Glenn Kubish

Here are three things that made me happy or grateful this week. Before they get away from me. (They're also in this week's Three Things podcast .) 1. The happy couple I will remember the music from that day. Aleasha’s grandpa read a Wendell Berry poem. Alejandra, who officiated, looked around and sang a few bars from Lin Manuel Miranda’s Schuyler sisters. Wedding vows included references to The Hold Steady. Dylan was quoted during speeches. Sean P. spun the dance tunes. People sang ABBA. And emcee Stephen brought some Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the reception. Well I may be just a fool But I know you're just as cool And cool kids They belong together All of this went down at the wedding of our youngest son (known to his friends as Kubish) and wife Aleasha. The term wedding reception has a double meaning. It’s a social gathering where people are welcomed, of course. But reception is also about broadcasting. Reception means the quality of a signal. What, of any value, can we capture ...

My bet is if I don’t consciously try to notice three things that made me happy or grateful each week, I’d notice only the things the algorithm wants me to notice, which would not be cool. So, I try to notice what I notice, and say them out loud. Here's this week's Three Things podcast .  1. Dough The pandemic has imprinted a few new habits on me. I wash my hands. I try not to touch my face.  For whatever reason, I have begun flossing my teeth.  I bake bread, too. Homemade bread My favorite part of baking bread happens after the stirring, mixing, beating and kneading, when the dough, in a ball, sits in a buttered bowl beneath a white tea towel, and, over the next 60 minutes, abracadabra, rises imperceptibly. And then my favorite part of the process happens, the punch down, which is what Auntie Shelagh typically takes care of. Sealed And then my favourite part of baking bread: the forming of the risen and punched down dough into shape. In one of the folds, the dough looks...

  It's the end of the week, a time to capture three things that made my happy or grateful over the past seven days, and, before they vaporize from memory, add them to the other side of the scales. Here is this week's Three Things podcast  (4 mins). Here's this week's list. 1. Tomatoes, 2020-2021   🍅 🍅 On the ant-grasshopper spectrum of how best to live life, toward industry or toward abandon,  it’s more fun to be the grasshopper. But it’s satisfying to be the ant. And tasty. Last fall we jarred tomatoes from our container garden. Some tomatoes, some Mason jars, some time in the basement. Last week, we opened a jar to juje up a dinner of pork and rice. Standing in the kitchen, unable just to be happy, I asked the jar of tomatoes why I felt happy. A voice replied.  "Why not?" said Auntie Shelagh. "We grew them. We preserved them. They taste great. They didn’t go to waste. It’s pretty cool to grow your own food. Or, maybe, it’s just because they taste good...

  Here are three things from my little life that I noticed made my happy or grateful this week.  (I say them out loud in this week's Three Things podcast , too.)  1. To air is human... 💨 Before the solution presented itself, it had to wait while I tried again and again to force into place a solution that didn’t work. I was trying to remove the back wheel from my bicycle.  The wheel had a broken spoke and was on its way to the bike shop for a fix. As soon as I could get it free from the frame. Which I could not do, no how. The quick release was released, the chain was off, but I could not move the axle out of the dropout where it rested. Trying to slide it or coax it or hammer it out delivered only the same result: the wheel jammed into the fender and would not come loose. After five minutes of stubborn effort and exasperation, I remembered the Arrow Book Club. In Grade 3 I had a book with different real-life puzzles. One was how a tractor trailer driver whose vehicl...