Thursday Thoughts - take a load off Fanny, take a load for free

1. When it's wet and humid, which it's been for most of the summer, I don't walk around the city as much. I miss it. Some sights from yesterday's lunch time stroll: 

2. But what I really went out to see was trashcans. That's right. Read about Trashcan Takeover here, follow them on Instagram, and go off in search of them if you're in the city. Their instagram has a map and most are in the Rittenhouse area. It's like a public art scavenger hunt.

3. I dove into Brandless, and will continue to for these things pictured alone. If you click on that link, you get $6 off $39 and I get a $6 credit. I am shoving these cookies in my mouth so fast that soon I will be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Woman. In addition to the items pictured here, I love the multi-surface cleaner, the balsamic greens + grapefruit dish soap, the dijon mustard, and the mouth wash. MFD likes this coffee better than most, so that's saying something as we like what we typically use. I do not recommend the green tea & aloe body lotion unless you don't mind spending eternity trying to get lotion to sink into your skin. Everything is $3. It's wild.  

4. I'm considering doing a Riding in Cars with Dogs series. Remember that movie, Riding in Cars with Boys?

5. We've had no groceries for a while. I kept forgetting to order them and stopping at the store has seemed like a herculean task the past two weeks. So finally I place an order for Instacart yesterday for a 9-10 pm delivery. I get home at around 8 and eat the only food on hand. I pop my magnesium supplement as I'm eating because I like to take it with food and it is essential for sleep right now. Then I get a notice from Instacart saying delivery is now 10:30-11. My eyelids were propped open with toothpicks. Here the order never arrived and they never told me it wasn't coming and I missed my sleep window for nothing. Pissed is an understatement. Allegedly it will be here between 10-11 am today. Good thing I planning on working from home. Fockers.

6. On the campaign trail this week: thankful to our BFF Angie for organizing and hosting a fundraiser for MFD with the fierce AF Donna Bullock, State Rep for the 195th District at the cool spot Fare in Fairmount + a movie night screening of The Campaign at the Newtown Theatre, thanks to our friends Stacey & Joe for organizing and hosting and to my mom for helping with the dogs. If you've seen the movie, you know why the pugs were essential guests. Thanks to everyone who came out or donated or helped in any way at both events. It's nice to know people are along on this nutter of a ride. If you'd like to donate to MFD’s campaign, click here - he's not taking corporate money so it's very fucking grass roots, you guys - and if you'd like to help canvass the neighborhoods, click here. I haven't forgotten about people who volunteered to do postcards - that's still coming. If you want to make phone calls or volunteer on Election Day or to get out the vote or do community building, you can indicate those things on the same link as you would for canvassing. You don't have to live in this district to donate, help, or come to an event. Hell I've been sending money and postcards and texts all over the damn country in the past year to get progressives in office. All of us or none of us, better lives for everyone everywhere. The End.

7. As far as national politics...if you're bothered by what's going on, don't sit there with your teeth in your mouth and wait for other people to do something about it. You can do something too. 

8. White friends, we need to talk about race. And keep talking about it. And IDGAF if we are sick of hearing people say that. People are sick of living with it more. Check out When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels by Rachel Cargle in Bazaar. If you're looking for a book, try White Fragility: Why it's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. As you start to explore where you are in this, try following Shaun King and Aja Barber on Instagram. You don't need to comment. You will recoil at some things you read. Still...read. Take it in. Really, do a shit ton of reading. Listen to the lived experience of other people and let your preconceived notions of yourself and others fall away. We were all born into a systemically racist society and as white people we have privileges we don't even think about. We have all done and said things that were intentionally or unintentionally harmful. When we know better, we do better. That’s all we can ask of ourselves and each other. Don't be defensive. There's always room to grow and be better because if there isn't, that means you're dead. If you're reading this I'm assuming you're not dead. 

9. Reminder:

10. E-card of the week: weekend plans

Well that was a lot.

Now you go.

TWTW - the one before the turkey

Friday

A quick stop at Sam's then on to Jimmy & Jackie's for our annual Friendsgiving. They had their house all decorated and Jimmy even set up a lounge out back with lights and heaters. Everyone brought an app or dessert and it was nice to be able to linger longer than if we were in a restaurant. We're not all in the same place a lot but when we are we laugh like mad. I’m happy and grateful to have had these friends for over 25 years but the stars of the show were Wyatt, Lucy, and electronica music. Just kidding on the last one but totally serious about the first two. We didn't get home until 1:30 and I was up until after 2 but it was worth it! Also, exhibit A of the fucking terrible graininess of the 6S or whatever version of the 6 iPhone I have now. It's like they want to force an upgrade.

Saturday 

Bruce DGAF what time you go to sleep, he still gets up at 6. I went back to sleep from 7:30 - 10:30 because I knew I had to be out in public later and didn't want to be Bitcherella. When I finally got up I jumped right into action cleaning out and reorganizing the coat closet (but not painting it, which it has needed since 2009) under the watchful eyes of all three dogs. I also went through my drawers and closet and culled a bag of clothes. Aside from making bacon mac and cheese bites for later, that took up most of my day. FYI people: Target is beta testing restock, which seems designed to compete with Amazon Prime Pantry. I ordered at 3 pm on Friday and my stuff was there by 11 am Saturday morning for $1 less shipping than Prime Pantry. Your move, Amazon. 

Saturday night was Aubrey's sprinkle. My nephew will be here so soon, I can't believe it. I can't wait to meet him! And yes, all I ate this weekend was cannoli cake and I'm not sad. 

I got home around 8:30 and read a little and watched some Indiana Jones thing with MFD. I don't think I've ever seen one of them all the way through.

Sunday

After contemplating a plan of attack for the day while the dogs lounged in the style they are accustomed to, I set to work work work work work on Sunday. Stacey picked up a bag of donations to take to Mitzvah Circle so that had me in the mood to get rid of more shit. I addressed some Christmas cards until Bruce decided that was enough, put Christmas gifts in bags (reusable bags for all this year, ho ho ho mother earth, this is my atonement for sending paper cards), was supervised everywhere by Gus who must've been trying to make up for Geege being gone, made chicken for chicken lettuce wraps and scrambled eggs for breakfasts, packed up food/house stuff and my clothes for the upcoming long weekend at the shore, and went through a bunch of shit in the basement and reorganized or got rid of it, including books (thanks Instagram!). I also did seven loads of laundry and put what was mine away. MFD left his laundry basket downstairs for two weeks constantly in my way so I said fuck it and did his laundry too. Sunday night I finished the Christmas cards aside from stamps and a few missing addresses and watched the new Will & Grace. 

My people are awesome. Jackie got us a Geege keepsake, Stacey picked up a reusable pug Christmas bag for me, and my Mom gave me some perfume and a nice note. All the warm fuzzies. 

And soon, all the turkey.

How was your weekend?

Thursday Thoughts - with a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather

1. I have issues with the time change in the spring, but I have been killing it in the mornings this week because Bruce gets up at 5:00, which he thinks is 6:00. Full dark by 5:15 pm is hard to bear though. Why do we still do this?

2. Gather 'round, children, and let me tell you a story of a first world problem: last week I got an email saying Amazon Fresh is no longer delivering to my area after 11/30. I've tried other grocery delivery services, and I will go back to one of them and also try Fresh Direct, but what I loved most about Amazon Fresh was the ability to schedule a delivery I did not have to attend. So I could wake up to groceries on my doorstep at 7 am or come home to them waiting for me at 7 pm. Damn you, grocery delivery world. If you told me in 1998 that I'd be bitching and picky about grocery delivery in 2017, I would've laughed at you.

3. What are you reading? Show Us Your Books is Tuesday! I started three books this week and discarded them all because I only want to read the books I'm getting from the library Friday (The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine and Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan) and the ones coming from Book of the Month Club (Bonfire by Krysten Ritter and Turtles All the Way Down by John Green). Impatience kills. I did settle on The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr on my kindle for now.

4. I crafted shit last night. Who am I? I consider myself both not interested in crafts and not creative. But the craft was painting a freaking CERAMIC CHRISTMAS TREE of the kind that I am obsessed with. I think this is like number nine or 10 in my collection? I will count this year. It was a good, fun, funny Wednesday night with girlfriends. Thanks for letting me crash your event Lauren, Jill, Dot, & fam! And thanks to Dot for securing the tickets.

5. Sad news for Philly fans this week. We claimed you as our own Roy Halladay.

6. Eat 10 dicks, guy who referred to himself as Virginia's "chief homophobe." I needed this Election Day. The resistance is real. Lots of wins were historic: Andrea Jenkins is the first openly transgender black woman elected to City Council in a major U.S. city - you go, Minneapolis; also in MN St. Paul elected its first black mayor; NJ elected its first female black lieutenant gov; Charlotte, NC elected its first female black mayor; Framingham, MA elected its first mayor since becoming a city, and that mayor is a black female; Manchester, NH elected its first woman mayor in the city's 266 year history; Erie, PA has the distinction of electing the first openly transgender person in the state to its school board; Hoboken, NJ elected the first Sikh mayor; Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala defeated incumbents to become the first two latinas elected to the VA House of Delegates; a refugee who arrived from Liberia 23 years ago is Helena, MT's first black mayor; Seattle elected its first lesbian mayor - and the first woman mayor in 92 years; Kathy Tran, a Vietnamese refugee, became the first Asian-American woman in VA's House; Lancaster, PA, has its first latina member of city council; Philly elected an extremely progressive anti-mass incarceration DA in Larry Krasner...on and on. I am thrilled to see more women, more black and brown people, and more LGBTQIA people in offices. I want diverse people of all backgrounds at our tables. Rooms full of older white men do not fulfill that desire. Look at the photos below of the before and after of the VA house seats flipping. The difference is incredible. Women are stepping up to lead and I applaud them. Especially the black women who have been stepping up for years in communities with no acknowledgment. A staggering 91% of black women voted for Northam to take the VA Gov seat. Thank you, ladies, for not voting against your own interests. You lead, I will follow. Trust black women.

7. I have a hair appointment tonight, and seriously not a moment too soon. The grays are nuts. Probably because of things like MFD not going through his paper hoarding boxes or things like the most recent slide into authoritarianism list or things like...

8. Another mass shooting, barely any coverage since the shooter was white. White people! Stop blaming black and brown people for ruining this country. We're doing it. We are content with doing nothing? We don't even want to TRY a study on gun violence? Did people recognize that thoughts and prayers are not a fucking solution to the cycle of every two months/mass shooting so they just stopped mentioning it at all?

9. Reminder:

10. E-card of the week: I keep looking at messages and responding in my head but never actually responding. What the hell. 

I feel like I just ran a race. No slowing down until after midnight tonight for me. 

Amazon-ing

Is Amazon-ing a verb in your life? It is in mine.If I can't get it at a small, local biz, 90% of the time it's ordered from Amazon (the other 10% belongs to Target). I've been a prime member for years, and now I'm a prime member on steroids with Amazon Fresh. Rebecca at Knit by God's hand does a regular post about her Amazon-ing, and I've been saying forever that I'm going to do that. And here I am, doing that.

This is what I bought from Amazon in October. I'm probably forgetting a few things because this seems light for me.

Reusable sandwich & snack baggies by Art of Lunch, $19.97 - these are freaking awesome, and I can't believe it took me so long to purchase reusable bags of this size. My sandwich baggie usage was the least environmentally friendly thing about me and I'm glad I've kissed it goodbye. Special bonus: these bags can go in the dishwasher. Easily the MVP of the month.

Fleece for Mae, $8.49 - Little girlfriend gets cold.

Nature's Way Elderberry Capsules, $23.70 - Part of my regular health maintenance. I used to use the syrup, and sometimes when I'm actually feeling sick I still do, but these are much easier for daily use. This was for a pack of three, 100 capsules each.

Library Card Pouch and other prizes for Show Us Your Books giveaway - Varied prices, pouch is $12 and I'm including it here because the purchase of this pouch sends one book to a community in need.

Merry Christmas Stinky Face, and other assorted Christmas stuff - For a basket I made for a fundraiser.

Amazon Fresh Grocery Order - $108

Travelon Bag Bungee, $22 for two - My travel guru Mimi suggested them so I got a two pack for our upcoming trip.

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid, $10 - I never travel without a paperback.

Brother P-Touch Tape, $9.46 - Label maker is life.

Travel adapters - $6.99 each

Halloween candy $30 - I bought it but did not hide it and MFD has been eating it. DAMN IT.

Dog treats - I prefer the Isle of Dogs treats, particularly the healthy minis and the chillouts. I also buy my dogs' supplements from Amazon.

Dream Zone Earth Therapeutics Sleep Mask, $9.49 - I've been using these for years. They are the best sleep mask.

Woolite travel laundry kit with sink stopper $7.13 - Realized too late that my travel laundry sink detergent is at the shore.


Are you a buy it all at Amazon person or do you go into the field for your needs? 

Annnnnd I'm out. Vacation tomorrow! Does anyone else inform their DD coffee people that they're going on vacation? Only me?

I spent some time blogging last weekend, so you can expect some posts while I'm gone. I think. I probably won't go back and check them so let's all cross our fingers and hope for the best. I'll be overgramming and MFD even re-installed Instagram for the occasion, so follow along with us if you'd like!