Thursday Thoughts - on the double, ralphie!

1. Remember when MFD was sitting around in a Ralphie bunny costume on Halloween? This will be the first Halloween in 12 years that my dogs will not be wearing a costume. Geege was my Halloween dog who endured the dressing up with silent dignity while the other two raged against the machine. I just can't do it this year.

2. Mae is exercising demons out of her asshole, from prednisone maybe? I have a call in to the vet. But she seems much better overall, which is weird to say after that first sentence. We're all still assimilating to Bruce Springsteen, of course. He is tiring himself and us out every day.

3. Today is my last day off of the year aside from a holiday. I'm hanging out with Lola Jean. I picked this vest up for her at Old Navy. New nephew coming soon! I got him some things too.

4. Last night we had dinner at the Continental with Melissa and Blane then went to see Trae Crowder/ the Liberal Rednecks WellRED tour at Helium. Not too shabby for a Wednesday night, am I right?


5. Every day is a good day to have a BFF sunglasses designer who sends you free glasses you like because she has them laying around since she worked on the design. Thanks KVSR for the shades. I got my plaid Toms too. Boom. And my Christmas gifts have started arriving. I'm about halfway done with the shopping.

6. I finally got my lazy ass over to see the Octavius Catto statue that was installed at the end of September here in Philadelphia. An educator, scholar, writer, pioneering baseball player, and fearless civil rights activist,  Catto fought unflaggingly for an equitable society in the wake of the Civil War. He successfully protested to desegregate Philadelphia’s trolleys, he fought to pass constitutional amendments enfranchising black citizens, and then he worked to bring those new black voters to the polls. He was shot and killed on his way to vote in 1871. It's the first public monument honoring one specific black person erected in the city of Philadelphia.

7. I walked all the way around City Hall first because I love the building and second because I was looking for the trump rat that was up near the Rizzo statue the day before. Alas it was nowhere to be found. Such a gorgeous building though and there's always something going on. This is Flores de Libertad, the installation of 1,600 hand dyed flowers, a creative action against family detention by artist Michelle Angela Ortiz. She's led several free paper flower workshops. Flowers from participants join the flowers made by undocumented mothers detained at the Berks County Family Detention Center, a prison for immigrant families in PA. Think of how fucked up that description is...a prison for immigrant families. The flowers of the mothers carry messages of freedom.

8. This week in NOT NORMAL: Amy Siskind's authoritarian list, week 49 where she points out we spent most of our time talking about the imposter's actions towards a fallen soldier instead of the scary shit on this list; the two-person company Whitefish Energy with small town neighbor ties to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke got the $300 million contract to fix the electrical grid in Puerto Rico (80% of the island is still without power as of Monday) in a no-bid process - swampy as fuck, you guys; and mothers who defend sons who sexually assault women. This week in everyone read this: I'm giving you the BoredPanda link to a tweet thread by @stealthygeek because it's hard to find the thread wading through the insane people who responded to his commentary on the assertion life begins at conception.

9. Reminder:

10. E-card of the week: