melted smoosh

  1) wine tasting. we kicked off the New Year with a blind wine tasting at Blair's house, featuring a $7 bottom shelf grocery store selection, a $35 midrange bottle, and a $200 Groth Reserve Cabernet from the wine cellar at the liquor store. not a one of us would ever have dreamed of purchasing a $200 bottle of wine before, but Blair had the inspired idea to get together for this little party with some of the money from her mom's estate, and I think her mom would have approved.  I have never been to an actual wine tasting and have no idea what to look for or how to describe wines. my other friends have much more experience in this regard than I do, and I had to laugh at our varied notes!  B was actually the cheap wine, C was the expensive one, and A was the midrange. my spare notes are on the far right! to absolutely no one's surprise, three of us guessed wrong about which wine was the high roller. Blair and Caleb both got it right, but only Caleb liked the expensive wine...

this is a bit different from what's saving my life ... although, looking back at those posts, I guess most of the items that made my list aren't absolutely imperative for survival after all. but still, it seems a bit preposterous to talk about coffee creamer saving my life, so here we are.  1) Coffee creamer in oatmilk and dairy forms. flavored coffee creamer has been a small but much appreciated highlight of my day for as long as I've been drinking coffee (i.e., twenty-plus years). I love the staples like hazelnut or sweet cream, and treat myself to seasonal flavors like peppermint white mocha or Irish cream when the mood strikes. over the past few months, I've bought the same flavored creamers from Aldi that I always do and noticed that they had a strange, slightly bitter aftertaste. that's weird , I would think. maybe I just didn't add as much as I normally do so I'm tasting more coffee. or, maybe I didn't shake up the bottle well. then I spent a wee...