Okay, I confess, I bought some Hallowe’en candy and I have no intention of giving it out. It’s just for me. Andrea and Jacob don’t like it, it’s just for me.
I like almost everything about Tootsie rolls.
Even the name is fun to say.
Okay, fine, I’ll agree that if they’re old and stale, they’re not much fun. But brand new? Gooey? Malleable?
Soft enough to NOT rip out my teeth when I bite into them?
How could that not bring me #MoreJoy? Maybe too much joy. Having them accessible during work hours is NOT healthy. Joyful, but not healthy. Particularly since I’m working from home and I don’t have to share with coworkers.
Early on in the pandemic, I went out to the grocery store and kept doing my shopping the normal way. Or what was at least normal then. In person, wandering the aisles. Sometimes being surprised to find some stuff in stock that should have been more difficult (fruit, dairy, bread) while others were empty shelves (toilet paper, the cliché).
But I was having a conversation with a social worker that I seek counsel from professionally from time to time, and she mentioned that her husband had “adapted” to the new reality and was doing it all online with local pickup. In a spurt of energy that week, I “lessened” my external stress and gave it a shot. There were some basic initial logistical issues, but overall it worked.
As time progressed, and things tightened and loosened, I’ve stayed with the pickup. Now, it is practically a well-oiled machine. I can log on to the store as late as 10 a.m., or even noon somedays, and still have pickup that day. What used to be free has been equalized with a fee of $3 through the week and $5 on weekends. I know that’s a deterrent for many people, on top of those who want to pick their vegetables themselves, but I’ve never got “bad” veggies from the order. Occasionally, they make odd substitution suggestions, but mostly I say yes. My needs, as they say, are not great.
I could go in the store again, and I have on occasion. But generally speaking, I don’t care enough to go back in person. Andrea does the general list based on what we’re down on or out of in the fridge, freezer, pantry and cupboards; I add a few things that I want, particularly for lunches, snacks and pop; and then I transfer the list from the app we like (TickTick) to the PC Express website. I could go with the large Loblaws, but I really like the Independent. It makes zero difference since I’m only picking up, but for some reason, I’ve stuck with the Independent. I feel like I’m avoiding the behemoth.
But most of all? It’s easy and it works. There are still quirks, of course. Like last year’s Christmas surprise of six potatoes turning into six BAGS of potatoes due to a combination of a really good sale with inattentive clicking. Most of the time, it’s fine, although occasionally it’s hard to gauge quantities. I was low on various drinks, and so I ordered a bunch today, with double orders on multiple cases. Which made for a large order, and not as much space as I would have hoped. But I added Ginger Ale in one part of the order as I went, Coke somewhere else, a third elsewhere, and the next thing I knew, I had two bins full of drinks alone. In person, I would have cut back and not doubled-up. Online, it’s hard to see how much space your basket takes. Four peppers show up as four items, not one, so overall quantity is not always that telling.
We do lots of things still in person, as the need arises. Mostly clothes, I guess, or some specific electronics. But between Amazon and curbside pickup options everywhere else, I’m willing to continue doing it whenever I can.
It mostly works well, and I like the simplicity of it. And that leads to #MoreJoy for me.
I’m a bit behind again on my posting, and I wanted to write about a bunch of stuff that I have been “enjoying” partly as a distraction and partly just because I enjoy serialized storytelling.
I’ve mentioned this before that each fall I try to watch every new show that comes out that has any chance of garnering my interest, and some that aren’t even close, just to review the premieres. I’ve seen 29 premieres since January, and that is split pretty evenly between last spring and this fall. I’ve reviewed them all, but very few have made it through that gauntlet to make my “watch” list. So that leaves me with my “comfort” food.
Sunday night is limited to two shows currently, the animated show The Great North and the procedural The Rookie. Neither are great art, TGN is mildly amusing, and The Rookie is diverting enough with Nathan Filion in it.
Monday night adds another two shows so far, the new faux reality show called The Big Leap and the long-running NCIS. I find NCIS highly predictable, I generally know who the killer is and why before we reach the half-way point, and sometimes inside of 5m, but well, I’ve binged it to this point, I’ll likely stick with it. For the Big Leap, Andrea and I are watching it together which is pretty rare. She doesn’t watch much TV at all, and when she does, it isn’t very common that we both like the same show. Again, neither are high art, but they’re diverting enough.
Tuesday night has Supergirl (which is ending, thankfully, their writing has been TERRIBLE the last few episodes as they try to win an Emmy) and StarGirl (which I’m behind on, but is mildly diverting as well, and I pretty much watch all the DC hero shows). The one that bothers me that I’m still watching though is New Amsterdam. I loved it when it started, but now it feels like I’m watching a soap opera and the writers are out of ideas. Is it still comfort food if it doesn’t comfort?
Wednesday night has two more CW shows, DC Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman, and I watch them for continuity, not because they offer great writing. But if I am embarrassed by New Amsterdam, I don’t know what you call my feelings towards A Million Little Things. The show started REALLY strong in season 1, and they have had a bunch of issues that are playing out differently in each season. But if NA was the soap opera, that would make AMLT more like a tele-novela without the bad acting. They’re all really good, even when the writing isn’t, and I would watch a couple of them in spinoffs (hint to the writers).
Thursday is when my comfort really takes off. Bull for legacy but the writing has gone downhill; B-Positive, one of the few comedies I watch, although it really is a B-level show; Legacies, yep, the vampire hold-over; and the Blacklist without Keen, and EP1 of the new season was ridiculous for plotting. I was enjoying the action of Titans, but its season has already wrapped, which leaves me with SWAT doing some ripoff of Pale Rider this season. I wish they would get back to the Stephen J. Cannell approach of bad guys and guns every week. The one really bright side of the night is the new comedy, Ghosts. I wasn’t expecting much from it, a bit like Beetlejuice perhaps (although apparently it’s ripping off a British production), but I’ve been looking for something for Jacob to expand his repertoire out of the Flash and Supergirl. It’s PG-level entertainment, some amusing lines, and it seems to be working. Andrea and I watch it too, so it’s one of two or three shows in the week we can watch together.
Friday is my real night for TV though, even if I time-shift them to other nights. Blue Bloods has the four storylines for the Commissioner father, the two cop sons Danny and Jamie, and the DA sister Erin. I sometimes wish that there was a bit more time for one of the stories in a week, rather than shared across all four, but I’m still enjoying the show. Foundation is a new scifi show, and it’s quirky enough to challenge me to follow it. It has decent world-building, and I’m enjoying it so far (I just finished EP03) but it’s not an easily-accessible show. Magnum PI is a terrible show, I admit, even though it’s improved with each season. I can still predict the killer 3 or 4 times out of 6 or so, but still, I like the actors in the four main roles. But the one for Friday that blows me away how much I like is Nancy Drew. It’s a lot like Buffy without the action of staking things, and a bit more mature on the kids’ lives, and added family drama, but I really enjoy it. Every week, if I have it available, I’m watching.
Beyond that, I’m streaming a lot of stuff. I’m currently watching Lucifer, Into the Badlands, Alias, Sex Education, and Voyager.
All American hasn’t restarted yet, nor Flash or Discovery, but I’ll watch those. Same with Witcher when it finally drops in December. But I’m also looking forward to the ST: Prodigy animated show, as I’ve been watching Lower Decks recently too. Yet the two big ones I’m looking forward to are Hawkeye on Disney and The Wheel of Time on Amazon.
They’re not all winners, that’s for sure. But comfort TV gives me #MoreJoy.
I’m running a bit behind on my #MoreJoy series, and today’s is a bit puzzling, I admit. How could a car seat bring joy?
Jacob’s first car seat was the one we brought him home in. For many people, that transition is simply about coming home. For us? It was about escaping the NICU. And there was drama involved…we didn’t think he would be able to come home that day because he had refluxed during the night, I saw that the nurses had not used the special nipples he was supposed to use, and if we weren’t going to be able to take him home because they didn’t follow the instructions on the chart, I was going to rip someone a new one. Instead, he was fine and we got to bring him home in the car seat that a friend helped us install two weeks earlier. For me, the excitement of that day and the car seat go hand-in-hand.
Six weeks later or so, we were in a relatively minor yet scary car accident and we had to ditch the car seat to be safe, so we bought a new one. No biggie, we got what we needed, and we moved on.
But that car seat also comes with some difficult memories. Jacob had to have contact lenses put in starting at 4 months old. And removed, daily. The first day took us close to an hour to get them both in. By the end of the first week, we had it down to 30m, 15m by the end of week 3, 5m by the end of the month. What does one have to do with the other? One of the ways we got it going early on was to follow the advice of a friend and strap him into his car seat to help immobilize him. The trauma wasn’t fun for us or him, but the feeling of success after a month? It was like graduation when we didn’t have to use the car seat anymore and could just lay him gently on his back on the change table or bed.
Later he graduated from rear-facing to front-facing and later to a larger car seat since he was bigger. Each time, a sign of growth and progress. Our little baby was now a toddler, or our toddler was now a young boy.
Most car seat graduations are generally for size and age, and Jacob has reached the limits of his last one. He really liked having it, with the extra arms and bit of side supports for sleeping, particularly for long car rides, and he has hesitated to give it up. We’ve talked a few times about it and each time he wasn’t that keen. He just felt more comfortable for long periods in it, plus he could sit up a bit higher and see better. He was still officially within the size restrictions, so he was fine, but it is time to graduate.
So a few weeks ago, we took it out to have the car detailed, and left it out for a bit. Then I put it back in for a few days, asked him if he wanted it one last time for the trip at Thanksgiving, and he said, “Nah, I’m good”. He was fine without it, and he doesn’t want to go back, he knows he’s outgrown it. And he knows most of his friends have left theirs behind. He’s excited to ride in the front seat in the future, but he’s not quite big enough for that yet. He is looking forward to getting there though.
For now? He’s done with his car seat phase. I feel like it’s one of the few “throwbacks” to his kid days instead of his “young man” days now that he is pre-teen. And like most milestones that he hits, no matter how small, I’m proud of the man that he is becoming every single day. It’s just a car seat, and we long ago got the value of its purchase, but I feel #MoreJoy that he’s reached another small milestone in his journey.
If my brain is going a mile a minute, I can frequently break the cycle with music. But it has to be more than simple background music, I need something almost “meta” about the song that pulls me out of the song and makes me think about the writing, or admire the lyricist’s choice of phrasing.
Harry Chapin’s songs from the 70s are almost all stories, from Cats in the Cradle to Taxi, so there’s lots of things in them that get me thinking about the backstory or the “other” elements that you could fill in if you were to flesh them out into a novel, for example. My favourite is probably A Better Place To Be, about “a little midnight watchman, a rotund waitress, and a woman he picked up one night” (the description he gives in his live album). It is also one of the few “LIVE” albums I like, other than Bob Seger. Most of the time I hate them, but his live album has a great feel to it.
This past week, I’ve been pulling songs that have the ability to distract me and pull me out of whatever funk I’m in. And they’re eclectic.
First up, Follow Me by Uncle Kracker. It’s likely the only song I would like of his, and the only one I can name. It’s a song about adultery, which you would think would automatically go nowhere good. But it’s presented as a completely up-tempo song with lyrics that are compelling:
I’m not worried about the ring you wear, ‘Cause as long as no one knows, then nobody can care. You’re feeling guilty and I’m well aware, But you don’t look ashamed and baby I’m not scared.
I’m singin’
Follow me, everything is all right I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night And if you want to leave I can guarantee You won’t find nobody else like me
It is a perfect picture, even if not salutary. You can picture the “addiction” in the song, a perfect representation of just about every “cheating” scene in TV or movies, people who are too afraid / disrespectful to end their marriage and go with the person they actually love. Every time I hear it, I start thinking of scenes I could write in fiction.
The next one is a slight nudge to the left of that above far-right position, but still harsh, and it is a double-version release. CeeLo Green has two versions of the same song, one explicit and one PG — F*** you and Forget You. I first heard the song on Glee, even though I wasn’t a regular viewer. I only tuned in for Gwyneth Paltrow’s visit, and when one of the students suggests she’s too old to be cool, i.e., “like 40 or something”, she replies, “Top 40 maybe”. Then she sings Forget You. I liked it enough to look up the original, partly because I love the beat. It has some amusing lyrics of course.
Yeah I’m sorry, I can’t afford a Ferrari But that don’t mean I can’t get you there
I guess he’s an X-box, and I’m more Atari But the way you play your game ain’t fair
While the song is average, I love multiple things about this song. First, the lyric above — an XBox and Atari metaphor? Cool. Second, they throw in some background responses to the lead that have some killer lines, particularly in the explicit version.
I pity the fool that falls in love with you oh (Oh ssh she’s a gold digger) Well (Just thought you should know n*****)
In the explicit version, the song drops those lines like they’re natural conversation. Hard to believe, I know, but it WORKS perfectly. The imagery of the person saying them is clear, as is where they’re coming from in the “conversation”. A verboten word, correctly and expertly used in the only semi-acceptable version possible.
But the third reason, the part that blows me away, is that BOTH versions work. Explicit and raw or PG and pop-py, they both are viable songs that did well.
The next one in my list goes way over to the pop lists. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. I won’t try to convince you that it’s the greatest song ever or anything, but there are two lines I love:
You took your time with the call, I took no time with the fall
***
Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad
The next two are from the country realm, and I like them both for the same reason — they take a phrase from pop culture or common language, twist it a bit, and give us a whole new picture. The first is Single White Female by Chely Wright. In it, she takes the SWF language from personal ads and turns it into her refrain.
Single white female Looking for that special lover To put it in a nutshell A one women man who doesn’t want no other Oh, you never can tell She just might be your dream come true A single white female Is looking for a man like you
The second is from Bonnie Raitt, Something To Talk About. Before I get to the refrain, let’s talk for a moment about the song itself. It’s basically about one friend wondering if they shouldn’t have put someone else in the Friend Zone and missed out on something great. In movies and TV, the scenario is often portrayed as the shy, retiring librarian or nerd type longing for their best friend, who is chasing the latest hot guy/chick to walk by. Almost always, the person being longed for has seemingly NO IDEA of the other’s feelings. I find it unlikely that the thought NEVER occurs to two single people who regularly spend time together as best friends, but hey, no angst/no story. This one is a bit different. There’s no obvious longing, it is basically the girl being surprised that there’s a rumour about them, and it knocks her out of her innocent view of her friend enough to consider, “What if…?”.
And lastly, we come to a strange one for many reasons. The song is called Dragonhearted by, wait for it, TryHardNinja. This is an artist that is quite prolific in the gamer world, often adding words to what would be normal gamer background techno music.
Sometimes even shooting stars Find wishes that miss their marks.
But when the night gets too dark And the road home seems too far
We’ll see the sun come up again We will climb higher than we’ve been We got a fire that burns within
We are the Dragonhearted We are the Dragonhearted
Jacob found them through gaming and YouTube videos, and while most of the songs he pulls out from gaming aren’t ready for mass consumption, there’s something about this one that rises above, in my view. I also like that it is a song I wouldn’t know existed if my son didn’t find and share it with me. I love listening to it while he sings along. But I do still like the upbeat message — we are the Dragonhearted!
I threw all of them into a playlist, and I’ll add others over time. They’re an eclectic mix, and I have others that will fit the bill for other reasons too. Ultimately, they’re my “anti-funk” mix, designed to pull me out of my head and embrace the light. Maybe I’ll write a story about a cheating lover who suddenly figures out she’s in love with her best friend, but has to find the courage of a dragon to give people something to talk about. Or, maybe they’ll just provide me with #morejoy.
