Pretzels and cream soda

Yes, I realize I already blogged today but I just experienced something crazy.

I remembered that in the refrigerator remained a single bottle of Sprecher Cream Soda. Usually smells bring people back to a certain time, a certain place. Tonight it was the taste of that cream soda. It tastes like home. The moment I took a sip out of that dark amber bottle, I tasted home. It sounds so weird to say but it's the only way to explain it. (The pretzels I'm eating are only there to be a salty foil to the sweetness of the soda.)

The way we as people relate tastes and smells and how things feel, as in physically feel to the touch, to other places and things . . . It's pretty phenomenal. As I drank this gorgeous amber beverage I couldn't help but marvel at how incredible it is that our minds make such connections day after day and that often we don't even realize it. Human consciousness is remarkable.

Don't jump to any conclusions: basically the last thing I am right now is homesick. Being back in Utah is fantastic and it will only continue to get better, or so I hope/plan. Life may not be perfect but it is better than okay.

As I typed the word "soda" a bunch of different times in this post I remembered a quick conversation Jordan and I had at Ikea last week. I can't quite remember why I said the word "soda" at all but Jordan was very quick to point out how Midwestern/Canadian I sounded what with the whole "really long vowel thing" I often have going on when I speak. If I ever lose that quirk to my speech, I'll be a very unhappy camper.

So I've mentioned The Fault In Our Stars a bunch of times over the past two days and here I go again: Kate is reading it currently! She's two chapters in and liking it very much. She said it pulled her in right away which is always a good thing. It's very different from An Abundance of Katherines, which is the only other John Green book she's read, but that's okay. Katherines is totally a funny and witty and much less serious than TFiOS. Hopefully Kate likes it all the way through! (I think the last time I talked about Katherines was this post . . . Oh boy.)

Last YouTube video I watched: Greg Holden - Home (Live) (Most of you will hear this song and think of that Phillip Phillips guy from American Idol, or I guess of the US women's gymnastics team. And yeah, he sings this song. But Greg is the guy who wrote it! How crazy awesome is that?! I also happen to love Greg's version a million times more. Maybe I'm biased but that's how it goes when one of the guys is a YouTube love and the other guy won American Idol.)