Friday Randomness

The most exciting thing this week was time spent with Birchie and San (!!!), but that deserves its own post, so you will have to wait on that. Instead you will get my regular weekly roundup type post.

What else then? Well, I had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend. On Saturday, Maya took me to lunch downtown, where she had Penne con Vodka, and I had a citrus and arugula salad. We did some shopping and she bought me expensive face cream to add to my collection. Ted’s mom is awaiting hip replacement surgery, and isn’t up to going to a restaurant, so he brought her a seafood lunch from Red Lobster and spent the day with her. Sunday we took a nice walk to one of our local parks, and fittingly saw lots of mommy birds with their babies. I like seeing the different ages of goslings, from tiny to teen looking.

It was a cool morning, so there weren’t any turtles visible in the pond where we usually see them. But we found a few sunning themselves on the side of the canal. As you can see, we’re edging out of the green season and into the brown season around here.

After our nice walk, we came home and relaxed. On our new sofa! (I forgot to tell you, our new sofa came!)

It looks similar to our old one, and yet very different. Our old one was bigger, redder, and more traditional in shape. This one is more of a terracotta orange color, and has a distinctly mid-century vibe. It clashes horribly with the wine colored rug, so that’s next on our list I guess. This rug is pretty old, I think we got it in 2007 or 2008, and it’s not the kind that you find in Downton Abbey or anything.

At Saturday’s protest, I ran into our handyman, and he told me of The Majority Project. The idea is that we flood our congresspeople with the postcards above. Everyone mails them on the 1st of the month, so our representatives are flooded every month. I said that, living in our part of California, with Senators and a Representative that all work for these things already, it feels like preaching to the choir. He said that he sends them to Republicans all over the country. Great idea! If that sounds like a good idea to you, join me! You can download the postcards in a pdf and have them printed, but if you buy more than a handful, it’s cheaper to just buy them from Signs of Justice. (The first link is to the postcards, the second is to the company that sells them and other items like banners and signs.)

On my way to meet Birchie and San in Sacramento on Tuesday evening, I listened to this podcast episode about AI in education. If you don’t feel like watching it on YouTube or listening wherever you get your podcasts, you can read the transcript here. I found it really interesting. They discuss the dangers of AI in schools, as well as some ways that it can be used to improve education. Really good. The short answer here is that for the majority of students, using AI is a really bad idea, and we should not be pushing it into our schools.

When I arrived in Sacramento, I drove over the iconic Tower Bridge, which for some reason reminds me of the excellent movie, Lady Bird. The opening scene, when Lady Bird and her mom are on a long drive home from visiting colleges reminded me so much of one of Maya’s friends and her relationship with her mother, which is…complicated. I almost included the trailer instead of a poster, but gah, it tells you far too much. It’s a coming of age film about a young girl who lives in, and wants to escape, Sacramento. Just watch the movie and come back and tell me what you thought. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Wednesday I did the thing, which in this case means adulting and getting a mole check. My primary care found one she wasn’t sure about, so I went to the dermatologist. She thought it looked fine, but offered to remove it if I wanted her to. I decided that since it’s on my back and I can’t really see whether it’s changing or not, go for it. So now I am sporting a band-aid back there. Along the same lines, last month I had my mammogram, so I am feeling very responsible.

Thursday was more time with Birchie, which again, not this post. (Especially since I am writing this on Thursday, and am leaving in a few minutes to go meet her for lunch and adventures!)

Have a fantabulous weekend folks! I’m busy this weekend so won’t be blogging, but will check in at your place on Monday.