has been hospitalized.

I seem to remember that, when I went to college, I had to present proof that I'd had my measles-mumps-rubella shots. Do they no longer require that? When did they stop?

If all nine of these students are from third-world countries where childhood vaccinations are unavailable, then I have deep sympathy for them.

If any of them are from odd religious cults that forbid modern medicine, then I'm weirded out, but somewhat tolerant.

If any of them are from normal, middle-to-upper-class American backgrounds and their parents chose not to have them vaccinated, well, I kind of hope that this results in sterility for them. It's not fair to THEM that they have moronic parents, but their genetic line needs to be truncated, anyway.

EDITED TO ADD: According to what people are saying, I forgot the actual most likely situation.

If the mumps vaccine doesn't take in 5% of cases, well, shit happens. Looks like I was being all angry and hostile at PEOPLE when I should have been angry and hostile at STATISTICS. Could well be that all those people DID have all their shots. And that 95% of the people who were exposed to the mumps were immune. And that those nine people who got sick are just that other 5%.

Now I feel kinda bad at ill-thinking people who were most likely just the victims of statistics.

On ways in which Lis and I are different, and in which I'm probably the luckiest guy in the world.

I'm re-reading Pride and Prejudice, because I like Jane Austin.

Lis is reading Pride and Prejudice to get a deeper understanding of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.