The Weekly Wrap: September 27, 2026

Last week, I was going through our small wine fridge to see what reds we had on hand. In the summer, we default to white and rose. Our stores of red were paltry. Just four bottles. On closer inspection, all of those bottles turned out to be from 2017 to 2019. We've accidentally aged a bunch of wine from a vineyard we used to frequent.

I have this problem where I want to save our "good" wine for appropriate times. But, when we have "appropriate" occasions - either in cuisine or company - we always go out to buy wine special for those moments. That left these bottles lingering in our fridge.

This week I said, "Screw it."

On a random Monday, we opened a nearly decade old bottle of wine while I was wearing pajamas and our only occasion was watching Monday Night Football. The wine far outstripped the moment, but who cares.

Sometimes we can make an average day just a little bit fancier.
 
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NOTE: No Wrap next week. We're out of town for a family wedding that we're turning into a vacation.

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• It's too expensive to have a life. [WaPo - gift link]
• Another reason to keep phones out of schools. [The Analog Family]
• What a doctor who treats eating disorders thinks of weight loss drugs. [Other Interests]
• Gamification has lost the plot on play. [aeon]
• We can always be reminded about how to avoid scams. [WaPo - gift link]

• Aaron Sorkin feels like he would be an interesting dinner party guest. [The Daily]
• *starts planning trip to the British Museum* [The Daily]
• Armageddon is not good, but this breakdown is. [Office Ladies]
• Designing wayfinding for transit is complicated. [CityCast DC]

• My sports are back! College football (go ND!), hockey (go Capitals!), and the NFL (go whoever is on my fantasy team!). It doesn't feel like fall until we are watching far too many hours of athletics. We've also discovered that kiddo prefers hockey to football. We had a football game on and she went, "Ohhhhh. *pout* I prefer when you watch hockey."

• The husband requested shrimp lo mein for dinner. I don't have a shrimp lo mein recipe so I took my easy veggie lo mein recipe and just added shrimp to it. Last time, I made a note to double the sauce. I followed that note and the dish turned out much better because of it. [Damn Delicious]
• Our kiddo finally likes ranch (just not when it's the dressing). The husband made one pan garlic ranch chicken and veggies. I know chicken thighs are the "bad" meat, but they taste so much better! They turn out so succulent every time. We cover all the ingredients in the ranch and garlic and, shockingly, this one doesn't turn out as a one note flavor. [Damn Delicious]