A list of pure goodness

Since my last list of pure grumpiness went public, I've planned to share its upbeat counterpart almost immediately. But somehow months have passed with no progress! We get it—I'm lazy—but that all ends now! And do you want to know why? It's all because I saw a picture of someone standing in front of a stream.

Once I saw that picture, I was instantly transported to a mental place that is some impossible combination of Iceland and New Zealand, where I had the fortune to get more or less up close and personal with the two glaciers I have encountered in my life. In this mental, impossible place, I realized in a flash of insight something I never knew before: I love glaciers! And now nothing can keep me from sharing that love with the world posthaste!

Glaciers

So, the secret is out—I love glaciers. This may sound strange coming from someone who has packed most of her dislikes lists with vitriol towards anything related to cold weather, but after having visited two glaciers, I am convinced that they are one of the planet's best features! 

Here I am about to meet Skaftafell glacier in Iceland

 Something about that vast outpouring of ice just warms my heart! Is it the way its edge is so strictly defined, like a massive, slow-motion amoeba of snow? Is it the fact that the landscape in front of a glacier is always uniformly barren and paved with a bed of millions of smoothly worn rocks, like a scene from a sci-fi movie? Is it the way the water that escapes from a glacier always has an opaque icy blue color, the way water looks in cartoons but never in real life? Are there more reasons? Probably. But my point is, if you have not had the chance to visit a glacier, I highly recommend you do so soon, because it is a magical experience that will probably never be had by future generations. And now back to our regularly scheduled climatic gloom and doom.

Or not! This is a happy list, so forget I said that!

Caffeine

I was a late convert to the fandom of America's most legal drug, but I have certainly come to appreciate caffeine in my middle years. It is true that I can still wake up in the morning just fine* without a cup of joe, and in fact, I still do not drink coffee. I no longer even struggle with staying awake in the afternoons. But I've learned that an occasional hit of caffeine is a delightful way to put a little more pep in my step and a positive outlook in my mind. One of my favorite weekend treats is a midday can of caffeinated soda, and if I have one at work, I am amazed at how productive and outgoing I can be! Of course, if I dare to consume this wonder drink past about 2 pm, I'm usually in for an entire night of restless sleep, so caffeine is probably always going to be a special treat for me and not a regular part of my diet.

Getting rid of old clothes

I don't know what happened between December and January, but all of a sudden the entire world seems to be obsessed with she-who-must-not-be-named (because I feel she's gotten more than enough publicity already, and I frankly can't take it any more!) and her method for tidying up. This whole frenzy for decluttering is kind of mystifying to me, because I declutter so continuously that I never feel like I have to read books and watch shows about it and pat myself on the back over my latest giant purge. But I can kind of understand the hype, because I know firsthand the rewarding feeling of getting rid of the stuff you don't really need. I love acquiring new things just as much as the next person, but what's more exciting than getting a new pair of shoes? Finding an old pair of shoes you won't feel sad to jettison, and subsequently ridding yourself of that dead weight! It helps that I sell most of my old stuff, so in addition to clearing up space in my living area and my life, I'm also earning a ... should I say it? tidy income!

Containers with perfectly parallel sides

While we're on the topic of home organization, I find there is much gratification in storing your stuff in containers of just the right shape. The right shape being, of course, one that has perfectly parallel vertical sides. You know, there are a lot of kinds of plastic storage tubs out there. Many of them have rounded edges and most of them have a narrower base than top. But the best kind of container is one that stays the same width all the way up. The kind of container you could load a collection of uniform cubes into and have them fit neatly end to end, top to bottom. The kind of container in which, if you had just the right size of cookies, you could assemble a perfect stack of them without a centimeter of wiggle room. 

Look at this beautiful empty gelato jar, which just happens to have perfectly parallel sides in a cylinder just the right diameter to hold a stack of my still-beloved Safeway candy cookies! Wow, I love this jar! If you happen to find a tub of the Talenti gelato at Costco (the normal-size Talenti jar is too small, and our Costco doesn't seem to sell it, and even if they did, sea salt caramel isn't really my flavor), save me the container!

Talking to myself

I will never forget** the day in first grade when I was holding my own personal Bob Ross show in art class, narrating every step out loud as I worked on my construction-paper masterpiece. A classmate turned to me and critically asked, "Why are you always talking to yourself?" Well, up until that point, I hadn't realized it was a problem, but I was duly humiliated into much more cautious self-regulation of my self-conversation. But I never stopped doing it completely! When I'm alone in the house, I take great joy in talking to myself. As a matter of fact, talking out loud helps me stay on-task, keeps my meandering mind from forgetting what I was about to do, and generally protects me from sometimes oppressive silence. Some people say talking to yourself means you're crazy... but quite to the contrary, I think it keeps me sane—even when I do, on occasion, start answering.

Footnotes

*OK, "just fine" is a bit of an overstatement. Most mornings when I wake up for work, it takes a superhuman effort to drag myself out of bed, and I usually feel sluggish and sometimes even dizzy for up to an hour after I am up and about. But I still don't depend on coffee!

**"Never forget" is probably a bit of an overstatement, too. Was I actually working with construction paper that day? Were those really my classmate's exact words? Probably not. I don't remember the details very well...but the embarrassment stays fresh in my mind forever!