Side quests.

Last year I bought a T-shirt on Etsy which reads, I'm not procrastinating. I'm doing side quests.

While working AARP's daily crossword puzzle, I became curious about one of the answers: stampede. How did we come by this useful and colorful word? So I consulted the Google and Thummim, which informed me that it arrived via American Spanish estampida from the Spanish word for crash and goes back through German as far as the Old High German (what was that old German high on, you ask?) stampfōn, to stamp. So basically, you have a bunch of ancient Germans stamping around, and their descendants stamping their way to Spain, and their descendants escaping to the Americas with visions of Tex-Mex dancing in their heads.

Starters. The current word for things to spoil your appetite before the main course arrives.  See also: appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, amuse-bouche, antipasto, finger food, munchies. As a young adult in the 70's, munchies suggests to me the crazed combination of foods which follow partaking of a once-illegal herb which is now sold in mom and pop CBD shops.

The AARP daily jigsaw puzzle has three speeds: easy, regular, and expert. You get eight minutes to solve it on the regular and easy levels. I always start with the regular level. If I can't solve it in eight minutes, and I have time to try again, I'll switch to the easy level, which has no more than 36 pieces. (I think the regular format averages 64 pieces.) I suppose I ought to try the expert level, just once, to see how many pieces there are and if you're given more time. I always solve the edge pieces first ~ you can sort for that, and then fill in toward the center. I like this game OK, and I prefer the app on my phone, which does track the time it takes me to solve a puzzle but doesn't lock me out if I don't finish at some predetermined point.

I fired up the puzzle I'd just completed. Same eight minutes for the expert level. That is, as my kids would say, ridonkulous.

My wonderful sister sent me a box of boutique chocolates for my birthday. It arrived on Tuesday, and I took it to work yesterday. Yesterday a card arrived, which I did not get around to opening until today. I'm going to frame the card; it's two classic Japanese women in kimono. And there was an Amazon card inside. I am currently browsing a sample of a book which popped up on my Facebook feed. If I continue to enjoy this teaser until its end, that will be one of my purchases.

Great gifts require great thank-you notes, and I recently exhausted my stash. That was my excuse to stop at Half Price Books' flagship store on my way home from work tonight. Long ago, in a universe far, far away I used to write long letters to friends and family. And I've always had a weakness for beautiful or unusual stationery and cards. Hallmark shops were a particular downfall. In recent years, I've made a lot of my own cards, but when I can buy them ready-made at half price? Time value of money means more time to read or knit or watch British TV or eat Nutella.

May I just state for the record that I'm not enamored of square cards which come with rectangular envelopes whose excess space is glued shut? Give me a rectangular card or a square envelope. Pick one.

Taco salad. A wonderfully Tex-Mex thing (see how I circle back to the beginning?) that is neither taco nor salad. Just enough sliced or shredded lettuce to lighten up a bowl full of hamburger meat, spicy seasoning, sour cream, grated cheese, and a liberal lashing of queso, all of it resting upon or reposing under rather too many round tortilla chips of inconvenient size or saltiness. OCD-me has to spend five to ten minutes crudely quartering the chips and hoping not to break my plastic fork before I can moosh things around and achieve a fairly uniform consistency that will adhere to my fork so I may hold my book in my left hand and read while delivering bites to my mouth and not the front of my shirt.

Words which are not my own, are calling my name. Later, gators!