the near side of everywhere
85 days until the vernal equinox
I told Krissy that Jingle Bells was originally written as a Thanksgiving song. I bet our successors in 2124 are going to talk to each other about how Frosty the Snowman was written as a Christmas song and yes, I am aware that the song itself never actually mentions but you know what, it was paired with something called “When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter” when it was first recorded and later that year, it got paired with something called “(Isn’t It A Shame That) Christmas Comes But Once A Year.”
I heard a song with the lyric Blame It On The Mistletoe and it hits differently when you know that mistletoe is toxic and can cause things like vomiting and diarrhea or even cardiac arrest with enough of a dosage. And it’s not “we shouldn’t BUT WE MUST but we shouldn’t” it’s Vladimir Putin saying “he fell out of a window and landed backwards on some mistletoe and the mistletoe went into his mouth and he swallowed it and also the mistletoe was coated with polonium.”
A shower rod fell on Emily.
Sam described sweet and sour meatballs as “a lot of disgusting stuff goes in there and then you heat it up and it’s delicious. It's like alchemy.”
Time is meaningless, Rachel says. I can’t remember the context but no matter the context, it doesn't matter, time is meaningless. I blame the pandemic.
They’re badass shrimp, says Rachel.
Mike made pavlova, which is like a giant macaron covered in strawberries as he describes it (you’re not supposed to touch the strawberries when glazing it but, really, who cares? no one! It’s rhetorical) and anyone can make it and though it’s not named after Pavlov’s dogs, it’s making Rachel drool. It’s from Australia. Lauren knows this from Bluey.
When Rachel was going to college in Boston, she went to a restaurant in which the owner believed that aliens were sending him the recipes. And one of those recipes was a peanut butter and jelly cheeseburger which Rachel says was actually pretty good so yeah. And she had watermelon with basil and feta that was pretty good and I found a recipe for a fattoush with watermelon, sumac, and feta or something but I’d have to dig it up and once I made a salad with beets (I wanted to roast them but usually roasting beets involves taking a raw beet and roasting that and all I had were leftover cooked beets), pistachios, feta, and red onions.
As a kid, Rachel was a little afraid of animatronics and a lot afraid of the Easter Bunny, probably because it was really a guy in a suit and he wasn’t saying anything.
Rachel lives in a place in Western Mass that she refers to as the Tofu Curtain that separates the university towns of Amherst, South Hadley, and Northampton from the increasingly Trumpy working class towns of Holyoke. Outside of that, there a lot of places that sell raw milk.
There are a lot of churches being convereted into apartments. One of them wanted to keep the stained glass windows and the Catholic church (that is to say, the institution, not the physical building) said no, that’s our property now.
Rachel said “imagine going to the bathroom and seeing Jesus on the cross looking down on you.” and Lauren said that would be cool and doesn’t Jesus already know when you’re going to the bathroom? Same with Santa Claus.
This is my first time properly meeting Emma, Lauren's wife.
Lauren: I must have a prime rib and gravy. And potatoes.
Emily: Lauren, you betrayed me.
Sam made a little gingerbread house with gumdrop trees for Rachel. Rachel and Ken were gingerbread fertility figures.
I said it looked like the Venus of Willendorf and Sam said she meant for it to look like that exact thing but its boobs got flattened in the process of baking.
And, hold on. I wonder if there exist a male equivalent of the Venus fertility figurines. Oh, there are fertility statues out there but they’re neither paleolithic nor European. Anyway, Ken was that. The potential children were a gingerbread figure with a bow and a gingerbread figure with a bow tie.
We all entered the room to the Imperial March. They were tootling something but Sam said that’s not right and I started the Triumphal March but that’s Syria, and then Sam was like “how does the Imperial March go? Oh yeah, that.”
And Rachel didn't have to burn down any forests.
I suggested for a name something like Cassandane or Utauϑa or Parušātiš. After all, Persia’s halfway between Italy/France and Japan.
Sassanid Iran be like "abolish gender."
Lauren and Emma are trying to learn Spanish so they can communicate with the people around them. Lauren learned French in high school so she says she'll find herself communicating in Spanish and switching to French so I said she should visit Barcelona. Or maybe learn the other Romance languages so you can mash them all together. I think that's what Interlingua is.
(yes, I know that Catalan isn't just French and Spanish mashed together. Thanks for explaining what a joke is)
She wishes she could be like our grandfather, who spoke not just English but Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to some degree.
We were watching Klaus for real this time.
“I’m Sami,” Sam says and that is actual Saami they’re speaking.
(no you’re not)
Emily has the Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy videogame for the PS2 somewhere and Rachel wants to play it.
burning question: shouldn’t you make a wish before cutting the Yule log?
I told Krissy that Jingle Bells was originally written as a Thanksgiving song. I bet our successors in 2124 are going to talk to each other about how Frosty the Snowman was written as a Christmas song and yes, I am aware that the song itself never actually mentions but you know what, it was paired with something called “When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter” when it was first recorded and later that year, it got paired with something called “(Isn’t It A Shame That) Christmas Comes But Once A Year.”
I heard a song with the lyric Blame It On The Mistletoe and it hits differently when you know that mistletoe is toxic and can cause things like vomiting and diarrhea or even cardiac arrest with enough of a dosage. And it’s not “we shouldn’t BUT WE MUST but we shouldn’t” it’s Vladimir Putin saying “he fell out of a window and landed backwards on some mistletoe and the mistletoe went into his mouth and he swallowed it and also the mistletoe was coated with polonium.”
A shower rod fell on Emily.
Sam described sweet and sour meatballs as “a lot of disgusting stuff goes in there and then you heat it up and it’s delicious. It's like alchemy.”
Time is meaningless, Rachel says. I can’t remember the context but no matter the context, it doesn't matter, time is meaningless. I blame the pandemic.
They’re badass shrimp, says Rachel.
Mike made pavlova, which is like a giant macaron covered in strawberries as he describes it (you’re not supposed to touch the strawberries when glazing it but, really, who cares? no one! It’s rhetorical) and anyone can make it and though it’s not named after Pavlov’s dogs, it’s making Rachel drool. It’s from Australia. Lauren knows this from Bluey.
When Rachel was going to college in Boston, she went to a restaurant in which the owner believed that aliens were sending him the recipes. And one of those recipes was a peanut butter and jelly cheeseburger which Rachel says was actually pretty good so yeah. And she had watermelon with basil and feta that was pretty good and I found a recipe for a fattoush with watermelon, sumac, and feta or something but I’d have to dig it up and once I made a salad with beets (I wanted to roast them but usually roasting beets involves taking a raw beet and roasting that and all I had were leftover cooked beets), pistachios, feta, and red onions.
As a kid, Rachel was a little afraid of animatronics and a lot afraid of the Easter Bunny, probably because it was really a guy in a suit and he wasn’t saying anything.
Rachel lives in a place in Western Mass that she refers to as the Tofu Curtain that separates the university towns of Amherst, South Hadley, and Northampton from the increasingly Trumpy working class towns of Holyoke. Outside of that, there a lot of places that sell raw milk.
There are a lot of churches being convereted into apartments. One of them wanted to keep the stained glass windows and the Catholic church (that is to say, the institution, not the physical building) said no, that’s our property now.
Rachel said “imagine going to the bathroom and seeing Jesus on the cross looking down on you.” and Lauren said that would be cool and doesn’t Jesus already know when you’re going to the bathroom? Same with Santa Claus.
This is my first time properly meeting Emma, Lauren's wife.
Lauren: I must have a prime rib and gravy. And potatoes.
Emily: Lauren, you betrayed me.
Sam made a little gingerbread house with gumdrop trees for Rachel. Rachel and Ken were gingerbread fertility figures.
I said it looked like the Venus of Willendorf and Sam said she meant for it to look like that exact thing but its boobs got flattened in the process of baking.
And, hold on. I wonder if there exist a male equivalent of the Venus fertility figurines. Oh, there are fertility statues out there but they’re neither paleolithic nor European. Anyway, Ken was that. The potential children were a gingerbread figure with a bow and a gingerbread figure with a bow tie.
We all entered the room to the Imperial March. They were tootling something but Sam said that’s not right and I started the Triumphal March but that’s Syria, and then Sam was like “how does the Imperial March go? Oh yeah, that.”
And Rachel didn't have to burn down any forests.
I suggested for a name something like Cassandane or Utauϑa or Parušātiš. After all, Persia’s halfway between Italy/France and Japan.
Sassanid Iran be like "abolish gender."
Lauren and Emma are trying to learn Spanish so they can communicate with the people around them. Lauren learned French in high school so she says she'll find herself communicating in Spanish and switching to French so I said she should visit Barcelona. Or maybe learn the other Romance languages so you can mash them all together. I think that's what Interlingua is.
(yes, I know that Catalan isn't just French and Spanish mashed together. Thanks for explaining what a joke is)
She wishes she could be like our grandfather, who spoke not just English but Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to some degree.
We were watching Klaus for real this time.
“I’m Sami,” Sam says and that is actual Saami they’re speaking.
(no you’re not)
Emily has the Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy videogame for the PS2 somewhere and Rachel wants to play it.
burning question: shouldn’t you make a wish before cutting the Yule log?