It’s something fairly unusual for this podcast today.

We’re doing a HodgePodge episode.

I have a bunch of topics that I have on a list that I don’t think can sustain an entire episode, but I’m collecting them all for this episode.

So here we go.

HodgePodge time.

You know, of course, I was worried I couldn’t remember all the topics, so I wrote them down.

And it’s just four topics, so we’ll see four topics in about four and a half minutes as of now.

Okay.

So topic number one is cat.

We have these two cats.

We have Allie and we have Sunny.

Sunny is a very friendly, sociable cat, but is mostly obsessed with Lauren and spends most of her time following Lauren around.

But she’s very friendly.

She’s happy to be pet really by anybody and she’s still a cat, so she’ll run away from anyone at any time for any reason.

But then there’s Allie who is maladjusted and has really bonded with Ani.

Ani and Sierra can pet Allie, but the rest of us mostly can’t.

Allie is like really skittish.

She is permanently damaged from her early kittenhood, I guess.

And when Ani went to camp for six weeks, the expectation was, oh, maybe Allie will imprint upon some of the rest of us who stayed behind.

The only time I’m ever able to pet Allie is if I’m in bed and I have a blanket up over me.

Allie’s like, ah, the big guy is incapacitated by blankets and he’s lying down, so I will now go to him.

But that hadn’t happened in months.

So I see Allie, I talk to Allie, I feed Allie, but I don’t typically get to have direct interaction with Allie because she’s scared of me.

But so Ani went to camp and I expected, hey, maybe I’ll get some Allie time, never happened.

But then 5.5 weeks into Ani’s visit to camp, that’s when Allie finally came into the bed again.

So I had literally gone basically two months without any contact with Allie and then she stayed with me the longest she’s ever stayed with me, like probably 45 minutes of Allie and me hanging out, purring her head off.

I didn’t purr my head off, my head stayed attached.

And then just a night or two ago, Allie came back and visited with me again.

So now it’s like twice within a two-week time span, which is very surprising.

So who knows?

She’s still terrified of me most of the time, so I can’t get my hopes up, but I appreciate the couple visits.

Topic number two, Allbirds.

Allbirds makes shoes.

They also sponsor podcasts.

They don’t sponsor this podcast.

I like the shoes.

I got a pair as a gift, a swag gift at Wondery, on which they had stitched Wondery on one of the shoes.

But they’re nice sneakers.

I like them.

Fashion-forward sneakers, let’s say, although I don’t know if I really know what the hyphenated adjective fashion-forward means.

But I had seen that they were doing a sale, because they kept advertising to me all over the internet, where shoes that they would normally charge $90,000,000, they were charging $30,000,000 for, or $120,000, they were charging $30,000,000 because they wanted to remove the stock.

And they had purple shoes.

And as you know, dear Your Daily Likes listener, purple’s my favorite color now.

So I was like, ooh, I kind of want those purple shoes.

And I debated it.

I was like, yeah, I don’t really need more shoes.

And then I did order them.

And then they came, the FNX.

But weirdly, I got two packages of shoes from Allbirds, one the purple shoes I ordered, one black sneakers that I didn’t order, also in my size.

I have no idea why the other pair came in a separate box, right?

And I confirmed a million times, I didn’t order it, I didn’t accidentally order it, I was only billed for the one pair of shoes.

And that arrived yesterday.

And I’m like, what a pain to go to them and say, hey, you sent me shoes that aren’t mine.

And then to have to ship them back, like, what a pain.

And there’s a chance if I call them and say, hey, you sent me shoes that I didn’t order, what should I do with them?

That they would say, oh, just keep them.

I don’t want to keep them if they haven’t said just keep them.

But I also don’t want to deal with it.

Like, I’m annoyed that now I have work to be a good citizen, a good Samaritan, a good human, and I have to contact them.

And I find that frustrating.

I’m going to.

I don’t need these black ones.

But it’s annoying.

I also have on my list of topics for today’s episode, Diet Coke is wonderful.

So there you go.

My final topic is cold brew coffee.

I’ve discussed on the show in the past, I don’t expect you to remember everything we’ve ever covered.

But I have talked about this cold brew brewing pitcher that I got for, I think, Hanukkah a year ago or so.

It had initially been broken and the company was happy to replace it.

And it’s great.

But it has, there’s one weird thing with it.

And then just one story of my own insanity.

The weird thing is, you know, it’s got a little tube shaped filter inside that goes almost the whole length of the pitcher.

And that’s where you put your coffee grounds.

And then it sits in your fridge, you know, for 12 to 18 hours to brew.

And what’s weird, the reason I bring it all up is, the water level that you’re supposed to fill it to means that the top of that coffee filter holder thing isn’t submerged in the water.

It’s open air.

So basically, in other words, you put in some grounds that don’t seem to actually be in water.

And I’m curious, what is the purpose of that?

Because I’m definitely following the instructions to the letter and they’re like, fill this part up to here and fill this part up to here.

So the grounds go up to this level and the water goes up to this level.

So I’ve got some percentage of grounds that aren’t touching water is the assumption that some grounds will like slowly sink or compact over time as they’re saturated.

And eventually, the higher up grounds will kind of make some contact because when I take it out, they still haven’t touched water.

Basically, is there any point to the grounds that seem to be above water level in this pitcher?

My hunch is no, but I’m a rule follower.

Anyway, that’s all the topics I wanted to cover.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Lex.