Smorgasbord #51

Memento Mori, Clean Van, Malört

Oct 04, 2024

Memento Mori

I attended a funeral this week, and I cried when I saw my friends processing into the Church. I thought about the most recent funerals I’ve been to and how they have affected me. I also think I was due for a cry. Have you ever felt like you need a good cry? Even after the Mass ended and I was driving home, I still felt overcome with emotion without a specific reason. It was cathartic, though.

During the homily, the priest mentioned how death humbles us by confronting us with our mortality, but it can also lead us to gratitude for experiencing the love of God through the person we’re saying goodbye to. I connected this thought to Memento Mori: remember that you will die, not in a gloom and doom way, but as a reminder that we should live our best life every day because we don’t have tomorrow guaranteed.

I want to live life to the fullest, not for myself but for Diana and the kids. As

Daniel Joseph Petty

reminded me earlier this week, my family is the main recipient of the fruits of my effort to be healthier and stronger. I was able to refocus and get back on track after a couple of weeks of being sick and or unmotivated to eat well and exercise.

The priest also said that many people wouldn’t be here without this one person. Sometimes, I’m too focused on the day-to-day that I lose sight of the bigger picture. All the things that had to happen to get me where I am right now seem short of a miracle. I could’ve stayed in my hometown and never ventured to Phoenix, meaning I would’ve never met Diana, and we wouldn’t have the kids we have today. The thought experiment itself was wild and made me way more thankful for everything and every one the good Lord has put on my path until now.

Clean Van

Diana and I couldn’t handle how filthy our van was anymore. Before we had kids, we were adamant about no snacks in the car or the living room. Let’s say that reality has set in hard in the Cantu household, and we have decided that “snacks in the car” is not the hill we’re willing to die on.

I had the day off on Friday, and since the weather was “cooling down,” we decided to tag team it and clean the van before we had to pick up my sister and BIL from the airport.

I told Diana the good news was that if we ever got stranded, we could probably feed our children with the scraps on the floor. The amount of pretzels, goldfish, and McDonald’s chicken nuggets was ridiculous. Cleaning the bigger pieces of trash was easy; after that, we brought in the vacuum cleaner, and I even used a putty knife to unstick whatever was stuck to the floor. It was very satisfying. If you read last week’s Smorgasbord, you’ll see a theme.

Don’t you breathe better after looking at this picture? I did finer detailing after I took this picture, but you get the idea of how far we had come. It took a few hours of our morning to get it to a decent state, but it was well worth it. The kids were very eager to help clean the van, which made it a fun family activity, but the novelty of it all quickly dissipated, and soon enough, they moved on to other things.

If your family vehicle looks like the before picture, don’t lose hope. I’m here to tell you that it can be fixed; you just need to pick a day when you have nothing else to do, have a hearty breakfast, and maybe play some upbeat music while you’re working so it becomes more enjoyable. The satisfaction of a job well done and a clean van is worth the effort. I guarantee it.

Malört

My BIL works with a guy from Chicago (I think) who introduced him to Malört, a bitter, full-bodied, wormwood-based liqueur. Diana and I went on a double date with my sister and BIL, and after dinner, we stopped at Total Wine for my BIL to buy a bottle of this liqueur to take back to Mexico. He kept saying that it had a woodsy berry and grapefruit flavor to it, which doesn’t sound too bad. After all, I like Campari and different kinds of Amaro, which are bitter liqueurs.

My BIL got a bottle of it, and I found mini liqueur bottles by the register, so we decided to buy a couple of them and try it. Diana took a big swig of the little bottle, which was a mistake. After that, I took a smaller swig, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it was probably worse than Everclear which I have only smelled.

Apparently, Malört leans into the “it tastes bad” as a marketing tool, and it’s one of their “selling” points. And now, the most hilarious descriptions of what Malört tastes like according to the internet.

Some say Malört tastes like:

Burnt tires and bug spray.
Shame and regret left to ferment before being distilled through an old, sweaty shoe.
The way your kid's shoes smell when it's time to replace them.
A punch in the face.
Pencil shavings and heartbreak.

Try it at your own risk, and if you do, let me know which one is more accurate.

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Sobremesa

Can you believe Smorgasbord turns ONE next week?
On a scale of 1 to 10, where one is filthy and ten is immaculate, how clean is your car?
You are thinking about getting a little bottle of Malört, aren’t you?