Hi folks,
Remember when this used to happen right at the start of the month? Yeah, the good old days. But better late than never, right? Maybe my New Year’s Resolution will be to complete these a little earlier.
Anyway, everything below is the usual rubble bucket of stuff I couldn’t fit into its own post.
Home front…
I’m back tomorrow with a post about a radiator problem that ran too long for today. Not the problem, the post.
The short version is that after five full years in the same apartment, I’m still here only because of the high sleep quality, and willing to leave if problems put that quality in jeopardy.
Wait, but it's the last Wednesday of the month, so...
Look, nobody wants a Christmas - er, holiday - 'tales of two cities', trust me.
It'll be back, I promise.
Home plate…
After ignoring all neighborhood takeout for five years, I’ve finally started trying some of the local eateries. Early returns suggest the food is edible.
Next is Upper Crust, having caught my attention with a sign on their window – New management. Apparently, new management had the following bright ideas:
Pizza
Wings
Meatballs
Three meatballs cost $11, or the price of a Guinness at Harvard Gardens if you tip like an adult. Now, I thought somebody should explain to me why that’s a good idea, the $11 meatballs I mean, but I guess the easiest way is to just pony up and pray I don’t get food poisoning. I will let you know how it goes, reader.
Home plate, part two
Upper Crust continues an odd tradition of establishments on its block posting strange signs in their windows. On the other corner is a café that once posted this on its door – try our new gazpacho soup. They have a new sign now – come in for a hot beef stew. Spoiler alert, I never tried the gazpacho soup and I’m not trying the beef stew. Like, why would I? I used to go in there because its ratings were so low on Yelp that I figured I’d be the only person on the WiFi (and I was right). No chance I try anything they cook.
They do serve good gelato, though.
Last, but not least…
Longtime readers will recall that December is a time I reserve for rereading books. I recommend rereading periods for everybody (and especially if you are in a reading rut of some kind). However, I think the specifics are less important, and doing it in December is just my preference.
This is my list for 2019:
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories by Etgar Keret
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
The Oblivion Seekers by Isabelle Eberhardt
The Wave in the Mind by Ursula LeGuin
U2 by U2 (edited by Neil McCormick)
Sum by David Eagleman
Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders
The Illustrated Book of Sayings by Ella Frances Sanders
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham
It’s a long list but most of those books are short.
I also tried a new thing this year where I reread certain portions of select books (longtime readers will recall how I point out such chapters or essays in my reading reviews). If it goes well, I’ll try it on a larger scale next December. This year’s selections were stories from the following two books:
Raised in Captivity by Chuck Klosterman
The Moth Presents All These Wonders edited by Catherine Burns
As usual, please look forward to hearing my thoughts on these rereads as soon as I get around to writing them – based on recent history, this means sometime next fall.
Happy holidays to the PC crowd!
Thanks for reading.
Next time… in True On Average…
1. Four digits!
2. Is there really a goal?
3. Vision 2020.
