Syllabus #223

We discovered that HBO Max is live streaming playoff baseball, so we have been watching the Phillies games.  I'm getting really into it.  I think baseball is my sport.  It's certainly the only one I can follow and understand, and I've never been groped by the mascot of another professional sport (I'm looking at you, Phanatic).  But anyway, even though it's on HBO, it's just a live stream of whatever TBS is broadcasting, so there are still commercials.  Which is wild, because I haven't watched TV with commercials in years, and all of a sudden I'm confronted with all these dumb products and services that we are supposed to want, that I honestly never even knew existed.  Like a Viagra-ordering website called FridayNightPlans.com?  Ew.  Also, it's apparently a rule that either Jennifer Garner or Pete Davidson must be in every commercial now?  I've missed so much.

It me

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Last Sunday, I made this Irish Seafood Chowder, but of course I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  I followed it in spirit.  I'm not about to buy fresh clams from either the Murder Kroger or the Always Smells Like Farts Kroger (doubt they even sell them), and I'm not schlepping across the river to Whole Foods to spend an inordinate amount of time and money on a meal that Andy will only begrudgingly admit is 'okay.'  So I used canned smoked oysters and canned smoked trout plus cod and mahi mahi out of the freezer.  I had but one sad piece of each fish languishing in packages that had contained an odd number of filets, which is annoying in a 2-person household.  And then I couldn't find leeks at Kroger (shocking) so I used a couple shallots and some yellow onion.  And then I didn't want to buy a whole container of half and half to use only 3/4 of a cup and have no earthly use for the rest, so I just used 2% milk.  Oh and I didn't have fish stock so I used vegetable stock and threw in a couple dashes of fish sauce.  How am I even allowed in the kitchen?  I thought it was great; Andy, naturally, deemed it 'okay.'  It paired well with this soda bread recipe, sliced hot and slathered with salted butter.

We are having our first book fair of the year this week, and my mom is just a glutton for punishment very helpful and likes books and children (and, I suppose, me) enough to come and help me run the fair.  We are in for a real treat this week.  After setting up the fair on Friday after school, I can confirm there does not appear to be anything questionable on the Celebrate Every Voice cart, and honestly I find it offensive that anyone would argue otherwise.  I'm not worried about anyone objecting to the content.  I'm just bracing myself for the onslaught of the kids who bring in a sock full of uncounted loose change, and the ones who hand over a sweaty fistful of crumpled dollar bills, and the ones who think 7 pennies is "seven monies" and that they can use their riches to buy the hardcover book with the shark tooth that costs $18.99 plus tax.  Oh and don't get me started on sales tax.  Or the specific family who thinks it is acceptable to purchase books on day one and try to return them on day five after they have very obviously been read from cover to cover.  But if any student asks, I'M SO EXCITED.

Analog Reading:

Finished Zadie Smith's The Fraud.  Wow.  The amount of research and planning and craft that must go into such a book makes me feel inarticulate.  

Breezed through R. Eric Thomas's collection of humorous personal essays, Congratulations, the Best is Over!  It was great!  Hilarious, insightful, irreverent, poignant, all the words that show in blurbs on a book jacket, but for real.  He is now in my pantheon of humor writers who could write the copy on a package of hemorrhoid cream and I'd be thrilled to use it:  David Sedaris, Samantha Irby, Chelsea Handler, I feel like I'm forgetting someone but that might be it.  

About to begin Jennifer Weiner's The Breakaway.  It sounds fun!