As Fareed Zakaria pointed out in his excellent book “The Post-American World,” only three countries in the world don't use the metric system - Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States. Australia, of course, is on board with the rest of the world and we have to adjust accordingly while we are living here. So weather reports force us to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, maps force us to convert kilometers to miles, scales force us to convert kilograms to pounds, Deborah’s diet tracking force us to convert kilojoules to calories. We are getting lots of practice with our math. This would probably be a good mental agility regimen for Alzheimer’s patients.
Yesterday, Valentine’s Day, we took a long walk around the lake to the boulder strewn cove I like so much. Deborah made a nice picnic that we enjoyed on the beach. We had glorious weather, much nicer than we were expecting, and I got a little too much sun. It was probably the first time this whole trip that I neglected to lather up with sunscreen and I paid the price. I’m not quite lobster boy but I do look as if I’ve been standing too close to the microwave.
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