Speaking of Godzilla, how cool is this??

A dark blue purse with a zipper on the top side, long blue straps which are doubled up, and a scene featuring a sky reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Night painting but with Mt. Fuji and a city scene full of tall buildings on the left and an image of Godzilla on the right, heading towards the city. The whole scene is embroidered in threads of various colors.

Best Son was at some kind of terror themed market event and sent me a picture of that. I couldn't resist - I asked him to buy it for me and he did. I was intending on paying him for it but apparently it's an early birthday present. It's a lot smaller than purses I normally require for all the stuff I think I need to haul around - it's about 8.5 in x 7.5 in (about 21.5 cm x 19 cm). I lucked out, though, and found a small wallet at the thrift store that I can use when I switch to that purse and, as for the rest of my things, I'll just have to be choosy about what I think I really need.

Oh man, let's see, what's been going on. I picked up another postcard campaign - this is from Markers for Democracy, which lets you choose how many postcards you want. This particular campaign is for a Democrat running in a special election in a Republican majority district in Pennsylvania which seems like a hard sell but MFD says this is the type of state seat that the Democrats have been flipping lately. This campaign is directed towards Democratic Vote by Mail voters who haven't requested a Mail-In ballot for this election. I have til March 2 to send off cards for this.

I attended an event with my local Indivisible group, where we met at a member's house and put together whistle kits. These consist of 3D printed whistles (we have several community members who have volunteered to print those) and a card stating how to use the whistle. Well, sure, you blow it! But the card explains when and how. If ICE is nearby, blow 3 short bursts to alert anyone in the area. If you see ICE actively detaining someone, then blow three long bursts.

I wasn't able to secure a court observer spot for this week. The group has had so many new volunteers and they are being really good about trying to get everyone in so some spots they hold for first-timers (which I no longer am) and I didn't have availability for all the days that were open. I'll keep an eye out for people who have to cancel at the last minute because, you know, life happens, but the group is also trying to put together something that people can do at home that has to do with their legal clinics. Not sure what that's all about but there's going to be a Zoom meeting about it this week so I'm going to check that out.

So this past Tuesday was Mardi Gras. My mom was born in New Orleans and raised between there and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And, after my parents divorced, mom and I lived in the New Orleans suburbs from the time I was 8 until I was 12. I experienced Mardi Gras (as a kid) and it was such fun! I especially loved the King Cakes. We'd have parties in school and whoever got the baby got to be the King or Queen and pick their "consort" for the day and both kids got to wear paper crowns. It was so exciting!

I loved going to parades and catching beads (and, remember, I was a little kid so I didn't do anything salacious to get beads). Beads weren't the only things given out at parades. The coolest thing I ever got was from a Shriner zipping around in one of their little cars (explanation) - it was a translucent blue 45 rpm record of Foreigner's Blue Morning, Blue Day.

But, as fun as those early memories are, Mardi Gras these days fills me with regret. See, the year before my mom died I had an idea to throw a Mardi Gras party just for the family. She would make her red beans and rice dish, I would order a King Cake from New Orleans. I had plans! But, see, that's the thing about me. I am totally an IDEAS person. Executing those ideas is a whole other thing and more often than not my grand ideas don't reach actuality.

I don't remember what happened to make my grand Mardi Gras party not go off. I think part of it is that I waited too long on ordering the cake to have it get here in time. And I think mom was really looking forward to this party, more than I realized at the time. She tried giving suggestions to make it happen but at that point I just felt overwhelmed (I run out of spoons easily) and brushed off her suggestions, saying we'd do it next year. And, guys, next year never came. Not for the Mardi Gras party. My mom had been really sick for a long time and she hid it from us (I think from herself, too) and she passed away the next year.

I didn't mean to traumatize anyone with that story. What I'd like anyone who read that to get from that story is, well, a few things. Sometimes there is no "next time." Don't let you get in the way of yourself if there's something you really want to do, like I did with the stupid cake. And, I don't know, carpe diem, I guess! Just don't waste those opportunities to do something you really want to do. Man, I suck at this elder giving life advice. Maybe I'm not old enough yet?

Listening

Some podcasts I listend to this week:

Reading

This has been such an unusually slow reading month for me! I finally finished Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell. This book was so fascinating! Clementine and Churchill were kind of broken people who were crap parents (probably a combo of their own crap parents plus general British upper class parenting in the early 20th century) but together they were formidable. I don't think there's any way Winston Churchill would have been politically successful without her. And she was very proactive for her causes in her own right, it's not like she constantly lived under his shadow.

I currently have 2 books checked out from the library: The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar and Cat's People by Tanya Guerrero. The first one has been on my library wishlist for a while. One of the people I follow on Bluesky is doing a 30 Books in 30 Days series of postings and Cat's People was one of them. It looks really sweet - the story is about 5 strangers bonding over a street cat.

Watching

Best son recommended a movie, What Happened to Monday? and I watched it this past week. It's a 2017 sci-fi action film and NOT what I thought it was going to be just judging from the title. It was pretty good! I'd give it a solid 7. Don't want to say anymore because I don't want to spoil it for anyone else who may want to watch it.

I watched another episode of Royal Flying Doctor Service. I so loved the first 2 seasons of this show but this season is leaving me kind of meh. Maybe it's because they've shuffled characters around, maybe it's because it continues to be a little more soap opera-ish than the previous seasons.

I watched an interesting video from Gabi Belle on AI in music - AI has already ruined music. Best Son told me about it - we had been talking about AI and music recently. He's the one that pointed out to me that my favorite artist's new song was probably AI (which the artist seemed to confirm). It was an interesting video but also kind of depressing. It's really sad that AI is crowding out actual artists. And, I'm really upset that I can't always tell what's AI and what isn't. Gabi Belle went through some music in her video and, as she was walking you through the song, I could hear what she was talking about but if I was on some kind of "Is it AI or is it real" game show, I would totally fail. I do not like being tricked.

Link Lagniappe (it's back!)

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.