Friday Six Pack - 2017 Vol. 1

Not a link-up, but I'm taking a page from Jana today with six things that are currently going on in my world.

This week's six pack is brought to you by (of course) Columbus Brewing Company's SFW. We just started bottling this farmhouse ale. It's lighter than a lot of our beers and I'm a big fan. ** Just in case you don't know, I work for CBC.

Watching

Oscar nominated movies. So far I've seen 8 of the 9 Best Picture nominees (#9 is on deck for tonight). I've also seen all of the nominated shorts - documentary, live action, and animated (OK, I've actually only seen 3 1/2 of the animated shorts because of a scheduling SNAFU on my part). Look for a review and predictions post next week.

Reading

On Kindle - The Forgotten Girls by Alexa Steele, a murder mystery that I'm enjoying but I need to step it up because I've only been reading this one in small snippets.

On Audible - Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. I'm not sure if I would like this if I were reading it traditionally, but I'm liking the audio version a lot.

Drinking

Smoothies and juices from Zest Juice Co., a local company that I just started visiting. Today's purchase (below) a Blue Almond smoothie and a bottle of Crave juice (carrot, grapefruit, pineapple, turmeric and ginger). Other favorites include the Pistachio Oatmeal Cookie smoothie and Habanero Heat juice.

Obsessing

My latest KEEP purchases. I'm addicted to KEEP Collective's bracelets. My friend Tiffany is a consultant and decided last week to design a "nevertheless, she persisted" bracelet and she's donating some of her commission to the ACLU. Because I have a few items from KEEP, I've been mixing it up. If you're interested, let me know.

Hoping

For some good college news for our nephew James. For those who don't know, James has been living with us since July. He's a senior in high school and we're in the midst of college visits and FAFSA and the Common App and lions and tigers and bears, oh my! We were late to the party with college stuff but hopefully he'll still be able to get some scholarships and whatnot. And seriously, how can they resist this face?

Listening

Other than audiobooks, I'm also constantly on the lookout for a new episode of the NPR Politics Podcast. I started listening during the campaign last year. Of course now they have to preface every episode with "we recorded this at 2:00 pm on Thursday. Things may have changed since then." And they usually have.


Enjoy the weekend! Here in Columbus, we're expecting 60 degree weather. In February.

The Straw

If you know me, you know that I can seem quiet, maybe even standoffish, when really I'm just trying to formulate what I want to say. I'm not always successful at that and it sometimes gets me in trouble. ;) Conversely, if I think too long, the moment has passed and it's not relevant anymore.

The past two weeks have felt like two years. Everyday -- damn near every HOUR -- there's another outrageous story about something the President or Congress or a "senior advisor" said or did. Unfortunately, outrageous does not necessarily mean untrue.

I have strong feelings about a lot of these issues, but because of my hesitancy in speaking out and the rapid firing of information flying around, I've kept relatively quiet.

And then this happened: House Votes to Overturn Obama Rule Restricting Gun Sales to the Mentally Ill.

What the actual fuck?

How many times have we heard in recent years following mass shootings "we don't have a gun problem, we have a mental health problem." Has anyone who said that actually done anything about said mental health problem? I mean it. If they have, please let me know because I've seen no evidence of it. Instead, we're now going to make it EASIER for mentally ill people to obtain guns because otherwise we're discriminating against the mentally ill and not allowing them to exercise their second amendment rights.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Please tell me how this is making America safe? And make sure you tell the families of the victims at Sandy Hook, too. And before anyone labels me as someone who wants to ban guns, that's not true. I just want some common sense restrictions and background checks, particularly on weapons like the one used at Sandy Hook. I will never understand why civilians need guns like that.



Now that I've opened the floodgates, here's something that I wish more people would realize:

Mari Andrew

Why do people think it's OK to tell others what they should and shouldn't care about or how they should spend their own time? Yes, I'm worked up about the refugee ban. That doesn't mean I don't care about the homeless here in our country. Or the veterans. Or the homeless veterans.

But you know what I DO wonder? If the president cares about them. Where's the executive order on that? Tell you what, Donnie, you let me know when you get around to "the forgotten men and women of our country [who] will be forgotten no more."  Get back to me when you "bring back jobs." I mean, you could have started that a long time ago and led by example, but whatever.

In the meantime, I'll be watching. And so will millions of other Americans. You spent eight years bashing Obama and trying to de-legitimize his presidency. Buckle up.