21 Things to Love or Despise

COMPELLING

This was a challenge I couldn't resist: list 21 favorite and 21 anti-favorite (hated) things. The challenge was to do it without repeating, otherwise my favorites list might have been 20 book titles and a menu.

So here, in no particular order, are my favorite things. If you notice a theme, you may understand why I am not a slender person.

• A well-executed gancho in Argentine Tango
• Free books in the mail
• Discovering that a new Honor Harrington (Neal Stephenson, Connie Wilson, Sherri Tepper, etc....) novel is out in paperback
• Kissing in the rain
• A fire, a glass of Pastori port, and a new book to read on a cold day (or evening)
• Fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies... Brandied pears with dark chocolate sauce... Chocolate-chip croissants from the City Bakery in San Francisco
• A purring cat in my lap
• Payday!
• Finishing a project, and planning a new one
• Vals cruzada
• Wine-tasting tours
• Falling back in the Fall
• Bean soup
• Twitty's Barbeque in Oklahoma City, Basil's in downtown Minneapolis, Margherita's in Elk Grove, IL, Mumtaz in Amsterdam, Seasons Grill (now called Roxii) in El Segundo, CA, My Brother's Bar and Pagliacci's in Denver, Papagallo and Browns of Rivonia in Johannesburg, East West in Sebastopol, and C.J. Borg's at SeaTac.
• New shoes that don't squeak
• Venison stew
• An expert foot massage
• A weekend visit to Wilbur Hot Springs
• Saving the day at my job
• Viewing Fourth-of-July fireworks from a kayak in Richardson's Bay
• New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles

On the other side, there are surely at least 21 things I despise. Here, again, the effort goes into finding classes of things to avoid repetition.

• Spam eMail and all its relatives: mortgage-lenders who call at 6 pm, junk mail, trash comments on my Blogcritics posts, eBay and payPal spoofers, worm and virus creators
• Burnt popcorn
• Cat vomit (and hairballs and other effluvia of kitty...)
• Getting caught out when I'm BSing
• Climbing out of a warm bed on a cold winter morning
• Name-calling substituted for political or philosophical discourse
• Office politics
• Springing forward in the Spring
• Airport security checks
• Deer dead in the road (wasted food)
• French onion soup... boiled cabbage... overcooked liver... undercooked bacon... watery pasta
• Being asked to explain a joke
• Tripping, stumbling, or otherwise looking like a goof on the dance floor
• Bad breath
• Wardrobe malfunctions on guys (especially me!)
• Rose-scented perfumes
• People who drive (or walk) "unconscious"
• Getting sick
• Pay cuts... getting "laid off"... unemployment
• Falling asleep on the sofa in the middle of a party
• Flat tires

Looking back, I can't believe I left off the biggest favorite of all: Sex. Hot monkey love. Doing the dirty boogie, the horizontal mambo, tangoing between the sheets.... But that's a different list of 21.
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