I just got a Christmas card in the mail from the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. It was postmarked December 23. I guess Christmas just kind of snuck up on the Archdiocese of Denver!
Based on the junk mail that comes in, the lady who used to live in this apartment was some kind of interior designer. She must have been a pretty high-end one because sheʼs constantly getting solicitations from companies trying to get her business. Last week, UPS delivered three boxes of candy from a lighting company trying to score her business.
I donʼt know if the lights are any good, but the candy was excellent.
I think itʼs very telling that our society calls immediate video delivery “on demand.” Back when VOD started in the 80ʼs, we called it “on request.” Now itʼs no longer a request, itʼs a demand.
Our society has not improved over time.
My wife just started blow-drying her hair. Three seconds after she started, her favorite song came on the radio. She has no idea.
Life is like that.
I think the Santa side of Christmas deserves more examination.
We have created an entire season around parents giving gifts to their children, and then letting someone else take the credit.
Itʼs a billion-dollar illustration of the selflessness of parenting.
Todayʼs coffee is Macaw Coffee Roastersʼ Peaberry Jamaican Blue Mountain. It comes from a husband-and-wife team who seem to take a lot of pride in their little operation. Enough that they include a letter with the coffee explaining their background, and how they roast the beans.
The beans are a lot smaller and lighter than every other coffee Iʼve bought this year, so I wasnʼt expecting much, but itʼs really quite good. I guess the small size yields the “Peaberry” appellation. And the light color is because itʼs a blonde roast, which I recently learned means roasting the beans only until they just start to crack.
Darcie asked me why I think itʼs good, and I couldnʼt give her a proper answer. I donʼt have the coffee sommelierʼs vocabulary for it. I usually use a Splenda in a very small cup, and then add a little cream to improve the viscosity, because I like my coffee the way I like my women: short and thick.
Someone doing a survey phoned me today. She asked for my opinion about COVID.
I told her Iʼm against it.
I just saw an ad on TV for working at Amazon.com.
A woman said something like, “I joined Amazon to improve kids education.” What thought process was that?
“I want to help children… I know, Iʼll work at a company that sells fake Chinese diapers!”
Dear MiracleGro,
If you wonder why your ad in the New York Times didnʼt result in many sales, itʼs probably because people were put off by the three pop-ups you forced on them when they scanned your QR code.
You must not need customers.
I tried to watch mass from Saint Patrickʼs Cathedral in New York today. Itʼs on YouTube.
Google put 6½ minutes of ads at the front, plus sixteen commercial breaks inside the 50-minute mass. Thereʼs an illustration of how greedy Google and the rest of Silicon Valley is.
Next time Iʼll listen to it on the radio.
I miss having Darcie around to dote on so I can pretend that my real life doesnʼt exist.
Sheʼs still at work, so Iʼm baking her a cake right now. Iʼll probably burn it, like I did with the last cake. And the cupcakes. And the pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving. Baking is not my thing.
Today I learned that when you see a vacuum cleaner making perfect clean lines through a patch of dirt in a television commercial, itʼs not actually dirt. Itʼs 20 ounces of freshly ground coffee.
I learned this by accidentally dumping 20 ounces of freshly ground coffee on the kitchen counter. And the floor. And the cat, who bolted out of there like a four-wheeler at the start of a cross-country mud race, spewing coffee everywhere.
Still, the vacuum works pretty good. And making perfect clean lines through the debris is very soothing.
Todayʼs coffee is Starbucks Christmas Blend. Not to be confused with Holiday Blend.
Holiday Blend is much more widely distributed than Christmas Blend. When I lived in Seattle, you couldnʼt find it at all. Here, itʼs available if you hunt for it, and I managed to get this one delivered.
Itʼs good. Iʼm not sure what makes it Christmassy. It doesnʼt taste of peppermint or elves or anything. Itʼs heavier than Blonde, but not going to mug you in an alley like Italian Roast. Itʼs just a shade darker than Pike Place, in my estimation. Itʼs a good coffee since I like my coffee the way I like my women: ordinary, but elusive.
Iʼve decided that grief is an ocean: it comes in waves. The waves get bigger and the waves get smaller and sometimes the sea is calm. The tide still comes in occasionally from my fatherʼs death, and that was almost 25 years go. I expect this will happen with my mother, as well.
I got a Christmas tree.
When we lived in apartments in Chicago and Houston and Seattle and elsewhere, we always had real trees. Then when we moved into the big house here, we always had fake trees. Counterintuitive. Now that weʼre in an apartment again, I went real once more.
Darcie sent a picture of the tree to her sister, and sheʼs convinced itʼs fake. Itʼs sad when people are so used to fake things they think the real thing is inferior. Iʼm guilty of that, too. Banana-flavored ice pops tastes way better than actual bananas.
Annie shows zero interest in the Christmas tree. While I appreciate the lack of mischief, she really is a poor cat.
