On the Common 160
A Series of Opinions You Neither Asked For Nor Sought
Hi everyone,
Today is the last Thursday of May, and I’ll be taking a break during most of June, as is my habit. I appreciate you guys so much; your comments, emails, and monetary support are a huge encouragement. I wonder… would you take a minute sometime in June to share my newsletter with someone?
The Part Where There’s an Essay: A Series of Opinions You Neither Asked For Nor Sought
Next week is my birthday, and since I’m bidding goodbye for the month of June, I thought I would end May with a bang. Today I’m offering you a bunch of random opinions and advice. I may follow up with more in the comments. Enjoy!
Good spices are worth the money. Take a second to clear out your spice rack or drawer and buy some replacements from Spicewalla or your local supplier. You will be amazed at how your cooking steps up a notch.
Dawn dish detergent can save you from poison ivy, so you should have some in your shower in the summertime. In my experience, this works about 80% of the time. I’m talking old-fashioned, bright blue Dawn. No substitutes. Hop in the shower and wash off with Dawn as soon as you can after you encounter Toxicodendron radicans.
This is the best thing you can buy to keep deer from eating your plants. It’s absolutely disgusting. Be careful. Also, your dog will love it, so keep him inside until it’s dry.
Once your children can reach into the washing machine without falling in, they should be doing their own laundry. This will mean you have to let go of your established understanding of “how to do laundry perfectly” for years. Embrace it.
You should organize your kitchen around how and how often you use things, not by “type of thing.” I have a baking cabinet that contains everything I might use for baking, even if those types of things might reside in other places in my kitchen. This means I stand in one spot and I’m able to complete a task without walking all over the place.
Baseball is better when players wear their socks properly, as shown here:
This is called “high cuffing” or high socks, depending on who you ask. Without exception, drinks at Starbucks taste better if you cut the syrups in half. If you begin requesting them this way, you will never go back.
For the Anglophiles
May 21 was International Tea Day.
Reads & Listens of the Week
I’m delighted to announce that I’m now one of those people who use the Merlin app. This is a bird call identification app. You can open it up, set your phone down, and watch the different bird species pop up on your screen as your phone “hears” them. It’s now a favorite early morning activity for me.
Karen Swallow Prior is now doing a series on Pilgrim’s Progress. I know many of you are reading this to your children in various versions; have you tried the original? KSP will shepherd you.
I was helped by Andrew’s exploration of Wendy Cope’s poem “The Orange.” “We have a wide body of poems and songs that anatomise heartbreak, but few that express what it is like to have one’s heart remade by better days and more settled circumstances.”
The Sporkful reran their episode with Nigella Lawson. She carries mustard in her purse. I respect that so much.
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
the baseball socks. So. Much. Yes.
Merlin is so much fun!