Things that are good to know

It's been a long time. Not much is up. I work in my basement. Not much happens down there. It's cold.

A new feature that will appear whenever I get around to it: things that are good to know. Readers are free to wonder how I came about these tibdbits.

• The old episodes of Lawrence Welk are better than the newer ones.
• There is no need to add extra bran fiber to your morning oatmeal.

In other news. I babysat my friend Deb's pipsqueak Kate, who is almost 18 months, for about one hour last week. In that hour, she stepped in dog doo (three times), ate not one but two handfuls of dirt, jumped in an oil slick, dumped a sandpail full of muddy water all over her head in an attempt to drink out of a grown-up cup and learned to pretend to barf. In my defense, she's a real quick draw on the dirt eating. And the barfing thing was an attempt to get her to spit out the mouthful of dirt. But she didn't get the spitting part, only the bend over and say "bleh" part. Aunt Christine is the coolest.