While I greatly enjoy this time of the year of cold and coziness, the whole getting dark super early thing is not the business. Who really wants to be commuting to work in the dark, and then heading home also in the dark? If they ever manage to get rid of daylight savings time, I hope they keep the set time to be whichever provides the most sunlight hours towards the end of the day during the winter months.
Because when it’s dark outside but it’s only 5:00 PM, I feel weird eating dinner at my normal 7:00 PM hour. We’ve evolved to equate darkness with sleepy time, so it’s disconcerting to be two hours into darkness only to then start making supper. If they ever manage to make permanently below-ground living a thing with artificial sun technology, I hope they keep a consistent sunrise and sunset hour.
Perhaps I should move to somewhere on the equator. Word on the street is $100,000 USD can buy a Thailand residency visa.
You how when you buy a brand new car you tend to be super careful about it? Agonizing over the perfectly harmless parking space, and worrying about the slightest hint of dust laying on top of the painted surface. This motivation to keep something perfect - is it rooted in evolution, I wonder? Did caveman get traumatized from a lightning strike destroying their once intact cave facade?
What we do know is that nothing keeps perfect forever. After the first rock chip on the hood, or the first scrape from another parked car, we tend to relax into not caring much about the car anymore. The solution then is to buy used cars instead of new. Second-hand vehicles already come pre-blemished! Who cares if I chipped the wheel on a curb - there’s already existing rashes.
What you don’t want to do though is to fall into a trap of making a used car “perfect” again. That scratched interior panel because the previous owner hauled something carelessly? Leave it be. Even if a replacement panel is only a hundred bucks or so.
Find the tree lining.