in 1904, afflicting seven out of eight in the household of a wealthy banker from the City who'd taken the property for the summer.  Other outbreaks in Oyster Bay, Mamaroneck and Manhattan.  22 people infected from 1900 to 1907.  One death (a laundress).  Eventually a servant is suspected, specifically the cook, Mary Mallon.  Otherwise known as Typhoid Mary.  She vehemently denies involvement.

        

 

5 AM.  Waiting for the water to boil.

 

My homepage is currently set to the default "msn" (trademark) with the little butterfly (trademark) which carries constantly shifting articles of a variety I believe used to be called "Human Interest."  Last night's was "Life Getting Hard, Says Experts," about the shrinking Middle Class, complete with a chart comparing household budgets from the 70s and now.  An earlier piece was titled "Superbug Worse Than AIDS" and deals with the antibiotic-resistant strain of the common staph infection which struck down an otherwise healthy prom queen on Long Island.  For a number of reasons this got my attention.  Then of course I thought of Mary Mallon.

But maybe I need a new homepage.  I ask myself, this is news?  More importantly, this is news I want to read before I have coffee? 

I considered setting the Telegraph obituaries as my homepage.  They are the best-written news on the Internet.  But I decided that might be tempting fate.  My grandmother used to sit at the kitchen table and read the obits every morning, announcing which friends of hers had died and volunteering to take the burnt-to-black slice of toast the old family toaster always seemed to hold on to which no one else would eat.  She said the carbon was good for you and waste-not-want-not.  The two things are still connected in my mind.  Burnt toast and obits, that is.  And now, coffee.

But "Life Getting Harder"?  Really, msn-with-little-rainbow-butterfly (trademark).  I mean, come on.