UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

We have a little cat named Christmas Eve [so named because we got her seventeen years ago on Christmas Eve -- but that is another story.] She weighs a bit more than ten pounds, and is the focus of attention in our little household [the reason we only go to Paris for three weeks at a time is because we cannot bear to be away from her longer than that.] I have now lost roughly eighteen pounds on my diet, with two and a half weeks to go. As I was walking this morning, I reflected that it is as though I had been carrying two Christmas Eves around all the time, strapped to my middection. Put that way, eighteen pounds is really quite a lot. [Since this is principally a political and philosophical blog, I suppose I ought to segue into a discussion of Friedman units, but I shall resist the temptation.]