For a change, I have everything a burger needs - lettuce, fresh buns, red onions, tomato (one that is grievously wounded), cheese, and plenty of meat. Except for pickles. I only have sweet pickles and some homemade zucchini ones.

If we were experiencing lightning, we most probably would not have power by now.

From the archives of Natural History magazine.

Messy, but often better than the bought kind. Distracted by my connection problems, I forgot the broiler was on, thinking vaguely that the rain was beginning to sound like sleet on the skylight. Running to open the oven door, under a huge cloud of smoke I find my sizzling burger all done. My older son refers to these as ‘liquidy burgers’ because they are juicier than most. I forgot the cheese.

Now the rain is coming down so hard, it sounds like sleet again. Contemplating another burger. Perhaps I should wait till my other son shows up, the one that has an interview today for a summer internship.

Pouring rain, my connection has been the pits all morning, the market is so-so, and my stomach still doesn’t know what time it really is. Maybe things will pick up after lunch.

A drug-resistant staph infection (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ) formerly seen only in hospitals is now showing up in various parts of the U.S., including California.

If you use an anti-microbial soap as you wash your dishes, and your water is chlorinated, then you are living very dangerously. Chloroform was once used to knock patients out for surgery.

That murk out there is full of our dead skin cells, among other things. I thought those were all eaten by the dust mites living in our pillowcases, sheets, and rugs.

Seems like we are making more work for those microbes that do such a great job cleaning up after us.