Tuesday, November 26 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! It's a beautiful day today. If you're not lucky to be off work today, then I at least hope everyone is being nice to you today. This morning we had another late start to the day. I cooked breakfast then bothered Marissa and Rodney until they reluctantly rolled out of bed to join me at the table. We finally brought home our replacement coffee maker, and I think having hot drip coffee back in the morning is having an energizing effect on me. Don't get me wrong - Moka is good stuff. But sleepily calling ahead for a brew box and driving across East wash in my bathrobe is a weird start to the day, so I'm happy to put that behind me.

This morning, we're rocking the 12 cup Black and Dekker drip coffee machine. Sleek, shiny black plastic, a programmable LED clock, and "steal a cup feature" all at an affordable 19.99. And yes, I'm going to hand wash the carafe from now on. These days I feel like we replace our coffee maker so often, it kind of feels the trope of Strongbad breaking his retro, outdated computers and replacing them with slightly less outdated computers. If our last Hamilton Beach machine was the Lappy 486, that would mean we're now on the Compé. I wasn't sure just then which computer came after the Lappy, but one of the reasons I love the homstar runner fan base is that everything about the website is carefully documented in a wiki, which I consulted to make sure that analogy landed accurately.

This morning, we've got turkey at the top of mind. Marissa and I formed a game plan at the breakfast table this morning. Later today, I'm going to cook up a double batch of brine and keep it in one of our 5 gallon buckets. Tomorrow morning, we're going to put a frozen turkey in the other and pad it with ice, and we're going to use our cooler to transport the other. We're going to try to do most of our shopping on Wednesday afternoon, but today I'm going to pick up some gluten free buckwheat flour. I have no doubt they'll have it an our faithful Jenny Street Market, but just in case it's not, there are plenty of other specialty food shops I can check.

Yesterday was a pretty great day. In the morning, I made a long list of things to get done, and I sort of chipped away at it all day. Just before lunch, my dad stopped by to take me out for a beer, but we ended up just hanging around the house and eating some leftovers. We sat at the dining room table. I had a beer in my left hand and a cup of coffee in my right. It was that weird time of day where that was somehow OK. We chatted and grazed on leftovers until about 1, when Marissa suddenly remembered we had a doctor's appointment. In a cold sweat, she checked the calendar and breathed a sigh of relief seeing the appointment wasn't until 1:30, and it was right across the street at the new clinic. It was so perfect, it was almost like we planned it that way. We sent my dad on his way and made our way across the street for Marissa's routine checkup. After checking baby's heartbeats and getting a quick, expert blood draw, we made our way back home.

In the evening, we ran some errands at Target, picking up a new coffee maker and grabbing a some sweet potatoes and buns for dinner. Picking up groceries at Target is risky business. If you're not careful, you could wind up spending \$7 on asparagus or something, which almost happened. Target is a crafty business. Something tells me that the secret to their success is their ability to hike up the price exclusively on the things you didn't realize you need. We find ourselves heading to Target because they have cheap prices on vitamins, paper towels, and Tupperware, but the oh, while we're here we might as well get mind-set is dangerous. Beneath the surface appearance of affordability and convenience lie \$4 butter, \$7 asparagus, and \$5 cheese slices waiting to bamboozle poor, unsuspecting yuppies.

We made our way home. I started preparing dinner as Marissa straightened up the house. Having passed on the \$7 plastic wrapped asparagus, I had to work with a single can of green beans left over from Ollie's summer diet. But after some lemon, butter, a diced shallot, and some dried mint, they didn't taste half bad. We finished off the plate with some leftover turkey smashed on Hawaiian buns, spread with some hot mustard and mashes sweet potatoes. Oh, and there was some sliced swiss on there too. It turns out we had to get those from Target after all.

After dinner, we put Rodney to bed and after a quick nap on the couch with Ziggy, I got back to my to-do list. I caught up on some emails, one of which was with a friend from college. We're discussing the latest Kanye album, and the conversation with him bleed over into a conversation with my wife while we were milling around the kitchen.

"So if we're still entertaining the idea that Kanye is a secret genius and everything he does is intentional," I explained, "then just maybe the album roll out was intentionally patterned after the ministry of Jesus."

Marissa pursed her lips and shook her head. "Wait wait wait," I protested, trying to hold her attention. "I'm not saying this isn't blasphemous, but this is Kanye West we're talking about. I'm just saying - the mysterious listening parties created these droves of internet commenters spreading the good news?" Marissa continued listening, narrowing her eyes to make it clear I didn't have her yet. "And then he delayed the album indefinitely!" I continued passionately. "No new due date either! Almost as if… it died." Marissa started shaking her head again, this time wandering away. Hearing it aloud, I realized this wasn't my strongest theory - even compared to how terrible these Kanye conspiracy theories usually are. Back to the drawing board.

So that's what I got today. After lunch, Marissa is going to take Rodney to agility practice, which will give me a nice change window to take down the home network and rewrite my server shelf. After that, I have another long list of things to do, and I had better get started. Hope you all have a wonderful day, and a happy Thanksgiving's Eve's Eve.