I most certainly dream about luxury travel but we still haven’t done it. The most luxurious thing we’ve done is enjoyed a lounge as part of our travel card benefits. The travel itself remains the main attraction.
I want to jump up and down for NK Jemisin who won a third Hugo in a row. Historic! Her Broken Sky trilogy is beyond amazing. (This link is NOT broken, WordPress is just being a wart and pretending that it is, and I can’t fix it. ARGH!)
Cloud on uncertainty and grace. I’m trying to practice this now that we’re hitting some troughs in our once-balanced lives. We’ve had an extraordinarily good run in job stability and it’s ended but I remind myself that we went through a trough before this good peak and that if we are lucky and work at it, we will end this trough with another peak. I can’t embrace the good without acknowledging and understanding that bad comes with it. Or put it another way, we spent three years with professional ease which allowed us to deal with a most difficult phase of parenting and now that THAT is arguably less harrowing, the professional side of our lives needs more attention. That’s fair.
I’m glad to see Kelly Marie Tran again. The online harassment of her as a woman and POC with a leading role in Star Wars was unconscionable. Also, I adored her character in Star Wars.
First Burn
I missed this Hamildrop in April but it is SENSATIONAL. Just utterly beautiful down to the bone.
Small win: The sun came out long enough for me to wash out the garbage bins this week. First time in months! Of course I have mud all over my shoes now but the bins don’t stink.
I do my best to give candid feedback for my teams. Whether or not it makes me comfortable, the most important thing is that they are learning from mistakes and having the chance to improve their performance.
Three research-based ways to maximize the fun of leisure activities: “The key to enjoying your leisure activities is to live in the moment as much as possible. Be spontaneous and don’t live by the calendar”
They make a good point about not setting an end time but still, I think we do better when we have boundaries like start and stop times, and only one fun activity scheduled per day off. It lets us fully enjoy the thing we’re doing and still get enough rest so we’re not paying the price later. How do you schedule fun?
The Queer Art of Failing Better: “In 2018, Queer Eye is no longer necessarily “For The Straight Guy,” as it was in the aughts, but being a straight mainstream white guy now seems to come with an elevated risk of panic in the face of basic life-skills like learning to clean your room and deal with your childhood traumas. Up till now, this was the demographic that was always told that if they just hung on long enough, someone else would eventually do it for them. Probably a woman.”
“The work that the Fab Five are doing for the luckless, loveless men of Georgia is girlfriend work. It is emotional labor, domestic labor, the work that anyone who has ever dated a straight man will recognize.”
Small win: Late addition because I couldn’t think of one for a while. I saved $40 on Seamus’s pain medication because he and I were prescribed the same meds, so I shared mine with him instead of getting a new bottle of pills from the vet.
I tackled the question of whether our investments were optimized for taxes but decided in the end that maximizing our income is more important than worrying over a tax haircut. Mr Tako’s approach is similar.
This Gail Simone thread is why I don’t trust people until they’ve proven themselves to be trustworthy, and won’t tell JB “never fight/hit” but rather “don’t hit people unless they start it with you”. Horrible racists look just like anyone else. I also don’t disapprove of what she did. Those kids were all awful and that kid that caught the jump rope was choosing to bully smaller, younger kids. If the bullied little kid fights back, you deserve every welt. I have never understood the “turn the other cheek” thing because I was a tiny target for many bullies and darned if I was willing to let them get in another shot if I had any say about it. I mean, I do wish she’d been able to beat the crap out of the high schoolers who did hurt her and Dana but this kid was vile too.
Small win: I continue clearing away the jungle that is our yard. I filled a 96-gallon green waste bin all by myself!
*flexing muscles* Just kidding, I destroyed my forearms filling that bin in a day and I have many many regrets.
What were your small wins this week?
***
The goodness of Mr. Rogers. Where did this kindness go? (A friend blew my mind, recently, suggesting that Lin-Manuel Miranda is our generation’s Mr. Rogers.)
The wolf population in Wisconsin could be stabilizing. This should happen naturally without human intervention so once again, I don’t understand the need for trophy hunting. Hunting for food, yes. Trophies? Not even a little.
I’d never heard of spite buildings before but … This makes sense.
I knew very little about Wilt Chamberlain aside from the occasional pop culture reference but this look back at his history made me nod with approval: For example, Wilt’s rookie season in 1960, he threatened to retire. (In exchange for more money, he didn’t.) And after the Philadelphia Warriors were moved to San Francisco in 1962, Wilt again threatened to retire. (In exchange for more money, he didn’t.) Eventually, in 1965, the Warriors’ new owner, Franklin Mieuli, wanted so badly to cut ties that he traded Wilt back to Philadelphia, where a new ownership group had purchased the franchise in Syracuse, moved it to Philly, and dressed it up with a new moniker, the 76ers. Wilt threatened to retire, and because of a man named Ike Richman, in exchange for more money, he didn’t.
Small win: I transferred cash being held for large expenses throughout the year, and my small pile of accumulated rental property profits, over to Ally’s online savings earning 1.75% APY. Those accounts need to stay cash and liquid since they’re all going to pay bills this year, but at least the money can earn its keep in the meantime.
Still making slow progress with the weeding – I’m making it a point to get out there at least a few times during the week, and we’ve cleared a small patch that’s safe for Sera to do her zoom-zooms.
Small win: JB and I started venturing out to the garden-jungle this week to pull weeds. We hacked out a small but appreciable clearing free of weeds together and I yanked out an armload of weeds sprouting along the perimeter. Not so good for my hands (or back, hips, or knees) but I still feel mighty. I’m tempted to take photos every day as I do a small bit to create a little time lapse video.
I was awfully tempted to make my own flame weeder in the form of a tiny Bic lighter but I’m pretty sure that setting your yard on fire isn’t either frugal or ecologically sound.
Do you dress your age? I never did in my younger years and now I’m not sure where I land. It’s only rarely occurred to me to buy the whole outfit and honestly, I think it makes more sense to than not.
And that feeling of impending doom (not just in politics but on a personal level for friends in very tough personal and professional situations) is why I love Penny’s new series of Money Wins. Featuring yours truly in the first post, and Aitza in the second post.
I wasn’t familiar with Mitch Landrieu (former mayor of New Orleans) but some of the thoughts shared in this article were interesting. It feels a lot like no one’s thinking about the deep fissures cracking across our society right now and seeing those fissures addressed by someone who could pursue office again may or may not be a hopeful thing.
I had lots of male friends growing up but I’m grateful that I was not called on to fix them. Perhaps because I wasn’t the most well behaved kid in addition to being somewhat antagonistic. I do reach out to some of them from time to time sharing articles I think they need to know about though, and I know it’s not always gratefully received but such is the privilege of being my friend.
