January's Already Half Over?

I don't like that time feels like it passes quickly now, probably because I think the remaining quarter or less of my life will come to an end too soon. Plus, I'm mildly thanatophobic, to boot. Even briefly thinking about the possibility of my demise can send me into a full-on panic attack. I'm not ready to stop living, I'm not ready to get to a point where living in this body becomes uncomfortable. So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I went to see The Bucket List with Adele last Friday.

The draw was too irresistible. In addition to getting a ride to my eyeglasses place, where they could fix the missing nose guard for free, forever, there was also a chance to browse through Borders, get a latte at Starbucks, and peruse the goodies at The Teacake Bakeshop. And then there was Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman — the perfect corrupt bad boy and moral good boy combination. The subject matter... somewhat wistful. How many of us have written up a list of things we wanted to do before we die? Nowadays, I just make a list of things I want to try to cook before during the coming year. Either I'm managing my goals better, or I'm in denial that I am mortal.

Without creating a spoiler, all I can say is that the film in entertaining, there's some amusing parts, and moments that made me well up with tears. As someone once commented about the movie Pay It Forward, and applies here, it's an emotion manipulator.

Afterwards, we went to grab some fresh dungeness crabs at the local seafood market, and I spent an outrageous $16 on chocolate bars—one with bacon and smoked sea salt, one with chipotle chiles and Ceylon cinnamon. The latter combination I am used to, as I make my hot chocolate with those ingredients already. The former... let me just say that chocolate and salt together anytime is good (chocolate-covered pretzels, fleur de sel caramels), but I've come to the conclusion that anything you enrobe in chocolate is fine, too — and that includes bacon.