GenX

Box of Wine

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Do you need a break? From what?
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It’s not really a “break,” but one thing I’d like to do is reduce the amount of stuff I throw out or toss into the recycling bin. I feel guilty whenever I get a lunch to go from Panera because of all the packaging waste it creates. I’ve been trying to stay and eat the food in the restaurant more often. (Our Panera is pleasant and sunny.) I rarely buy cups of coffee from Dunkin these days, but I still get the breakfast sandwiches – at least there’s no plastic in the packaging.

Wine bottles are something I was constantly buying and tossing in the bin. One option would be to drink less wine (probably not going to happen). A second option was to get over the stigma and try a box of wine. So, I purchased my first box of wine early last week. It’s “Black Box Tart & Tangy Sauvignon Blanc.” The box contains the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine (3 liters). It cost about $20 and it’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s decent. Also, it stays fresh in the box, so I think I may be drinking less wine because I’m not finishing it off quickly before it goes bad. I still have a lot of wine left in my first box.

So, I guess I’m taking a break from buying bottles of wine. I’m the kind of person who drinks wine from a box now. I’m open to any suggestions of good boxed white wines.

The boxed wine occupies some premium shelf space in the fridge, but you can slide it around pretty easily.

Fun post from another blogger about the Aussie history behind my box of wine:

Just a tipple

The Before Times

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

The most important invention in your lifetime is…

The internet. It was like that movie title: everything, everywhere, all at once. It really changed everything.

I honestly can’t remember how we did certain things before the internet. Obviously we did them, but how?

Here are some recollections of how we did some things in the before times:

Airline tickets – no idea

Restaurant reservations – called the restaurant

Job opportunities – read the classifieds in the back of the newspaper

Real estate – dealt with human realtors

Banking – went to physical banks, which was always a challenge because of their limited hours; everyone ran to the bank at lunch (or left work early) on payday

Spelling and writing – used a physical dictionary and thesaurus, which came in various sizes. Most homes had at least one huge, heavy dictionary with all the words.

News – watched the nightly network news and read newspapers, which got ink on your fingers

Travel planning – went to the library or bookstore travel section

Shopping – wandered around the mall

Dating – met people at school, work or through friends

Concerts tickets – can’t really remember, but have a vague recollection of calling Ticketmaster – over and over – trying to get through

Learning anything new – got books at the library or took a class

Popular culture (trends, celebrities, fashion) – read magazines; magazines were huge

I was always very happy to receive my monthly Seventeen magazine, especially if Phoebe Cates was on the cover.

The Grammys

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments

Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

I don’t know about my ideal day, but last night was pretty much my ideal Grammys. GenX, am I right?

I mean, Tracy Chapman performing “Fast Car” with Luke Combs (her voice still sounds great and she looks fantastic), Annie Lenox singing “Nothing Compares To You” in memory of Sinéad, Fantasia Barrino as Tina Turner, Billy Joel with his first new song in 30 years, and JONI MITCHELL absolutely wrecking us with that rendition of “Both Sides Now” – at age 80, after a brain aneurysm.

Well done, Grammys.

I also give two thumbs up to the new Netflix documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop.” It’s about the night they recorded We Are the World in 1985, which won Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson a Grammy for best song.

A seated Joni Mitchell performing Both Sides Now, with Brandi Carlile and other musicians at the Grammys last night 😭
GenX icon Tracy Chapman, age 59, singing “Fast Car” at the 2024 Grammy Awards

Pay attention to the journey

~ MaryG ~ 20 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
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“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”

Is that actually a John Lennon quote or does it just get attributed to him? I don’t know.

In any case, I think that’s the lesson you learn – again and again.

Through age 50 or so, life seems to be all about achieving your goals. Education, career, marriage, home, children. Once you know your life is definitely more than half over (less than 1% of Americans live to 100), you start realizing that life isn’t so much about the destination (or goals achieved), as it is about the journey.

When my best friend from college died in 2022, shortly after realizing her lifelong dream of moving back to New Mexico, I was surprised by the depth of my grief. We didn’t see each other or talk often anymore, but we’d been extremely close for many years and she’d had a huge influence on me.

I got to visit her one last time in Santa Fe, when she was dying. I brought a lot of photos and we when we were scrolling through them, she said things like “we were so happy” and “we were so lucky.” And we were. But back then, we were always planning, dreaming, GOING. We didn’t realize that the good times we were in the midst of would be amongst the most cherished memories of our lives.

So my advice from the wise old age of 58 is to pay attention to the trip you’re on while it’s happening – and especially to your fellow travelers. That co-worker who always gives you great advice may turn out to have been one of the best mentors you ever had. That church you joined, only because you wanted to sing in a choir, might turn out to be your most important source of support in retirement. Those high school best friends that knew your family growing up may turn out be the people you can tell anything later in life because they know it all.

Goals are important, but it’s the unplanned “little” stuff you did along the way that you’ll remember. Pay attention to it all.

Good times with Carla in New Mexico in 1994, when she was about 7 months pregnant with her first child and absolutely glowing with happiness.

Related post:

Insight meditation

Attic, basement, garage

~ MaryG ~ 1 Comment

Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.

I never get around to cleaning out the attic, basement, or garage. I’ll pick away at certain things – like old toys and books – but only a move is going to make me really clean out those areas.

The attic has a lot of memorabilia. The basement has a lot of toys and photographs. The garage has a lot of tools and equipment.

The garage bugs me the most, because I see it everyday. The basement and the attic are easy to ignore. Out of sight, out of mind.

Next Wednesday is another opportunity to get rid of stuff. All I have to do is lug it out to the driveway by 7am.

This nonprofit organization makes it pretty easy to donate the items listed.

Soups and Stews

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

Lately I’ve been making soups and stews. I’ve been trying out some recipes from NYT cooking. Their instagram feed always sucks me right in.

I use either my slow cooker (a.k.a crockpot) or my 4.5 quart Le Creuset Dutch Oven. I have a green Le Creuset, which I received as a gift from my mother decades ago. Le Creuset Dutch Ovens are a big investment, but in my opinion, every kitchen in a cold weather climate should have one. I can’t believe how many colors they come in now!

Recently, I made the NYT “Old Fashioned Beef Stew” in my Le Creuset. It was delicious. (I got the stew beef at Whole Foods and it was high quality.)

Beef stew underway in my Le Creuset

I also made the NYT Tortellini Soup in Le Creuset, which I really liked and will definitely make again.

Here’s the finished Tortellini Soup. The green is baby spinach. Also, it’s garnished with fresh basil and Parmesan.

Last night, I tried the NYT Slow-Cooker Chicken Stew with Spinach, Lemon and Feta. Obviously I made this one in the slow cooker rather than Le Creuset. I liked it. It has a Greek vibe. It’s very garlicky and has a real kick to it. I might try it again with a few adjustments.

Here’s the chicken stew garnished with crumbled feta and pita chips.
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IT guys in the family

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Write about your first computer.
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My father bought the family an early computer/word processor in the mid-80s. (He was an engineer and always one of the first to embrace technology.) It had no hard drive. It used disks. He convinced me to write a 20-page college term paper on it and somehow I deleted the entire thing, before I could print it out. My work could not be retrieved. I was so mad. I didn’t use computers again for years. I wrote all my remaining papers for college by hand or typed them on a typewriter (or both).

After I met my husband in the early 1990s, he became my IT guy. I remember I was very suspicious of any and all new technology (like e-mail) and had to be convinced that I would not lose my work.

The culprit looked something like this.

Layers and Fans

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments
Bloganuary writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
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This is an easy one. I’m never the right temperature and I let people around me know (primarily my husband). Typically I’m too hot, but that can very quickly change to too cold, once I start to sweat and there’s any kind of breeze. The only real solution is to wear layers that I can whip on and off easily. I also wear a hair elastic on my wrist at all times – for quickly getting my hair up and off my neck.

For men and younger women: hot flashes are actually real, and not just something made up by the pharmaceutical industry. In the grand scheme of things, they’re not that big a deal, especially considering everything else women deal with prior to menopause. (I’ll take the hot flashes over debilitating cramps or blood loss resembling a murder scene.) But they are annoying, so please do us a favor and put on a sweatshirt if you’re cold. And do not, under any circumstances, crank the heat without asking. Also, if you have a house guest in this demographic, it would be very thoughtful of you to leave a fan in your guest room, especially if there’s no ceiling fan.

Speaking of the pharmaceutical industry, have you seen the ad for Veozah? It’s the new hormone-free medication for hot flashes with a known side effect of…get this…hot flashes. Geniuses!

OK, enough bitching about menopause for today. It’s the least of women’s problems these days.

Free gift article from The Atlantic:

Texas Becomes an Abortion Dystopia

Sports Mom

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments

What are your favorite sports to watch and play?

I played a bit of competitive tennis when I was young, but I was never much of an athlete. However, I really enjoyed watching my son play soccer, basketball and lacrosse for many years. He loved playing sports.

I felt awful that his senior lacrosse season got cancelled because of Covid. He was a team captain, and he and his friends had been playing together since 5th grade. Because of the lockdown, they never got to play a single game together as seniors in high school. It totally sucked. Lacrosse was his favorite sport. He played for a year in college, but we didn’t get to go to any of those games because of Covid. Fortunately, the games were available online so I got to see him score a goal in college. At the time, I thought I would still have many more chances to watch him play in person, but it turns out I didn’t.

It seems you never realize when something’s happening for the last time, while it’s going on. Just another reason to live in the moment and try to be present.

You need to bring a lot of layers to watch lacrosse in New England. 🥶

The college goal I got to watch online:

Related post:

Things I Will Miss About My Son’s “Cancelled” Senior Spring

Climate fatalism

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments
Bloganuary writing prompt
What would you do if you won the lottery?
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If I won the lottery ($10M or more), I’d buy a beach house with a large pool. It seems that climate change is wreaking havoc with all coastal areas, so it could be risky. But then again, Vermont and interior Maine have had historic flooding the past two years, so no place is safe. For some reason, I’d rather my deluxe, fantasy second home get washed away by the ocean in a hurricane than by some dumb brook that went haywire with rain. The ocean seems like a more worthy adversary.

I think I may be suffering from climate fatalism.