Gung Hay Fat Choy/Gung Ho

So, it's Chinese New Year (or Korean Seollal​, Vietnamese Tet, Mongolian Tsagaan Sarand, or Tibetan Losar)​: the lunisolar calendar turns over and we move (in Chinese tradition, anyway) into the Year of the Red Fire Monkey, who apparently is the monkey-est money of them all.

I'm not big on making resolutions at Gregorian New Year, but I have been known to set an expectation or two at the Spring Festival, so I feel comfortable doing so again. These are actually pretty concrete: I want to establish some ongoing intentions.

Once a month, we'll make a visit back to Seattle. This doesn't include Coco's trips to Bothell to teach - this means an actual social call or event down in the Emerald City. We want to keep in touch with folks who matter to us.

Once a month, we'll take a trip to Vancouver. We're so close, it would be a shame to let this resource go unvisited. We are even in the process of getting our beat-the border Nexus passes.

Once a month, we'll go to see live theater. This one is mostly for me: there was a period of about two or three years in my life when I was going to the theater oftener than once a fortnight, and I'd like to get back to something close to that.

Once a month, we'll go to the movies. This one is mostly for Coco. After a long spell at the epicenter of a very active movie group, I have certainly settled in to the Netflix and Amazon streaming scene, but I know Coco really enjoys getting out to the cineplex, so that's going on the list too.

Once a week, we'll take a good walk. This is as much about exploring Bham, our new home, as it is about exercise.

Once a week, I'll read a book for pleasure. I read enough work stuff and enough screen stuff - I need to stay in touch with long-form prose.

Once a day, I'll do my exercises. I have broken out the old Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plan and actually have been at it for about a month already. Once I have stepped it up to maintenance level, I might switch to the New York Tines Scientific Seven-Minute Workout. In any case, something every day.

There we have it: a blueprint of sorts for some directed activity. We'll check back in regularly to see how this goes.

Like mother's milk

So, I picked this up at the store today - I didn't even know they still made them:

 Sill life with High Life

Miller High Life in the seven-ounce bottles. Nips, they used to call them, and I recall they came in an eight-pack back then. This was the beer I learned to drink beer with, about 45 years ago.

There wasn't a lot of alcohol in my house growing up. My father didn't touch the stuff, after having been way too familiar with in it in his younger days. After one too many bar fights, ma straightened him out and I had never seen him drink anything stronger than coke. But the brothers-in-law drank: Linda's husband Gene preferred Budweiser, and would go through six or twelve or more in the course of a an evening. Monya's husband George drank Miller. The two men, each of whom contributed my to my growing up, differed in other ways: George smoked Chesterfields and Gene smoked Pall Malls; George was more intellectual while Gene was streetwise. Perhaps that's why Miller always seemed to me a somehow classier beer than Bud; the "Champagne of Beers" slogan added to that cachet. A nice distinction in this era of esoteric craft beers, I suppose.

This is about life size, I think, depending on your monitor resolution.

My mother drank Miller, too, on holidays. She'd have one little bottle, her left earlobe would turn bright red, and she'd get a little silly - that's how we knew ma had had her Nip.

I liked the taste of Miller then, and I still do now. I have always associated it with what I can only describe as a peppery flavor - it seems less pronounced now than it used to, and I don't know if it's the beer or my taster that has changed. But High Life is still my go-to beer if I can get it - just another way I swim upstream in Pacific Northwest culture. (Remember, I drink instant coffee, too.) It helps to know I am not alone in this apostasy: I have at least one friend who routinely touts on Facebook (to no little derision) the joy of American macrobrews. I did find a pizza place in West Seattle, that actually had Miller on tap - and that is a rare thing, indeed. It's hard enough to get it in a bottle at most taverns; the distribution in grocery stores seems to be getting a little better, although Bud and the "modern" Miller brands (MGD and Lite) hold most of the macrobrew space.

I will continue to enjoy High Life whenever I can get it - and I am sure a couple of those nips won't make through tonight. If my earlobe turns red, cut me off.