May

24

What to binge during the apocalypse

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Pretzel Crisps. A cracker/pretzel combo that is entirely pleasing from start to finish. Thin and crunchy, the perfect amount of salty. Can be consumed quietly during dramatic parts of a movie with the right chewing strategy.

Triscuit. A longtime classic snack, now comes in a baffling variety of flavors and textures but the Deli Rye option is the best, I will fight you on this. Delightful ability to bite off pieces in perfect lines. This otherwise perfect cracker has the one downside of being incredibly filling in a sneaks-up-on-you way so the potential for post-consumption regret is high.

Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers. Actual copy from the website: “Specially crafted to pair with all your favorite flavors like artisan cheeses, hummus, seafood, soups and salad” LOLOLOL anyway obviously you are eating these in salty fistfuls directly from the bag. (Artisan cheeses!) Incredibly loud and crunchy so you’ll want something equally loud on the TV, I recommend Mad Max: Fury Road.

Paleo Puffs. These weirdly delicious snacks are shaped sort of like Cheeto Puffs (or giant grubs, or packing peanuts) but have a dense almost chewy texture. The Himalayan Salt flavor is my favorite, although the Honey Roasted ones are quite good too. While I do not eat these for their reportedly healthy ingredients, they do offer a smug factor: Sure, I’m on my third bowl, but they’re paleo.

Those Peanut Butter-Filled Crackers That Come in a Big-Ass Tub from Target or Costco. Absolutely DEADLY in their tastiness. Like, I cannot be controlled around these things. Holy shit.

Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal, Brown Sugar flavor. Not technically a snack I guess fuck it, in the pandemic there are no snack rules. This cereal is far superior when consumed without milk, and if you happen to have some peanut butter handy for dipping each piece in, well who am I to stop you. Another snack that is super loud, so you know what, just go ahead and turn on closed captioning and leave it that way, which seems like a boomer move but is actually life changingly awesome.

Mary’s Gone Crackers. The original or Super Seed flavor are both good. The only snack on this list that I am likely to limit myself to a single serving while eating, because they’re tasty, but in an earthy, wholesome way. Extremely loud crunch factor, not particularly salty but very flavorsome. You’ll want some floss at the ready for afterwards.

Boom Chicka Pop. The Sweet and Salty Kettle Corn flavor is where it’s at, although if you want to feel slightly more virtuous the “Light” Kettle Corn is very good too. The absolute ideal combo of saltiness, crunch (but like, a soft crunch), and sweet. There is literally no full factor to this popcorn so do yourself a favor and be prepared with a second bag.

May

21

In order to feel safe

Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments

The weather seems hard-wired to my mood lately, we’ve had a stretch of grey wet days and I have found myself staring bleakly out the window and heaving great gusty sighs of discontent. Everything just seems so much more manageable when it’s nice outside.

I went on a non-essential-store outing for the first time since lockdown began, I happened to notice the new OPEN sign on a DSW shoe store that’s nearby and stopped in. It was cavernously empty, save for the sole employee behind the counter, and I didn’t even bother with a mask. On the one hand, it felt kind of normalizing and nice to just browse around for a while, on the other, it was weird (signs and floor markings everywhere and periodic dystopian-sounding recorded announcements about social distancing) and oddly more lonely than just being at home.

I mentioned this on Facebook but the hospice organization I volunteer with sent an email saying that volunteers are expected to be allowed back to work in the next couple weeks. They want to know who is willing to come back and under what conditions (are you willing to visit homes or facilities? Are you willing to have an ongoing patient or only be on call?), followed by this stumper of a question:

If you are coming back, what kinds of things do you want/need in order to feel safe?

Uhhhhhhhhhhh. To go back in time, I guess? Because wow, I have no idea.

I did have a patient Before, who has since passed away. We had briefly talked about the virus when it was just starting to become news, and she’d told me she was worried about it — although not for herself. She didn’t come right out and say, “What’s it going to do, kill me?” but it was implied. She was a funny, straight-shooting lady.

I would love to be able to start visiting a patient again but my gosh, I don’t know how to decide what that looks like for me. I guess for now my answer is “I need to think about this for a while,” because that is the truth.

Next Page →