This Post Has Nothing To Do With Coffee

In an effort to complain less, I’ve decided to answer this set of “Questions Over Coffee” (that do not appear to be about coffee) from Rory at Earthly Comforts. Also, I saw other bloggers doing this (answering these questions, not complaining) and decided to join the fun.

Coffee is better than Complaining. Photo by Chevanon Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-coffee-cup-on-table-312418/

1) Do you sometimes ‘just’ LIKE posts from those you follow but don’t often read the content?

Yes. Often for recipes, book reviews, and interviews with interesting people – content that I might not have time to read or comment on, but that I appreciate is being written.

Side note, I’ve been blogging for 2 years (which I sense is short relative to a lot of bloggers here), and I get the impression that WP bloggers have strong opinions about “likes”, “serial likers”, “people who like your posts but don’t comment”, etc. I wonder if this is just the nature of communities coming up with strong feelings about oddly specific things. Like I remember back when I was on Imamother, a web forum designed for Orthodox married women, that people thought the “hug” button (represented by a heart) on posts that were not sad or tragic was seen as condescending and almost offensive even, and there were all sorts of forum threads on this. There are multiple reasons why I left Imamother (not the least of which that I was never really Orthodox), but that was one thing I never understood.

2) What do you do with gifts you have received but have no use for?

Keep them and just fail to use them, usually. I’m not good at re-gifting, donating, or throwing away.

Totally unrelated, if you need gift ideas, check out my amazing holiday gift guide! Am I good at giving gifts? Nope! Am I good at giving advice? Debatable! Do I enjoy doing it anyway? Hell yeah!

3a) Have people become lazier concerning cooking do you think, or is it more a case of people not knowing how to cook?

Neither. They’re recognizing that cooking can be a true pain in the ass if you think about it. For one thing, it’s not just one task but several:

1. Researching/reading/developing the recipe
2. Ensuring you have the right cooking space/equipment
3. Buying/growing the ingredients
4. Prepping the ingredients and storing the unused ingredients so they don’t spoil.
5. Actually cooking said ingredients per the recipe
6. Serving the meal
7. Storing the leftovers so they don’t spoil
8. Cleaning up the table, the cooking space, the pots/pans/cooking utensils/eating utensils/dishes, etc.

If you don’t have adequate fridge/freezer/cooking/pantry/kitchen space, if you’re living by yourself (most recipes and food packages aren’t geared for single servings), if you’re just learning how to cook (sure, cooking can save money, but you can waste an awful lot of expensive ingredients when you screw up), or if you just plain don’t enjoy it, cooking can be logistically difficult and a massive waste of time, ingredients, and money.

Not everyone enjoys cooking. Image by Kate from Pixabay

3b) Is cooking considered a valuable skill by you?

Seeing as I’m a comically incompetent moron in the kitchen, no.

4) What news stories, in your opinion, have so far defined the 2020’s…

[I put the ellipsis because I’m going to answer this question in two parts.]

I’m going to go offbeat and say it’s the Mars Wrigley’s redesign of the M&M characters, which I wrote about in one of my news updates. To me, this event truly epitomized the idiocy of corporate branding in the 2020s:

• The claim that consumers care that much about enough about an animated character’s shoes in the first place (although considering the response to Green M&M losing her go-go boots, apparently, they do)
• The fact that the rebrand of a crappy chocolate candy that costs a couple dollars is news.
• The contradictory goals of the redesign of Green M&M as both to be a “force supporting women” and to highlight “the character’s ‘personalities, rather than their gender.'”
• The failure of Mars Wrigley to add another female M&M character for increased representation because that would require actual product innovation.
• Mars Wrigley highlighting this as an amazing change while failing to do any substantive change, like sustainable and socially-responsible chocolate sourcing. Mars Wrigley even has a sustainability plan (or at least a link on their website that says “sustainability plan”) and they still thought the character redesign was the most important use of media attention.
• The backlash from pretty much everyone, albeit for wildly different reasons. (Actually, I found this oddly inspiring. A divided America coming together to snark on an idiotic marketing campaign.)

The news story that epitomizes the stupidity of the 2020s. Image by ssunyi from Pixabay

…and what do you think they have taught us personally as individuals?

Not a damn thing! I would bet money that future marketing leaders are going to look back on this as an inspirational case study.

5) What would you never swallow even if you could?

Am I the only person whose mind went to a very NSFW place when I read this question? I can’t be the only one…

6) How many hours of sleep do you get a night, and how many hours do you think you need and why?

I’m back to sleeping 5-6 hrs/night, more or less, and I function fine on that. Unless I’m jetlagged or sick, I find more sleep kind of unnecessary.

7) How important is it to you to have a clean house or environment to live in?

Clean isn’t super-important to me. (Which is good because, like cooking, this is not my strongest suit.) But a functional space that has two bedrooms, doesn’t have apartment problems like fucked up plumbing and heat, noisy air conditioners, rude neighbors, and a landlord who doesn’t like us, and that is located in a community where I want to live – that’s important to me.

I do not currently have that, so pandemic-era life has been unpleasant, to put it mildly. The housing search continues…

8) Could you give up your Smartphone and break your addiction to it?

No. I wouldn’t even see it as a goal.

9) What have been five of your best TV shows?

In alphabetical order:

1. America’s Test Kitchen – Just because I’m bad at cooking doesn’t mean I don’t like cooking shows, and ATK is criminally underrated. The research presented in a fun, non-patronizing way.
2. Glee – I feel like it’s not cool to like Glee because of the flawed ridiculous problematic storylines, and there were a lot of moments in Glee that make me go WTF. But I don’t expect my TV shows to be realistic or deal with every issue perfectly. I watch TV for entertainment alone and I enjoyed the performances.
3. Leverage – fun, memorable characters. I can re-watch episodes I’ve seen before and still be entertained. Leverage Redemption is pretty good too. I like the addition of Harry Wilson and Breanna Casey as characters, and I don’t mind Nate Ford’s absence, but I think the scriptwriting of Leverage Redemption is worse. So much bad dialogue.
4. Lupin – another great show of brilliant thievery (and so much more), mais en français! Watch it on Netflix in French with English subtitles if you must – the acting (which is fantastic, btw) is just so much better in French.
5. Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? – I loved this show as a kid. Honestly, I think it’s a great premise for a kid’s game show. Also, it had an amazing theme song.

I noticed that 3/5 of these shows are related to celebrating thieves in some way. Not sure what that says about me.

I’m actually a pretty honest non-criminal in real life. This is not a self-portrait! Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

10) Why is life not a bed of roses but a bed of thorns?

It might be a bed of roses, but what you actually feel is the physical pain of stabbing yourself with a thorn instead of the sublime beauty you’re supposed to feel when looking at the roses.

It’s kind of like eating what was supposed to be your favorite sandwich except someone put olive tapenade on it and as much as you want to enjoy the sandwich but you can’t not taste the disgusting olives. My perfect sandwich + gross olives haven’t changed all that much since the last time I tortured that metaphor, so I’m not going to rehash.

If you actually like olives, this metaphor is lost on you. Photo by Polina Tankilevitch: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-olives-4109910/

11) Toasted waffles or toasted bread?

Are we talking about the Eggo waffles that come frozen and you stick in the toaster to make them? (Such yummy, artificial buttery goodness…😋) Or proper Belgian waffles that you have no reason to toast because they just came out of the waffle iron? Either way, I’m going to say waffles. Sure, bread is useful, but it’s boring AF. Waffles are fun. Bread is overrated.

12) How do you feel about the ageing process and you?

I’m in my thirties and I already hate it.

13) What is the last rebellious thing you did?

RSVP’d “No” to an event that I technically didn’t have a conflict with, but that I didn’t want to attend. No explanation, no lying/making up an excuse as to why I couldn’t attend, no faux-apology, and honestly, I feel absolutely no guilt.

I check “no”, and I don’t feel the least bit bad about it. Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

14) What would be your ideal ‘you experience’ of the following …. museum, theatre, spa day, bungee jumping?

Spa day. I have no need to try bungee jumping, and while I’ve gone to museums and theaters solo and enjoyed it, I think they’re a better experience with other people. Spa day is the ideal indulgent solo activity.

15) Could you easily step off the planet and away from society and your friends and being social and also away from the Internet for 12 months?

Wow, a lot to unpack with this question! I’m going to have to answer each part of this question separately.

• Could you easily step off the planet? No. Gravity makes this challenging.
• And away from society and your friends? Friends? Lol, what friends? My friends either have children, so we’re no longer friends because parent-friends are generally awful to non-parents, or they are rude guests. Or they died. Or after reading their pandemic Facebook posts, I lost interest in being friends.
• And being social? This might be challenging. The pandemic taught me that I’m the kind of extrovert who lacks the will to do anything, from writing to basic hygiene, if I’m not going to be interacting with people.
• And also away from the Internet for 12 months? Depends on the circumstances. Do I need to perform my job during those 12 months? If so, then no, I cannot live without the internet for 12 months unless someone is planning to pay my bills. But I suppose if I had absolutely no choice but to live without the internet for 12 months, say I ended up in prison after stealing something (clearly influenced by my TV show choices), then I suppose I’d have to make do.

Bonus Question from WordPress* (that still has nothing to do with coffee):

What are your feelings about eating meat?

Delightful! I rather enjoy a nice rare steak. (IMO, medium-rare = edible, but overcooked. Anything more done than medium-rare is shoe leather.)

Good steak is called rare. (*This was that ghost text question that appears when you click “Write Post”.) Photo by behrouz sasani on Unsplash

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Well, this was a fun post. Hope everyone enjoys their coffee. Or steak.