Saying hello on Saturday

The draft of this post was set up last Friday, and that was a carryover from the week before. Too far gone so starting fresh with a 20 timer on Saturday morning and what we do we do. Let us begin.

We’re all spending $61 or more every time we open our mouths, right? Jesus take the wheel. For those who think Joe Biden is responsible for global inflation…bless your heart, to borrow a phrase from my southern brethren 

Thrifted wall decor:

My resin replacement for a fist full of keys from South Street Art Mart - support your local creators! 

We tried Liquid Death Mango Chainsaw. LOL at the name, like the flavor.

I had to buy the stupid Christmas brownie cakes. I will make a foray into the Christmas Tree cakes then I will turn my back on both for this season.

Have you all heard of the retired spy with the daughter who does the reels? Agent Buttercup? The hold these people have on me. I can never find them when I go to look for them but I know I follow on Insta so they pop up for me. Here's an article. 

The amount of Foreign Policy Experts With Experience Negotiating Political Prisoners With Psychos With Nukes who have shown their face over the last week, mylanta. Welcome home Brittney Griner, even if a bunch of people have made sure to get on the Internet and say your freedom is worthless

The office in the PNC Building in the Market West neighborhood a block from City Hall where I have worked since August 2008 has officially moved to Old City. I'm pumped to explore down there and might actually try to make it into the office twice a month! I was going to come out of the gate with three times and I don't want to overshoot my shot. Cheers to new beginnings and good change.

Nails. The blue is OPI LED Marquee and the pink is OPI Pixel Dust

Wednesday night MFD and I went to the Turn PA Blue celebration in Conshohocken to congratulate the folks who worked so hard to secure and flip seats in our area. It was nice to see people but for me even nicer to be out of any active work in political races and just writing checks in support of candidates or writing postcards to voters. It is dirty AF, damaging to your spirit, and at times dangerous. I was reminded how you truly don't know until you've run or a candidate lives in your house. I'm  happy that's in the rearview and all the support to people out there deciding to do it anyway and applause for people who work hard to get them into office.

We walked to Pepperoncini where I haven't been for YEARS to have a fat ass Italian meal after that, then walked back. Those Conshohocken hills, man. The meal was good and we stood outside in no coats on an evening in December talking to people leaving the Turn PA Blue party for a bit longer. Out past 10:30 on a schoolnight!

This is what we were doing at 6 pm that night...the event started at 6 a half hour away LOL

Reminder.

Agree.

Painting happened at the shore this week. The interior and exterior of the new porch door (SW 6766 Mariner, same as exterior of main house porch door), two tiny walls that are accent walls near the bathroom (SW 6716 Dancing Green), and the inside of the main apartment door (SW 6564 Red Clover, same as its exterior that was painted in May 2021).

A few books from last week - not a romance reader but I flew through Lily B. The Stacy W book comes out in January and if you like that sort of thing, you should look into it.

The bowl I painted over Thanksgiving weekend when Carol, Aubrey, Lola and I did the Glazed Over Pottery outing

It is hard to beat the solitude and beauty of the beach in the late fall into winter season when you can be out for well over an hour and not worry about shivery dogs or fingers that feel like they may fall off. My plan is the entirety of January there, with a pop up to Philly to see Jagged Little Pill and do my monthly hair appt and massage. December I am up not there a lot so I'm glad the temps have not dipped too much into a freeze. 

End on pets, yes? 

Saturday, wait

This week kicked my ass. It started off tired since we had a wedding Sunday night. Tuesday Kim was in town so we did HomeGoods together and stayed up past midnight talking. The title of this post is of course from Friday I'm in Love.

Wednesday I was in the city for a full day in which I got very little computer work done, but did have meetings and lunch with coworkers and walked over three miles. I was dead on my feet when I got home and zoned out watching The Goldbergs. 

All the trees are up in Center City, which prompted me to ask about our tree at home and thankfully we discovered that last year was the end year of our tree, it went to the curb with lights out. Whew. I got another ordered for a good deal so I was happy.

I also had a heinous dentist appointment Wednesday and after over a week of excruciating tooth pain, I was expecting the worst. No tooth crack. No root canal. No cavity. Intense clenching of my jaw from subconscious stress is causing insane inflammation in the connective tissue around my teeth. Fucking tooth fibers! Have you ever. I’ve been going to her since 2010 and this is the first time she’s seen it in me. All the shit we’ve been through personally since 2010 and this never happened…I blame the fucking government and Brett Kavanaugh. Seriously though not sure why this is happening now. To mitigate, I’m trying Plackers to start, motrin, indica gummies before bed, stretching, and massage. Otherwise overall sort of puzzled as to how to combat it  - I don’t feel personally stressed daily, haven’t stopped any wellness practice I have in place to combat normal stress, and had no idea I was even doing this. My dentist said at least it’s not your heart or stomach.  A good reminder that the body does keep the score.

I went for my monthly wellness massage yesterday and it is always one of my favorite days of the month. I was especially glad to go after I knew what was happening with my face and jaw so she could focus on that. It's fantastic to walk in, tell someone what is wrong, and they work through that with you and you leave feeling relief. Go see Sarah at Blossom Bodywork - I'm sure she will arrange a gift notification if you want to give a massage as a gift this holiday season.

Speaking of holiday season, I am pumped for Thanksgiving. I am heading back to the shore today after I run 498 errands. This week has been chock full of errands. I’ve been everywhere and twice. No, seriously, some places I have purchased things and returned in the same week and they are mostly dog jackets and I feel fine about that. 

One of those errands was for a new shore apartment couch. We are having a door installed in place of a window and a window added and our furniture cannot stay as it is now for that to happen. So the current couch which is just over two years old must go, and since the doorways are a nightmare, we got a modular. I’m really excited for this reconfiguration but was worried we wouldn't find something that worked for us. We went to Lovesac, caught their Black Friday event, and got 0% financing which sealed the deal. We got a dark amethyst fabric because the one I wanted was too much extra but maybe in the future because you can order additional cushion covers.  It's a light blue but I also love the light peach. We did not get the large sac chair MFD wanted.

Also. Who made Black Friday like a month long event? What is happening?

Nancy Pelosi does not exactly align with me, but I appreciate her leadership and service through some big, de-stabilizing events over the past 20 years. I am sorry she was and is a target for extremism and violence. Thanks for holding the line, Madame Speaker. I look forward to a younger crew of leaders in the House. Let's go.

Speaking of Houses, PA democrats won control of the state house for the first time in 12 years. There was a measure in place for state GOP leaders to ram a ballot measure through for an abortion ban in the state constitution. Every single election counts, every single fucking vote counts and the people of Pennsylvania stopped that. 

I struggled through a book most of this week, flew through another, and hope to settle in with some favorite authors this week. I'm off, allegedly.

donald trump running for anything. Biden running for re-election. Fox News. Twitter. elon. Billionaires. Racist dog whistles and owning the libs over legislation and actual work. When I run out of coffee. People who ran on inflation making investigating a non-government official named Hunter Biden the first order of business instead of combatting inflation, which they were never planning to do but a lot of you fell for anyway

Pets. And a visit from my mom and nephew. 

Yes.

Have a good weekend, miei amici.

Thursday Thoughts - Dancing in the deepest oceans twisting in the water

1. People who throw these out are always married to people who put them in a drawer. I have been opening drawers and throwing these out the entire 18 years we've been living together. 

2. Just like when a recipe is good and you share it, we must also share what we find to be not good. This gooey chocolate chip cookie pie was too fucking rich. Like, inedible rich, too chocolatey to swallow rich. We ended up scraping the top part (the only cookie dough-ish part) and eating that and throwing the rest out. I detest throwing out food. 

3. The rest of this week's food has been good. Aldi's salmon is tops. I continued on that theme with lox for a bagel, and of course the standard snow day grilled cheese. I'd typically be using deli cooper sharp and white bread but this is what I had so this is what it was. 

4. It's been quite a while since I used my snow day mug, and I could have used it multiple days because what a lingerer. I'm back at the shore as of last night and there's no snow here. I prefer that. When there's too much snow it's a nightmare to get in and out of my snow walled in parking spot and I hate looking at piles of dirty snow. The dogs prefer no snow for bathroom purposes obvi. It's pretty to look at for a few hours then it is a pain in the ass in every way.

5. I am reminded that I cleaned the bathrooms but did not vacuum before I left on Sunday. The dogs don't mind if no one ever vacuums anywhere. Cue the dog photos of the week.

6. Did you know some of the violent trump supporter insurrectionists who were arrested after storming the Capitol to defend the outgoing president's claims of a stolen election didn't even vote in the election? In what fucking world...oh. In the white supremacist world. Duh. I would not attempt any sort of unity with one motherfucker who did this, supported this, encouraged this, or incited this. If you played into the stolen election theme, that's you. Elected officials who played into that that are left in office will overthrow the government in the future. I don't think people understand quite how de-stabilized we are right now and how vulnerable that leaves us to foreign influence and interference that conservatives pretend to care about. Fuck off with that unity talk when it suits you. Republicans, divest from people in your party, your elected officials, and the party itself if you do not support this siege on the Capitol. And turn off Fox News, for shit's sake. 

7. Matchy match match match. ALSO. Show Us Your Books is Tuesday. February always sneaks up. This week was Harriett's Bookshop's first anniversary. Black-woman owned, opened in Philly a mere month before the pandemic set in. This has been a year for them, but they have remained through it all. If you can shop in person, please do. If not, shop via bookshop. Merch is also available. If you can, donate to their venmo (search for Harriett's Bookshop). It helps keep their interns, who will be our next generation of truth keepers, story tellers, and community leaders and activists. 

8. If you want candles with good throw, check out Swan Creek candles. I buy them from a local store here in Ocean City but they're online as well. Sorry this is the photo I chose...they usually burn very evenly but MFD was doing the wick management so...anyway they come in all types of vessels. I love the timeless collection.

9. Reminder:

10. E-cards: 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Just Like Heaven by The Cure

Friday Five 1.8.2021

1. Friday in the Banana Republic that is America at the end of the trump administration, January 2021. Ticktock, motherfucker. If I wasn't so fucking pissed at people blaming antifa over FINALLY fucking facing white supremacy head on and dealing with it, I'd laugh at how so many of us SAID THIS WOULD HAPPEN and were laughed at, called crazy, disregarded. Racism and anti-semitism on full display from these chucklefuck Capitol stormers, enabled and encouraged by your cult leader, his supporters in the House and Senate (sign Cori Bush's petition for removal here), and complicit law enforcement agencies that allowed this to occur. And you, every day you don't call it for what it is. Ticktock. Ticktock. This is Tarana Burke's full post that is snapshotted here.

I have zero time for anyone arguing any merit of anything to do with this violent insurrection or defending donald trump or defending white supremacy in any other way whether they are conscious that's what they're doing or not. I have zero time for politicians or anyone calling for unity or healing. First, accountability. Then we can discuss healing. For my part there will be no unity with poisonous, traitorous fucks or those who excuse them, whether they are the outgoing president, an elected Congressperson, or Joe Citizen. This is about who we are as human beings and how we respond to our government under attack by angry, ineffective, bumbling, mediocre, mostly white men. This is about the white supremacy required for mediocre white men to be and remain at the top of everything, everywhere, dragging us all to hell, white people included. Whiteness or rightness. The choice must be made. There is no middle here. 

I'm not here on this earth to be palatable to other people or to be a circus monkey dancing around in a cage to make you feel good when things are not good. IDGAF if people think I push too much on this, or think I'm too much in general. The world has told women they are too much since it started, and the world can fuck off. I don't care about losing family, friends, readers, followers on social media. I care more about how awful it would feel to bite my tongue about anything that mattered in order to keep them. There have been a handful of times in my life where I haven't said something when it mattered. Those handful of times are the same handful of regrets I have in this life. Swallowing bitter truths and compromising myself for the comfort of anyone else has never been and will never be worth it. All it takes for evil to preside is for people who know something is wrong to remain silent. I'm not it. 

2. Friday morning started out in my own personal sea of zen with a nice sunrise before the skies turned iron gray and the scenery turned to my own personal Banana Republic where I was locked out of my computer then thought someone stole my appleID and changed passwords everywhere like a lunatic, complicated shit that means nothing to me, and now will remember none of them. Is this what growing up actually is?

3. I've been paper planner-less for a while. Many of the planners I had been using felt like they were boxing me in and not helping me to stay on task. I went to a notebook and electronic system a few years ago. I added this this year after seeing it on A Little Britt of Fun. Today I've got my work stuff and tech writing on Express Hoods, moving services, and food/health/consumer products which is more interesting than I thought, via this website. 

4. Best friends are super excited to be back at the beach except Bruce needs a matching vest because he's cold so we need to get him one. Look at him smiling last night.

5. New windows on the main floor are finally fucking installed. They are amazing. Doors at the beginning of February because one damn door is backordered and they won't install in pieces. I would have ordered a different door if I knew that. 

I need this fucking weekend. Which is not really the headspace you want to be in in the first full work week of the year. Happy Friday. 

Thursday Thoughts-Nobody told me there'd be days like these

1. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar. These are my least favorite days to write this post because it's hard for me to write succinctly when my head is spinning. And I'm not editing. What we have is what we have here today, any spelling or grammar errors and all. I got very little sleep, I only had enough iced coffee for one cup, and I'm not in the fucking mood for anything. I'm really fucking pissed off at what the trump cult has delivered to us. I'm really pissed off that there are any trump supporters left. You reap what you sow. Attacks on this country like the one that happened yesterday don't materialize overnight. This is what has been wrought. This is what putting one man above the country and anyone who has been complicit in that in elected positions or as regular citizens has brought. The truth hurts. Outside, winter skies. Watching. 

2. How are we all doing the day after an attempted coup by the outgoing president and his supporters?  I know we're exhausted and stressed the fuck out but we need to keep our eyes on this and how it is dealt with in the days following. 

3. Just so we're on the same page - do not, under any circumstances, in any spaces - create a false equivalency between people assembling to protest Black people being killed/400+ years of racial injustice on this soil and armed insurrectionists storming the Capitol in an attempted coup. There are two Americas: one for Black people, and one for white people. If yesterday did not show you that, you are so deeply entrenched in White Supremacy we have to get you a fucking exorcist. Remove the property damage factor from both scenarios. Property is not more important than people. White supremacy teaches us it is, for a reason - so we will see things that are wrong, but fall back on protecting property over people. But property is not more important than people. Even if you will not accept that, for the purpose of this exercise, remove property damage from any protests this year AND from the storming of the Capitol yesterday from the scenario. Do you see the difference in the police/societal treatment of and response to Black people in a crowd and white people intent on destruction in a crowd? Shit, what they wore for crowd control is the first fucking tell. Let me know if you need links to videos of Capitol police taking selfies inside with domestic terrorists who breached the Capitol building or of Capitol police moving aside barricades for the crowd to storm the building. MFD has protested inside the Capitol numerous times and been arrested there. Yesterday is not how it goes down. I repeat: there are two Americas. One in which Black people can killed for doing anything and the majority of white people will find a way to excuse it (they should have complied! oh he was a drug dealer etc etc you know the drill) and one in which white people can storm the nation's Capitol in an armed insurrection in which people are left dead, explosive devices left behind, they put their feet up on desks that are not theirs and don't get 1/100th of the heat Obama got for putting his feet on HIS motherfucking desk, the bust windows and fuck off all over doing whatever they want, and THEY ALL WALK OUT, LARGELY UNHARMED. Because they are allowed to, and white people are on the internet immediately excusing this away as if this is not a major fucking incident against the fabric of this country. These motherfuckers with visible faces in photos had better be identified, arrested, and tried. 

4. As for you fucking moron QAnon chans fuckers - just fucking go the fuck away. You don't know jack fucking shit and your idiot fucking conspiracy theories are JUST FUCKING STOP. ALSO. This is the "fa" we are anti. In case you wondered what the fuck antifa actually stands for. Anti-FASCIST which we should all be but you are not. Stop fucking doing weird fucking internet searches and making yourself feel better about the fucking idiot man and party you backed by blaming yesterday's attempted coup your boy started by yelling ANTIFA like the stupid fucks you are. Do you see why your idiocy is dangerous? It's even worse when you claim to have no party. 

The president must be removed because he's an unhinged dangerous fuck with no respect for America or its institutions and he still has the nuclear codes and plenty of days left to blow the fucking world away. It's been proven no one can get a handle on this fucking fool. If he's not allowed on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, he sure as shit should not be allowed to be in the vicinity of the nuclear codes. Leaving him in office is a failure of every cabinet member and member of Congress. Further, every elected official at the state and federal level who postured to the point of inciting and inviting what happened yesterday even if at the end they did not vote to object because they were blown back by the violent insurrection  - AND ACCEPTED THE RESULTS OF THEIR ELECTION WHILE HAVING A PROBLEM WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS - must be expelled from office. We have traitors in this country, a lot of you are them and more of you voted for them. We do not need to identify those traitors in a national security event and then LET THEM FUCKING STAY. Everything comes home to roost. Someone come get this dangerous idiot Josh Hawley who is the star of American Psycho: The Congress Version. Tell him to keep Pennsylvania out of his mouth. Missouri, you don't have to take him back, but someone needs to take him somewhere. Get on the fucking phone and on every form of social media and demand elected officials - yours, mine, ours - remove the dangerously unhinged president and everyone in an elected position who propped up his stolen election charade to the point of sedition. Democracy doesn't just stand by and through because we want it to. Without the will and input of the people there is no fucking democracy. It's bad enough these motherfuckers have chosen corporations over people and pushed us into a functioning oligarchy. They nearly burned the Capitol to the ground yesterday. This is a chance for us to rebuild this country the right way. With liberty and justice for ALL. Power to the people.

5. Kudos to Georgia for delivering Warnock and Ossoff to the United States Senate. I said this in a few spaces yesterday but it bears repeating: Stacey Abrams is the name we know. What happened in Georgia does not happen without years of activists and leaders in communities of color laying groundwork, building community, and grassroots organizing -  especially the Black community. People working their asses off. And as we see from this Georgia story, led mostly by Black women. In regards to Black women (and Black voters). Can we be finished stopping at thanking Black women after we have relied on them to save our asses - which they are not responsible or even intent on doing, but is often just a side effect of working for their own communities - despite how they are treated across the board throughout the country? Instead, can we hire them for leadership positions, pay them what they're worth, invest in their organizations, ensure our politicians center issues that affect them and their communities even when that means un-centering ourselves, and recognize and respect their social and political capital and power at every level of government - and in business, education, everywhere - in all communities? They don't need more words or thanks. They need investment, shoppers at their businesses, readers for their books, capital, power, support for their causes, workers and donors for their campaigns, an end to the school to prison pipeline, safe and affordable housing, healthcare, money, opportunities, road blocks removed, and to be in every room where decisions are being made - all of which they have earned a million times over. Sometimes what's needed the most is for us to shut up, listen, and move out of the way. What are we doing in our own lives and communities to make sure this is happening? If we are protecting white supremacy in any way we are the road block. 

6. In closer to home news, we finally have the bullshit leftover election shit that has been littering our house for months corralled to one dining room corner and some signage downstairs. 

7. What else. Oh the washer was fixed yesterday. A fucking hose came loose. So I've been a washerwoman since. I was supposed to go back to the shore last night but I couldn't summon the energy, despite always having a zillion drinks at all times to keep me caffeinated and hydrated. I have been killing it out there with feeling fine and focus and concentration. White supremacy and treason ruin everything. Don't be a white supremacist. Don't support treason because its dress matches your voter registration. 

8. Food of the week: comfort spaghetti and veggie meat sauce (pulled from the freezer) and a pantry clean out meal: chicken thighs thrown in a crock with cream of mushroom soup, onion soup mix, and a few cans of mushrooms. Oh. And protein brownies that tasted like cardboard. Do not recommend. Please don't. For real. I love and use Kodiak waffle mix and muffin mix. This stuff is blech. 

9. Reminder: everything that goes down, must come up. The world has watched America fall. We've become weak because we've dropped everything else to hold onto whiteness. It's time for the reckoning. And the rising. 97% of the problems in this country remain once trump leaves office. What position will you fill on the come up?

10. E-cards: 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Nobody Told Me There by John Lennon (that's a pretty raw version, and I love it). Most peculiar Mama, some of the weirdest shit I ever saw