I am not a fan of aspartame. I used to chew sugarless gum and when I gave it up a lot of little aches and pains went away. I then tried to only chew xylitol sweetened gum, which was supposed to be beneficial only to learn thaat a lot of the information about it was erroneous. In the words of actor Kyra Sedgwick, hero of 'The Closer': "Nothing beats sugar." And in that excellent show, she doesn't get away scot free with that attitude.

When we had our sizable but largely noninjurious Aonchorage earthquake of November 2018, my first stop was Starbucks. They'd been knocked around and although after some picking up they remained a safe venue, they stayed closed for an additional week to settle problems with their water turbidity.