I've spent the last two weekends doing things with the Humanist Group of Phoenix. Last Saturday I went to the center and spent a couple of hours making "plarn" (plastic yarn) out of strips of shopping bags. People who can actually crochet (that would NOT be me) take the plarn and crochet sleeping mats that are then distributed to people who find themselves living outside. I did this one time last year and it took me until this year to go back but I've done it 2 months in a row now and I hope to keep it up.

The group has Sunday speakers a couple times a month and today they had a mycology expert talking about mushrooms in general and also mushrooms specific to Arizona. It was so cool! I took notes like the nerd I am. He had some really nice handouts, too. I'm not a huge mushroom fan but maybe one of these days I'll go out foraging. I really appreciated one part of his talk where he said that there are a lot of mushrooms that aren't edible but that are cool to look at and you should take joy in what you find, even if it isn't edible. I like that idea of appreciating things just for what they are.

Prior to the Sunday speaker talks, the group hosts a buffet breakfast. You pay a small fee and there is a ton of food available. I am very socially anxious, introverted and would almost rather eat worms than be in a social situation. But! I want you all to know that I went to the buffet and I interacted with several people. My mental batteries are a little depleted after this but everyone was so nice and I think I'd like to keep going to their events.

Reading

I am almost finished with the Diane Duane book The Book of Night with Moon. So this book is about a group of cats who are also wizards. And they work in tandem with human wizards in order to keep these interdimensional portal gates functioning. And things happen with the gates causing the cats to have to go to another dimension to fight dinosaurs who have kidnapped one of the human wizards and want to invade the cats' and humans' dimension. Wow - I didn't realize all of that was going to happen when I first started reading. I also wasn't sure if this was a kids' book or not - it kind of feels like a kids' book written for adults, if that makes any sense. Apparently this book and its events fit into the middle of another series of hers, the Young Wizards series, which actually is a kids' (Young Adult) series. Kind of weird that you wouldn't keep them all the same age group. There are 2 more books in this series and, while it kind of confuses me as far as what age group it's actually written for, it's not bad and I am a total sucker for cat books so - I think I'll keep on with the series. I'm not sure I'll read the next one right after but I don't have anything else I'm particularly anxious to get to so - we'll see.

Watching

I've caught up with my beloved Slow Horses. Season 4 is currently playing and I'm going to wait until the season is done before watching it. I finished the PBS series The Wall (about events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall) and quite enjoyed that. I'm currently working on the first season of The Bureau, a French TV series about the secret service and ghost agents. Spy stuff! It's pretty good. I'm on episode 5 of the first season.

In the previous post I mentioned I was getting a new DVD player as the old one wasn't playing any of the DVDs I had recently bought. Now that I have it set up, I've been rewatching the first season of Made in Abyss. It's so good! The animation is just lovely. I bought a DVD set that has I think 2 seasons and 3 movies. When I originally watched it I didn't realize there was so much more to see!

That about wraps it up for this week!