Flutterings

Since Good Omens is trending hither and yon, this seems a good time to note that Nanny Ashtoreth sales at BPAL raise $$ for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Orangutan Foundation UK.

I have a fond memory of wearing this scent: I was in a corporate elevator with a handsome stranger who, after a floor or two in polite silence, suddenly burst out with "What is the perfume you're wearing? It smells fantastic!"

Also in the realm of "escapades fandom is somewhat responsible for," here are two clips of me singing Mika's #IWantYourIceCream to my Nashville Public Library and Kentucky Horse Park rubber duckies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99ii0W0Z5Kw (for a mikasounds video challenge, and to make some of you laugh).

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In other news:
Jen Hoffman on perseverance: https://americansofconscience.com/writes-future/

The Godwin of Godwin's Law on concentration camps.

Not gonna lie: it's disheartening that yet another candidate for whom I wrote postcards has lost (Ryan Terrell in Florida). But I shall write some more postcards to get out the vote (in FL, coincidentally), and Jen has actions/scripts for protecting the vote. And I just saw the Pirke Avot quotation Paula and I have both invoked a number times embedded in a longer extract attributed to Bridges McCall:

The Talmud states, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."

[Subject line = quote from Peter Mayer's "Blue Boat Home"]



Paddleboarding season is underway (as in, my summer pass at Percy Priest Lake). The gauge hit 96 F yesterday, and I spent most of yesterday's session in the water rather than on it, swimming and floating and enjoying both raindrops and a rainbow. Today's social included a poodle named August, pivot turns, and back flips (not by me, but fun to admire).

Since I won't be back on the water for another 4-6 days, I'd like for a soaker to soften the ground so I'm not fighting the Tennessee clay when I get around to planting the three rosebushes I brought home right before Memorial Day (instead of the straw bales I'd planned to pick up):



This week's Americans of Conscience checklist includes phone scripts (for speaking to policy-makers against discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, among other issues, and a five-day Immigration Game Plan) and addresses for card-writers.

I have a new post up at Vary the Line, featuring pumpkins and angry riffs prompted by Anne Sexton: http://www.varytheline.org/blog/2017/11/27/that-kind/

Some other time, I might write about the recent day a girlfriend and I spent in Florence, Alabama, where we visited Rosenbaum House, Alabama Chanin, and FAME Studio. Good eats at the Chanin Factory, and some scribbling there as well.

The factory also had a BIG rack of free postcards, and a stack of Doug Jones brochures right up front. So I grabbed one of every blank card of Alabama origin, and spending part of tonight writing yet more postcards to voters: http://postcardstovoters.org.

For the second night in a row, my evening plans got borked by logistical fail, but there are worse fates than sipping rosé while listening to Mark Knopfler singing "Sailing to Philadelphia" (about Jeremiah Dixon) while writing postcards to get out the votes for Ellen Geisler (Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court):

https://postcardstovoters.org/
http://etsy.me/2yjJtB8 (discounted postcard-stamp combos)

The subject line is from Carrie Fisher's Twitter bio. I learned of her death when I saw "Remembering Carrie Fisher" on a TV at Liuzza's, and one of the sadder things I saw later in the week was a sheaf of WizardWorld Comic Con flyers curled behind a machine or rack in a French Quarter coffee shop. The con is going on even as I type (January 6 to 8), but without Fisher, who had been listed on the top line of guests:



I also saw two murals -- one on a wall with "RIP" prominent on wall, and the other on the door of the Krewe of Chewbacchus HQ. Friday morning, we spotted kegs being delivered for the second line parade to be led by the Leijorettes ("most ... are roller derby players").



A post I bookmarked while mentally drafting this one: TJ's goals for this year.

Speaking of fighting fascists, here's what Penzeys Spices has to say:

The stories of cooks, at least the way we see them, super-humanize. If it looks like you, or someone you know, are going to be standing in the way of the new administration, we need your story, and a recipe or two, and this time we can't wait until July. No doubt public school teachers will once again be on the front lines of the right's anger echo chamber, but we're thinking this time it won't be just teachers, and this is why we are asking for your help. This year, the list will be long, and we would like to get a leg up on any direction it could head. Clearly this time around the targets are the environment, immigration, gender equality, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, income inequality, and pretty much anyone who is in any way a minority in any shape or form.

If you, or someone you know, is on the front lines of one of these issues and have a good recipe or two to share, please contact us at editor@penzeys.com, and tell us a little about your background and your concerns. And please, don't think your experience needs to be dramatic, or that you need to have some sort of job title to participate. It's the every day decency of cooks that carries the day, not fame or celebrity.

And because you may well be first up on the block, if you are one of those pre-existing condition-havers that have had a brief period of almost normal life because of the Affordable Care Act, please get in touch with us right away. The people need to understand your experience. Once again, please contact us at editor@penzeys.com with a brief description of your story, and one of our gifted and friendly writers will get in touch. Please. We all need your experience.

Speaking of cooking, last night I scooped the Meyer lemon sorbet into smaller containers, and tonight I may proceed with this recipe for grapefruit-lemon marmalade. First, though, there is cleaning to do, but before that, lunch (a bowlful of leftovers, plus coffee dregs perked up with cardamom [from Penzeys], ginger, cinnamon, and coriander, with hot water and almond milk refilling the mug).

What are you cooking or dreaming about this weekend, loves?

Flint still does not have clean water, and Congress isn't inclined to do more about it.

So -- a proposal: buy Measured Extravagance or tweet about "Look at that, you son of a bitch" by the start of 26 December (CST) and I'll donate $2 per purchase/boost to the Flint Water Fund. Details here.

Just wrote a thank-you card to Kellogg's. http://maudnewton.tumblr.com/post/153905564012/todays-action-stopping-breitbarts-ad-dollars

Used some galangal from Penzeys in the cauliflower-potato soup I made tonight. "Online sales are up 59.9%, gift box sales up 135%" since their CEO gave Orange voters a piece of his mind a couple of weeks ago. He posted an open letter to other business owners/execs today: https://www.facebook.com/Penzeys/photos/pb.216397232833.-2207520000.1480654780./10154815494657834/?type=3&theater

Bronson Koenig: What I Found at Standing Rock

Rasheed Wallace: The Truth about Flint. This is from October, but in the words of the man himself:

I've been visiting Flint for the past year, so let me tell you the truth.

Some of the folks in Flint can't take showers because their water is still poisoned with lead.

They have to boil water, pour it into the sink and then wash in it.

Yeah, a grown-ass man has to take a bird bath. That shit ain't right. It's still going on today.

And it's not going away anytime soon.

Quantum bunnies: My villanelle "Schrodinger's Top Hat" was selected as a finalist in the latest Goodreads poetry group contest; voting is open through April 1. (Thanks to everyone who's already promoted and/or voted!) There have been some very nice comments about both my poem and the whole shortlist; I was especially delighted to read that it moved someone to look up Schrodinger's cat.

[My friend Elaine made my week in like fashion last week when I sent the other members of our chamber choir a copy of Hans Ostrom's Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven (after joking-but-not-entirely during rehearsal about how Emily was ahead of her time. I don't remember what prompted it, but there was a fair amount of wordplay and sassing going on that night). She told me after Sunday warmup that she'd read it aloud to two groups since receiving it. If I hadn't been wearing heels and a skirt, I would've done cartwheels in front of the pulpit right then and there.]

UU ribbons: I went to the HUUmanists site to follow up on last summer's book-smUUggling campaign, and the word is that there are two projects in progress for General Assembly 2013. One is collecting banned books to supply an underground community library in Louisville; the other is a fabric art display, with panels "reflecting a theme (or cover art) from any of the designated Banned Books or children's books, or depicting any immigration rights project being conducted by a UU congregation or humanist group." It sounds like the coordinators are still accepting participants: "if you quilt, embroider, appliqué, cross stitch, or otherwise make images on fabric, WE CAN USE YOUR TALENTS."

[Another bit of good news: the UU Congregation of Cookeville will become officially affiliated with the UUA this year! Some of you may recall that I helped coordinate around three dozen services for them some years ago -- I am so thrilled that they are now a solid faith presence on the Highland Rim.]

for new monthly donors ($5 - $25) to Mercy Corps: http://www.mercycorps.org/princessbride/