The death of hard-assed jeans and their replacement with jeggings (or their jeans equivalents) is the death of America and its replacement with Eurotrash at the low end and Europrissyman at the high end. The older I get, the more I have a distinct distaste for Europe and all things European, including the death of real, hard-assed jeans.

I didn’t realize how unsettled I’d feel when our refrigerator gave out just over a month ago. Gave out as in “couldn’t get the temperature below 45 degrees farenheit in either the refrigerated or freezer sections of the unit.”

It suddenly became impossible to keep any food at all in the house; everything had to be bought just before consumption. Meanwhile, the prospect of $600 to $1,000 or more for a new unit loomed.

Day by day, the lack of in-house refrigeration increased in importance as an issue. Something akin to worry definitely began to set in.

Finally it was clear that something had to be done. Money would have to be spent. But post-divorce, money is very tight. I considered buying a tiny apartment fridge and just living with that as a temporary solution, but somehow when you have kids, that sort of thing seems less plausible than it did when you were a young student on your own.

Finally, with dogged determination, fast talk, quick wits, and a lot of phone callsI scored a fridge through the local classified ads for only $75 and brought it home, installed it, and removed the old one myself using U-Haul rental equipment.

After a lot of cleaning, it’s humming along quietly in the kitchen. And there is food in the house again. And it is strangely beautiful that that is the case. I feel as though I want to hug it, or caress it, each time I walk past. I open it repeatedly just to know that it is there. I want to buy things just for the purpose of putting them inside tt and getting them cold.

The presence of a working refrigerator has reversed so much of the doom and gloom I’ve recently felt that it’s almost silly.

Hooray for indoor refrigeration, which is taken entirely for granted until it disappears on you.

— § —

A few weeks ago as we started painting, I started to excavate the closets (they are packed; there is a significant amount of material crap that gets left behind when an eight year marriage goes bust, and I have ended up with much of the clearing-out tasks).

I found two pairs of old Levi’s 501 raw denim jeans. And they fit. And they are amazing.

It’s easy to forget just how terrible most jeans are until you have a quality pair on you. The fabric and fit and stitching are entirely different. It looks different, definitely, but more to the point, it also feels different.

I’m now breaking in a new pair of 501 shrink-to-fits. When I was a young kid I thought the “break-in” phase, when they’re very stiff, was naff. When I saw people wearing these very stiff, dark-blue things out and about, I made fun of them in my skull.

When I bought new 501s, I’d wash and dry them over and over again until they faded before I’d wear them.

Now? Now I think that phase is beautiful. Because the result is literally uplifting. I wish everyone in the world had access to a really good quality pair of jeans. I suspect it would improve a lot of things.