The Thumbtack website went to the dogs. It used to be such a convenient place to hire people locally. You’d post your project, people would look at it, tell you what it would cost, and you’d hire. 

And now, instead of real people looking at your project, the second you post, you get a bunch of automated, pre-recorded, completely meaningless quotes from companies. And real people seem to have disappeared from the website altogether.

It happens so often. A great useful website or app is eviscerated and rendered completely useless under the guise of promoting efficiency and convenience. Thumbtack is now super fast and efficient at delivering an entirely useless service. Yippee. 

If you spend time on social media, you can actually come to believe that the CDC banned 7 words from use. People are talking about it like it’s real. They are so eager to defend the word “evidence-based” that they support claims based on no evidence at all. 

I prepared myself a smoked salmon sandwich and was going to eat it when Klara grabbed it. I thought she’d try it and realize it’s not the flavor she likes. But she declared that it’s “yummy yummy!” and ate the whole thing. 

Do you, folks, think it’s safe? It feels like a very adult food. 

There was this short story in The New Yorker that I actually really liked. This is unusual because I tend to hate the fiction they publish. Here is the link to the story. It’s very realistic. People say it’s a typical milennial dating story but I’m way older than millennials, and I’ve been on that kind of date more than once. God, I hate dating. 

In any case, what’s really funny is not even the story but that it created some sort of a controversy because people thought it was a news story (or “newsy”, as a reader described it) and not fiction. 

And that’s the answer to why my profession is so important. The culture of reading and art appreciation needs to be taught. People can’t figure it out on their own because it’s a skill that has to be cultivated. 

Today we went to the traditional Brunch with Santa at the local restaurant. The event is so popular that we had to reserve the 9 am spot because everything else was taken weeks in advance. 

The reason why people like this brunch is that there’s Santa who distracts the kids while the parents gorge on a buffet of traditional Christmas foods like oysters, shrimp cocktail, wild rice pilaf, roasted zucchini, eggs Benedict, and smoked salmon blini. Klara’s favorite was the pasta and sundried tomatoes salad. 

While parents eat, you can hear them exclaim, “I’ve been to goshdarn IHOP over a hundred times this year. I deserve to have normal adult food one day a year!” “What’s goshdarn, Mommy? Mommy, what’s goshdarn? Mommy? Are we going to IHOP after this? Mommy????? Daddy, Mommy said we can go to IHOP after this. Can we go now?” After which the harried mommy makes a dash for more oysters.

The FB feed is filled with emotional pleas from people who are asking others not to give any spoilers from a movie that just came out and that seems to matter a lot. The possibility of staying off FB until they see the movie and avoiding spoilers in this way doesn’t seem to occur to anybody.

A propos of movies, has anybody seen the new “Orient Express”? I’m not sure I understand the point of the movie if everybody knows how it ends in advance. Agatha Christie’s novels are 100% about the the denouement. She didn’t create memorable characters, interesting dialogue, or anything but the famous final twists. Once you know the twist, why watch? 

Soviet people were convinced that paradise existed “overseas.” Every misfortune, every contretemps was narrated with the obligatory addendum of how nothing this untoward could have happened overseas where problems did not exist, period. (The hatred Russians feel for “the West” today originated in the discovery that life there was not fully paradisiacal. It’s that sense of betrayal when you discover that Santa isn’t real and there is no magic in the world.)

What’s really curious, though, is that there is a large class of Americans who are like that, too. They also think there’s a paradise and they bring it up with maniacal dedication. Like their Soviet counterparts, they believe that paradise is located overseas. Their Garden of Eden is a vaguely defined Northern Europe, and one ends up having the most tiresomely repetitive discussions with them. 

“I can’t have any dessert because I’m pre-diabetic.”

“Ugh! Here in the US half of the population is diabetic. We are so third-world! This doesn’t happen in other countries.”

“It’s hereditary. My grandfather died of diabetes.”

“You see! If this was in Western Europe, he’d live to be 80!”

“He did, actually.”

“And his healthcare would have been free! And it would have been of a much better quality!”

“He died in Ukraine.”

“Good for him! At least it wasn’t in this horrible country!”

At which point I begin to contemplate gorging on massive quantities of dessert with the goal of going into a hyperglycemic shock and escaping from this insane conversation.

An ad for a new local place:

Hey everyone come check out our delicious cupcakes and treat your dog to some pupcakes while you’re at it! Baked fresh along with all the other cupcakes.

It’s not part of the ad, either. It’s the entire thing.

Are they trying on purpose to keep people away? Who’s going to want cupcakes made right next to dog food? 

I never saw any people with dogs at the mall where this place is set up. But I saw crowds of people with kids. What kind of an idiot advertises for a demographic that doesn’t even exist in this region (we are a long way away from the kind of folks who want to take their dogs out for cupcakes while doing intermittent fasting on a way to pitching their startup) and repels the demographic that is there? 

People need to let go of their gifts once they present them to intended recepients. 

“Does Klara like the sweater I gave her? Can you send me a picture? Can you send me another picture where she’s wearing a skirt with it or a dress? I remember she had this really cute green dress with horse appliques. That one would go great with my sweater. I need the photo for my knitting club. Oh, the green dress is too small? Can you put it in her just for a sec while you snap the photo? Can I come over and take the photo myself because the light should be right?”

I’m having heart palpitations whenever this person says, “I have a gift for you!” I know that this gift will be too much work for me.

My new hobby is to sell things on the local FB page. The way it’s done in this area is very typical and never fails to freak out newcomers to the region. The way it’s set up is so that human contact is avoided as much as possible. You are supposed to leave whatever you are selling on the porch. Buyers will pick it up and leave money under the mat.

If you see people approach and come out to say hi, they get very spooked and react like you’ve committed a huge social faux pas. Sellers prefer to risk never getting any money (because nothing is to prevent buyers from not leaving money under the mat) if it lets them avoid exchanging a few words with human beings. 

Of course, I like finding cash under the mat every once in a while but it’s still creepy how scared people are of human contact. I mean, for me to find it excessive, it’s really got to be something quite notable.