This week I virtually attended a talk hosted by the local Humanist Group. The speaker was from a group called Secular AZ, which is a "nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization that protects the constitutional separation of church and state and educates lawmakers and the public to ensure freedom of conscience for Arizonans of all faiths and of none" and the topic was "Rage Against the Fascist Machine, This is Not a Drill." It was pretty interesting. The big takeaways I got from it were: don't despair and not do anything because that's what authoritarians want and also find your cause/group/people and work with them!

A lot of her talk had to do with school boards, how to get involved with them and how to navigate around dealing with some of the extremist members you will find on them. She also discussed how to comment on bills brought before the state legislature. The Secular AZ site has a whole flow chart of how you go about doing that which is really helpful because it's not like the government made it easy to do! You can't just go in as a citizen and speak your piece - there's a whole persnickety process you have to follow. You actually have to go down to the state capitol IN PERSON to register for an account to comment. How many people do you think that disenfranchises? Grr..

Like I said, very interesting and definitely gave me some things to think about. I've been wanting to do SOMETHING and now I feel that I have some avenues to explore.

Check out my latest art acquisition! (picture courtesy of the ebay listing as I couldn't get a good, glare-free photo to save my life)

So, long story long ('cause that's the only way I know how to do things) - one of the accounts I follow on Bluesky, Cats of Yore, has a Thursday night "art show" every week, where she invites people who are selling cat art items to post them to her account and then she reposts them.

A couple weeks ago someone posted that awesome picture, saying it had been sitting unloved in her ebay shop for quite a while. I don't know, something about it just really attracted me! I mean, it's a CAT. But I also liked the colors and the delightful kitchiness of it. So I bought it.

But I also looked into the artist and it turns out this painting is from a kids' book he wrote that was printed in the 90s - Tropicat by Brett Keast (who apparently is still attending art festivals in Laguna Beach, CA). Tropicat is a super chill cat who likes to go out on the fishing boat with his human friend but also has an adventure which involves a shark attack, a save from a friendly dolphin and surfing through a huge wave, to the admiration of all the other beach cats. And then a nap. Oh my gosh, guys, this is just *adorable*. I now have the book, too.

Listening

I also bought a few things on Bandcamp Friday, 2 singles and 2 albums, all of them various forms of electronic:

The 2 albums I've known about forever but just realized, hey, I don't actually own them, only have them on the YT playlist. Both of those are really great background music for when you're working on something.

Reading

I'm still working my way through my Clarkesworld magazines and Terrible Lizards but I've started reading an actual book, one of the stash from when I bought the Diane Duane e-book bundle. Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales is, according to the blurb on her site, "tales based on folklore, ghost stories and fairy tales with a modern twist." Ya'll - feral subway unicorns is what it started with. And it has continued to be a delight!

Watching

Nothing too exciting going on in this department. I'm waiting for some series to finish before I dive in (Silo) and others to start back up (Call the Midwife). Sometimes I like to just doze on the couch but have something on in the background. I found out that America's Test Kitchen is pretty good for that!

Til next week!