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!

Thursday Thoughts - Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight there moves a thread that has no end

Forever mood in tee form from yesterday

Forever mood in mug form from Tuesday

Forever mood in regards to Confederate flag and pride

Recommend: Colored Girls Bike Too doing work on the ground in Buffalo after the murder of Black people grocery shopping last week. Access their white supremacy culture resources here. We can either get comfortable being uncomfortable as we sit in the tension to destroy this or we can support white supremacy and racism. Those are the only two choices

Recommend: deprogramming and civics/government education. These people are from absolute hell and care not a fucking whit about what they have convinced you they care about. If you say anything like "Biden's FDA" you do not know not who is responsible for what in government and what actual agencies like FDA have domain over. 

Recommend: bar keeper's friend for so many things. This was rust on a tile floor. 

I'm partial to this photo from last weekend.

Partial to purple too, as you can see. 

Voters gotta vote. Turnout in the PA primary tells me people don't know we're sliding into fascism or do not care, which is going to be a shame when we are fully there. The Republican candidate for governor is for treasonous overthrowing of elections, suppressing the vote, and banning abortion. Why in the shit fuck would anyone vote for anyone of any party who has proven they would not accept the result of democratic elections? Do the recount or whatever, but if ya lose ya lose. Fascist treasonous anti-American anti-Democratic fucks who participate in stop the steal chicanery should not hold government office. For that reason and others, we'd all better vote for the democrat candidate Josh Shapiro, who is honestly republican lite in many ways but will absolutely safeguard the right to abortions. Abortion is healthcare and it is a private matter. If you don't agree with abortion don't get one, but stay out of other people's bodies. No matter who is the republican Senate candidate, the choice is Fetterman. He's not endorsed by democrat politicians because he's not establishment, he's for the people. Republicans allegedly value that so place that value in the box in the form of your vote for Fetterman in the November election. 

Pet pics of the week. It's the Billy and Ben show. This is why we will spend time and money tracking down a no longer sold BarkBox sheep. He got one from Treat Lady and I got him a backup. How cute is this. Ben also matches my car perfectly. The outside is white and the inside is Ben colored.

Huge congrats to our friend Frank who got his masters in Ed from Rutgers this week. You all know Frank from his annual birthday blogs in July, of course. Frank is going to kill it as an elementary school teacher! 

Happy birthday to Laura's MBD tomorrow! 

Second girls weekend this weekend with my original met you on the Internet friends of about 22 years now. Out of office tomorrow! Second four day work week in a row. 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is All of My Love by Led Zeppelin

Thursday Thoughts - Start running the banner down, drop past the color come up through the summer rain

Appreciating the last full week of calendar summer, but not the fact that the sun is gone by a little after 7 now.

Failing the nightly skincare routine test of adulthood

Agreeing with Aja Barber on the AOC dress at the Met Gala. Click through that link on her name and read her latest three instagram posts though, starting three back and moving forward (so start with dress can be a form of protest). What are we doing to each other out here, people? 

Wondering where all the people defending this when it happened have scuttled away to. And why they're not up in arms about the National FOP posting propaganda then deleting it. Where are all the people who bitch constantly about Philly wasting money on things they don't think are worth it like art or removing racist ass statues? Everyone okay with this $2 million expenditure on something that never should have happened? That was well beyond one person, lied about in unison, and posted by the freaking national FOP? The irony in this is that they created this incident of disorder and anarchy and lied about it and now the City of Philadelphia has to pay for it. 

Failing to grasp ferocious anti-vaxx sentiment especially from people who have the smallpox vaccine scar that saved many people from looking like the left. Grabbed this from cousin Caitlin yesterday and it hits so many points I feel like screaming over. I am sick to death of hearing bullshit conspiracy things and flat out misinformation surrounding this vaccine from people who have no qualifications and think they've figured out a grand fucking government or big Pharma secret. Misinformation and conspiracy theories have no place in my orbit. I am simply done.

Liking this perspective. I have absolutely zero tolerance at this time in this life in this world for any hustle culture be a boss crush it shit but I do like to be able to salvage days that get away from me when I need them not to. Like when on a deadline. 

Running errands today - dropping some laundry off, picking up printed material, post office, Target pick up, ALDI...The Christmas Tree Shoppe just for perusal, not need

Living in Animal House, or Animal apartment as depicted below then expounded in two more bullets. The old dogs are back in Philly with MFD as of Tuesday night and the three Bs - Bruce, Ben, and Billy - are holding down the fort at the shore.

Visiting Dog Beach daily now that summer is over. Dogs can go there all year long, but summer is brutal with parking and people. We'll hit it daily until people beaches are open to dogs, then we'll do our walks there and head to Dog Beach to shell intermittently or when I feel like a five minute drive.

Getting used to life with a cat. Billy Hicks is more and more a dog cat daily. He plays fetch with Ben, wants to go outside when the dogs go, joins the chorus of animals demanding food twice a day, pounces around causing mayhem, sleeps in bed, wakes up when the dogs do and goes to sleep when the dogs do. He also likes to read. 

Listening to August and Everything After by the Counting Crows, which turned 28 this week. I was listening to it since it came out and I saw them for the first time in 1997 at the Bob Carpenter Center while at the University of Delaware. I am not a whole album person, an that's true with this one too, I always skip one song, but I will listen to the majority of it, always have and still do almost 30 years down the line. Coming from me, that says a lot.

Watching Nine Perfect Strangers. What a fucking weird show. 

Eating Food other people make. Dad and Carol are at the shore and Carol made Mississippi pot roast this week and it was so freaking good. 

Wishing Shelby of Big Hungry Shelby a happy birthday today - she has a short story coming out next week! 

Reading on the porch, finished the newest Kimberly McCreight at midnight last night (passable, but my least favorite of hers so far) and started Buses are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider this morning since Bruce got up at the ass crack. Thanks to those who joined us for Show Us Your Books on Tuesday. 

What's new with you?

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Omaha by Counting Crows. 

Thursday Thoughts - you're still damn good, no one's gotten to you yet

Opting outside whenever I can, including yesterday morning to disrupt MFD's coffee time out back which he was not pleased with when I wanted to talk about home improvement projects  

Getting the floors refinished upstairs. Well, half. Two rooms, the hall, and stairs. The two other rooms will be done when we can stomach the dust and upheaval again. We got rid of a lot of stuff and the two rooms left are the small rooms, so it'll be a lot easier next round. Nothing is back in the rooms yet, we'll do that when I get back from the shore. The coral room is getting repainted, closets contact papered, and new quarter round installed. We'll reconfigure most of the rooms upstairs and our bedroom is moving from the back of the house to the front of the house. I also need to decide what I'm going to do with my gallery wall down the steps. As it happens with home projects, one leads to another because I changed this and now I think I need to change that. And I do, there. It's been a while. 

Stating plainly that not calling for an end to white supremacy in all systems in this country is participating in upholding it. People are dying and they've been dying in situations white people would not find themselves dead and ignoring or not wanting to talk about that is upholding it. Period. If you are someone not fine with Black people dying like this or the bullshit defenses and excuses and fuckery that goes around after, demand an end to white supremacy in all spaces. Push the people in power. And don't let people you know occupy your spaces while they're upholding it. Call it the fuck out. Speak against it. Don't be afraid to say or do the wrong thing. You know systemic racism is fucking wrong. This extends so far beyond the criminal justice system - check out this thread.  I know most of us were raised to not talk about race, and hello that's so white supremacy could be upheld - if we consider it "impolite" to talk about, we can never talk about personal and systemic racism without it blowing up. We cannot solve problems like that, and that's why it's been set up that way.  Talk about it. Silence is far worse than saying the wrong thing. This is life or death. White supremacy continues because we refuse to dismantle it.

Searching for an ottoman (found last night online, successfully purchased the cheaper one and not the $320 one I love but $320 for an ottoman my dogs can use to jump on the bed? GTFO), floor mirror, lanterns (found last night online), and a cool low outdoor table, preferably used but that's been hard to come by. I struck out at Marshalls. 

Catching rays of light in the dining room

Enjoying Dave's White Bread Done Right, which I didn't even know existed until this week. I had some bougie avo toast with the avocados my neighbor Jackie gave me. 

Cleaning the fridge out like out out. I put all the shelves in the dishwasher then remembered they were hand wash only. Whoops. They all survived. I could not get the drawers back in and made MFD do it. Few things frustrate me more than attempting to assemble things. Or re-assemble. Even simple shit. I have zero patience.

Suffering through MFD's programs. This week was the fucking awful Waterworld. We were all crammed in the basement so the dogs wouldn't go near the steps when the floors were being refinished. Every piece of laundry we own was down there with us.

Reading the newest Josie Quinn novel. It came out yesterday. Thanks to all who joined us for Show Us Your Books on Tuesday!

Pushing the limits this week. 

I had more, but my brain is dead. The dregs will be served tomorrow as a Friday Five.

Peace!

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Still the Same by Bob Seger

Thursday Thoughts - I am older now I have more than what I wanted

1. Does anyone want to talk about how I kept a new, unused and unboxed coffee carafe for six years, decided I was never going to need it, and gave it away in a buy nothing group only to shatter the carafe in the pot a month later? Good, me neither. 

2. My grocery store now has Jeni's! I'm so fucking excited. 

3. My grocery store also has a pretty fucking legit collection of OPI, like better than anywhere I've been in person aside my pharmacy near my office - Pickwick Pharmacy in Philly. I don't mean better as in quantity, I mean better as in colors that appeal to me. I should clarify before anyone goes off on how this is nothing.

4. We did the wearing of the green and the eating of the corned beef and cabbage yesterday. I roasted the corned beef, lopped a piece off to boil with potatoes/cabbage/carrots, then separately steamed potatoes and sautéed cabbage because as Tabitha Brown says, that's my business. 

5. My family is coming down tonight and I had to go into the upstairs bedrooms to do something other than dump shit in them to be sorted "later" for the first time since like October. Why do I do that shit? Put it away the first goddamn time. Also rediscovered the bed frame put up there still in a box thinking we'd do it over the winter and I was surprised to see it yesterday. So that's on MFD's to do list today.

6. Pier photos and best friend beach romps forever. I'm already sad that open beach season for dogs is winding down and every grumpy asshole on earth will have something to say when I take them there at the ass crack of dawn. 

7. Reminder, stolen from cousin Brenna. Call it out when you see it. Stop saying fucking chinese virus. White supremacy is again the cause and where to place the blame for the rise in anti-Asian violence. Shove the sex addict angle up your fucking ass in regards to the most recent murder. Also provide protection for sex workers. 

8. Also, are we all about very fucking done with mediocre, fragile men taking their insecurities and frustrations out on women? And very fucking done with them being arrested without a scratch on them after gunning down multiple people and portrayed as sad men who had a bad day but are no longer harmless since they took their mediocrity out by committing acts of horrible violence against others and are apparently no longer dangerous because it's out of their system now when they're white? I am. Everyone gets arrested without a scratch on them or no one does - you all pick. Jesus take the fucking wheel. I'm done with toxic masculinity and the lengths we go to to protect it in this patriarchal pyramid scheme of a society. ALSO also also notallmenmymotherfuckingassfixyourselves. 

9. Due to that and a million other reasons, reminder to you ladies: 

10. E-cards: It's true. 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Wasted on the Way by Crosby, Stills & Nash