Spellbound

I've been to the Scripps National Spelling Bee eight times, and I somehow had not seen the documentary Spellbound until tonight.

If you, too, haven't seen it, it's available on Tubi for free and documents the path of eight students to the 1999 Bee. It's, uh, more casually racist in the beginning than I would have expected. But then it's a delight. And knowing that I'm not going to the Bee next month (like many other things, it's not happening as originally scheduled, if at all) it was really spectacular to see it in action 21 years ago. The film cameras! The hair! The clothing choices!

There were a few things in particular that delighted me, having been a part of the program for the better part of a decade:

• The calming tones of Mary Brooks, the head judge, and glimpses of other judges.
• Dr. Bailly, then the associate pronouncer and now the head pronouncer, asking "What's a Corolla?" in response to a speller's question. (This is totally in character.)
• The eventual 2000 winner, George Thampy, as an 11-year-old who went by "Georgie." He's also a judge now.
• Seeing the childhood bedroom and rivals of Nupur Lala, the winner, who I became friendly with after meeting her as an adult.
• The amazing, incredible, brilliant kids trying so hard and with such verve.
• The words! Zwieback was in an alphabet book I made in fourth grade; I swear I heard xeropthalmia (which also has a fourth grade reference for me); and of course kookaburra, he of the old gum tree.

(Dr. Bailly more recently, gettin' jiggy with it.)

This was not my favorite day of the quarantine, so those smiles were more appreciated than they would even have been on other days.

I've also been listening to Fountains of Wayne after learning that Adam Schlesinger died today. You probably know Stacy's Mom, but there's so much more that he did -- including writing That Thing You Do! and many of the songs from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It's a loss and I'm bummed about it, but glad that I'm able to listen to his music and that a little bit of him can live on.

Memories

It's Nov. 1, which means everyone who didn't want to keep their Halloween candy has kindly brought it into the office for the rest of us to eat.

This is a strange leap, perhaps, from Halloween, but the candy on the table -- a lone packet of SweeTarts, in the midst of Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops -- has made me nostalgic. In fact, I always get nostalgic when I eat SweeTarts.

When I was in high school, one of my best friends would always buy a long roll of the sugary, colorful candy. They would get passed around orchestra, and we'd put down our bows to pop SweeTarts onto our stands and into our mouths. I don't know that it was ever codified that SweeTarts would arrive on a daily basis in orchestra, but they always did -- even on concert nights, when we were all dressed in skirts and suit pants, and we needed to be much more subtle as we passed the candy around.

I always liked SweeTarts.

I stopped eating them, though, my sophomore year of high school. My friend -- his name is Josh -- was diagnosed with cancer. He died that same week.

I know this is a blog about things that make me smile, and that doesn't sound like something very happy at all. And it isn't. But here's what is: whenever I see SweeTarts I think of Josh. I have to eat them in his memory. I smile as I reminisce about him passing them around orchestra. The candy makes me think of throwing snowballs at stop signs while we waited for the bus, or of movie nights in his basement. It makes me recall his big smile and his infectious laugh and the first time someone called me and launched into conversation without first identifying who was talking. SweeTarts were hard for me to eat for a long time. But now they bring back good memories.

So I'm sitting at my desk, popping SweeTarts, and thinking of Josh. And the fact that so many years later, this little candy can bring back such vivid memories of a person who meant so much to me really does make me smile.

Summer Colds

No, it is not Summer Colds that bring me joy. They, in fact, tend to bring me the opposite of joy, and this particular cold is no exception to that rule.

What HAS brought me joy via this cold, however, is my fiance. Throughout this weekend, as I have been a mouthbreathing snotty mess, he keeps starting to ask if I am okay, as I am often a mouthbreathing snotty mess after running away to cry without him knowing.

The fact that he notices and the fact that he told me several times that he keeps worrying because he keeps thinking I am upset brings joy to my heart. Yes folks, the crazy and capricious Chrys has found a keeper.