IN BRUGES

I don’t really have a sweet tooth. I have a chocolate chip cookie tooth.

My mom makes the greatest chocolate chip cookies on earth. They have some oatmeal in them, I think. We eat them right out of the freezer (I know).

But also, I am wildly privileged, because my wife makes these other cookes with orange zest! They’re incredible. Orange zest! WTF.

Sometimes I get pastries involved. Coffee cake, sure. But gummy worms and that shit? No thanks. Peanut M&M’s and Justin’s dark chocolate PB cups are basically as close as I get to “candy”.

And sure a little piece of 80% dark chocolate to num-num while I watch spaceships pew-pew-pew at each other after the kids go to bed, nestled under my little quilt, a Feals gummy already at work turning off my brain?

You betcha. A little treat.

Another treat I adore: coffee. But I’m not a caffeine junky. Not like you, at least.

I drink exactly 2 (fine, 3) espressos a day or a small cold brew over a billion pieces of ice). And sometimes fancy matcha green tea (I lust for the one with the toasted rice in it).

But as much as I enjoy the taste of coffee and tea, I mostly use these things as a delivery vehicle for a specific amount of caffeine, my favorite performance enhancing drug. Which means I can’t do too much, too often, or it won’t work that way.

But with three ravenous children and…life…a small daily dose has become required to produce these essays. Or to parent. Or read. Or run or swim. Or breathe.

We’ve all got our dependencies, our soft spots, our “treat yo self” delicacies we cannot live without.

And over the past couple decades, we have thankfully become more conscious and where and how these are harvested. We’ve grown used to seeing Fair Trade and single origin labels and other things that tell us we are consuming them as consciously as we can. Grown by small farmers! In the Global South! With fewer additives and shit!

Here is a specific coffee and chocolate memory:

I visited Bruges (on a train! christ I love trains) about (does the math) 19 years ago (FUCK) and the city was as advertised — just goddamn delightful. So many little streets! And cafes! With treats! With every delicious little cappuccino you order, you get a little chunk of delicious chocolate on the side. What a life.

The setting and pair are perfection, timeless.

Unfortunately both of my little treats are like twice as expensive as they used to be because of climate change.

…mostly because of drought and/or torrential flooding, accompanying pests and diseases.

…oh, and deforestation and illegal mining.

Anyways, what’s your guilty pleasure?

The magnificent Katharine Hayhoe swears that the first, best, and easiest thing you can do about climate change is to talk about it, and — spoiler alert, it’s your queen, Katharine Hayhoe — she’s exactly right.

The good news and bad news about blowing right past nap time 1.5 degrees is you don’t have to argue about whether climate change is real anymore! Truly.

Uncle Gary can suck it with his “global warming is natural” and #plandemic bullshit, because he simply doesn’t have a leg to stand on anymore. It’s the hottest year in 2000 years, Gary!

All of which means we really, really do have to talk about it. But friend, it’s easier than you think.

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