I finally finished one of the cross stitch projects I was waffling one! But, Divergent Rays, you ask, where is the picture of this allegedly completed project? I got busy with stuff today and didn't have a chance to get a good picture in the daylight. Next blog post will have photographic proof that I finished it! I am already at work on the next project.

I don't go to church but every other Sunday the local Humanist Group usually has a guest speaker and this morning I watched that talk on YouTube live. The talk was really cool, all about sustainability, and part depressing but also part hopeful. The speaker was Dr. Brigitte Bavousset and she is apparently the first person to graduate with a degree in sustainability. There are good things being done and, if we can continue that and do more, then we can maybe not reverse but ameliorate some of the changes coming our way. If this sounds like your kind of talk, you can watch it on YouTube: Sunday Speaker: Dr. Brigitte Bavousset - A Planet of Resilience Facing Change.

From now until June, the state Legislature is in session and the civic group I follow has weekly Sunday Happy Hours on Zoom where they discuss what happened this past week, what's on the schedule for the next week, and go over some proposals in particular. I spent a good amount of time after that session crafting short statements about some particular bills. I called my own district's reps and senator to voice opposition to a bill that is trying to take away our early voting. Then I called everyone on the committee that will be hearing a bill that basically gives Flock and their automatic license plate readers free reign in the state, with no guardrails on behavior. It's Sunday so everything went to voicemail but they have to log the calls on a tally sheet so my voice was heard (although probably ignored). And after all that I used the RTS (Request to Speak) system to comment on some other bills. It was a busy day! Kind of like being in school again.

I've talked before about one of the colleges at the local university hosting an event every semester called History of the Future, where they look at past depictions of the future and see how they influence how we tackle future problems. They have someone, usually but not always from that particular college, do a short introduction to the movie and that's pretty interesting, too. This month it was Escape from New York, which I had never seen. I thought it was fun and I think Best Son is happy that I filled in yet another hole in my strangely gap-filled 80s movie knowledge.

Listening

Like I mentioned in the links above, I downloaded a couple of audio dramas and I've made it through 4 of 12 episodes of Celeritas so far. Quite enjoying that one and I like how the episodes are fairly short so far (under 15 minutes) although I can see they are getting progressively longer as the series goes on. I have not yet tried out the other audio drama I put on my podcast player.

Somehow I went through the whole week without listening to a podcast! What was I doing? No idea ... except it apparently involved no podcasts.

Reading

I am still reading When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning. It's such a good book that I'm stopping and rereading sections and using the Kobo's highlight function a lot. This national project to get books to soldiers is just so fascinating! And, I've got to say, I'm kind of amazed at the quality of book these young soldiers are reading. It really goes to show how American educational standards have changed and not for the better.

It was funny reading that Forever Amber was one of the most hotly sought after books! I read that last year. It's a historical romance(ish) about a woman who slept her way up through society. But it was written in the 1940s so it wasn't all that salacious. A lot of passages involving sex really left a lot to the imagination. Like so much! They would start with the couple entering the bedroom and then the next paragraph is them waking up in the morning. Different times, I guess.

Watching

One of my favorite mystery shows is back for season 5 - My Life is Murder with Lucy Lawless. There's so much I love about the show: the snarkiness of Lawless's character; the found family she's created; her co-star, Ebony Vagulans, who is both absolutely gorgeous and has a wardrobe that I don't think I could pull off but is awesome. Artistic and colorful and just *mwah*. I also like Lucy's wardrobe - we are of an age and her outfits are so put together, yet casual, and she looks so good! I've lived clothing life so casually - working at a job that requires scrubs and then coming home and changing out of scrubs into sweats. I have no fashion sense nor any desire to be anything less than comfortable. Her wardrobe is kind of my #FashionGoals. I should start taking notes.

I had a few more notes on things to ramble on about but I left this til really late and I'd like to get it out before it's offically Monday so I'll just leave you with this week's bonus links.

Link Lagniappe

When I first started using Zonelets I had Disqus set up as a commenting system but it looked obnoxiously ugly and I ditched it. Some people are happy to not have blog interaction but I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts you want to share! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.