Thursday Thoughts - Same as the wind blows

1. Sometimes I have to walk past my dining room table and say FUCK IT! I'll do it tomorrow. This is a combination of stuff that came home from the shore, stuff that needs to go to the shore, stuff that was bought and needs to be returned, mail I went through, work bag, and empty clothes bag.

2. Have I mentioned how terrible pugs are with heat? Exhibit Geege.

3. Happy birthday to one of my BFFs today! Michelle is someone I'd call to help me bury a body and I'd expect the same call from her. Then we'd go out for Mexican after. I trust her implicitly, with anything and everything. Love you so much Michelle, have the best birthday!

4. Stamp options rock right now.

5. Do you guys wear Athleta? Pieces cost one million dollars each but good lord it is worth every blessed penny. It's comfortable and doesn't look like you're walking around town wearing a schlumpy bag of dicks. The metro line at least, of which I have shorts, capris, and skorts. Be honest. My description has enticed you, hasn't it?

6. From the never say never category: I have always been all I will never do my own toes, I hate it and I refuse. Cut to me dialing that shit back. I've realized I might need to give up getting pedicures for the summer at least. I know, I know, the time to get them IS in the summer. But I get one, I go to the shore, and it's destroyed in five minutes from the sand/sun/water/walking barefoot. It's basically like flushing $40 down the drain. I freaking hate doing my own toes but I'm going to give it a go. I do my own nails so it's not like I don't have the stuff.

7. Check these out:
Seth Abramson's twitter thread on what happens if trump attempts to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and Rick Wilson's twitter thread on similar
Eric Garland's twitter thread on what's gone on and The Resistance, which made me laugh and cry
How a major crisis could redraw the political map overnight video or article - really important in light of the shooting at the congressional baseball game practice field yesterday. I sincerely hope that was not our Reichstag Fire.

8. My eyes are on an Attorney General who can't recall a damn thing - do we want someone like that in charge of the Justice Department? - and Senators working in secrecy on a healthcare bill. Why so secretive, Senators? Show us the bill.

9. There's still time! I am still hosting a KEEP Collective fundraiser for 350.org - an organization working in more than 180 countries to keep carbon in the ground, help build a low-carbon economy, and pressuring the government to limit emissions. If you'd like the link to peruse with no pressure to buy, it's in the comments below. If you'd like to be added to the FB group, please let me know. This photo is some of my favorite keep stuff - bracelets and charms shown here, interchangeable and you can essentially wear something new daily. They also have necklaces and keychains. 50% of commissions will be donated to 350.org. If you'd like to peruse, click here to shop my link.  A few of my personal totems from Keep: 

10. E-card of the week. 

Your thoughts? 

Thursday Thoughts - things I want you to know this week

1. It's my Friday and I know, it's obnoxious to gloat that it's your Friday when it is not most of the world's Friday. So I say join me...take tomorrow off. The weather is supposed to be June-ish here and not April-ish like it was earlier this week. As you may have guessed, I'll be at the shore. This time it's with my girlfriends of over 25 years celebrating our collective 40ths. They're actually not my friends at this point and they haven't been in a long time. They're my framily. I will be pushing them to take 4792084 group photos because it's rare that we're all in the same place at the same time. There are a lot of years and miles between us.

2. Friends - I am hosting a KEEP Collective fundraiser for 350.org - an organization working in more than 180 countries to keep carbon in the ground, help build a low-carbon economy, and pressuring the government to limit emissions. If you'd like the link to peruse with no pressure to buy, it's in the comments below. If you'd like to be added to the FB group, please let me know. This photo is some of my favorite keep stuff - bracelets and charms shown here, interchangeable and you can essentially wear something new daily. They also have necklaces and keychains. 50% of commissions will be donated to 350.org. If you'd like to peruse, click here to shop my link.  A few of my personal totems from Keep: 

3. In other environmental news, I've weaned myself totally from plastic straws even with takeout iced coffee. I also bring a reusable cup and attempt to have it filled. Most places will fill it. It's such a habit to grab a straw, so it's taken me a while. 

4. The making and freezing of things continues. This week it was pork fried rice. I made extra rice so I could freeze some of that too. Take that, steam fresh bags of rice. 

5. For the second week in a row I'm stuck on male rompers and covfefe. I'm still laughing about these things.

6. Fake News hysteria must go. I'm resigned to completely cut people out of my life who think the New York Times and the Washington Post and anything that doesn't have a named source is fake news. Like, are you familiar with the free press and its function, and journalistic integrity and protecting sources? Do you know that Watergate was broken with an unnamed source? NYT and WaPo are solid sources of news. Learn the difference. Maybe also learn the difference between editorial pieces and reporting. Editorial pieces are like this blog here - my opinion backed up with whatever facts I want to give you. By all means, share that, but know that that's what it is at the end of the day. Maybe be a critical thinker and examine the sources you read and share - both liberal and conservative outlets participate in fake news/clickbait headlines and both liberal and conservative people share that shit out in the world because it plays into their confirmation bias. Also, maybe READ the article or piece before you share it - don't just share shit because you like the headline. It's ignorant regardless of how you vote. Get your shit together.

7. Comey testifies today. A primer on Obstruction of Justice.

8. I forgot that I had Mae scoping out the bay last Sunday. She was like the Queen of Sheba up there. She loves being elevated in any way so she can see it all. She's nosy AF and it makes me laugh. I want to film her at the shore and show it to you. She's insane.

9. Tuesday is Show Us Your Books with me & Jana!

10. This made me laugh as it is straight up truth for at least half of the people who rent from us at the shore - our apartment is on the ground floor, so we hear the cement shoes all the live long day.

11. E-card of the week. This is so me in all disputes: I always go right to setting shit on fire. Hide yo' belongings. Hide yo' matches.

What do you want me to know this week? 

Sharing Stories - Why I Relay

I lost my source for this - I think it's Relay Canada's. 

Last Wednesday was the final full meeting before Relay For Life. I've been a team captain many times over, served on a Relay For Life committee for a few years, participated in three different Relays, and hell I even chaired a Relay for a few years. The basics of Relay don't change, even when you change locations. I skip a lot of monthly meetings in lieu of reading the minutes and stalking Relay on Facebook. 

The very last thing I felt like doing was leaving my house to attend a volunteer meeting that would start 15 minutes late and where things I've heard and said myself hundreds of times would be repeated. But I went. I wanted the map of the event and I wanted a Wawa hoagie on the way back. As forecasted, the meeting started 20 minutes late. I was annoyed, hungry, wishing I was at home...then three ladies stepped up to talk about why they Relay. Sharing why you Relay is a big part of Relay For Life.

Via

I sat and listened to a woman who had to stop and collect herself while talking about losing her Dad to cancer. She just wants everyone to be able to spend Father's Day with their dads. Next, a woman who was so full of fire after beating cancer that she could barely get the words out. 

I am a person who tears up at things like this. I always have been and I always will be. I teared up for those people and their stories, but also for my people and their stories. 

With her mention of Father's Day I teared up thinking about Laura's dad not being here on Father's Day for what will always be too many years in a row when we seem too young for that. I thought about how many family members are no longer with MFD and his cousins who are missing parents far too young. 

I thought about my Grandmom, an 80 year old woman certain she was going to beat pancreatic cancer, but also of how vulnerable, tired, and afraid she seemed when she thought you weren't paying attention. An image of my hand in hers flashed in my brain. I thought about looking down while I was holding her hand every day for the week she was unresponsive in hospice. How familiar a sight it was to me, that hand, how I had held it as a child, a teenager, a young adult. How she liked to hold hands and would rub yours with her thumb. How weird it felt to hold it now. How similar our hands were. How I wish she died circle of life style without the terrible pain that came along with the cancer but how that cancer is what made us much closer over her last year than we would've been otherwise. 

I thought about all the people who have lost loved ones to cancer over the years I've been doing this. Far too many people for me to name here, that's for sure. Not to mention those who got it, beat it, are still battling it - my father in law, Mrs. S, my Gwen, Lisa...again, far too many to name. 

I snapped back to the meeting in time to listen to a report from the Hope Lodge and how one of the patients staying there while he got treatment said that the volunteers and the Relayers give HIM hope. Just like that, I was back in the present and I was smiling, clapping, and thinking of the survivors in my life. So many people who have kicked cancer's ass. Their stories are incredible. 

I was reminded that physical attendance gives me something that meeting minutes do not - the ability to identify and empathize with other people. 

You volunteer and raise money against a disease that's painful, sad, heartbreaking, infuriating, hellish, and a million other bad things, but so much good comes from your experiences too. If you think about it, it's weird that anything related to cancer can be rewarding, but it is. It sucks to live a bad outcome. Losing someone you love and watching them suffer in the process hurts. But watching a survivor emerge victorious from this life or death battle is really fucking something too. It makes your heart soar, even if you don't know the person. 

Relays are 24 hours because cancer never sleeps. Last year was my first 24 hour Relay, I had only done 12s before. I loved being on the track at 2 a.m., walking slowly, reading the names on the luminaria bags and thinking how each bag is someone's story. Yes, it's a long day. It's usually hot. It's a lot of walking.You have to set up and break down. Your feet hurt. You likely smell. Some people are annoying. You don't sleep. But those things are nothing compared to battling cancer every day. Really. Nothing. And nothing compared to what you take away from the experience.

I think this is 4 a.m.

So that's why I Relay. For the people who've gone head to head with cancer and won. For the people doing intense battle now. For the people I've lost and the people you've lost, and for our ability to share their stories. To have a place and a time to do that surrounded by other people who have been there. To spend a day with framily raising money for a great cause. I find it cathartic. I hope if there's a Relay near you and you've never experienced it, that you go walk a lap, buy a cupcake from a team, tear up at a luminary ceremony, smile at a survivor. Be a part of the community for a minute, or an hour, or however long you'd like to stay. 

Thanks so much again to everyone who donated this year. I'm at $1,325 raised so far and still pushing on. If you'd like to donate, please click here, and if you're local, stop by Bensalem High School on Saturday, June 21, from 11 a.m. all through until Sunday at 11 a.m., walk a lap with me and see what Relay is all about.

Linking up with Kathy for Humpday Confessions.

 Linking up with Shanna for Random Wednesday













Linking up with Liz for Fitness Blondie's Blog Hop: