Friday Files 4.28.2023

What it looks like on the bay and what it looks like less than 10 minutes later on the windows four blocks up the street. I have spent so much life chasing light without regret.

My shore corner store (Boyar's) is back, baby! I'm super thrilled. I ate meals from their hot case and ordered this week. They got new produce cases and I'm thrilled even though it costs a king's ransom for any of it. In the summer I'll pay it to be able to walk

Seen while walking

Imagine being this dog. A big galoot for a pug who still insists on being a lap dog. His feelings are very hurt because we've been walking for about an hour after work every night and he is a couch dog by now. I used to walk him miles all over this town when he was a puppy trying to get him to be less afraid of people. That didn't work, but it did encourage him to be more at home among pillows and blankets. Ben is the best good boy and would walk with me forever.

Travel is back back back. I did some more refining of Griswold Summer European Vacation trip this week and booked Vatican tickets. I also booked one of my top three must see before I die destinations for February: Morocco. I've wanted to go since I first set foot in EPCOT's version when I was like five or six years old, and it's been high on MFD's radar for the past 10+ years as well so it's perfect. Our travel priorities do not always align LOL. I got an absolutely tremendous deal - the total for flights/hotels/transfers/breakfasts was the same for two of us as I've been pricing out for one of us over the past 1.5 years, and in the pre-Covid years as well. I booked this trip as a one stop shop, where a company books your flights/hotels/transport between cities. I'm comfortable doing that but it's nice to take a break from that too, so when going to countries where I am less familiar with how the transit works - and where there is a language barrier I consider more surmountable than usual - I don't mind having a company do that. Especially when they run insane deals.

If you are free to travel whenever you want, there are some great deals out there for Europe airfare right now.

Speaking of travel...have you ever noticed that most of the complaining reviews of anywhere international - countries, hotels, services, etc - are made my Americans? It's like if it doesn't work exactly the same as it does in America, people lose their fucking minds. I hate it.

I have also ordered several dresses that I do not need for Europe, but want to try anyway. 

Billy Hicks the Creep lording over those of us in the backyard before I left Philly this week

Why I do not buy shit in stores anymore - nor do I buy it online of the stores that have locked every fucking thing up. What the fuck kind of country values corporate profit over health and has its citizens in a position where they don't make enough to cover necessities. 

Not interested in uniting with flag humpers who surely stand for law and order yet park in a fire lane and sit there while behind them the parking lot is a sea of empty spots. If you are with someone who needs door drop off, do that then park your car. 

No, I am not happy Joe Biden is running again. I wasn't happy he was running the first time, or that he won the nomination. Yes I will be voting for him because despite what internet commenters think, no one is going to challenge him. Not because there isn't someone better, but because we do not currently exist in a system where someone from within the party is going to challenge an incumbent president and the main reason we are not in that system is lack of campaign finance regulations and the existence of Citizens United. Get money out of politics, as I have said ad infinitum. And yes, not voting for Biden by simply refraining from the vote or writing in someone who will not win is a vote for fascism. Fascism as conducted by the GOP is unfolding in FL, TN, OK, and MT in ways we have not seen before - in the censure of democratically (the process, not the party) elected lawmakers at the state level. This is well beyond the fascist book bans, anti-abortion, anti-trans, anti-Black, anti-gay methodology we are more familiar with. This is very fucking serious shit and if you care about not living in a fascist country, vote for Biden or commit to the revolution, which will be violent out of necessity because things have gone well too far. Since no one could even commit to a national strike or halfheartedly throw a Molotov cocktail in response to a corrupt court striking down Roe or in response to the gun murders we are subjected to daily, both actions which would be and have been done in other countries for those things and much less, people who think they know in the comment sections can STFU. This is fucking dire. 

Coming to the end of dogs on the regular beach season in Ocean City. We are not okay. We can still drive to Dog Beach, but we are not okay.

The faces of the beach this week.

And the bay...they imploded boiler units on the former power plant that is across the bay from us. The smokestack is coming down in the future too and internet commenters are...lamenting this as a loss in the landscape? Just because it's always been in your sunset photos doesn't mean it belongs there. It is a fucking phallic smoke stack of a shut down power plant,  not a fucking lighthouse! What's to mourn?

Today is super rainy so we've not been out much...we're living on the memory of the previous few days, where we've spent at least an hour outside after work every day walking around.

Have a good weekend! Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day - support your local! 

Friday Files 3.10.2023

We do love a shirt that shines.

And a shirt that says exactly what we mean. Annual list of what women don't owe the world is in the instagram caption.

The worm moon before it was fully up Sunday night and when it was fully up over a parking lot Tuesday night 

Things I'm looking for...four decorative ceiling tiles, maybe some comfortable dining chairs for the shore. A slim cabinet for next to the couch of a certain height that is not wood colored, black, gray, a zillion dollars, and available. A winning lottery ticket, not big bucks just big enough. You know.

People in my neighborhood go so hard at some shit and it makes me laugh.

I've been thinking of virtually abandoning this space and starting a free substack newsletter. You can subscribe here and you'll get it whenever I push it out - I'm going to just be jotting shit down off the cuff and not formatting or being insanely photo heavy. I'll probably keep weekend stuff here? I'm not sure exactly, yet. 

Because I miss the jotting things down form of writing I favor, which I did some semblance of here on blogger like four to five days a week for close to 10 years, then twice a week once the surreal onset of the Covid pandemic wrecked all of the routines and thought processes, and now I’m barely making once a week.

Part of not posting a lot on blogger is me, no longer wanting to sit at a computer after sitting at a computer for 40+ hours working. I loathe doing it from my phone. I always worked a lot and still blogged but there is a difference now, with majority WFH. I feel both more and less in control of my time. It seems to flow through my hands and get away from me these days.

Part of not posting a lot on blogger is the world, specifically America as I live here. God the amount of fucking times I’ve written about social injustices and the world is still unjust. How absolutely rude that a small voice cannot make all the change people have been fighting for and dying for for years, amIright? I used to have more action items on that front and I just fucking don’t right now and that’s a little bottoming out feeling to sit with.

The anti-Trans and anti-drag (assuming you all know not all trans people are drag queens and not all drag queens are trans) rhetoric and legislation is particularly frightening right now. Do you know people would rather have people suffer and die than be who they are? And do you know a lot of people voted for those people? It costs all of us exactly $0 to live our lives and let people live theirs. 

But I’m still the person who likes to jot things down and document what I’m doing, if only to look back for my own personal reference. I’m still an observer, which I’ve been since I can remember cognizant thought, and I like to share observations in writing. And I’m still the person who believes we can make a difference in the world in how we are. Be a good human, think about things, let people live, don’t be personally racist or blind to systemic racism, don’t be personally misogynistic or blind to systemic misogyny, don't operate under the notion that your god and religion are the rule of the land or matter to anyone else, don't allow politicians to legislate on religion because you’d hate it if it wasn’t yours, stop believing in the criminalization of poverty, stop letting corporations dictate how we all live and how those we elect govern; take a fucking hard look at mass incarceration and how we got there. Etc etc you know the drill.

Whew, when I think of how I used to argue from a place of understanding and compromise on abortion. Proof we can look back on things we’d rather not be, also. Now I’m viciously abortion on demand without apology not your fucking business not being the one who might persuasively bring you around.

Birthday month in the house! I have been doing my annual HomeGoods trolling, I've got birthday massage and lunch scheduled, pedicure and hair the day before, something the day after, will see both of my parents on my birthday which never happens as an adult LOL. I turn 46 in less than a week. Wednesday night I was digging through old photos looking for pics of Mom Mom as her birthday was March 8 and that only added to my annual birthday reflections. I have big love for middle age and I want to make sure I say that out loud because the world would like women specifically to age in reverse or fade into obscurity once the societal notions of beauty in face and body start to sag and age, as if appearance is all we are. Middle age is cool, man. I'm digging it so much.

Getting out of here on old dogs and dogs eating bugles. Happy Friday!

Friday Files 2.17.2023

This week has been like a grown up obstacle course personally and professionally. TGIF

New exterior front and back storm doors in Philly FINALLY installed on Wednesday. If you are in Northeast Philly I highly recommend Gallagher Brothers - they know what they're doing both in measurement/styling your new doors with you and in installation. I got these factory painted which is not what I've done at the shore - I painted all of those myself. These doors have needed replacing for years - the back door could have been broken down in a second and the storm door back there was literally held together with a zip tie - but they are so fucking expensive for quality doors. We did all of them at the shore over a two year period as well and I wish they told you when you were growing up how much shit like this would cost because I swear I thought this was a small/cheap home improvement project and it is absolutely fucking not. Back to a yellow door up front - gere are shitty befores & afters  - the manufacturer has to come replace the screen part of the storm door because it's off as you can sort of see here:

but no befores of the back because they arrived and started that immediately and I refuse to ask people to stop working so I can take a before photo. I wish I had them as the exterior door was peeling on the outside, like wood curling up, and the entire frame was fucked with busted locks etc, and the screen door was circa early 1970s, handle-less at this point, and held in place with a fucking zip tie as a latch LOLOL

People who know about our key fuckery will be pleased to find that we are using keypads now which will hopefully cut down on being locked out.

New couches were delivered at the shore yesterday  as well because yes let’s schedule two anxiety-producing items back to back. They had to be hoisted over the railing and the door removed but they are in! MFD took one for the team to go and be there for this since the door had to be taken off. Big Wally's Furniture and my old friend Billy D are awesome.

Floors in two weeks, and I need to address a pipe issue in March then the big things are done for the year at the shore. After that we're about caught up in both houses for things we had planned to do pre-Covid that got pushed off due to lack of availability of supplies or folks doing the work we needed being well jammed up schedule-wise with the exception of basement ceiling in Philly and starting the process to get quotes for windows here. 

Pets of the week. Billy Hicks spent a day in my home office this week, which he rarely visits during the day.

I was in my office Wednesday and I absolutely love being in Old City. 

I was very happy to see AEB for a quick coffee when I was In the city - we haven’t seen each other since pre-Covid! Excuse the wind tunnel, it was wild on Wednesday.

My uncle and I got to see my cousin and her boyfriend Monday as they were in from Chicago

I hit the meat markdown day at the grocery store and got over $52 of meat to freeze for just over $24. Peak adult shit there.

One of the best batches of mashed potatoes I’ve ever made. 

This is an entire fucking disgrace. Fuck Joe Biden (see how easy that is to say, Go Brandon people?) for intervening in favor of corporations to divert a strike and fuck all the politicians on both sides who supported that. Sacrificing people's lives and the environment so corporations can rack up money for the rich to get richer. What a fucking joke. Another de-railment outside of Detroit yesterday too.

I try to hang in with crew neck tees and I end up cutting them all at the neck. Let me be freeeee

That's that about that for this week. Have a great weekend, it's a long one for a lot of you! Not here, ever. 

Friday Files 2.10.2023

The  simple luxury of an everything bagel, toasted, with a liberal application of cream cheese, topped with a layer of cucumbers and sprinkled with Himalayan salt is chef's kiss. Happy Friday, everyone!

I switched to this brush a few months ago after my friend and hairstylist of forever Kristi at Salon Harmony used it on me while I was getting my hair done. I don't dry or style my hair and I certainly do not wash it daily so the brushing is important LOL. This really reduces static and helps with tangles which I always have in the back of my head. It's $10 at Target.

Once again I am a fool who is sitting at 50% read of a book at 11 pm and stays up to finish it. More of a fool last night because this was hair raising in multiple places. I know a lot of you love the thriller genre also. This comes out in May and you should know that I paused in several spots because the description of violence specifically regarding women and children was graphic - I read books like this all the time and if I'm pausing over it, I should do the courtesy of giving others a content warning heads up. 

Last night was the perfect night to return to the beach for the first time since January 29. 

I've got a lot of balls in the air personally and professionally but juggling schedules and sharing a car is no longer one of them. On the 55th day after his car was totaled, MFD purchased one yesterday and the universe wept with relief. I'm not a sharer in general, and I'm really not a check in with someone else before I schedule things person. I've also gotten used to being a person who does not live with their spouse full time and that has been a bit of a shock to go back to. Next week is a nightmare schedule-wise so this is perfectly timed. Say goodbye to your viewing post, Billy Hicks. Philly doors that were ordered in August - and have needed to be replaced for many years - are being replaced next week. 

It is clear that the person who feeds dogs off of plates does not eat in peace and the person who does not feed dogs off of plates does eat in peace.

I assume you've seen or heard of the absolutely unhinged blackface video courtesy of Northeast Philly white girls as it's viral now. I posted about it on Instagram as soon as I saw it and when I woke up the next morning the three stories were gone. Instagram had removed it for hate speech. No shit. White people wonderwhining(tm) why everything is still about race should pay particular attention. This is why, numbnuts. Because this shit still happens. Because this country was built off the backs of the unpaid labor of Black people who were enslaved by white people and we've never reckoned with it or paid for it. Because Jim Crow never ended it just became Jim Crow 2.0 and Jim Crow 3.0. Because the prison system in this country is the current iteration. Because we excuse and protect and tsk tsk white kids who do stupid shit and vilify and incarcerate and harm Black kids who do stupid shit. Because racist white folks elected by racist white folks are attempting to whitewash history and remove Black history from schools so what they teach their kids at home - that shit like this is acceptable or funny or excusable or kids will be kids - sticks and carries through the generations versus being ripped out at the fucking root and discarded.  

I am not going to go into how fucking unhinged Marjorie Taylor Green is, and how unable she is to function as an adult in society. 

My favorite sheet pan dinner is kielbasa, red onion, bell pepper, banana peppers, and sweet or red potatoes. 

Crew this week

Even I use the standard Go Birds greeting/pleasantry/hi/bye and watch the Super Bowl when the hometown team is in the Super Bowl.

Have a great weekend!

Friday files 1.27.2023

Sometimes I arrive at Friday and have no idea what happened throughout the week overall. Like today.

Monday was National Handwriting Day. I burned through all of my shore candles. Lots of beach trash pickup. Wind and rain made for a miserable Wednesday. I had a persistent sore throat out of nowhere. I read a lot of books. I've been existing on the turkey veggie rice soup I made Sunday, buffeted with a pork roll egg and cheese a la MFD. I've read a lot. I don't think I've left the house since Monday aside from going for walks and that's evident when I look at photos from the week.

Have you tried Tabitha Brown's popcorn from Target? I like the sweet and salty. I cannot locate the garlic parmesan anywhere and I desperately want to. It doesn't ship. The dill pickle doesn't have enough flavor for me. The vegan jalapeno hummus is excellent!

I'm poised for February but surprised at how full my calendar is when that is usually not the case in the history of Februarys. 

Another week passes without the bathroom posts I've been meaning to do for months.

This week the Union League of Philadelphia hosted Ron DeSantis who has supports the state banning AP African American studies curriculum. Local Philly folks, please call on all of your elected representatives to decline to attend events hosted at the Union League and any organizations you are a part of to find another location for events. If you need help on what to say or who to contact, let me know!

Speaking of DeSantis and his fans...you shouldn't be proud of being "anti-woke" without knowing where the term came from. Of course, many people do know where the term came from and are proudly anti-woke. If you don't know, in an unsurprising turn of events, what anti-woke means is anti-Black. Check out how woke went from black to bad. 

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, which coincides with the date the Nazi death camp  Auschwitz was liberated. Just 78 years ago today, which is not that long in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not long enough for anti-Semitism to be on the rise globally in the way that it is. Fascism rising the world over and it is fucking infuriating and discouraging. When people are trying to stop children from learning history and what discrimination is, that is all a part of the rise of fascism. 

I more than earned my pay this week, putting in some hours at night due to a deadline, and I am really ready to get my plan-less weekend started. I hope yours is super!

Friday Files 1.13.2023

Second-hand decor updates. I like to move things around after Christmas is gone and add something new when needed. These second hand finds fit the bill and I'm thrilled that they're second hand. Mosaic glass forever. The mosaic glass lamp was my mother-in-law's, she loved it too.

Happy happy birthday to my sister-in-law Aubrey. I'm lucky to have one that I love as a person and love spending time with. We have fun!

How it started

How it ended. Always go.

Some small treasures from a walk this week.

Ben is Rose from Titanic: draw me like one of your French girls. Bruce is a trance chewer/kneader. The electric blanket brings all the animals to the yard

I had a cold this week, the first time I've been sick since 2019. I sneezed a lot, which I have never done with a cold in my life. I keep thinking of the Vicks Nyquil commercial the nighttime sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever so you can rest medicine and how I always thought who sneezes when sick and MFD and I talked about how we never did and now we know and we do. MFD had the sneezes too. This is not the same immune system as pre-covid era. It isn't any fun. I've also spent the week looking - I can say this objectively - absolutely terrible. 10/10 do not recommend this cold season

I'm cooking straight out of the freezer and pantry right now, and the meals start out so nicely then deteriorate into like a freezer burned roll smeared with Worcestershire sauce or something. Not quite so bad but I do hate food waste so I need to burn through some stuff. 

Sometimes you make good nail combos and take clear pictures and sometimes you don't. 

Keenan Anderson. I'm not repeating shit said ad infinitum but that is not public safety and we are not killing people in the streets and calling it public safety. Black Lives Matter.

Just started. I know people are out there defending the Windsors like they are blood relations and raging against Harry and Meghan. I've got no skin in this game or big opinions, I just wanted to read it. 

I started painting our shore apartment this week - the space is so small with limited places to move things that I'm doing it piecemeal. Tuesday I did the shortest wall and trim around the window. If you know me you know I am not a neutrals person so the blah beige was really on my nerves over the past year. This is SW6736 jocular green. 

Hope you have a fabulous weekend, especially those of you with a three dayer for MLK on Monday. That is not me and has never been me.

Also say a prayer or light a flare that MFD finds a replacement for his totaled car in the next two days before I riot in the streets. We've been sharing a car since 12/16. You know I'm not a good sharer.