“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 762 (Sunday) – raindrops and coffee mugs

The morning was sunny and bright and thank goodness for sunglasses. The drive back from dance class involved some channel jumping on the radio which led to the discovery of a college station that was playing show tunes, a delightful break from the usual two stations that are usually alternated.

After dance the immediate focus was food. The measly and meager granola bar or piece of toast barely lasts for the one to two hours of dance and I usually leave the studio ravenous. There were lots of ingredients available at the house and nothing to nuke quickly, so it was ramen with frozen mixed vegetables, queso, and Korean hot pepper paste with for the win, as the fastest thing I could think of to make.

Once upon a time in the 1990s.

The after-lunch plan was to read. This did not happen. Not with books anyway. There were several Scrabble GO games in process and the usual daily feeding of the social media addiction with the review of the Facebook feed. 

Facebook memories delivered a couple photos from past “National Sibling Day” posts with photos of my sister, brother and me. One was from when we were really young and went to visit Grandpa Ray in Texas the first time. The other was from around the 1990s. The reminder of life with my brother sucked the air out of my lungs, much like a hard punch to the gut. 

Instead of the previously fantasized reading, Gilmore Girls season 7 played on TV. Winston signaled he wanted to go outside. A light rain was falling and at the same time, the sun was shining. I checked the parts of the sky I could see from the front door and then went to the side deck in search of a rainbow. Surprisingly, no rainbow was found, but there was a package encased in a sheer white trash bag laying on the deck. The delivery folks function like stealth operatives these days.

While carrying in the parcel, the receipts were running through the mental review process. The order with the fry pan, electric blue summer shoes, and ladies’ unmentionables from Kohl’s had arrived in three separate deliveries during the week. The phone had arrived from Verizon. The car vent mount and phone case from Amazon had arrived. There were no outstanding deliveries, so this was either a misdirected package intended for a neighbor, which hasn’t happened for a long time, or a surprise of some sort for me.

Gilmore "graduation" gift.

The outer protective bag was untied. The name and address in the inner package were confirmed to be actually intended for me before the scissors were extracted from the kitchen junk drawer to breach the industrial strength plastic shipping envelope and remove a brown box and a note. It was, indeed, a surprise in the form of a Luke’s Diner mug. The timing of its arrival is near perfect, as the beloved mug from Customs House Museum where I used to work has lots of rusty spots on the bottom as was recently retired from the coffee mug rotation, leaving an opening. 

In addition, and more appropriately, Season 7 of Gilmore Girls is approaching its end in the big binge. Rory just received the offer for her first writing job and is excited about someone paying her to write. I remember that feeling from when I landed my first official job as a writer. It was exhilarating and validating and nerve-wracking all at once. It was the same feeling when I landed my second job with official title of "staff  writer." Those were grand days when I had it all – a younger brother and a job with business cards that proclaimed I was a bona fide, official, professional, paid writer.

The note in the package mentioned it was to celebrate the near-completion of the steady binge of all seven seasons and the attainment of “official Gilmore Girl” status. The surprise of the Luke's Diner Gilmore Girls graduation gift coffee mug was the perfect counterpoint to the low of National Sibling Day.