DNA and Shopping Bag Footwear

I finally succumbed and submitted a DNA sample for the Ancestry.com analysis a couple of months ago. I’ve always been fascinated on where my forbears came from and concocted various theories that always veered towards the fantastical. I received the results today and it turns out I’m as white bread as they come. I mean I’m a serious WASP. The results were as follows:

Europe - 98% with Great Britain 40%, Ireland  34%, Europe West  14%, Scandinavia  7%, Italy/Greece  2%, Asia South  2%, and Finland/Northwest Russia  < 1%. The only big surprise was the percentage of Irish which may explain my love of beer and St Patty’s day. The Europe West must come from a French-Canadian grandfather on my mother’s side. I’m assuming the Scandinavian and Finnish originate from the Viking raiders who were pretty frisky on the British Isles for a few hundred years in the dark ages. I’m theorizing the minute Italian/Greece comes from the original Roman conquest of Great Britain. As I said above – I lean towards the fantastic.

The biggest surprise was the minute amount of South Asia, which encompasses India and Sri Lanka. Apparently one of my distant ancestors availed him or herself of some Indian sub-continent delicacies. With only two per cent I’m told it had to have been hundreds of years ago. I do recall owning a Nehru collared sport coat in the 1960s or maybe it was all the curry my mother fed us growing up. At any rate I’ve found the entire experience intriguing. I’m glad my children have the advantage of my Favorite Panamanian’s contribution to their DNA to add some whole wheat to the white bread.

We continued the process of disengaging from our life with Buddy the Wonder Pooch yesterday. My wife spent a large portion of the day in tears. She was constantly reminded of his absence as he was usually her only companion during the time I’m away at work. He had the innate ability of worming his way completely into your heart. He also had a way of peeing on the carpets during his last few weeks on earth which bequeathed a fragrant reminder of his presence. His final illness caused him to drink vast amounts of water which had the predictable results. My old friend Stanley Steamer came to the house yesterday to clean and deodorize his basement haunt and both staircases as well as the master bedroom where he made a bee line for during thunder storms.

Sleeping with Legs through the Slats

The end result being I have to wear plastic bags around my feet until the carpets dry. This made last night’s staircase runs up and down from the Man Cave fairly comical. Last night’s FaceTime call with the First Blog Reader caught her assisting her mother with casserole prep. Her job was to crush Ritz crackers but it looked to us that many more crackers ended up in her mouth instead of the casserole. Wingman sent along this picture which he took from their baby monitor. It demonstrates her interesting choice of sleeping position.