Friday Randomness

February 7, 2025 /

The cartoon above is one I have shared before, first in the summer of 2020 I think, but boy oh boy does it resonate now. HOW ARE WE HERE AGAIN? Onward.

This is the first full week of Elisabeth’s FIG Collective, and I’ve been enjoying keeping track of little joys in my life. Appreciated in the best of times, much needed right now.

Saturday
Wicked – Ted is a member of SAG/Aftra, left over from his days working in radio, and he gets screeners of the films that are nominated for SAG awards. Saturday’s mail included a DVD for Wicked, which we hadn’t bothered to go see in the theater, but wanted to see and were too cheap to stream ($30 last time I checked). It was a fun way to spend a Saturday evening!

Sunday
Whipped Porridge – I read somewhere (sorry to not give credit, likely it was one of you but I’ve forgotten) about whipped oatmeal, where you make your oatmeal with half milk/half water, and stir vigorously while cooking, and it comes out kind of fluffy and creamy. I looked online and found a woman who whips a thinly sliced banana into her oatmeal, and the banana kind of dissolves into the oatmeal. That sounded good to me, so I tried it with my cream of barley cereal. DELICIOUS, and a lovely way to start a cold winter day. I mix in some walnuts and about a tsp of raspberry jam, and I top it with berries. It’s very satisfying and filling.

Monday
This morning on my walk, I listed to the Ezra Klein podcast, which gave me a glimmer of hope. You can watch above, if you haven’t heard it yet. The crux of it is in this one quote: “Trump is acting like a King because he is too weak to govern like a President.” Am I still worried as hell? Absolutely yes. But I’ll take my glimmers where I can get them.

Also Monday I made my first call, to my House Representative. I’ve been feeling helpless and not sure who to call and what to say. Sure, call my Rep and Senators, but we are in California, they agree with me. I saw a couple of people post on Facebook about 5 Calls.org, where they will give you not only the information of who your contacts are, they also give you a script if you want one. I found that really helpful.

Also helpful, I’ve been following the Alt National Park Service on Facebook. They have been working tirelessly to get the word out about Musk and his team, and I have found so much hope in their efforts as well.

Tuesday
This morning, I was grateful for my ujjai breath, which I very much needed to help with the stress of the shitstorm going on with our government right now. Later, I had some quiet time in the middle of my day, and came across an article that my step mom sent me (in the mail!) months ago, from the New York Times magazine. It’s about a horse trainer, who talked about how really learning to work with horses, to figure out how to figure them out, helped him open up himself, become a better listener, deal with childhood trauma, all of it. Animals really are magical.

We finally started getting rain this last weekend, though in our specific area it has been mostly a bit of drizzle. Well, Wednesday afternoon we finally got a storm that came in, with the most beautiful rain. I am happier if it doesn’t start raining hard until everyone in my family is home safe, and this started hours before that, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Wednesday
Today’s FIG was Ruby, the new cat at the rescue I’ve been volunteering for recently. She made me laugh, because she refused to get out of her litter box. You’d think she had a book or her phone in there. Eventually I got her out so I could clean it, but I had to pick her up, I couldn’t coax her. She’s shy, after I took her out of the litter box, she went and hid behind her bed.

After a drenching rain on Tuesday, I was also happy to see a blue sky again today. We’re supposed to get more rain Thursday and Friday, so it was nice to have a break without worrying too much about drought.

On Monday, Sarah posted about food waste, which made me think of our bread situation. We really like Semifreddi’s sourdough, and we often buy a loaf of their Sour Batard. We have a bit, and wrap the rest in foil to keep it from going completely stale quickly. This helps, but still, 1/2 to 1/3 of the loaf ends up getting thrown away when we buy another loaf. I sometimes give food away on our local Buy Nothing Facebook group. For example, we have bought hot dogs and hot dog buns, but those come in packs of 6 or 8 or whatever, and we are just not going to eat that many. So we’ll eat what we’re going to eat, and I’ll give the rest away. Makes me happy. But I doubt anyone wants 1/3 of a loaf of practically stale bread. Inspired by Sarah, I decided to make croutons, and we had salad and roast chicken for dinner. Next I am going to make panko breadcrumbs, via this recipe from The Pioneer Woman.

Thursday
Today’s joys were simple. Rest day on weights (good, because yesterday I did NOT want to do it, but I persevered), a good yoga session, a nice, albeit abbreviated, morning walk. A delicious scramble for breakfast (with tomato, red bell pepper, green onion, arugula, and Parmesan cheese) with the last of the fancy english muffins that I had in the freezer. (One of Oprah’s favorite things years ago.) A quiet afternoon of work on a rainy day, listening to Fleetwood Mac and Sade. I had a moment of quiet, being thankful for my job this morning, as my Facebook memories tells me that it was on this date in 2009 that I was laid off from a prior job. Ted had been laid off in mid 2008, so that was both of us without work, but thankfully he had recently been asked to come back to work for his prior employer, and was only a week or so from starting, so we weren’t both out of work for long. My company eventually asked me to come back too, they had cut too deep. Recessions suck.

OK, not the prettiest picture, but this is our dinner on Thursday. Admire our plates, which are our everyday dishes that we registered for when we got married back in 1993. Some of you were children. Before the election last year, I bought Penzey’s Spices gift cards as Christmas gifts for my family, mostly because they troll Trump, which made me happy. Little did I know that my entire family LOVES Penzey’s (all especially love the Taco seasoning), so yeah, good gift. With the gift cards that I ordered, which were physical gift cards (no electronic even offered) came several spice blends. I don’t do very well with spice blends, I don’t know when and where to use them. Well, tonight I was going to make an old standard (very simple) salmon recipe, which is salmon with salt, pepper, paprika, sliced garlic, and olive oil. So I made that recipe, but substituted one of the spice blends for the paprika. I used the Arizona Dreaming blend. It was DELICIOUS. I paired it with the Whole Foods Kale Caesar blend, recommended by Sarah, very tasty.

Friday
I’m cheating here, because I’m writing this on Thursday to post early on Friday morning, so perhaps some unexpected joys will come along. But the joys that I am expecting are: My Fabulous Friday (though I expect I will have to put in a couple of hours of work today, we have a release going out on Monday and it’s my turn to babysit). I’m planning to talk to my step-mom while I have my morning walk, I haven’t talked to her in a while. I don’t think I’ll be helping with the cat rescue, Ruby was adopted on Wednesday evening (when I was there, one of the employees told me someone had seen her on the website and was VERY interested, so yay!) Friday evening is usually dinner out with Ted, we always look forward to that. I have to decide what to do about my book. I’m loving The Blue Castle, but I’m already ahead for Monday’s discussion over at Engie’s pad, and I don’t really like that, I like to be right at the same place in the book. Maybe I’ll start one of the books I got for Christmas, Ina Garten’s memoir, which seems like just the right kind of soothing reading for times like these.

I know these are trying times. I hope you are hanging in there and finding joy where you can. Don’t let the motherfuckers steal your joy.

44 Comments

  • Maya

    February 7, 2025 at 5:10 am

    I found this compilation really calming and uplifting, Jules; thank you.

    Not gonna lie–when I first heard about this social media challenge, I thought it was going to be people disengaging from political work… and I’m glad to be wrong.

    But YES to using sourdough croutons and spices to fuel our rest, our joy, and our resistance!

    Solidarity and love!

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 4:46 pm

      Solidarity and love indeed! Yeah, we cannot bury our heads in the sand to the extent that we do nothing and let our world fall apart. Thank you for always fighting the good fight!

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 4:47 pm

      Thanks Elisabeth, for getting us going and helping us to pay attention to the joys that are still there when things are rough.

  • AC

    February 7, 2025 at 5:46 am

    You sound anxious. I think we all are. Canada gets a reprive for a month, but you have to live with the awfulness daily. I gues we all do to an extent because we are all aware, but you are right there.

    Enjoy your dinneer tonight. It always seems bold to go out on Friday when everyone else does, but you probably have oodles of choices where you live.

    I hope the adopted Ruby finds a resting spot other than her littler box.

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 4:50 pm

      I just thought it was funny that she was hanging out in the litter box, but then later I read that it can be an indication of stress. Do you think she has been keeping up with the news? Actually, she had just been moved from a shelter to the pet store the night before, and both places sound stressful to me. I like thinking of her getting settled into her new home now.

  • nance

    February 7, 2025 at 6:18 am

    Dear sweet Ruby! I do hope she is loved and appreciated in her Forever Home. That’s all she needs. What a beautiful cat.

    I love Penzey’s Arizona Dreaming. I got it in a small jar as part of a sampler box. I put it on sweet potatoes, pork, and use it as a rub for barbecuing. So good! Penzey’s spices are the best. Have you tried their Mural of Flavour? It makes a terrific dip with equal parts sour cream and mayo.

    And freeze your bread! Then thaw out the remaining part of the loaf whenever you want bread again. Bread freezes beautifully if you wrap it well in plastic wrap and foil.

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 4:56 pm

      I wonder if the Arizona Dreaming spice might be enough to make me like sweet potatoes? They’re OK with chives, so maybe? I am going to give that a try. I haven’t tried any of the other Penzey’s spice blends yet, but I have several and will be giving them a try. One of them says it is good as a dip, and I plan to find out this weekend! Not sure if we’re watching the game or not…I dislike football and especially knowing what a risk the players are taking with their health. But if Ted wants to watch it I’m not going to go into another room or anything. A room where the dip isn’t.

      Regarding the bread, yes, I have frozen bread before, but never this one because it’s too bulky and I feel like it will languish in there. But clearly I could slice it and wrap it and that would take care of the bulky part. Thank you for the reminder.

  • Margaret

    February 7, 2025 at 10:05 am

    This is lovely! Our rain has been in the form of snow lately but it’s still moisture. Very chilly this morning though. I’ve contacted my AG regarding Musk’s actions but I’m not sure what he can do. As you said, most legislators in my state agree with me anyway. My older daughter made me oatmeal the other day and it was delicious. She browns the oatmeal in butter before making it and it was amazing.

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 5:08 pm

      Oh, browning your oatmeal in butter first is next level! I do toast mine a bit in the dry pot before I add milk, maybe I’ll try a bit of butter next.

      I think letting our electeds know how we feel is so important, even if they are not able to do much right now. We need to hold their feet to the fire and let them know we want them to do everything in their power to stop this shit.

  • Sarah

    February 7, 2025 at 10:07 am

    I also like that podcast and linked it today but got flamed from the elft on IG for sayiong I liked it, so I don’t even know what’s going on, but I think dems fighting with dems about who’s more woke is… something to do later after the world is not on fire if that time ever comes.

  • Lisa's Yarns

    February 7, 2025 at 12:43 pm

    I also enjoyed that EK podcast. He is one of my favorite people to listen to. I needed something to give me some hope. Things are just bonkers out there.

    The joy of my week was definitely my blogger lunch yesterday!!

  • NGS

    February 7, 2025 at 12:45 pm

    Okay, this is going to be the longest comment ever because I took notes as I was reading so that I wouldn’t forget to tell you anything.
    1) I don’t like to think of Trump, but I will say that I think some of his behavior is making him just appear so weak and useless and that gives me hope. But so many people are being hurt right now.
    2) The National Park folks are the best. Trump is talking about selling federal land and I suspect he would try to target the National Parks first because of all the reasons.
    3) Ruby! We boarded Zelda once (ONCE) and the folks couldn’t even clean her cage because she was so aggressive and would not leave her litter box. Poor baby Zelda. Poor Ruby. I hope Ruby has a fabulous new home!
    4) I also like to have read only as much as we talk about in The Blue Castle so I don’t acidentally spoil anything in the comments. But next weekend I have plans and can’t spend the whole weekend perfecting my CBBC post! So I need to get ahead. I’m torn. When will I have time to read it and write the post if I don’t start this weekend?!

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 5:13 pm

      1. Yeah, he’s not as strong and powerful as he would have us believe, but he’s doing a lot of damage anyway. I resent the hell out of him and every idiot that voted for him.
      2. I hadn’t considered that he might be wanting to sell public lands to spite the Alt. National Park folks. That’s just about petty enough for me to believe it though.
      3. Poor Zelda! Poor Ruby! Yeah, as I said to AC above, I didn’t know that hanging in the litter box was a sign of stress, so I just thought it was funny. I’m hoping that Ruby is settling in to her new home now and feeling more secure.
      4. You’re going to have so much fun next weekend, there will be no time for post writing. You’re just going to have to forge ahead and consequences be damned!

  • San

    February 7, 2025 at 5:13 pm

    Ezra Klein, AltNPS and a couple of other substacks (Robert Reich, Mueller She Wrote, etc.) give me hope right now. I love how you ended your post: don’t let the motherfuckers steal your joy, THAT’S RIGHT!

    Oh, and in re: to the leftover sourdough. You can also let it go stale and use it to make bread dumblings. In fact, I have a whole bag of old sourdough bread and rolls for that purpose! 🙂

    • J

      February 7, 2025 at 5:16 pm

      San, I wish you were my neighbor I would save it for you! I think the bread crumbs and croutons are going to solve the problem, though.

  • Suzanne

    February 8, 2025 at 5:41 am

    This was such a balm, Julie – a combination of humor, which I desperately need, and soothing things like beautiful dishes and welcome rains and sweet kitties. Thanks for the links to 5 calls and altnps!!

  • Ernie

    February 8, 2025 at 9:26 am

    Great cartoon. It’s too bad that it is relative once again. I had not heard of this Ezra podcast. Sounds interesting. Whipped porridge looks so tasty. I eat my GF oatmeal everyday. I was putting dried cranberries on it, but switched to fresh berries when I tried low FODMAP and there’s no going back. Your whipped version looks really tasty.

    A college child had another brush with needing stitches, so I’m grateful that after some back and forth – stitches will be avoided. Hoping said child can steer from these incidents. Tonight is the big gala and Rae is reading her essay that was chosen. We aren’t allowed to hear it in advance, so I’m looking forward to that. We bought a table for the event, so it should be enjoyable to sit with people who we invited. I saw my fav high school teacher yesterday. More on that in an upcoming post. Such a wonderful visit. A definite FIG right there.

  • Jenny

    February 8, 2025 at 11:41 am

    Lovely list! Several people have mentioned that Ezra Klein podcast- I’ll have to check it out. This is also the second place I’m seeing 5 Calls, and I’ll check that out as well.
    Ruby! She’s so, so beautiful. I’m so glad she got adopted. Otherwise I would be there ASAP to scoop her up : )

  • Diane

    February 8, 2025 at 9:50 pm

    I am SO fascinated by the idea of whipped porridge. But I hate vigoruosly stirring things. Will this be worth it?
    The Penzy’s near us also throws in random free spice blends on occasion and I never know what to do with them, so they just accumulate in our cabinet. I’m not so good at randomly seasoning things.
    I’m trying not to consume too much news, but I can’t help it. It seems like everyone I talk to in my DC suburb is on pins and needles and I feel like I should keep up with what’s going on so that I can be appropriately sympathetic at the bus stop. Of course the whole point is that people can’t keep up with everythign that’s going on….

    • J

      February 8, 2025 at 10:15 pm

      Regarding the porridge, I don’t like whipping things very vigorously either, so mostly I just stir it more than I normally would, and I make sure to mash up the banana. It’s tasty!

      Now that I’ve tried one of the spice blends and really liked it, I’m going to try being a bit more brave, try putting it on chicken or eggs and so on.

      DC must be so stressful right now, I can’t imagine. Hang in there.

  • Stephany

    February 9, 2025 at 7:32 pm

    Everyone is talking about that Ezra Klein podcast so I have it queued up to listen to tomorrow!

    I am so glad that Ruby found a home! She’s precious and I want to STEAL HER. How do you work at an animal shelter without taking all of the animals home with you?! Ha.

    I believe 5calls.org was the app I used in 2017 and I couldn’t remember the name of it. I love that it gives you actionable steps and a script. Going to do my calls tomorrow!

    • J

      February 10, 2025 at 5:42 am

      My husband is deathly allergic to cats, so I can’t bring them home. This is just a way to get my animal fix in, I guess. I hope Ruby is happy, I think she just needs a stable place to call home!

  • coco

    February 9, 2025 at 9:20 pm

    Ruby likes to hang out at the liter box? that’s so interesting! it’s so nice that you got a rescue cat. how old is she? do you find caring for an adult cat challenging?

    • J

      February 10, 2025 at 5:43 am

      I looked online after I posted this, and hanging out in your litter box can be an indication of stress. So likely poor Ruby was stressed. She was just moved from the shelter to the pet store kennel the night before, so I’m not surprised if she’s a bit stressed out. She’s not my cat, though, I can’t have one…my husband is allergic.

  • Melissa

    February 10, 2025 at 6:03 pm

    Breadcrumbs are my favourite way to use stale bread. I usually just whizz it up, crusts and all in the food processor, then pop it in the freezer for when I need it. If I’m not feeling lazy, I might bake it in the oven first so it forms finer bread crumbs. I know purists would say to remove the crusts, but I like to make use of the whole loaf. We used to eat homemade chicken schnitzels fairly regularly and I never bought breadcrumbs.

    I’ve finished The Blue Castle because I just needed to know what was going to happen. I will need to be careful in the discussions.

  • Daria

    February 13, 2025 at 9:56 am

    Ruby is so cute!!
    I also listen to Ezra Klein and love his show. I am staying out of the news cycle since my mental health just cannot handle it.

  • Anne

    February 22, 2025 at 4:13 am

    There is a Penzey’s right down the road from me. I now feel obligated to do a pilgrimage there on your part (I have never been, *hangs head in shame*). Or, you could just come visit! Better solution. 😉