I like the Leibniz T-shirt - I have always enjoyed his writings. However, in his bio, the site makes a mistake regarding Calculus. Newton claimed to have "invented" calculus, and Leibniz claimed to have "discovered" calculus and considered Newton's claim of invention ridiculous, since, as Leibniz said, you can only discover mathematical relationships - you can not invent them, since they already exist whether discovered or not. To me, Leibniz was the better thinker and we use his notation today instead of Newton's. They both discovered calculus at about the same time, and Newton made sure that Leibniz would not be allowed to travel in England after that. However, Leibniz' argument for the necessity for the existence of a supreme being is circular and therefore meaningless. The only philosopher I like better is Kierkegaard. I am planning on making a lime pie tomorrow for Kevin's birthday, which is March 16. Lars

Even though I was good at HS geometry (stunk at math, though), I realized the use of Pi when I bought a house and wanted to put a mulch circle around a tree and edge it with plastic edging. Then I learned I don't need to take Pi beyond the decimal, because the edging came in 20' rolls. Some kids in my son's third-grade class had a Pi contest: how far out can you memorize and recite Pi? DS won, closely trailed by the girl who had a huge crush on him through high school. He is still such a math kid. Won't write an English essay to save his life but took Differential Equations for fun. And finally, the Purdue engineering school cheer, according to my dad (I can't type in math on my tablet, so forgive the modern English representation) "E to the x, dy, dx E to the x, dx. Cosine! Secant! Tangent! Sine! 3.14159!" And to this day, I take Pi out to 5 places (even though edging comes in 20-ft rolls).

My youngest had a lacrosse game. They won with an appropriate score of 2-14! He went out with the team to celebrate, and DH and I stopped for Mexican (and margaritas) on the way home. My plan was to celebrate with baked ziti and salad tonight, but the basketball team has made it to the state playoffs, and I know my son wants to go to the game, so I’m going to push the ziti to next week and give them their (small) gifts at some point today. DH gave me 100 stems of these lovely roses that look like ranunculus or peonies. The arragement doesnt look as wonky in real life. There are more on the kitchen table just beyond these and in the living room and family room! Happy Valentine’s Day!

I remember reading about those pies. I just hadn't realized that their many times removed offspring were still around until Floral posted her pictures. I also had no clue that they were served at ambient, but it makes sense given that the old larder might have been a bit cooler than the kitchen proper, but nowhere near icebox cold, let alone refrigeration. Speculation: I know more about pioneer food than pre-industrial urban, and not a huge amount at that, but I can inagine conserving grain was a big deal. Lots of stories about a buck (stag) being plenty for the winter, and also stories of genius ways to keep vermin out of the grain, keep it dry and mold free, and losing it all to misadventure. That may even be the popularity of the pot pie. The reusable container with minimal pastry cover (to be eaten by people!), and turning scraps and leftovers into something craveable.