How many in one day?

I just can't get my brain around it, the number of people who died in one day. Today's CNN article says 116,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunamis and that number is growing. I'm having a hard time imagining what that number means so I looked up some statistics to help me put this disaster into perspective.

In 1945, the U.S. dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in a cumulative death toll of 237,062. Many of the bombing victims did not die instantly.

Between the years 1939 and 1945, approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators in the holocaust.

- Studies indicate that 24,000 individuals die each day of hunger-related causes, according to The Hunger Project.

- An average of 114 people die each day in car crashes in the U.S.

- Some 700 people die smoking-related deaths in Russia each day.

- More than 1.6 million people die from violence every year: more than 4,400 deaths each day.

- Over 2,600 cardiovascular disease-related deaths in the U.S. each day.

- Cancer will kill more than 1,500 Americans each day this year.

- Estimate of the global daily death rate: 146,000.

So this means that IN ONE DAY the global death rate was nearly doubled.

In one day.

I always knew this

It's now official. Envy me.

I am Chocolate Flavored. I am sweet and a little bit naughty. I am one of the few clinically proven aphrodisiacs. Sometimes I can seem a little hard, but show warmth and I soon melt. What Flavor Are You?

Ham is the new turkey

Babycakes wants ham next year. I guess she's tired of eating leftover turkey for four days in a row.

Thanksgiving was wall-to-wall ham, 24-hour-a-day ham, ham-o-rama, a hamfest all day long. Yeah, there was turkey too, but neither of us ate any.

Our relationship began when she was a card-carrying member of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And she was vegan. And jewish. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that she'd eat ham. But she does. It's cute. I haven't told her that ham is the traditional Easter Dinner dish. She only eats peanut butter chocolate eggs at Easter anyway so she wouldn't notice anything that the Christians do.

Remind me to tell you about my brother's funeral. It involves ham and jews and lesbians.

Bah humbug!

Teenagers are absolutely NO FUN on Christmas. They finally woke up around 11 a.m., wandered around in the kitchen where I was cooking the roast beast and then went off to watch TV or get on the computer.

Babycakes and I toasted our Bloody Marys and went back to food preparation. It turns out that not all of the friends who had been invited for the festive meal were able to show up (because of the snow) but we had terrific time anyway, even though it was served earlier in the day than we were used to.

Finally, the kids said, "Let's open presents" so they did. Jack went off immediately to work on wiring issues (tv plus dvd plus cable tv) in his room and Hannah packed up enough leftovers to feed several coworkers at the Baxter Theatres and headed off to sling popcorn for the rest of the day.

Another Bloody Mary anyone?