Luw.

– The faithful slow cooker, it gets old; the display is starting to go. The other day I made slow cooker French onion soup. Good for days when you’re not going into the office and you can slice up six or seven onions in the morning without worrying about offending anybody.

I was surprised when we went to the French restaurant not long ago that none of the three of us ordered French onion soup. We make it frequently enough that I figured one of us would want to compare the home version to a professionally made equivalent. I sat with a view of the kitchen, and watched small tureens come through the doors all night, but none stopped at our table. Some other time.

– Last night I was listening to AC/DC’s Blow Up Your Video, a 1988 album that I briefly owned on vinyl as a youth and then traded back in. It is one of those that can be found in full on the Internet Archive. (I would have saved my $1 in 1990 if I’d known I could hear it for free online in 2023. There’s nothing there I couldn’t have waited for.)

I found myself contemplating the narrow line between a good AC/DC album and a horrid one. The riffs are dumb and simple on Blow Up Your Video, while the lyrics are sexist and formulaic … but the same can be said for all their good albums too. (“Good” being a relative term, perhaps I really mean their “successful” albums, or the albums on which people generally seemed to welcome what they had to offer.)

– Completed an annoying annual task over the weekend. I only have to do it twice more in my life. Huzzah!

As the years pass, the kids get older, etc., the once-familiar tasks that drop from life’s list start to add up. I shredded many years’ worth of old financial documents recently, and along the way I came across a check receipt for the kids’ old day care in Pennsylvania. I took a cell phone pic, shared it with wife and kids, and then shredded the receipt cheerfully into oblivion along with about 10,000 other documents.

I thought for a moment about Googling the place to see if it’s still open, then thought, “the hell with it.” It was run by an older couple who have most likely sold out and moved on by now … so even if it’s still there it’s not really the same place.

– The younger son goes back to college in NYC this coming weekend, ending a lengthy winter break. Pretty sure he’s ready. Older son went back several weeks ago; pretty sure he was ready too.