So it's February 8th, time to reflect on last year's I Hate Cheesecake greatest achievements and grandest disappointments. I would have gotten to this sooner, but I didn't think of it. But since I didn't, and I'm writing it today, I decided to check to see if, in fact, today happens to be National Blog About Last Year's Blog Posts Day.
It's not.
Turns out it's National Boy Scout Day. Meh. If I wait til tomorrow, things do improve quite a bit - it appears that tomorrow is both National Pizza Day and National Bagel Day. Hmmm.. I wonder what would happen if you mixed pizza with a bagel... Would it be magic, like a chocolate-meets-peanut-butter situation? Disclaimer: I'm not the biggest fan of peanut butter cups. I'm also not the biggest fan of the way most people pronounce "Reese's." Clearly, those are peanut butter cups that belong to Reese, thus it follows that the word is pronounced like REES-is. But most people I know (at least most people with whom I discuss Reese's peanut butter cups or even - gasp - Reese's pieces) pronounce it like REES-ease, because, you know, the apostrophe makes it into a long E, because of the little-known-but-widely-followed-only-in-this-situation E-before-apostrophe rule. Or would it be, um, not-magic, like the much maligned hole-in-the-head or sharp-stick-in-the-eye? Or perhaps the wildly controversial and hotly debated cheese-meets-cake apocalypse?
Side note: yes, I got a really good deal on hyphens, and they're burning-a-hole in my pocket.
As I was wallowing in the disappointment of realizing that today is not a worthy National day to write this post, and immediately after I learned just enough to wish that I was writing this tomorrow, because then I could write all kinds of clever stuff about two of my favorite foods, I also checked on a few other significant days in my life. I say "other significant days" to imply that today (or maybe tomorrow, since I seem to be a bit fixated on that) is a significant day in my life. I'm not, however, wholeheartedly convinced that statement is true. But at the moment, it seems easier to keep typing this barely coherent gibberish than to do any amount of internal fact checking, which might then result in the need to go back and delete that sentence. So here's what I discovered: My wife's birthday is National Clam Chowder day. Not bad, not bad at all. My son's birthday is National Absinthe day. Hmmmm... Severed ear for your thoughts? And my birthday? National Black Cat Appreciation Day.
Well that explains a lot.
I'm a huge appreciator of black cats. I'm actually a huge appreciator of many cats. I wanted to type "all cats," but I think that might be an overstatement. Some cats are assholes. Ok, I kinda stole that line from David Sedaris. Hey, speaking of year-in-review, remember that time I linked to that recording of David Sedaris reading about his global research into different Christmas stories? Yeah, that was a good one... Did you know that cats have whiskers on their arms?
My wife sometimes calls me a cat whisperer. And sometimes I do whisper to cats. I also really like to rub between their toes, which most cats don't like at first (maybe it tickles), but if I persevere, I can get pretty much any cat to accept it and spread his or her toes in delight. It's not weird. Maybe everybody does that, I don't know. But I still count it as one of my greatest skills. I also sometimes let my cats clean my beard. As it turns out, cats don't clean beards with soap or shampoo or even some kind of fancy beard-cleaning lotion. Nope. They clean em with their tongues. My wife thinks its gross. Well, that's what she says, but I suspect that secretly she's envious. It's one of those agree-to-act-like-we-disagree situations, and we'll never know the truth, cuz she doesn't have a beard.
Hey, remember that time I wrote about that really big eraser? And I told you that after I gave it to my son and he lost it, I found it and put it back in my box of stuff that I carry around from house to house? I'd like to confess that I don't know if that's even true. I'm not much of a fact checker. And I really don't feel like pulling that box down from wherever it is and checking to see if the eraser's there. Instead, it's easier just to fess up and move on with my life.
Hey, remember when I wrote about the Giants sucking really badly and maybe earning a high draft pick? And remember I said I couldn't quite bring myself to root for them to lose, just because of the draft pick reward? Well, I'd never admit this out loud, but since I have no readers... I did it! I rooted for them to lose. I did it quietly, so nobody would know. And I did feel a little bit ashamed. But now they have the second pick in the draft, and I'm probably a significant part of the reason why!
Whew, well now that's off my chest. And the truth is, as I've mentioned before right here on I Hate Cheesecake (here we go with the reviewing again), I do have a reader or two. Will I go back and delete my secret? Nope! I'll just rely on the "fact" that all my loyal readers know I'm not much of a fact checker and hope they all think that garbage about me rooting for the Giants to lose is just more fake news. Or, maybe... they all got bored a few paragraphs ago and stopped reading once they realized this is just another "clips" episode.
We still have some of the halloween candy we took from my son.
No we don't. Just wondering if he's reading. Hi kiddo!
My wife thought my TIL post was funny. Everybody else was just confused. smh.
Remember the eclipse? I wrote a post about not writing a post about it. I also wrote a song called Weaver Farm. If you were with me on the Weaver Farm, you might like the song. If not, you'll probably just be confused. But if you're reading this, you're probably already confused. So there.
I didn't win my fantasy football league. I didn't even make the playoffs. And Tommy Boy Brady didn't win the Super Bowl! He lost! Ha! I wasn't going to root for the Eagles, because how can a self-respecting Giant fan root for the Eagles? But I wasn't gonna root for the Patriots, cuz no freakin' way am I gonna root for the Patriots. So instead I just rooted for the Eagles. Go Giants!
I just re-read my post about guitars, which, as it turns out, isn't really about guitars. I like that one.
The paella was great. The band still doesn't have a name, although we called ourselves Handful for one gig. And I Hate Cheesecake is still here.
Well there it is. My year in review. It turns out, if you look at the world through the I Hate Cheesecake lens, last year was pretty good. I'm ok with that.
And for those of you who have really been paying attention - yes, it would be magic.