Hmm Weekly for February 11, 2020
Tuesday? More like Threesday.
Another Week, Another Hmm Weekly
GOOD MORNING! This is the latest communicable transmission of HMM WEEKLY, the successor publication to HMM DAILY, distributed via SUBSTACK, a newsletter delivery and reading platform. We are currently posting items FREE TO ALL, in gratitude to those of you who previously financially supported HMM DAILY or those of you who merely expressed interest in it.
At the end of this month, we will begin offering paid subscriptions for full access to future HMM WEEKLY posts, with intermittent postings available free. Former financial supporters of HMM DAILY, whose billing was disconnected, may reconnect to resume their financial support then.
We appreciate your interest in HMM WEEKLY. Please send your questions, comments, gossip, or whatever else you may want to express to hmmweekly@hmmweekly.com. We will keep sending you these emails; please write back. Maybe we’ll end up with a Letters Column!
If someone has passed along this message, it’s easy to sign up for yourself.
We urge you to spread the word about HMM WEEKLY, and we thank you for reading.
MOURNING DEP’T.
When somebody dies, it’s not a bad idea to bring food
MY SISTER DIED last week. She was my sister-in-law, but she always called me her brother, so I will keep the love going. My wife and I were left with the business of clearing out her apartment while we were stunned and sad.
A friend stopped by our house unannounced, with a nice loaf of bread, and some other stuff from an Italian deli; olives, bottled tomato sauce, a couple of trays of frozen lasagna and ziti, some fruit, and an 18-pack of beer. Another friend brought chili and a crazy delicious kielbasa-and-bread baked thing, and family came down from Connecticut with steaks and vegetables and we stood around in the kitchen and hung out while I grilled the steaks out back on the Weber in the unusual February warm.
We had a fridge full of food, but we ate all the stuff our friends brought, it was easier, our brains weren’t working, and those things were right there. We realized at some point that we were not exactly starving ourselves out of grief like we thought we might, we both had hearty appetites from the physical exertion and mental anguish. The first night we came home exhausted from schlepping stuff out of the apartment, we sliced up some bread, dished up the olives, popped one of the frozen things in the toaster oven and cracked a beer. We didn’t have to think.
CHRONOLOGY DEP’T.
Calendars still available from the Bright Day Calendar Co.
JANUARY TOOK FOREVER, or 31 days if you’re counting, and it’s almost the halfway point in this Leap Year’s 29 days of February, but I never scored a complimentary 2020 calendar from my usual diner or auto parts sources, and I feel deprived.
I enjoy wall calendars, it is soothing for me to look upon the days of a month laid out with an interesting image accompanying, at an analog IRL eye-relaxing distance from my desk, and not via electronic eye-draining Google calendar on my handheld computing device.
The whole idea of buying a calendar seems weird, (unless it’s for a good cause) and I’ve walked by kiosks in the mall, flowering for that retail-fertile month or two with a hundred different puppies/kitties/bikini babes/shirtless men/race cars-themed calendars on display. But the Bright Day Calendar Company of Bowie, Maryland is offering three-day shipping and 16-month calendars so I won’t feel like I wasted two months!
Certain types of dogs, cats, and idyllic images of the Caribbean are sold out, but there’s Canada, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, and carbs! CARBS!
Pasta, bread bowls, breadsticks, garlic rolls… pizza! Mmmmm. How can something that tastes so good not be good for you? We’d like to eat these delicious foods everyday, but for our own sake, we probably shouldn’t. There’s no reason we can’t have pictures of them hanging on our wall though!
OK, so having pictures of carbs is so you can resist carbs, for a year, sitting at your desk looking at CARBS, for a year. This calendar has not sold out, nor have certain calendars the Bright Day Calendar Company of Bowie, Maryland has categorized as INSPIRATIONAL. Such as Waves, Wild Animals, and Yoga Pants.
Somehow the Yoga Pants one seems like it’s on a continuüm with Carbs, like, the opposite of Carbs, somehow, or Carbs-adjacent. It’s confusing, you get the Yoga Pants calendar because you want to look at Yoga Pants for 16 months—or right now it’d be 14 months and change—but you get Carbs because you don’t want to eat bread. I have not resolved why these calendars seem somehow harmonic to me, but maybe it’s because I eat pasta, bread bowls, breadsticks, garlic rolls… pizza!
The Bright Day Calendar Company of Bowie, Maryland is having a Buy 2 Get 1 promotion, so you could get Carbs, Yoga Pants, and a Chicken calendar!
Aieee! No! OUT OF STOCK, along with Cows. These are part of the Bright Day Calendar Company of Bowie, Maryland’s Calendars For A Cause™ thing, where they say they kick back 10-15% to Causes.
OK, no Chickens, how about Donkeys?
WHAT, how can Donkeys be sold out and not Dolphins?!? No offense to any Donkey enthusiasts. Also, no offense to Lions, but how can Tigers not be sold out? Tigers are way cooler than Lions!
Well, it seems like it’s been a year looking at these calendars, I can’t figure out how they come up with their topics, like is it an Artificially Intelligent computer algorithm or something, or do they just sit around and spitball ideas, and that’s how they got Carbs?
I can’t make up my mind which one to get, but I wish you a 2020 full of Bloodhounds and Booty! Not sold out yet! Plus four bonus months! Two of which are almost gone! Hurry! It’s alright to have a little Carbs, don’t torture yourself with pictures, OK?
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS DEP’T.
Correction submitted independently by Dave Scocca and Mack Scocca-Ho
VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS DEP’T.
A visit to the Motor Trend International Auto Show
YOU CAN FOLLOW hmmweeklygram on Instagram.
RECIPES DEP’T.
WE INSIST ON presenting a selection of recipes for ancient but reproducible sandwiches, found in The Up-To-Date Sandwich Book: 400 Ways to Make a Sandwich, by Eva Greene Fuller; 1909; McClurg and Co., Chicago, now in the public domain for the delectation of all.
SARATOGA SANDWICH
On a lightly buttered square slice of white bread, place a lettuce leaf that has been dipped in mayonnaise dressing; on that lay four large fried oysters with a little horse-radish on top of the oysters, and cover with a lightly buttered slice of rye bread, and butter upper side of this slice. On this lay a slice of breast of cooked chicken; dust with salt and pepper and lay on that crisp slices of fried bacon; cover this with a slice of white bread. Garnish top with radishes, cut fancy, serve with slice of lemon on the side.
CHICAGO CLUB SANDWICH
Toast lightly two slices of white bread and one of rye; lightly butter and on the slices of white bread, place slices of cold cooked chicken and a couple of slices of bacon well crisped; cover with the slice of rye bread and on that place a lettuce leaf that has been dipped in a little mayonnaise dressing; sprinkle with a little chopped green pepper, then cover with the other slice of white bread.
BOSTON CLUB SANDWICH
Cut brown bread into rounds with a cake cutter and lightly butter. Chop one-half pound of cold boiled mutton fine; add a dash of salt and pepper, two tablespoonfuls of olive oil, or melted butter. On the lower round of buttered bread place a small crisp lettuce heart that has been dipped in mayonnaise dressing. On top of that place a slice of tomato, then another slice of buttered bread, then the mutton mixture. Place on top another round of buttered bread and press two together.
If you make one of these sandwiches, before you eat it, please send a picture to hmmweekly@substack.com
HMM WEEKLY IS written by Tom Scocca, editor, and Joe MacLeod, creative director. If you enjoy Hmm Weekly, please let a friend know about it, and if you're reading this because someone forwarded it to you, go ahead and sign up for a copy of your own right now.
Thanks for reading, and any time you want, you can email us at hmmweekly@substack.com.
