Happy Friday! Today is National Chopstick Day (I’m not great with chopsticks, but I can use them) and National Bubble Gum Day (I was a Way Out Watermelon Bubblicious girl).
Holy hell, what a week. Everything’s difficult and the world is on fire and I know I constantly say this but: my nattering on here does not mean I’m unaware of the terrible. My mental health is SHREDDED but luckily the past six years have taught me a lot about continuing to do a good job at work while everything seems to crumble.
The snow from two weeks ago hasn’t melted yet. It’s been so frigid that Murphy can walk atop the snow without falling through. And it’s snowing again. Huzzah.
But at least I’m not sick anymore. That’s good.
Here is the Friday 5 – this week’s theme is The Body Electric.
- What caused you recently to wrinkle your nose?
I live in the vicinity of a coffee roastery. It’s been around for decades and when it’s in operation it gives the neighborhood a lovely toasty-breakfasty aroma. The other day I think they burnt their beans. - What caused your brain recently to explode?
The rapid decent of the NJ Devils this hockey season. I think we potentially need a new GM, absolutely need a new coach, and need to offload both Hughes brothers (separately) so that we can invest in a team that can create stars rather than hoping your stars can create a team.
“But Jack MIGHT be great! A generational talent, even!”
Perhaps, but 1) he’s fragile, and 2) he was great for two years and then every other team studied his game tapes. I don’t want the team to mired down by a sunk cost fallacy.
Maybe I’m wrong. After all, this restaurant has now been open for over 20 years. (One thing about me, I do not dirty-delete my mistakes.) I’ve been there once since my last update in 2017. It was still pretty meh. Sorry, Ted. - What caused you recently to roll your eyes?
The existence of a counter-program to the Super bowl halftime show featuring American citizen Bad Bunny. Y’know I hope next year the halftime show is Win Bootson1, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Lainey Wilson with special guest Uncle Kracker so the ratings will tank and the conservative country music fans will shut up already. - What inspired you recently to shake a tailfeather?
Watching Sabrina Carpenter and Kermit duet Islands in the Stream on the new episode Muppet Show Tuesday night. The show was perfect! It had some callbacks to the show’s illustrious past while avoiding being shackled to the cult of nostalgia. - What has recently been a thorn in your side?
The piles of snow everywhere. Walking around is difficult, the cars are frosted over every day, and the poor dog spins out in the yard when he tries to chase squirrels.
I’m going to attempt to do all of my weekend chores tomorrow so I can loaf on Sunday. Do I have a post for Monday yet? No, no I don’t. I’ll figure something out.
And in honor of National Bubblegum Day, enjoy an ad!
- Win Bootson is a character from my own imagination. His name is Winchester Bootson and he is an adequate singer and guitar player in a small town. Every Tuesday night he opens at the Bar Down By The Fork (bar name? location? why not both?) and he releases his songs on Youtube. His sister is Remington (Remi) Bootson and his brother is Smith Wesson Bootson. Sometimes I am tempted to get AI to write some songs and create a whole online existence for this fake guy. ↩︎
I’m in three writing challenges this weekend so I have to save that new Muppet Show for later, but I cannot wait. Hardcore fan of the original show!
I hope you love it!
We loved the new Muppet Show! We got a little verklempt at the note-perfect redo of the original opener and seeing so many familiar Muppet “faces”. It felt like a little vacation during this horrible time in the US. So glad we weren’t the only ones who enjoyed it. ❤️
I teared up at the opener and honestly if they had ended the show with Rainbow Connection I probably would still be crying. I hope hope hope it gets picked up for a series.
This comment is in response to this post: https://kimberussell.com/2025/08/08/friday-5-in-vino-veritas
Your answer about truth being found in nature is so solid. I was mostly an English and computer teacher when I taught HS, but I taught a lot of math, too. And one of my teaching partners, a geometry teacher, had some kind of leaf (the sort growing on trees we don’t have here, the sort that turn red or orange and fall to the ground in autumn) glued to a piece of cardstock. It was, you know. One of those leaves with arms like a starfish or something (see? I don’t even have LANGUAGE to talk about leaves like this). She’d drawn lines from one tip of the leaf’s arms to the next, going all around the leaf, leaving a perfect pentagon. She wrote beneath the leaf: Math is everywhere. And if math is the language of science, then you can see how she was such a great teacher (although later, when she was my principal, she fired me, so she definitely wasn’t perfect). She saw math as a way to see truth and beauty (or beauty as a way to truth), and THAT’s why it’s good to understand it. So yeah thanks for this great answer. I’m getting all nostalgic for my teaching years now.