Good morning. Hello. How are you? #391
Losing parents, doing nothing in business, gardening update, mystery plants at the storage unit, rousing Civ VI diplo victories, tornado warnings and clog store nostalgia.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? I hope you’re doing all right. Two of my closest friends have lost a parent in the last week. One was a while in the making, one was brutally, swiftly sudden. Hard to say which was worse. My thoughts and love go out to them. Losing a parent is brutal. Still haven’t gotten back to Alaska to say goodbye to my dad, but it looks like it’s happening in June. It’ll be my first trip in ages. I am terrified. But it’s necessary. In a way, I think I’m glad for the delay. Dealing with a funeral and other people right after losing a parent feels like too much. I’m thankful for the delay, for the relatively low key affair it’ll be.
It’s a hard time for a lot of people right now. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel but it sure can feel like it’s just a pinprick. But, you know, things can get better. God, it sounds so trite. But I remember earlier this year, stuck in that hotel, with my mom not doing well at all, and I was really overwhelmed. Saw no real way to get through it. But her we are, just a few months later, and everything is different. Sometimes we just have to endure time passing.
Actually, to change the topic a bit — this is a HUGE secret in business, I think. So many businesses think they have to keep moving, keep hustling, keep doing shit. So they have their core idea, and it’s perfectly good, but it’s going to take a little time. But instead of just sitting there waiting for things to click into place, they go raise, like, $30 million, dilute everyone, and work on robot cars or some shit that eventually they have to write off as a loss. And it was all a total distraction from their decent, core business idea, and they would have been better just sitting there doing nothing for six months or a year. And actually I have never heard a single investor or business pundit speak of this even once, but it is totally a thing.
Programming note: Aug informs me it’s Fightmilk, no L. Not Flightmilk. I like Flightmilk better.
I finished up my gardening video for the week if you are into that sort of thing (N.B. you are not into that sort of thing. That’s totally fine. I am making them mainly for myself to remember what I did because gardening requires recordkeeping, I’m finding). Here it is:
I got a bit more gardening done yesterday. Went and bought a bunch more dirt. So much dirt. Planted an additional tomato plant, because a squirrel seems to have taken the top right off of my Mortgage Lifer and it’s not clear it’s going to keep going. Planted the grocery store Thyme I finally found.
But really, I’m not gonna lie. I spent most of the day playing Civilization VI. There was a new patch recently and I wanted to check out the new Spain. Man, that Mission building is a fantastic improvement. I was going for a science victory — no easy feat in a game with the Kongo and the Koreans in it — but Scythia and Korea kept attacking me. It was ridiculous. Just leave me alone, maaaaan. But I have gotten a lot better with war — especially in Heroes and Legends mode. I don’t just turtle up, and I don’t try and take their cities. What I do is pillage. Lots and lots of pillage. Just RUIN them so they’ll feel the pain of the war for centuries to come. This works great — it completely ruins their chances of winning. But they’re AIs so they don’t actually learn their lesson. And they attacked again. Both of them attacked me twice. So the second time, I took Korea’s capital to put an end to it. But then that triggered an international emergency, and Holland joined the war. Like. Okay. These people have spent all of human history attacking me, a peaceful civ who’s never declared war on anyone. But I defend myself (and ransack their capital, sure) and now I’m the bad guy. Well, the joke’s on you, because I took on all three of them, took over Scythia’s capital too, and like six of Holland’s cities. By the time the 30-turn emergency challenge was over, they were all ruined, declared peace with their tail between their legs, and each paid me 300+ gold per turn in reparations because I am evil America under Bernard Baruch and Woodrow Wilson and I am going to milk these people and forment fascism in their broke-ass, raparations-addled countries. Well, the joke’s on you again because I am psychic, and I keep predicting what all you losers are going to vote for in the international congress, and I get 1 diplomacy point each time I’m correct, plus I built the statue of liberty, so didn’t even have to leave the solar system, I won on a diplomacy victory cuz you losers are so predictable.
Oh I also dropped some stuff off at the storage unit and I snapped a picture of this plant that I am obsessed with. You know the rule about how every property has to take care of their own drainage? Well, maybe you don’t. But out here in the country that’s, like, a rule: You can’t build your property so all of your water washes off onto someone else’s property. You gotta deal with your own drainage. It’s why there are so many little ponds everywhere. Which is the approach this storage unit has taken: there is a big pond behind it. Which is fine and normal. But there’s this one weird plant growing there:
Like what is that? A Rhubarb? It’s so out of place. It’s really weird. How did it get there. Did they plant it? It feels like not? Did an errant seed get there from… where? Someone’s storage unit? The forest? No explanation makes any sense. Every time I drive by, I am very confused.
But the big excitement is we had a tornado warning! Not a watch but a warning! With the whole “seek shelter this thing is headed your way in fifteen minutes.” I was right in the middle of cooking dinner, but I got it done beforehand and brought it downstairs. In the end, we got some rough rain and some hail, but nothing too crazy. The plants seem fine (though I haven’t gone out yet to check for sure). I forgot to take any pictures but this dude on Nextdoor in the suburban hood down the highway took this one. Dramatic!
Anyway, fun adventure. Thankfully turned out to be nothing. Jane enjoyed eating dinner in the basement. And it reminded me I have to find a place in the basement for the emergency equipment instead of on the main floor. Been meaning to do that. Hopefully I remember it till next weekend.
Finally, I was thinking about the Clog Store in Cambridge yesterday. Emma bought me some gardening crocs (I know), and it made me think about how the Clog Store was really ahead of its time. And so many of my friends worked there. I can’t remember who, though? I feel like Damon worked there? Carla maybe? Really was an institution. I was thinking about how Win Butler from the Arcade Fire worked there when they lived in Boston before they were famous. And I was wondering if the clog store was still in business. Seems like it is? Seems like they changed their name a few years back to Cambridge Clogs, from Vintage Etc. That is a good name change. Their Facebook page seems to have petered out in 2016, but their website looks relatively up-to-date? No COVID information, though, so hard to say. But I do love that their Yelp page actually has a photo of Win Butler on it. That’s kinda funny. Anyway, that place was great. I shoulda bought more clogs from there. They were really onto something.
Got a club mix for you today. It’s a fun one. Classics, some new things, well, mostly classics. Well, not classics. Someday-classics. Soon-to-be classics. Almost-classics. Well, it definitely ends on three classics. Man, that’s a good run of tunes at the end there. Re-live the early 2000’s like you’re feeling nostalgia. Shit, they were basically 20 years ago. You’re allowed to feel nostalgia for them, even if they were this century. Not sure how I feel about that.
Have a good day. Hang in there. Don’t let the clouds get you down. Not the metaphorical ones, not the actual ones.
Oh! And we were talking about gas stoves, once, right? I am sad https://coloradosun.com/2021/05/11/building-electrification-gas-homes/
That weird plant reminds me of the gigantic weird plants that grow in the spaces between buildings in NYC (Washington Heights, Brooklyn moreso than lower Manhattan where there is so little green.)