Thursday Thoughts - Reminded who are we by the girls of wild strawberries

I carried a watermelon. MFD wanted to run and get his camera to capture the moment. 

Pasta salad season. Mine varies but is typically a Barilla veggie pasta base, some type of cheese, and obviously veggies. I lean to cucumber, broccoli (I throw it in with for the last minute and a half of pasta cooking), olives (kalamata in here but open to all), grape tomatoes, a bit of red onion, italian salami, an orange pepper that was about to go down, garlic salt, onion salt, garlic powder, and Olive Garden dressing. It's like a complete meal for summer. 

Getting rental season ready by doing things we could have done all winter. Insert upside down smiley face here. Painting shelves, touch up paint, trim paint touch ups, having powder room sink braced by a local handyman, replacing broken trim pieces, dry wall repair, Mermaid surgery to reattach the hangers to the back, anticipating arrival of new bench and stools that will need assembly. When I paint furniture these days, I prefer the Heirloom Traditions All in One Paint. No prep aside from cleaning needed, dries quickly, and it lasts. This is it after 1.5 coats in Capri on the right, I left it intentionally distressed in spots. It is pretty impossible to fuck up. I am painting two dressers this fall, one in navy and one probably in tea rose. 

Multiple mass shootings since Uvalde - which I wrote at length about last week - we have work to do as citizens. We cannot accept strangled minority rule. We must become ungovernable in the current system, and everyone operating in it holding change back must go, regardless of who they are and what "side" they represent. Follow Emilyinyourphone on Instagram, who is bringing action items as they come. Follow Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand. Moms....demand action here. Please. I am sorry it is falling on you like most things do, but if you just continue the work school after school activity wash rinse repeat nothing will change and we really need it to. We're all being ground down to not have the energy to effect change, but we must. We cannot have kids dying like this in America when it is not happening elsewhere on the globe where there are also guns, mental illness, otherness, misogyny, etc. These shootings and this culture of violence is entirely preventable and all of us are responsible for breaking the broken system. Some thoughts that resonated with me. 

Reminder, especially to women who are chastised for being aggressive or too much when working for something you care about, like kids being safe in schools. 

General reminder.

Analog LOLs

My perfect iced tea is brewed in a maker, and it's Boston Mint-in-Tea with a smidge of sugar and some fresh citrus, whatever is available

Happy happy birthday to my lady loves of over 30 years, KVSR who had her birthday yesterday and Kim who celebrates Sunday. 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Girls of Wild Strawberries by Guided by Voices