The week gone by — Jan. 31

It hasn’t happened much since college, but maybe I should have been more annoyed when people asked me why I didn’t drink.

After all, I wasn’t asking them “Why is your idea of a good time drinking so much that you’ll possibly make yourself sick tonight and probably feel terrible tomorrow morning … with the extra added attraction of potentially making very poor decisions about who you go home with and what you’ll do once you get there?”

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Remembering happy days at work

I don’t know if I should start with the meeting in the Cape Cod conference room or the insomnia-induced emails that got us to that point.

Either way, I must include that Saturday afternoon, when I was interviewing for a job in a T-shirt and jeans because the offer for the interview came up while Suzi and I were house-hunting after she got a job on the Cape and therefore we were going to be moving from where we had been living outside Albany.

And while that was going on, my father-in-law poked his head in to ask if there were any restrooms in the building.

The week gone by — Jan. 24

Gather around everybody. I have something to tell you.

Consider it a public service announcement … if you will.

Treasure … if you can find it

Our travels started — delayed a week by icy conditions on the route — at the end of December on a trail alongside an abandoned train depot.

I wondered what stories it could tell.

The week gone by — Jan. 17

I talk to my grandmother and parents in New York every Sunday night.

Last week, I made sure to tell them as much as I knew about the state’s updated COVID vaccination plan, which was being opened to residents over 75 the next day. (My grandmother is over 80.)

I had to let my mother know because, even though I didn’t know the details, I assumed there was an online element, and my grandmother doesn’t use computers.

We hardly ever get the ‘full story’

If you ask the average American what they know about South Africa, I’m going to guess the answer will probably be apartheid and Nelson Mandela.

Maybe you’ll get some people who remember then men’s soccer World Cup in 2010, or even those who — especially if the saw the movie “Invictus” or read “Playing the Enemy,” the book upon which it was based (I’ve done both) — are aware of the country’s famed Springboks national rugby team.

But apartheid and Nelson Mandela is probably what you’re going to get, mostly because that’s what we’ve heard about South Africa.

Birthday candles, toilet paper and the next ‘0’

I’m not entirely sure what Suzi and I will do for her birthday at the end of this month.

Normally, we’d go to one of the restaurants where we eat for special occasions, but this year, we’ll probably just order take-out and eat at home.

But one thing I do know is that, whether dessert is cake or cupcakes like we did last year, we’ll have a “9” candle for the second number of her age, since she bought one the other day.

The week gone by — Jan. 10

“What do you want to get for lunch?” (Note: This can also apply to dinner.)

“You know what I like, so whatever is fine.”

”Do you want Italian? Chicken? Burgers?”

Time to move on

The Christmas tree, the stockings — including the “Meow” one for Sasha that everyone likes so much — and the candles that come on by themselves when the light is low, meaning I don’t have to turn them on and off every night … they’re all put away now.

Suzi did most of the work on the tree, although I untwisted the lights from the branches, the beads and each other. Although they didn’t all go out when one went out, enough strings malfunctioned that we had to fill in the gaps with unused lights.

We’ve since acquired colored lights to replace the jury-rigged white ones, along with garland, so the tree will look different this year.

The week gone by — Jan. 3*

*And maybe some more, since last week was a bit slow and I didn’t do an actual recap the week before. My blog, my rules.

In news that should be as shocking as Tuesday following Monday, the top term on Lake Superior State’s 2021 list of banished words — complied since 1976 “to uphold, protect, and support excellence in language by encouraging avoidance of words and terms that are overworked, redundant, oxymoronic, clichéd, illogical, nonsensical—and otherwise ineffective, baffling, or irritating” — is “COVID-19” or any version of the word.

And like Wednesday follows Tuesday, the second word is “social distancing.”