Memory

Food-oriented sentence-a-day diary entries for this day since 2014

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Updated with 2025 entry.

One of my favorite things about keeping my sentence-a-day diary is looking back over the years on any particular day for trends. Today’s day “in history” gave me a good chuckle. I’m so food oriented! 75% of the 11 12 years worth of entries include food. 😂

In other news, it’s our 4th-year anniversary of owning our air fryer. And I guess my entry for today should include some food in it.

December 21

2025
Sunday: We prepared our snack bags to give to the kids during the Mordecai Roll & Stroll on Christmas Eve, I grilled chicken thighs on the grill that Bob had tenderized and marinated, and I read the entirety of my 129th book of 2025, Run for the Hills.

2024
Saturday: I wrote my haikus for the remaining days of 2024, my biopsy from that cauterized spot on my face came back benign, Bob made the pretzels from the mix that Vivian & Jeff gave us a few months ago, I got a free haircut with Neal’s coupon from a Hurricanes game (I tipped the stylist $10), and I grilled some Montreal-steak-marinated chicken thighs to perfection.

2023
Thursday: I created our menu for next week for a change, the earbuds and charger adapters came for our new phones, and Bob made a Chicken & Kale soup to which we added some white beans—egads!

2022
Wednesday: Cindy and I went to Wegmans while Bob visited with “the boys” (his brother and nephews) at their Airbnb (1600 Carson St.), we spent a couple of hours there this afternoon, and then everyone came to our house for African Peanut Soup for dinner and all but me played Bananagrams afterward.

2021
Tuesday: I did 2 “talkaloud edits” for Anna Lonon, did my knee stretching exercises, we got cookies in the mail from Robyn Johnson as a thank-you for my work, our air fryer (compliments of Red Hat Rewards) arrived, and I started American Gods.

2020
Monday: Bob brought our BAP (big-assed poinsettia) and some homemade treats to Nicholas Blanchard, I wrote my first three 50-word stories, and I started reading my 75th book of 2020, Girls Like Us.

2019
Saturday: Bob wrote out a bunch of holiday cards that we got to the post office by Planet Fitness just before noon, did our workout there, had dinner at the food court in Wegmans later, and went to “black-out night” at Flex, taking The R-Line there and back.

2018
Friday: I got a 40-minute walk in downtown to the post office, to the SECU (New Bern & Salisbury for $100 bills), to the library, and to DGX for a card and eggnog for our “Bourbon Outfitters” meeting, and then we met the gang out at Flex @ 10.

2017
Thursday: We had our holiday party tonight, which was very festive and well-attended with a lot of potluck foods!

2016
Wednesday: In a most unexpected move, our CFO, Frank Calderoni, announced that he’s taking a CEO job at another company, and Red Hat announced “disappointing” earnings for this quarter.

2015
Monday: Bob and I spent a couple of hours identifying recipients, addressing, stamping, and putting return address labels on envelopes, before folding our holiday letters to put in them.

2014
Sunday: Bob came over, with Frances and Vincent, and we had BLTs for dinner, with some sweet potato fries.

Mom memories

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Many of you might remember my Facebook posts during the years I drove to Greenville, NC almost every Saturday to take my mom to play bingo. Like a lot of posts on social media, they were almost exclusively happy times and memories.

Here’s a memory from my sentence-a-day diary that didn’t make it onto Facebook:

November 25, 2017
Saturday: I took mom to bingo, and she pretty much bitched about Brookdale goings-on and her aches and pains from the minute I got there until bingo started.

And now back to some publicly preferred happy memories:

From my sentence-a-day diary for this day for the past 12 years

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On this day in past years:

2025
Tuesday: I did an analysis of the books I’ve read (including Mostly Social Book Club books) of the genre books about books.

2024
Monday: Vivian & Jeff visited after appointments with Nathan and an estate planning attorney, and the Fusion has been sluggish to start and the indicators (gas & temperature) keep resetting after the car has been turned off a bit, so I dropped it off at Brown’s Alignment & Auto Repair to have the battery checked.

2023
Saturday: We went to Christina & John Ramono’s “fry-out,” along with Wayne Wilson, David Stratton, and Christina & John’s friends Margaret & Brian Clement and Dana Deaton & Finley Lee, and it was a great time with deep-fried french fries, mushrooms, pumpkin pie bites, and Hostess Twinkies pieces.

2022
Friday: I met Shannon Schorey at the northwest Cary La Farm Bakery for lunch, and Clint brought (Claire Hakin’s and Pat Hayden’s) Tupperware orders over and Claire joined Clint, Matt, & Dillon for happy hour, which (after Claire left) ended up extending late into the evening culminating with Bob making breakfast for everyone and Dillon loading our dishwasher.  

2021
Thursday: I took PTO for the morning for my PT session (8-9) and an Ameriprise financial planning meeting with Bob, and I presented my email editing analysis work at our Content team meeting, which was received with much appreciation and many affirmations.

2020
Wednesday: I ran to the Fayetteville Street post office to mail back an adapter that we accidentally took from Darren and Sandra Anderson’s cottage on Cape Cod that we rented for a month, and we received Anne and Dan’s notice that this year’s holiday “tween” gathering is being canceled due to the pandemic.

2019
Monday: The Open Studio area in the Red Hat Tower opened today, we moved our offices to the other end of the building, and Bob and I watched several season 2 episodes of Schitt’s Creek.

2018
Sunday: We had book club at Crossroads, and we discussed Logical Family: A memoir.

2017
Saturday: I took mom to bingo, stopped for Burger King chicken sandwiches on the way, and she just made a donation tonight, although she did win $200 on Wednesday.

2016
Friday: I was sick as a dog today, with what felt like the same stomach issues I had last Friday on the second day of our retreat, and I spent 3 hours (2 in the a.m., 1 in the p.m.) sleeping in the Wellness room at Red Hat.

2015
Wednesday: I drove to Greenville to take mom to bingo, and I spent the time working on the playlist for the birthdays CD we’re going to give out at the “surprise” birthday party on the Friday night before our wedding.

2014
Tuesday: I had lunch at Oak City Meatball Shoppe (which closed in 2024) with the Red Hatters to orient Colby Hoke on our processes.

🍌 🌞 🪑

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I had my annual Medicare Wellness Visit, which “is not a physical exam, but rather a planning session that includes a health risk assessment, a review of your medical history, medications, lifestyle, and a discussion of recommended screenings.”

This visit starts with getting 3 words to remember, and to recall later in the visit. My three words for today were:

  1. banana
  2. sunrise
  3. chair

To help me remember them, I pictured myself sitting in a beach chair, watching the sunrise, with a banana in my drink and wondering where the rum is.

Next in the visit is to draw an (analog) clock with the hands set to a particular time, which this time was 11:10.

As I do each year now during this part, I wonder what “these kids today” who don’t know how to tell time on an analog clock do for this simple Alzheimer’s detection test.

The rest of the visit is spent on one of the several variations of the SAGE (Self-Administered Geocognitive Examination) assessment, of which this is one example:





Other formats of the SAGE assessment forms are available on this Ohio State University website.

𝄞 See the tree, how big it’s grown… ♪

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It’s September 23rd and 12 years ago today, in 2013, I started working at Red Hat.

One Arbor Day around that time, Red Hat had saplings in our building lobby to take for free in the spirit of “plant a tree,” and I took this River Birch, which we — meaning Bob — planted in our front yard.

Almost 10 years later, whenever we sit on the front porch in the morning, I marvel at the tree it has grown into.

Location, location, location…

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My sister texted me: “Are you familiar with INRI above the cross/crucifix in most Catholic churches?”

Image of Jesus on the cross with the INRI inscription on it
Image from the New World Encyclopedia

I said I was, but that I didn’t know, or can’t remember as I’ve probably looked it up before, what it means.

Then I shared what I’d found as to its meaning, to which she replied:

Yes, but what makes me laugh is Pépère [our maternal grandfather, who lived in Pawtucket, RI] used to say it stood for “In RI” [“in Rhode Island”].

This is not only hilarious to me, it’s a family story I’d never heard.

On this day 31 years ago…

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On April 17, 1994, I came out of the proverbial closet.

I like the idea that I’m approaching the year when I will have spent as many years out of the closet as I spent in, which will happen in 2030. I’m currently at 36 years in, 31 years out.

In 2021, I wrote these three 50-word stories about the emotional toll of living in the closet for 35 years and why people say, “It felt like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders when I came out.”

Keeping up appearances In the interest of me To come out—or check out
I’m married to a woman, but I am a terrified, closeted gay man trying to keep up the charade. So, I “ogle” at “big tits” and traveling as a trainer for work, I make sure I refer to “my wife” at least once while introducing myself. It’s kind of exhausting. I was a young Republican because I believed I was a self-made man—before I learned about privilege. But mostly I identified as such to distance myself from “the gays.” Voting against their interests, I couldn’t possibly be one, right? I’m still embarrassed and haunted by this. I’m so sorry. Riding home from my $100K job, to my $250K home, in my $40K car, I wonder: “Is there any way to plunge this ‘ultimate driving machine‘ into that ravine and ensure I won’t live with an ‘intended to die’ for the rest of my life?” It’s unbearable living like this.

An expensive memory

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In our upcoming Danube Riverboat Cruise, during our port call in Passau, Germany, there’s an optional excursion available that includes this as part of its description:

Learn about traditional glass production and see a demo in a small family-run glass manufacturer.

We won’t be doing it, but it reminds me of the time in 1987 in Venice, Italy when my then-wife and I visited a glass manufacturer that was home to one of the master glass blowers in Venice.

Impressed — and unequivocally caught up in the moment — after the demo by “the master,” we ended up buying an $800 vase. That doesn’t sound like that much, but it was at the time. It’s $2,284.92 in 2025 money! For a damn vase. Had to have it, apparently. 😂