Note the difference between the recommended ages for the North American Wingspan set and the European expansion:

So the European birds are more child-friendly?  I mean, I guess that makes sense.  That Canada goose is one foul-mouthed motherfucker.

Ellie had said that she wanted to go stargazing in the desert sometime, so for her birthday I took her to Joshua Tree.  It’s true that I have a new pair of glasses on the way, but I thought my current prescription would be fine for this, since when I’m at home I can see the few visible stars distinctly enough⁠—I can look up at Orion and see sharp pinpricks of light.  But when I looked up all those stars at Joshua Tree, my brain turned that vast amount of visual information into a texture: I might as well have been looking at a dark gray popcorn ceiling.  Plenty of troughs and ridges, but no individual stars unless I really focused on one.  Unfortunate.

As long as we had come this far, I thought we might as well continue on to Phoenix.  I’d been to the airport a few times, and had once driven through without getting off the free­way, but had never actually spent any time in the city itself.  And for more than twenty years now I’ve been reading about how Phoenix has the best pizza in the country, speci­fically that from Pizzeria Bianco.  And, wow⁠—Gertrude Stein may have coined the phrase “there’s no there there” for Oakland, but it sure seems to apply better to Phoenix.  Right in the middle of downtown, and we could have been stand­ing at any anonymous intersection in Orange County.  Some tall buildings, sure, but separated by wide streets, and weirdly bereft of people: we walked for blocks, smack dab in the middle of the fifth-biggest city in the United States, on a day with pleasant weather, and we didn’t see another soul.

Of course, it seems like much of the population outside Phoenix has vanished as well.  I can’t seem to get anyone on the phone these days: I got a letter from the remaining folks at the hollowed-out IRS saying that they hadn’t received my 2020 tax return (though they had, back in March, immedi­ately cashed the check included with said tax return), with a number to call⁠—but every time I called it and worked through the phone menu, instead of putting me on hold the automated system bluntly told me that no one was available to take my call that entire day and that I should try again on a different day.  The same was true for the place from which I had ordered my new glasses: no one picks up the phone, no one answers the “live chat”, and no one returns email.  I was darkly amused by this gem that appeared on a physical invoice I received from them:

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US:
Email: noreply@eyeglasses.com

I also had to pick up some stuff at my local Target, only to get there and find that it was randomly closed for the entire day.  (Omicrons among the staff, I’m guessing.)  Expect more of an indication that society isn’t breaking down, see less!

On my drive home after dropping Ellie off at the Phoenix airport, I found myself getting pretty thirsty⁠—maybe just a psychosomatic reaction to driving through a vast desert⁠—so I stopped at an Albertsons in Blythe, California, to purchase a beverage.  As I stood in line, the cashier (“Jessica D.”) scowled and took to her microphone.  “Juan took a motor­ized cart because he didn’t want to walk outside on his break,” she announced to all and sundry.

In L.A. I found that apparently the latest trend is to lavish fulsome praise on customers for their selections.  I went to a pizza shop and ordered the artichoke pie.  “Amazing choice!” the cashier enthused.  Then I went to a gelato shop and got a double with stracciatella and cashew.  “Wow, what a great combination!” the scooper marveled.  I guess they really aren’t kidding about how all work is emotional labor these days.

Earliest I had heard an ice cream truck playing Christmas music prior to 2022: September 27

Earliest I have heard an ice cream truck playing Christmas music now: January 10