Mason Jars and Ben Folds Five

If you are ever a guest in my house you can expect a scene like this:

Me: Hey, come on in. Make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink?
You: Thanks. That would be great. I'll have water.

Then I'll bring you a mason jar of water.

Or maybe if we are having a fancy dinner (which actually never happens at my house because I don't have a dining room table) the scene might look like this:

Me: Hey, come on in. Make yourself at home. Would you like a glass of wine?
You: Thanks. That would be great.

Then I'll bring you a mason jar of wine.

Are you seeing a theme here? Politeness and mason jars. Politeness because my mother would kill me if I wasn't a good hostess and mason jars because I only have two kinds of drinkware in my house: mugs and mason jars, and mugs are for hot beverages (and sometimes cereal, if I'm out of bowls.) I'm not talking about those cutesy mason jars either, the kind with the handles that you get when you order sweet tea at some bbq restaurant, these are regular old mason jars meant to be used for canning and preserving.

Mason jars are the handiest item to have around. I have one in every room in my house. One holds spare change in my bedroom, one holds pencils on my desk, one hold spoons and spatulas in the kitchen, and, assuming the dishes are clean, I have a cabinet full for drinking.

Just poured a glass of ice tea but now have to leave the house? Put a lid on it and put it back in the fridge or put a lid on it and take it with you. Because all mason jars COME WITH LIDS. How great is that? Want to take soup to work? Put it in a mason jar. Need to shake up some homemade salad dressing? Or maybe you are making a marinade? Mason jar. Making butter? Making whipped cream? ALL OF THESE THINGS CAN BE DONE IN A MASON JAR. It doesn't get much handier than that. And they are cheap. A quick Google search reveals you can get a dozen for $11. So if you break one (although I'm pretty sure that's nearly impossible) it's not a big deal.

Okay, so it's virtually impossible to tell how much wine you've had when you are drinking it out of a 16 oz. mason jar, but accidentally getting drunk on a Tuesday night while you are cooking dinner seems like a small price to pay for having the world's most useful item in your cabinet.

This week's hot jam is One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces by Ben Folds Five. (Full disclosure: I have a major crush on Ben Folds. I think it's his spirited piano playing and our mutual love for Dr. Dre's song and censorship nightmare, Bitches Ain't Shit.) One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces has some fabulous lyrics: "September '75 I was 47 inches high/Mom said by Christmas I would have/A badass mother G.I. Joe", it's fast, a little angry and a little funny and I love it.