TWTW - the one with the split

Nothing fires up your Friday morning like fire truck excitement - my neighbor smelled gas, but nothing came of it. Lunch was a local's special Cuban for $5.55 from Sunrise Cafe. When you work from the shore, you can be on the beach by 5:30 on Friday. And painting a closet soon after (Behr Ultra Offshore Mist). We were in bed by 8 to read. 

Saturday morning was foggy as fuck but Bruce and I were still on the beach for 45 minutes before hitting Drip N Scoop for coffee and heading back to paint the parts of the porch poles that are made unreachable by the awnings that are being re-hung this week (learned that lesson last year, staring at things that should have been painted but were not), putting a finishing coat on the closet, and finishing my book before heading home. 

Some time out in the sun with lost perros, then dinner at Dad & Carol's with my aunt, uncle, cousins, Stephen & Aubrey and the smart and sassy Lola Jean and cutest cuddliest Baby Seeeeeve. We hit Target in a down pour on the way home and I was in bed early again reading.

Sunday March for Babies for Team Eva the Diva, fruitless Marshalls trip for a mirror for the other shore bedroom, and lounging and cooking all day. 

Weekly food prep: scrambled eggs for breakfast, hummus/veggies/pita for lunch, dinner is leftover pasta with chicken and spinach + bread, and grilled chicken using a marinade I made up. 

It's nice to be able to work from the shore more with the office reno going down.

How was your weekend? Also, how is it the last day of April?

Thursday Thoughts - carry moonbeams home in a jar

1. Nothing makes me think IDIOT faster than seeing or hearing any Saturdays are for the boys horseshit. Stop it.

2. Things that have been Bruced in the past day: my night table, sunglasses, Gus.

3. I broke in my new hand mixer Tuesday  - the one I got in 2009 gave up the ghost last week.

4. I made pineapple carrot muffins (recipe to come since I made some variations on the one I used), brownies from scratch with frosting, skinnytaste bagels, hummus, and ham stock/soup this week. If you are not using your ham bone to make some sort of soup, you are missing out. Ham stock is the most flavorful of them all.

5. Nails - Sally Insta-Dri in Set Sail. As always, annoyed that it's Dri and not Dry. Why, Sally?

6. I don't give a shit if Chikesia Clemons cursed in a restaurant or got upset about being charged for something she shouldn't have been charged for. I don't care if she lost her temper. I don't care if she was drinking. She was manhandled and exposed and it was not how I would have been treated had it been me in there mouthing off. And it was sure as shit not how this white lady was treated mouthing off in a situation that had zero to do with her in which she was 100% wrong and in which the officers responded in the right  - they are peace officers trained (or should be trained) to de-escalate situations. Not expose women's breasts without a care and choke them for absolutely fucking nothing. Fuck, the goddamn Waffle House SHOOTER didn't get taken down like this when he was apprehended and he killed four people. Oh, right...he was a white male. If you cannot see the differences in treatment, you might be part of the problem. There is racism here and misogyny too. And apparently there were white people sitting in the restaurant not saying a damn thing. Lord strike me the DOWN if I see a woman taken down with excessive force as her boobs are flopping around without opening my mouth. You can't ask why you were charged for a plastic fork as a black woman and you can't golf while black and female without having the police called on you either.

7. Tulips joined the party this week.

8. I'm in a reading slow period after a few books i didn’t engage with.When that happens, I don't push myself out of it. My brain clearly needs the break. Nevertheless, I hit the library this week so when the mood strikes me to be voracious again, I'll be prepared.

9. Reminder, if you find yourself banging your head against the same walls:

10. E-card of the week:

April Recommendations

The end of April already and nary one day outside in short sleeves. I won't dwell on that, not today, because today is recommendation day.

1. Cancel shit you don't need. I was getting the Walmart Beauty Box ($5 every few months) and yeah, it's only $5 like three or four times a year but I don't need it so it's gone. I passively received it for like two years and barely used anything from it. Waste of money and just waste in general.

2. Try on every article of clothing you own. I cannot believe how much shit I've been holding onto that I don't even like. Thanks to Chelsea for this inspiration - that's a general link, I can't find specifically where she mentioned this..

3. This linen and room spray. In the scent of your choice, of course. Pictured is a special no longer available scent. I'm currently using Pear Blossom Agave at home and Sea Salt Neroli  at the shore.

4. Support the Real Justice PAC if fixing our broken criminal justice system is important to you. What has made national news just over the last week shows how much racial bias exists in society and that carries over a million fold into the criminal justice system. You can't change the system from the outside. You need to hammer at it from inside and out. That's where Real Justice PAC comes in - getting DAs in office who are committed to fixing what is broken and reforming structural racism within the criminal justice system. I'm a small time monthly donor. It is worth it to me. Is it worth it to you? We have got to start putting our money where our mouth is and using our mouths to speak out against injustice and inequality that is plain as day.

5. Go to bed early just for the feeling of resting in bed with the windows open. Finally. Bonus points if you're climbing into fresh sheets.

6. Soom Pure Ground Sesame Tahini Paste. If you make your own hummus at home, Soom is where it's at. It's what they use at Zahav.

7. Cranberry Bladder Bites for DogsMae has had a lot of bladder issues in her young life, even more now that she's on consistent steroids. These are awesome.

Any recommendations from you this month?

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The boys are back in town

What kind of person visits her ant traps constantly to see if any ants have taken the bait?

This kind of person.

I haven't had ants for a few years. I used to get them every  year, then I tried the borax/sugar water mix and they were gone for years. Now they're back so I'm using it again.

3/4 cups warm water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon borax

Mix that up real well. Soak cotton balls in it and place them around wherever you have ants.

Then check it obsessively like I do. Just kidding that's not required but seriously if you find yourself doing it, it's fine. It's fine.

*************

Haikuesday

Ants in the kitchen

Scurrying on counter tops

Worse than ants in pants

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TWTW - the one with just one dog

This weekend was just me and Bruce at the shore. Having had two dogs for like 10 years and three for at least five but probably more like six or seven, it was so weird to just have the one with me. Weird and extremely easy. 

Bruce and I got to the shore Thursday night around 9 after packing, running the dishwasher, washing a load of towels, etc. I worked from there Friday which meant lunch was a beach walk. 

After work I applied an initial coat to one of the dressers upstairs (Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue). Bruce supervised which made me nervous as fuck but he was really good and stayed away from the paint. 

To reward both of us, we headed down to Corson's Inlet and hiked through the trail to the beach where we came upon the mother lode of shells high up in the sand and not a soul in sight. I was not paying attention to where we were going but Bruce, born in Sea Isle, led the way back around to the car. He is a shore dog through and through. We hung out and watched the sunset - that's the sun glowing red going down reflected on me, not a red face - then went home and cleaned shells and read. 

Saturday sunrise + a 45 minute beach wog down to the Music Pier. The erosion from the numerous N'oreasters is just incredible on some beaches - there's quite a drop off as you can sort of see in the puddle photo. 

After a short rest I was back at the Music Pier to register for the beach clean up, then I spent some time on my beach doing that. The plastic is literally killing us.

Another coat of paint on the dresser, then a three hour tour down Asbury Avenue to get Bruce used to people and noise. It took so long because he stops and stares at shit and won't move. We also paused in front of The Chatterbox for a long time. Under new ownership this season, the old girl is being lovingly restored to her former glory. Aside from a quick run to Bennie's for scalded milk cake during which I realized I looked like a giant blueberry, we stayed in and I read most of the afternoon.

Another jaunt down to the beach followed by my favorite picky dinner and Legally Blonde. 

Sunday sunrise - often behind the sunrise is as pretty or prettier as the sunrise itself.

Coffee, relaxing, cleaning our apartment, finding storage for my new shells, 

taking everything out of the kitchen closet and priming it with spray primer due to laziness, then cleaning up the dust that kicked up, a clear coat on the dresser - I let it pull through white on purpose, and a last jaunt to the beach. We were supposed to come home Monday, but we didn't. 

We should have, because when I got home the house was a disaster, the dishes I ran in the dishwasher Thursday night were still freaking in there, I spent a zillion minutes on the phone with Comcast on MFD's behalf, and the ants are back, hence the borax sugar water appetizer. At least dinner was good and no one did any murdering? And by no one I mean me. 

Weekly food prep: scrambled eggs with spinach for breakfast, hummus/veggies/pita for lunch, dinner is probably going to be ham and potato soup and leftovers from the grilling. Cantaloupe for a snack.

This was the first Sunday night in forever that I've purposefully gone to bed without TWTW queued up for the next day. I can only recall doing that one other time and it involved me still being in my bathing suit in a bar at the shore at like midnight.  The other times I've missed Mondays I knew ahead of time that I would. No real reason for mentioning this except to note that while I do love to recap weekends this way for my own memories - what did I use? where did I go? was that that weekend? - it felt freeing to not do that on the time table I usually do. Also to say that if photos and collages sized the way I wanted them to on my phone, I'd never have a thought about doing that again - I've done this so many times, it's second nature. 

Thursday Thoughts - ice ice baby

1.  If the weather was a person I'd kick it in the crotch. It flurried on Tuesday and was cold AF. There's still a winter under bite in the air. The flowers are blooming at least and I hold out hope that this morning I grabbed a top heavy fleece. As a beach adopter, I have to do a beach clean up for Earth Day from 9-noon on Saturday. Anyone want to join me? You can sleep in the bedroom where I'm not painting furniture or just come troll around for the day. Bring layers. Seriously though it should be 55 with light winds.

2. When I work from home, I like to eat dinner at 4 pm. I'm going to be the best senior citizen ever.

3. My boy dogs have no work from home chill. They want pets all the time. Mae knows it's work time and leaves me alone. 

4. Mostly because she spends the days hiding under blankets.

5. I got a wild hair up my ass Tuesday night and made a million things, the biggest of all being a complete mess of the kitchen.

6. I ended up with two pots of pasta e fagioli, brown rice to use in a made up chicken and broccoli casserole that I threw some bacon and chicken gravy into (cleaning out that pantry) and to freeze. Monday night I made bread and a vat of iced coffee. Last night a vat of sweet tea. I did not read a page of a book Monday through Wednesday so I had to occupy my time in some way.

7. I actually saw white people complaining that this is out of hand because Starbucks is closing for a few hours on May 29 for racial bias training. Oh, it's out of hand alright, but not because Starbucks is doing a racial bias training. You guys...you know no one is forcing Starbucks to do that, right? It is a choice they made as a company, what they think the right response is. They are doing it because there is an obvious need among their staff because they know no one sitting in their cafes needs to make a purchase, despite how many people on the Internet are insisting you can't sit in a business without making a purchase. Well, you can in Starbucks, that's pretty much their model and it doesn’t matter if you personally agree or not, the fact here is that there’s no way in hell that employee would have called the cops if those guys were white and Starbucks corporate knows that so this is what they’re doing about it. The direction the company is taking is called working towards a solution instead of acting like a problem doesn't exist. We’d each do well to examine our bias and ask ourselves if there are situations where we might not say or do something overtly racist but still feel something racist or anti-black inside. But if you're looking for some alternatives in Philly coffee-wise, check these out.

8. Between the multiple international news racist incidents of the past week, the Syria bombings, the Michael Cohen shit, I am just so fucking tired of all of it. Life feels punishing under the trump regime. I’m still calling my Congress people, writing my post cards, and using ResistBot, but I’m drained.

9. Reminder: This. You know I like it because I'm sharing it when its should be it's

10. E-card of the week:

And a happy happy birthday to the always fabulous and funny and newly engaged cousin Gail. Xoxo