Happiness?

Being the last individually-written blog post of the semester, the author of this blog would like to tone it down a bit from their normal vitriol and constant complaining.

Perhaps, and just perhaps, the world could do with a little happiness. 

It’s difficult to be happy, the author reassures. The world often conspires against the best of people for no reason at all. 

Nevertheless, we persist. 

Sometimes, we can just enjoy the moment. 

You get off of a long day and step outside to falling leaves & your favorite song. Maybe the saxophone solo kicks in. Maybe its an 808, but an out-of-tune piano. Maybe you listen to Paleolithic Death Techno. That’s chill. You’re happy. 

You drive home, pull up to the garage and your dog greets you at the door. Maybe you don’t have a dog. Maybe you have a cat who barely acknowledges your existence, and when you come to the door, it looks at you out of the corner of its eye from the next room over. You smile. You’re happy. 

Maybe driving makes you happy, maybe its walking. Perhaps its watching Gossip Girl on the couch alone, perhaps its playing a show at your favorite dive bar with your dumbass, goofy friends. You could love working, or you could never want to work again. Whatever makes you happy. 

The author of this post is not pleading for you to be happy all the time. If they were being completely honest with themselves, it’s probably not all that healthy. 

They would advise you simply enjoy the happy moments you have. It’s not a particularly new idea; Keats has the author of this post beat by several hundred years.

You probably deserve it. Unless you’re a racist. But you’re probably not. 

Probably. 

You deserve happiness. Have a glass of wine. Treat yo self. Hug your dog despite its sad eyes wishing you not to.

If ya ever need a pick-me-up, HTAOTPU (hit the author of this post up). They may not be the best shoulder to cry on, but they will provide some sick-ass music suggestions and maybe even a pizza.

Here’s a cat and a wonderful, wonderful human being. 
Much love to everyone.  

Happiness in a Single Photo

Managing Your Time: DO’s and DONT’s

This week, we’re going for a bit of a meta route, in which case I am writing about time management for your stressful week.

Why, you might ask? Note that this blog is being posted on Wednesday, and my posts are normally posted by Monday. Mhm.

Maybe I shouldn’t be the one offering advice. Alas, here we go.

The DO’s

• Create a list of all the things you need to accomplish! Make sure you note the page-lengths of all six of your papers that are due in a five-day-span, so that you don’t write four pages, when ya really should’ve written five. 
• Drink lots and lots of water! Getting up to pee every twenty minutes should provide you with enough exercise for you to avoid muscular dystrophy.
• Hang out with your friends! Tests and papers are nothing compared to the friends you made along the way. Besides, maybe they can help you brainstorm while you procrastinate!
• Own a laptop that works! That’s it! All you have to do is own a working laptop. Make sure and save all your files before your laptop inevitably fails during mid-term week.

The DONT’s

• Make sure you don’t waste the week before your stressful week doing illicit substances, like drugs, alcohol, or any generally fun activities! You don’t have time for fun! 
• Definitely do not call your parents. They will want to talk to you all night, and you can’t afford that. You have stuff to do. Block them on social media, ignore their phone calls.
• Don’t NOT have a working laptop. Repeating this one, not at all for personal reasons.
• Absolutely do not contact your professors asking for an extension. They hate that, and will hate you because of it. Turn in a terrible copy over no copy, because leniency is not something you have the privilege of getting.

We hope that some of this advice is useful to you! Maybe some of it is actually good advice–who’s to say?

Definitely not me.

My true advice?

Do your fucking best. If you don’t succeed, whatever. You tried. That’s enough.

Live the Spicy Life

Sitting on the couch.

You feel it. You need it.

Get up.

Walk to the kitchen.

Open the refrigerator.

Pick one.

Unscrew the lid.

Fill the cap.

Drain it.

(pause)

            Success. 

Congratulations. You are officially a hot sauce enthusiast, or, as Hot Ones host Sean Evans would put it, a “spice lord”.

Hot sauce, while supposedly just a condiment, constitutes a way of life for those of us who indulge. By the end of the week, I will have 30 hot sauces in the fridge.

Secret Aardvark Collection of Sauces

I can give a decent estimate of what these cost. I have won 4 of them and were gifted 5–those were all free. The other 21 sauces I have bought either at Kroger, the Douglass Loop Farmer’s Market, or online at heathotsauce.com. Each sauce costs somewhere between 5 and 9 dollars, so we will estimate at a reasonable $7 a pop, plus 3 shipping fees of $5.99 each when ordering online.

 

 

In which case, I have spent roughly $165 on hot sauce. That’s crazy behavior, of course, but what can ya say? People have hobbies. I’ll give you the run down of mine.

Hot sauce is generally made using two ingredients: 1) some form of vinegar and 2) a pepper. Generally, you then add spices, fruits, salt, etc. They come in a variety of flavors, including pineapple, cumin, all-spice–whatever your favorite flavor, a hot sauce uses it.

Of course, the spicier the pepper you include, the spicier the sauce, with few exceptions. This is because of the levels of capsaicin in each pepper. Capsaicin is the chemical in chili plants that makes them spicy. (Some sauces use Capsaicin extract, which makes them infinitely spicier while boasting less-spicy peppers).

Peppers and sauces are rated by the Scoville Scale, which, despite the fact that spiciness varies from person to person, does a decent job in facilitating comparison. For instance, a bell pepper has a Scoville rating of 0-100  compared to a jalapeno’s rating of 2,500 to 8,000, while neither is comparable to the Carolina Reaper at 1,641,000 – 2,200,000.

A Carolina Reaper is 440 times hotter than a jalapeno paper. They are generally not fun to eat.

The Carolina Reaper

While some hot sauce enthusiasts attempt to assert their masculinity by “enjoying” sauces that sacrifice flavor for heat, I don’t. I generally stay under 70,000 Scoville, and I’m most comfortable around 30,000.

Below, I’ll give you three suggestions on sauces to try if you like spice, but have only ever had Tabasco and Sriracha. It’s an eye opening experience.

Warn your wallet.

1. Dirty Dick’s Hot Sauce sits at a medium on my pallet. It has sweet flavors of banana and pineapple, with a barbecue-like twist into the spice. Goes excellent on chicken, or just on your finger.
2. Queen Majesty’s Scotch Bonnet and Ginger Sauce is my partner’s favorite sauce, and the name doesn’t lie. It’s on the low end of the scale, and tastes excellent on Asian-inspired dishes.
3. Secret Aardvark’s Serrabanero Sauce delivers on the promise of every Secret Aardvark sauce so far. It’s my favorite green sauce, and delivers when used on Mexican food or pizza. Finding a green sauce is difficult for me, since I don’t like jalapeno flavors. This one packs a medium punch, and is hard to put down.

Have a spicy rest of your day, folks.

Cat Under a Deer Park Roof

Compared with the tragic characters in Tennessee William’s 1955 Pulitzer prize-winning play, the average domestic cat most likely lives his life much more enjoyably. The cat’s daily actions might include sleeping, eating, and wandering, if only those activities.

One particular cat in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky  does precisely that, with maybe one or two extra hobbies to note.

His name is Thisbe, and his life is quite simple.

Thisbe’s day may start at any point in the early morning, but his first notable interaction with humans happens around 6:15 A.M. every weekday morning.

The creek of footsteps on stairs triggers his ears to stand up, jump off his resting place on the couch, and meet his owner on the way to a shower.

While he does not get fed until 8 A.M., his loud pleading starts at 6:15 A.M. It is unclear whether Thisbe has any concept of linear time.

At 6:30, Thisbe follows his owner, Bayne, into the bathroom, where he sits and waits patiently on the bathmat.

Thisbe has Feline Viral Rhinopneumonitis, more commonly known as feline herpes, which induces constant sneezing, wheezing, and congestion. The steam from the shower loosens the mucus in his nose, allowing him to breathe more easily in the coming hours.

Post-shower Thisbe enjoys a 1/4 cup of food from a cupboard in the kitchen. When his owners transfers his food from bag to food bowl is when Thisbe gets his only true exercise for the day.

When his owners are home, Thisbe spends most of his day sleeping on the arms and back of the red couch in the living room. In breaks from sleep, he flexes his claws into the same couch, or licks the crumbs off of leftover dinner plates.

Thisbe often interrupts his owner’s activities, jumping into their laps, only to knead them in a trance-like state for anywhere between 30 seconds and 20 minutes. His owners can only speculate about why he does this, but have concluded that it is most likely something sexual in nature.

On days when his owners are both out of his home, it is unknown what Thisbe’s day is like. We can assume it is mostly the same.

Thisbe is never alone, though, considering the presence of another feline companion. The other cat, Rudd, completes much of the same activities as Thisbe, with the notable additions of jumping on tall items and chasing flies. Thisbe does not interact with Rudd if at all possible, perhaps due to the age gap and subsequent personality conflict. (Thisbe is 7 years old, while Rudd is only 2).

Rudd (left) and Thisbe (right)

In the rare time in which there are several humans in his house, Thisbe is the star of the show, plopping himself in the middle of any action. He has the rare quality of universal friendliness that makes him an excellent cat to all humans he comes into contact with.

No matter his daily habits, it is clear by his purring and general affection that Thisbe enjoys his time at the house on Deer Park Avenue. We can only wait to find out what his life will entail in the coming years.

*We reached out to Thisbe for a comment, but he did not respond, except to sneeze and walk away.