Burning Love & Memoirs

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Does anyone remember a show called Burning Love that aired back in 2012-2013 on E! (Entertainment)? It was a parody of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I found out my library had it on DVD so I’ve been re-watching it before bed and it’s hilarious.

The first season focuses on firefighter Mark, played by Ken Marino. Instead of giving roses to the ladies, he gives them his hose.

The second season focuses on Julie, played by June Diane Raphael. She gives contestants her box.

One of them is Robby Z, played by Paul Scheer. June and Paul are married in real life and I was curious if they met on the set and learned they were married well before then.

That led me down a little rabbit hole where I found out Paul had written a memoir in 2024 which received a lot of praise so I borrowed it from the library.

I’ve never been particularly fond of the actor because every character I’ve seen him play is super annoying, which isn’t fair to him, I know. He is particularly gross and annoying in The League. But I digress…

I was not prepared for how well this man writes. He can tell quite a compelling story, even when the content is disturbing. The amount of abuse he suffered as a child is awful and makes me so angry at all the adults in his life, particularly his parents, that let it go on as long as they did.

I’m in no way trying to say I had anything close to the childhood he did, but I saw myself in some of his tendencies, such as feeling content spending time alone (which I did a lot as a child), pretending to be a character in a movie (another thing I did often), collecting souvenirs from experiences, and journaling. My guess is it’s a self-soothing coping mechanism to deal with trauma. I believe we all have some in various degrees.

In any case, I highly recommend his book, and the show that led me to reading it, if you can find it at your library. It’s all but disappeared online other than short clips on YouTube.

Baskin Robbins is Wild

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We went to Baskin Robbins today so I could get my free birthday scoop.

In case you didn’t know, they charge different prices per location just like McDonald’s and other franchises. A single scoop is $3.09 at one location and $4.49 at the other. But what’s really crazy is their “fresh-packed quarts” a) aren’t quart-sized at all but 24 oz and b) cost $9 at one location and $14.99 at the one that charges more for the single scoops.

Needless to say, we decided to order from the cheaper location, and since my scoop was free, also ordered a fresh-packed quart of Old-Fashioned Butter Pecan since there was a coupon for $2 off in the app.

When we arrived, I went inside to pick up the order. No workers were in sight. Finally, after a minute or so two employees came out from the back – one male and one female. Queue the insinuations…

The guy told me they didn’t have the pistachio almond I selected for the single scoop, but I could choose another flavor. I guess it was taking me a bit to decide because he said he could let me sample a flavor, and then offered to refund me, but I pointed out it was free anyway. It felt like he just wanted me to leave so he could get back to chatting up his female coworker.

After I picked my flavor he asked if I wanted a bag, but instead of packing it for me, just gave me the paper bag so I had to struggle to get the quart inside. Also, he gave me a pre-packed quart, not a fresh-packed one. I can’t remember if they had the Butter Pecan in the display case, so I don’t know if they were being lazy about having to create the fresh pack or what. Normally the fresh-packed quarts are more expensive than the pre-packed ones, so if I hadn’t used a coupons making it cheaper by 50 cents, I would have questioned it, but it didn’t seem worth mentioning in this case.

It’s worth noting that the music inside was quite loud, and to my surprise they were playing rap music complete with the N-word UNBLEEPED. Can’t imagine management would approve such a thing, but then again that location has always been chaotic, plus never seems to have all the flavors listed in the app.

That being said, nothing about my experience made me want to get Baskin Robbins again anytime soon.

My Birthday

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January birthdays suck, especially when you love nature yet it’s cold outside and you’re dealing with what I’ve come to conclude is central sensitization (although, thankfully, it seems to be getting better, albeit slowly).

That being said, my birthday wasn’t terrible considering it was a milestone one – I turned 50!

Initially I wanted to get eggs benedict takeout from a local restaurant but I was really worried even with it being a five minute drive from the house that it would get too cold. Then I saw the price – $17 – and decided I didn’t want to chance it.

Instead, we decided to try a new coffee shop. It was a whole debacle not knowing where to order (tablet they had setup, or counter), but Joe got an iced coffee and I decided to try a basic iced latte.

Let me tell you, that is the single best iced latte I’ve ever had and there was nothing fancy about it. I didn’t get any flavors and yet it was lightyears better than Starbucks, and cheaper too! Unfortunately the rice krispie treat I also ordered was no good. Flavor wise it was no better than what I’ve made myself, plus it was hard. Like I could possibly chip a tooth trying to eat it hard, yet it didn’t taste stale. I had to heat it up in the microwave to soften it.

We were almost home from our coffee run when I told Joe I wouldn’t mind a breakfast sandwich from Wendy’s, so he turned around so we could head over there. I love their maple bacon chicken croissants and breakfast potato wedges! Luckily they are pretty close to the house so back-tracking wasn’t a big deal.

When we got home with our food we had to park on the street because our neighbors were getting new kitchen appliances and the delivery truck was completely blocking our driveway. Not hanging over, parked entirely in front of the drive making it impossible to get in or out. Joe was so aggravated. They should have attempted to ask us if it was ok (which they couldn’t have, or our doorbell would have recorded them coming to the door) but like I told Joe, at least we weren’t trying to get out of the driveway to go somewhere since they ended up being there at least a half hour past the time we arrived home.

After we ate breakfast, I opened my gifts from Joe:

A wooden Blue Jay to add to my collection
A bird of the day calendar
The Cure’s latest concert release
A coffee table book of photographs of The Cure over the years (all taken by the same photographer and with a forward written by Robert Smith).

The bird on my calendar for my birthday is so cute!

The funny thing is when Joe bought me the same calendar last year, I was like “ugh, don’t really want that”, but grew to love it. When I mentioned at the end of the year I was sad the calendar was finished, he decided to get me another one. I told him next year to get me a dog one similar to it.

Other gifts he got me that aren’t pictured:
A chickadee coffee mug
A purple Brooklyn Nine Nine t-shirt

He also bought me a glucose monitor. I was looking at them months ago but I don’t remember ever adding one to a gift list. Who knows, though – Amazon seems to ignore the default wish list I’ve set up and just adds stuff to other lists. In any case, we just requested a return and dropped it off at the Amazon Fresh store.

After Amazon Fresh we went to TJ Maxx to look around but didn’t find anything good, and then to Costco to pick up a few things.

We killed a little time before heading back out to pick up lunch from a place called Taco Dale, which we took to the arboretum to enjoy in the car. I brought my trusty 80’s E.T. themed TV tray so I didn’t make a mess since I ordered birria.

It was so good! I thought ahead and brought a cooler, ice packs, and containers which proved to be useful since I could only eat half of my food before feeling stuffed.

We drove around the arboretum and ended up seeing a belted kingfisher and two red-headed woodpeckers! I didn’t bring my camera, just binoculars, but it was still fun. We even stopped in the visitor center to get a free blueberry scone (thanks to the points we earn with every visit) and hiked by turtle pond which was frozen over.

After the arboretum we did some shopping at Trader Joe’s before heading home.

Dinner was the previous night’s leftovers – a dish Joe starting making last year, which I love – ground chicken, Hokkien noodles, green beans, and green onions seasoned with sesame oil & coco aminos.

After dinner we watched some TV together and enjoyed a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie.

I was shocked that a Marie Callender’s pie was better than the local pie shop strawberry rhubarb that we picked up from Aldi last year and tried at Thanksgiving. It was more than twice the price and was so awful we threw most of it away. I’m glad there’s an affordable option for when the craving strikes.

Things I Don’t Understand

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Facebook
Why does Facebook work perfectly fine on my devices but takes forever to load on a desktop computer, regardless of the browser being used? Half the time photos or comments won’t even load. Messenger and Instagram on a desktop is crappy too.

My Library
How did I get an email this afternoon from our library to let me know that a hold is in if they’re closed all day? Is there a full day delay between when they actually put the item on the holds shelf and when they email the patron to let them know? Is someone still working there when they are closed to the public? Is it magic, like Joe suggested?

Yelp
I don’t know what is more aggravating – the fact that I cannot search my own reviews on Yelp via the Yelp app or their mobile website (and ONLY via their desktop site), or that I cannot find a way to contact Yelp to ask them to make that an option in their app. Surely I cannot be the only one who has hundreds of reviews and cannot remember the name of a place they went to and wants to search their own reviews to try and find it, right??!?

And what is with companies not wanting any contact with their users? I guess because I’m not a business paying for Yelp I don’t matter? Even though it’s users like me who keep the site going indirectly by engaging with the content???

New Microwave

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Thursday I noticed our microwave was humming when not in use. I thought that didn’t seem normal and found out that it was an indication of something failing internally. It’s 23 years old, purchased back in 2002 at Walmart when we were still in our apartment, so it’s the only microwave we’ve ever owned and it has worked flawlessly. It even looks great after more than two decades of use. The idea we’d have to part with it was bumming us out.

Due to its age many parts are unavailable, but a door sensor still is, so we ordered that from Amazon on the off chance it was the culprit. Joe switched it out on Friday and sadly it did not stop the humming. We came to terms with the fact that we’d need to buy a new one and for the past few days have been unplugging it when not in use since it’s something we use daily and was in fact still working fine, but was now a fire risk.

Normally I would have done a ton of research and plugged all the data into Excel to figure out the best model to get, but with the way I’ve been feeling I just didn’t care that much. I was originally thinking of getting another GE, but I read on Reddit that the Panasonic inverter ones were better so I focused on those. Plus GE pissed me off after we bought our refrigerator and learned they designed it so that only their expensive water filter would work and therefore couldn’t buy third party ones for much cheaper, so I didn’t want to give them my business anymore. I found a Panasonic microwave at Costco that I was considering since the price and features were right, but I wasn’t crazy about how it looked.

This morning we went to Target to pick up a prescription and decided to peek at their microwaves and there was one Panasonic left that was the same style as Costco but with a different color scheme (Costco was black around the door with stainless on the control panel whereas the Target one was stainless around the door and black on the control panel which I liked better due to all the fingerprints you’d see on the stainless). Target’s price was $10 more than Costco but we had just gotten a $10 off coupon at the pharmacy for Joe getting his flu shot, so it ended up being a little less with the Target card 5% discount.

It’s similar is size to the old microwave – about an 8th of an inch shorter in width and slightly taller, but capacity wise it’s slightly larger (1.2 vs 1.1 cubic feet) and a little more powerful (1250 watts vs 1100). I don’t love the split color scheme or the reflectiveness of it, but oh well, I will get used to it like I had to do with our refrigerator. Sound wise I find it to be a little deeper, and it was annoying me this morning, but the old microwave was irritating my ears lately too.

Other things I do not like about the new microwave:

— The keypad is so dark yet reflective it’s difficult to read the text on the buttons.

— Because the door is stainless steel, fingerprints quickly accumulate. We will have to adjust how we handle the door, but using the bottom or top so as to not leave marks. I’m glad we didn’t get the Costco version where the stainless steel was on the buttons (although at least those can be read easier).

— The cooling fan is so powerful you get a cold breeze on you if you’re standing in front of the unit while it’s running. Unlike the old microwave where the vents were on the left side but toward the back of the unit, this one is closer to the front. There must also be fans on the bottom of it because the breeze seems to be coming from the left bottom half of the unit. It’s quite weird. I don’t recall ever feeling any air on me when the old unit was running.

— The unit is very lightweight compare to the old microwave so every time you use it, it shifts on the stand.

— The inside is dark which makes it feel less inviting.

— The bulb is a white-light LED which makes that cold and uninviting feeling more noticeable.

— The running time on the display is shown as a decimal instead of a colon. The colon only appears for the clock.

— After pressing the 30 second button, you still have to press start (old unit would start after a brief delay (to make sure you weren’t going to press the button to add more time)).

— After cooking is complete, a zero remains on the display for a minute before going back to the clock even if you’ve opened the door to remove the food. No one thought to program it to reset once the door has been opened.

It does heat up things more evenly than the old unit, though, so there’s that. I just wish more thought was put into the design. Everyone is trying to make appliances look sleek yet forget about the user experience.

We are slowly going from all white appliances in the kitchen to stainless steel. Personally, I don’t care for stainless due to how easily it is to see fingerprints and other marks on it, but there are more options in stainless appliances than in white these days. In fact, I couldn’t find a Panasonic white microwave with an inverter or I would have considered it.

Oh and in case you weren’t aware – “inverter microwaves offer continuous, graduated power for more even cooking, better preservation of food texture and nutrients, and improved energy efficiency compared to traditional microwaves, which use a full-power, on-and-off cycling system”.