Thursday Thoughts - I throw my hands up in the air sometimes saying ayo gotta let go

1. MFD battled a serious illness over the past eight days. It's called Game of Thrones and there is no cure. He watched all seven available seasons in just over one week and I’m pretty sure 99% of our conversations now contain references to the show so I am mostly in the dark about what we’re actually talking about at any given time since I only caught snippets here or there. Marital communication level: poor.

2. Evidence that getting up an hour early would really benefit my life: Wednesday morning I did two loads of laundry, folded two other loads, emptied the dishwasher, fed and played with the puppy, and washed my hair before work. It's a miracle. One I could repeat regularly if not for the siren song of sleep and frantic rush to get out of the house 20 minutes after waking up.

3. I've been ignoring Christmas decorations. Maybe tomorrow night?

4. I’ve taught Bruce to sit for a treat and fetch. If I can teach him to stop jumping like a wild jackal you may call me Cesar Milan. Pugs are notoriously hard to train.

5. After much dithering and testing of phones and pep talks from android users (thanks Kathy), I upgraded my phone to the iPhone 8 Plus. In the end I didn't like navigating around the android phones. The camera is awesome which is what I'm really interested in anyway.

6. A standby favorite: Essie merino cool to replace my Friday nail polish job that was chipped by Sunday night. Grrr. I got my Sephora order from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I'm happy to report I love the Urban Decay Vice TMI lip color.

7. Further evidence the president is mentally unfit to serve: makes a crack about Pocahontas while  honoring Navajo code talkers who served our country in WWII, retweets anti-Muslim videos from very crazy far right people. Attempting to list his daily insanity here is not going to change anyone's mind and it's wearing me the fuck out before I even get to talk about the important shit like saving net neutrality or shredding this bullshit tax scam. Literally all he had to do at the Navajo ceremony was smile and thank them and take a fucking photo. He can't leave it at that. And all he had to do on Twitter was not retweet a fascist group from Britain - of course, the group then thanked him and said God bless you trump, God Bless America. I read that a lot, people who clearly hate others based on their skin color or religion or ancestry saying God Bless, which is weird given that it doesn't seem like there are many godly notions in those viewpoints. I'm done. Every time I think of people saying I love how he says what he thinks and is not a politician I feel like screaming. I clearly do not love someone with no decency, diplomacy, or awareness of time/place/tone in the motherfucking White House. Oh, and on net neutrality...google it, while you still can without someone else deciding what information you are allowed to access. I'd link it for you but blogger is being an asshole and who even knows if we'll be allowed to google freely after December 14 anyway. Guns aren't power. Knowledge and access to information are power. Do what you can to demand net neutrality: https://5calls.org/issue/defend-fcc-net-neutrality
And how what started as a tax cut could change American life: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/republican-tax-cut.html

8. There is always a silver lining. All of this insanity has forced conversations about systemic racism and misogyny. It's uncomfortable but so awesome to see that people are stretching even though it's painful.We must continue to challenge the notions that are embedded so deep within all of us that we don't even know are there until we react to a situation in a way that we can't believe is actually ourselves sounding like an old ass woman hating racist. We will learn the most in the moments we misstep, and in the moments we're most honest with ourselves. There's not one of us who is free from having said or done bad things. We can't change the past or discard all the previous versions of ourselves, but we can realize we don't have to be those people anymore, that we can be different and better going forward. We can give each other grace as long as we all work towards a cultural shift in norms and behaviors. The common denominator is that every one of us has the capacity to change if we make the choice to do so.

9. Reminder: Every day can be a great day.

10. E-card of the week: Still and probably forever perplexed by the bathroom selfie with toilets in the vicinity. Why?