Three true things about today

1. I am in the process of making my first-ever strawberry-rhubarb pie. I have less rhubarb than the recipe calls for, so I stopped at Wegmans to see if they happened to have any left. While a bemoustached teen named Anthony checked in the back for me, I wandered around the produce section, looking for weird stuff. I found some of these beauties:

Intrigued, I picked one up, pressing my thumb against those interesting bumps. As I did that, I read the little sign and felt a shooting tingle in my thumb: They are prickly pear, and those little bumps have little spiny hairs sticking out of them, happy to imbed themselves in your thumb and then in your forefinger when you automatically try to wipe them away. Cool.

2. I use up the "ugly" stamps when I have to mail things like bills. All of my stamps right now feature pine cones (no idea why), so the weird flat knobby pine cone stamp is meant to imply a "fuck you" to Citibank. I realize this is illogical at best, and flat-out contradictory at best. What if the poor asshole opening mail secretly loves those pine cones? What then??

3. Have you heard about What Should I Read Next? It's a website that provides recommendations based on you plugging in a book title or author you like. No idea how it works, but I plugged in Random Family, which I just finished and very much enjoyed, and had already read something like a third of the books it recommended, so I guess that works! TRY IT!