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National Candy Day 2023
Well outside of my wheelhouse, it’s National Candy Day. This weekend, I can’t eat anything regardless of its nutritional value.
Love 💖 Saturdays
If you would be loved, love, and be loveable. ~Benjamin Franklin
One of the many advantages of my No Monday Policy is that it provides ample opportunity to attend to medical things without moving my work schedule around. Another advantage is that I’ve got the long weekend to do all the prep necessary for that oh-so-lovely thing that guys my age have to do periodically.
As much as it’s a nuisance to be on a no food diet all weekend, I also have the advantage of not having to leave home for any reason. I generally prefer staying home and being cozy. This won’t be all that cozy, but at least I’ll be home.
The truly lovely thing is that once it’s all over and I can eat again, Kelly was kind enough to buy me a batch of stuffed mushrooms. That’s something to look forward to. That and being home with my beautiful wife, my fluffy cat and my shaggy little dog.
Sweet 🍭 Life
Behind the Scenes at 5 Top Candy Factories | UNWRAPPED | Food Network
So, candy is pretty much off the menu but there are some lovely sugar-free varieties. I think the interest in the video above is not the colorful confections so much as the awesome factory tours.
We take these things for granted. You see gummy worms or coated candies like M&M’s, Skittles, Jordan Almonds or Reese’s Pieces and you think, “Yum!” I mean, fair point, but it doesn’t really occur to people to wonder how it even got like that.
I can picture making homemade candy bars or even lollipops. For me, the whole trick of putting a uniform coating over a spherical or ovoid bit of something else is kind of a head-scratcher.
Fortunately, we live in a time and place where we really can take such things for granted. As puzzling as it may be to imagine how they put a hard colorful coating on chocolate to make M&Ms, there are people who have mastered this. They make a fine living giving other people happiness (and cavities).
Breathing 🌬️ Room
What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~John Updike
I agree with that. The nice thing about art is that it might stop you in your tracks or provide an escape mechanism. You can sit and watch a movie or read a book. You can admire a statue from all angles as you’re walking through a park. You can admire murals, frescos and mosaics as you’re traversing a train station or public building.
Art can be so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable, like the little pattern on your coffee mug. It can massively in your face like Mount Rushmore or the gardens of Versailles.
It can be passive like a poster or active like an open air play. It can be whatever you need it to be, but we usually need it to be comforting, uplifting or awe-inspiring.
I don’t know that my stories are necessarily awe-inspiring, but I hope that they are amusing at the very least. I’m about 2/3 done with the first draft of this year’s story. It’s coming along nicely.
Hopefully, you’ll enjoy it when it starts dropping daily episodes on Black Friday.
That’s all for now. I hope you have a lovely weekend and finish off all that Halloween candy before it ruins your appetite for Thanksgiving dinner.