Which is stranger: Rotating cups or having favorite burner?

Pity my poor stove burners. Three of them, at least: The back-left burner and both of them on the right.

Because when I cook on the stove at Casa de Stanhope, I definitely have a favorite burner: the front left.

There's nothing wrong with the other three. They are fine at their job, I'm sure. I gladly use them when I need to cook multiple things.

They can burn hot. They can simmer. In fact, they probably do it as well as the front-left burner. I just prefer the front left burner.

I probably should feel bad for the other burners, though. I know they are not alive. I know they don't have feelings.

But neither do plates, cups and glasses – and I make an effort to treat them fairly.

Let me explain.

Like many Americans, we don't use all of our plates every time we eat. We have eight place settings and I suspect that most times we run the dishwasher, only two or three plates are in there, since it's now just Mrs. Brad and me. When our sons were at home, we often emptied the cupboards for a single meal or day, but no more.

Here's the deal, though: When I empty the dishwasher and put plates back in the cupboard, I rotate them. Otherwise, we'll just keep using the same plates over and over and over, which seems wrong.

I realize they won't wear out (Mrs. Brad and I have had the same plates since we married nearly 36 years ago and they haven't worn down), but it feels unfair to keep using the same dishes. All plates deserve to work, so I rotate them. It's only fair.

The same is true with coffee cups. I have my favorites, of course, but it seems wrong to keep the same cups in the prime positions on our coffee cup tree. Cups also won't wear out, but it's not fair to turn cups into the equivalent of being the backup to Cal Ripken Jr. or Brett Favre. All the cups should be occasionally used. It's only fair.

Same with glasses (although ours are plastic. You know what I mean). I rotate them – not to balance how they wear out, but out of fairness.

I've always valued fairness. I want an inclusive world. I want everybody to be able to play in a game. I don't like exclusive clubs or teams or leagues or groups. Let everyone participate.

Somehow, that translates to how I view dishes, cups and glasses: They're all equally important. They all deserve to be used and washed. None are more important than the others.

It's only fair.

But with a stove? I guess I'm an elitist. The key to being a good burner is the same as the key to real estate: Location, location, location.

If you want to be the most-used burner, be in the lower-left corner.

It's unfair, but that's how it goes.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

National Asparagus Day? National Tap Dance Day? Too many holidays?

Monday is National Asparagus Day, the holiday on which we eat a specific vegetable for a reason that I can only presume came after an intense lobbying effort by the powerful asparagus lobby.

It's another in the line of special days – days that are now mentioned on news shows, commercials and social media.

If you're on Facebook, you've seen Siblings Day. Cousins Day. Probably a bunch of other made-up days, too.

Think back to your childhood. There was no Siblings Day. There was Mother's Day and Father's Day. There was no Kid's Day because 100% of parents told us every day was kid's day.

Now? It's a parade of holidays.

Want evidence? Here's what else we celebrate Monday: Aviation Maintenance Technician Day, National Brother's Day, National Scavenger Hunt Day and Victoria Day. The latter is a legit day in Canada, the others were presumably invented by aviation maintenance technicians, brothers and people who make money off scavenger hunts.

Other days to be celebrated this week include National Tap Dance Day and National Wine Day (Tuesday); National Blueberry Cheesecake Day and National Paper Airplane Day (Wednesday); National Grape Popsicle Day (Thursday); National Hamburger Day and National Sunscreen Day (Friday); and National Mint Julep Day (May 30).

Seems absurd, right? I mean, I can understand National Brother's Day, National Hamburger Day and National Paper Airplane Day, because I'm a brother who eats hamburgers and can make a paper airplane. But the others? Come on, man!

Wait. National Blueberry Cheesecake Day makes sense, too. Oh, National Tap Dance Day is cool, too, since people who tap dance are cool. I don't drink, so National Wine Day is meaningless to me.

Maybe I'm too much of a traditionalist, but I liked it better when we all agreed on the national days. They were vacation days, or at least days when professional sports leagues changed their schedules.

The problem came when we started acting like virtually every day was worthy of commemorating. Taco Tuesday was OK, although it was obviously pushed by the Americanized Mexican food lobby. National Pancake Day seemed OK because IHOP gave away free pancakes (it was canceled this year) and the same is true for the free Slurpees you can get at 7-Eleven on July 11 (because it's 7-11!).

But June starts with National Barefoot Day and National Milk Day, which are . . . wait, neither of those is a bad idea. I like milk, I'll go barefoot if I can. Well, June 1 is also National Say Something Nice Day and National Heimlich Day, which are . . . wait, those are both good ideas, too. And June 2 is National Leave the Office Early Day . . . so  . . . well . . . .

I guess I've changed my mind.

The national obsession with adding holidays to the calendar doesn't seem like such a bad idea. You can have National Asparagus Day and National Mint Julep Day, but I'll take many of the others.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Here's what I know: I have until Dec. 31 to figure it out. That's because, in addition to being New Year's Eve and National Champagne Day, it's one other holiday: It's National Make Up Your Mind Day.

Before that, though, I need to get ready for National Brother's Day. I have three sisters who will celebrate me, after all.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Life takes another step toward normalcy with return to office

It was like being in a sci-fi movie.

When I walked into my office Monday, my calendar showed March 2020. My coffee cup was fine, but a plastic cup in which I had soda (or tea? Gatorade?) was filled with what looked like corrosion from a leaking battery. It was so gross, I had to throw it away.

The office kitchen was empty, with signs limiting how many people could be there and requiring everything to be wiped down after each use. The normal office population of about 50 or 60 people was down to 10 or maybe less.

I was back in my office for the first time in 14 months.

This isn't unique. The returns to "normal" occurred a while ago for many people, but last Monday was my first time in my office since March 16, 2020. The pandemic year-plus of working out of my kitchen ended.

This was what most of us looked forward to the most: When life would return to normal, or at least partway to normal. Working in my office seemed normal, but having a fraction of the normal workplace population didn't. Sitting at my desk seemed normal, but having to keep my door closed if I didn't want to wear a mask didn't. Getting coffee seemed normal, but having to use single-use creamers and wipe down the machine after each use didn't.

I am the first person in my working group to return to the office and I don't know if or when others will. When I sent an email informing them that I had responded positively to an email asking if anyone was interested in coming back, a co-worker sent me an instant message paraphrasing me as a character from "The Hunger Games": "I volunteer as tribute!"

After more than a year of wearing shorts and a T-shirt, of sitting at a makeshift desk in our kitchen, of having lunch with Mrs. Brad and being able to take a walk around my neighborhood the minute I logged off for the day, things were different.

Now I wear adult clothes to work. I drive every day (after buying gas for my Prius four times in 14 months). I have to plan lunches. I see people (few, but still I see them) beyond Mrs. Brad.

Life is returning to normal, but it doesn't seem normal yet. Because it isn't.

Whether you work in an office, at a job site, in retail or at home, the world changed since it shut down last year. Will our work lives ever go back to what they were in early 2020? Will my office ever be filled with my co-workers, chatting in the kitchen and hoping someone else makes coffee? Will we bring co-workers coffee on Friday? Will we collectively wonder why our bosses are meeting behind closed doors?

Or will the changes made in the past year – the ability for some of us to work remotely, the normalization of ordering everything we need online, the realization that wearing a mask may help us stay healthy – become the norm?

I'm not sure. In the past month, Mrs. Brad and I returned to in-person church, I returned to my office and we even went to a restaurant. Maybe you've been doing it for a while, but it's still new to us.

By Wednesday – my third day at the office – it already felt normal again. Updated regulations late in the week concerning masking and social distancing helped, too.

I just hope they emptied the garbage can into which I threw the disgusting cup with drink residue.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Owning my five biggest mistakes in sports opinions

For most of the 1980s and 1990s, I heard that soccer was the next great American sport.

It was the world's most popular sport, after all. It was extremely popular among kids. Those kids were tomorrow's adults. It was exciting and global.

I called baloney, year after year.

My arguments were always the same: Kids played soccer until they reached high school, then decided to play football and basketball and volleyball and baseball and softball. I was sure soccer would never take hold in America. Soccer would always be popular among 8-year-olds, but not among adults.

I would tell people that kickball and foursquare had the same chance at being the next big sport as soccer.

I was right, year after year.

Until I was wrong.

Now soccer is a big sport in America. Soccer gets big TV ratings. Fifteen years ago, it surpassed hockey in surveys measuring American sports popularity, ranking behind only football, basketball and baseball. Now it's about to pass baseball to move into third place.

I was spectacularly wrong on soccer, which isn't a huge surprise. I think I know a lot about sports, so I have spent decades spouting decisions. They're often wrong, seldom in doubt.

I'm here today to own some of my biggest mistakes in forecasting sports.

Soccer's success ranks second on my worst predictions. Here is the rest of the top five.

5. Pablo Sandoval will be a Hall of Famer. When Pablo joined the Giants in 2008, I figured he'd be the first Hall of Famer for the team since Willie McCovey. Sandoval could hit, he was fun and he would certainly win two or three batting championships. Nope. Thirteen years later, Pablo is a pinch-hitting star for the Atlanta Braves, but if he wants to get in the Baseball Hall of Fame, he'll need to pay admission.

4. Alex Smith is better than Aaron Rodgers. When the 49ers picked Smith first in the 2005 draft rather than Cal quarterback Rodgers, I was sure it was correct. After all, Rodgers held the ball near his helmet's earhole while preparing to throw while at Cal, which looked dorky. That guy wouldn't be a good quarterback.  He couldn't. Fast forward 15 years and Rodgers was named the MVP last season. He will go straight to the Hall of Fame. Smith won't.

3. Billy Owens/Joe Smith/Larry Hughes/Monta Ellis will be an NBA star. For decades, I expected the best out of high draft picks by the Golden State Warriors. For decades, the players were serviceable. Just as I was ready to give up, they drafted Steph Curry and everything changed.

2. Soccer will never be a major American sport. See above.

1.  Steve DeBerg should remain the 49ers quarterback. In 1980, the 49ers were in the second year of a rebuilding effort with coach Bill Walsh. Steve DeBerg had just set the record for most completions and I thought he was a Pro Bowl caliber quarterback. Late in the season, Walsh started a second-year quarterback who was drafted in the third round the year before. I thought it was absurd, because that guy would never be as good as DeBerg. That guy was Joe Montana.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

A 3-year-old is evidence that Barbie dolls are still popular

Barbie is back!

If seeing how my 3-year-old granddaughter loves her myriad Barbie-type dolls wasn't enough, Mattel Inc. recently said that during the pandemic year of 2020, Barbie had its best sales growth in 20 years. Barbie – previously considered an outdated doll that gave girls an unhealthy view of their bodies – is now one of the hottest toys in America.

The reasons are a revamp of Barbie's look, partnerships with movie studies and work with social media influencers.

And my 3-year-old granddaughter and presumably, her 1-year-old sister.

The dolls are different now. Barbie dolls come in 22 skin tones and 94 hair colors. There are five body types. There are Barbie dolls with wheelchairs.

(Side note: I can't track the dolls' names. I know some are named Barbie, but some have other names. It's mystifying. They have names like Skipper and . . . well, all I know are Skipper and Barbie. I think one of my sisters had a doll named Midge, who may have been produced by Mattel.)

While Mrs. Brad kept her Barbie dolls from her childhood (which may have been the "gateway drug" for our granddaughter to love the dolls), I have never been connected to them. I had three older sisters and they had some sort of Barbie-like dolls, but I don't have clear memories of them.

I remember trolls. I remember paper dolls. I remember some sort of dollhouse.

I also remember finding a G.I. Joe with a missing arm and playing with him with my friend Troy, who had the cool, bearded G.I. Joe. We would throw them back and forth over the house, pretending they were falling out of airplanes, which is a very boy thing to do.

But man, our 3-year-old granddaughter loves those dolls. We have variations at our house for when she and her sister (and their parents) visit, including a cool smaller one with a wraparound skirt. The first time we shared her, we mentioned the skirt and our granddaughter has since called the doll "Kurt," which is sweet.

This is all new to me. It's also new to my son and daughter-in-law. They purposefully avoided giving her "girl" toys and doing such things as painting her room pink or reading her princess stories (this is my interpretation. I've never asked). They wanted her to be herself.

At 3, what she wants to be is a princess who plays with Barbie dolls.

That may be part of the attraction of Barbie: The doll taps into something that little girls (and little boys) like.

But it's not just luck. Give the Mattel people credit for figuring out a way to transform one of their flagship properties to a world that is entirely different than when Barbie first appeared in 1959.

Next up is a Barbie movie from Warner Bros. Who knows what that will do to the brand.

Here's what we know: Barbie bounced back during the pandemic and Barbie is still big after 62 years. She may become even bigger in the next few years.

We also know that old-school G.I. Joes can survive "falls from airplanes."

That knowledge might terrorize my 3-year-old granddaughter, so I'll keep it to myself.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.