Things That Caught My Eye This Week

Here is a cool "Mind Your Step" optical illusion in a city square in Stockholm.  Via A Cup of Jo.

Refreshing to read about a man who frets like a woman over the purchase of a bathing suit: Henry Alford shops for a swimsuit that will make him look like Jude Law. Via Anaheed Alani on facebook.

Parenting.com ranks the best American cities in which to raise children.

My cousin Tonya found my grandmother's recipe for opium... I mean lemon poppyseed cake and she made it. I want some. Yum.

Luke had a case of scarlet fever a couple of weeks ago. I was shocked. I thought scarlet fever had gone the way of Beth in Little Women* but no, it's still out there. And apparently there's a new more virulent strain appearing in China and Hong Kong right now. Some other "old-fashioned" childhood diseases are making a comeback, too, thanks to people who don't vacinnate. (Except for scarlet fever -- antibiotics virtually eradicated it but it has mutated and become resistant.)

*I'm kind of amazed there aren't any really pretty editions of Little Women out there. It's very odd it hasn't been included in one of those designer series of classics that keep coming out. You can, however, download it onto your kindle for free, which I just did.

Here is a gorgeous photo of Prague. I need to figure out how to get there.

And last but not least  for today, Amy Poehler makes Photoshop suggestions for her own photo. "Make neck smarter" is one of them.

 

Comments

[hush]

Scarlet fever sounds like just about the most romantic disease one could catch these days! An old friend of mine caught it in the US circa 1980, and it took everyone by surprise back then, too. Hope Luke has fully recovered and is back to normal.

[Tracy]

My middle daughter had scarlet fever at Christmas...2006 or 2007. She was mis-diagnosed at the doctor's and hospital until a nurse saw her and remembered another little girl that had just been in with it. There was at least one other cause in her class.
It's not just unvaccinated kids that contribute to increasing diseases. Now, some diseases are mutating BECAUSE of vaccines, like what Prevnar "prevents". It is expected that many strains of HPV will mutate too because of the vaccine. Vaccines don't even offer 100% protection against the diseases, so vaccinated kids can get the diseases too, AND, they can still get the germs and spread them without getting sick themselves...this happens a lot with flu....you get the germs, you sneeze or touch your mouth and then something....before your body/the vaccine fights the germs you had just gotten.