Despite the long and leisurely bank holiday weekend I still planned to send this newsletter on Saturday, but a wine-fuelled Friday night that ended with me sending myself the following email (please note the time) while watching The Sound of Music* made writing (and playing tennis and generally living a productive and fulfilling life) on Saturday difficult, so I tabled it until today. Et voila! Here we are with a little Easter Monday surprise.
THIS IS A PSA
For those of you who aren’t in the know, here in the UK we’re again (finally!) allowed to congregate in gardens (though there are many loose interpretations of that word) with our friends and family. And with a few warm days under our belts and spring definitely in the air, we’re also now well into Rosé Season which, in my estimation, is the second best season after the short-lived Wimbledon Season, so I wanted to take this opportunity to declare something that I passionately and emphatically believe: stem glasses do not require coasters! I mean, just look at them. They have a little coaster already built-in!
Look, I get it. I was raised in a Coaster House, too. Every end table, coffee table, bedside table, dining table, and patio table had a stack of coasters on top, ready and waiting to save the surface from the calamitous impact of a beverage. Coming from a coaster-positive household, I understand why people might choose to use them, but aesthetically I find even the nicest coasters unsightly, and functionally I find them annoying.
Let’s be real: most coasters don’t even work that well! If you’re drinking something that actually requires a coaster, like a cold tankard of lager or a sweating cocktail in a rocks glass, you’ll find that card and fabric coasters get damp and stain, which seems to defeat the purpose of a coaster in the first place and also looks and feels so gross. (I’m sorry, but it’s true.) Tile, metal, and stone coasters make an annoying noise when a glass is placed on them and, as someone with a mild case of self-diagnosed misophonia, I would honestly trade the rings on a table for that noise, especially when people with Goliath-sized hands like David have had a drink and start putting their glass down with a little less care than one might desire. CLANK! I’ve been to some homes that sadly have plastic or resin-coated coasters and I’m here to tell you that those are slippery motherfuckers; I once watched an entire class of ice water slowly slide off a plastic coaster and spill all over a table. It’s time we acknowledge that coasters like this are a bad solution with an even worse outcome. Abolish these coasters!
But because of the way I was raised, I will submit to the most crucial rules of The Coaster and I begrudgingly use a set of slate slabs when drinking water or iced beverages on my lovely Danish midcentury teak dining table (more on this in another post, perhaps) but that’s… kinda it. When visiting friends I will of course extend the same coaster curtesy when drinking cold beverages on their nice tables, but I will not, and cannot!, stand for using a coaster when drinking out of a stem glass. I’m sorry, but even if your table is made of the world’s most precious metal, I will not use a coaster with a stem glass because there’s one already built in right there at the bottom!
This Rosé Season, I implore all of you to break free from the coaster and to let your stem glasses plant themselves wherever they please. It’s a very small step for stem-kind but it’s an important one, and I promise you won’t regret it.
PSA OVER
Those of you who have been here since the beginning will remember that I have a vested interest in uncovering the mystery of the missing Ryans. Since that first investigation, I have digitally identified three (3) men named Ryan. Here’s a rundown of these Ryans and what we currently know about them.
RYAN DECKER | The Bold Type is a terrible show that I love dearly and can’t in good conscious recommend to anyone who values their time on this Earth. I’ve recently started season 4 and realised that I had completely forgotten that Jane Sloan, who on the show is a beautiful but annoying writer at a glossy women’s mag and IRL is an American Idol alum, dates a man named Ryan née Pinstripe for so many episodes despite him being literally the worst. Even at his best you’re actively rooting against him, and even though Little Jane is so annoying, she’s not so annoying that you want her to end up with this absolute douchbag. He is so emblematic of everything that I imagine real life American millennial Ryans to be that it’s actually breathtaking. You can basically smell his Crew cologne and beer breath through the screen. Someone give this Ryan an Emmy!!
Side note: I finished season 4 last night and feel like I need to join a support group or something now. If you have also wasted roughly 11 hours of your life and yelled “WHAT!! SHE WOULD NEVER DO THAT!!” approximately 400 times in those last four episodes, then please do holler at your girl! I don’t think I’ll be able to make it through this next– and final– season alone.RYAN EBERLY | This story is so so sad. Last week, Ryan Eberly and his wife, Julie, were driving through North Carolina on an anniversary trip when another driver fired a gun into the passenger side of their vehicle in a horrific act of road rage, killing Julie. Julie was 47, but we do not yet know how old Ryan is and, as someone who is in an age gap relationship, I’m not going to take a guess at it either because who knows! I will, however, say this: Every time a politician or person of influence speaks out in support of the second amendment and actively works against creating more regulations for gun ownership (which the majority of people in America are proponents of!) I feel physically sick. There is nothing free about walking around in your day-to-day life and feeling threatened by some guy open carrying a loaded firearm in a public space. There is nothing brave about bringing a firearm into your home to protect your family, especially when so many families, and women specifically, are actually terrorised or killed by them instead. There is no liberty or justice for the 39,707 people who died because of a gun last year. There is no right that should ever result in Julie Emberly’s death, or the deaths of anyone, and I am so sorry to this Ryan and his six children as they mourn their wife and mother because another asshole having a bad day had access to a gun in America.
RYAN FISCHER | Does this name sound familiar? No? Perhaps it’s because you better know this Ryan as Lady Gaga’s dog walker, a man who is yet another victim of gun violence in America. While Ryan’s age is unclear, we do know that he was shot in the chest during a dog robbery, which took place on March 1st, and is thankfully on track to make a full recovery. The dogs are also happily back at home and HOPEFULLY better gun control legislation will soon pass in America because, uh, this current system seem to be incredibly not good!!!!!
If you have any American Millennial Ryan tips or news that you feel I should know about, please do get in touch. I genuinely hope my next Ryan Update won’t be as depressing as this one!!
This has been your sporadic Ryan Update. And this has also been another Kate Things. Thanks for reading. ✌️
*I love The Sound of Music. When I was a wee child, the first play I remember seeing was a church production of The Sound of Music that a family friend was in (hi Christa!). My parents bought me a copy of the production’s soundtrack on cassette in the lobby and I proceeded to play that tape on my My First Sony Cassette Player TPM-8000 until it literally fell apart. A few years later, when I got my first boom box (another Sony, though I don’t remember the make), my parents also gifted me the ~official~ soundtrack on CD, and having Julie Andrew’s perfect voice blasting out of those speakers gave me life. I probably watch The Sound of Music once every year or two and I still love to throw myself into a full-on sing-along, the words falling out of my mouth with the same ease I feel when I get on a bike again. Every time I re-watch, I fall even more in love with Maria and Captain von Trapp and feel a profound comfort in knowing I’ve always loved this family and their values while also realising new layers to their intimacy and care for one another. I’m not saying I’d do it again, but I don’t at all regret staying up until 2AM watching it this past Friday, even if it did make me a bit of a flibbertigibbet, a will-o’-the wisp, a clown! 🤡