1) My car has been doing this weird thing lately where sometimes my key fob will lock my driver’s side door and sometimes it won’t. The key fob always locks the other doors… just not the driver’s side. I can’t explain it! It will work fine for a while and then stop working for a few days and then work again. It’s so strange.
2) For my cat parents out there, do you trim your cat’s claws? Eloise lets me trim her claws without too much fuss (she’ll give me a mournful “meow” and try to jump out of my arms, but generally, she’s good about letting me trim her front paws), but Lila is a nightmare about it. It’s honestly traumatizing. I have to somehow wrap her up like a burrito in a blanket but she’s too fast for me! If I do manage to get her, she brings her back claws out and up to scratch me and will hide her front claws from me. At this point, it’s not worth it for me to try to trim her claws myself. They aren’t terribly long (and she uses scratching pads regularly), so I’ll just keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t grow into her paws.
3) This year, my book club has started a different way of choosing our monthly read. Usually, we all throw out some ideas and pick from that batch, but we didn’t feel like we were choosing really great books that way. So instead, our fearless leader A. assigned us a month where we would be in charge of coming to book club with three recommendations and we’d pick the book from those recs. It’s been wildly successful so far. August is my month to pick and you know, I’m oddly nervous about it! I have two great selections picked out (which I won’t reveal here since some of the girls read this blog!) and I’m mulling over my TBR list to figure out the third book to suggest. I feel like I have a reputation in my book club since I read the most out of anyone in the group, so there’s a little bit of pressure to choose great books. Here’s hoping I don’t disappoint!
4) This week did not start off on the best note. There was a work issue that popped up along with some personal life drama that brought me to a low place. I felt overly sensitive and the littlest, most innocuous things were setting me off. When I feel like that, it’s just so hard to pull myself out from the undertow. I just want to be able to be a person who can go through life without being so sensitive about everything. I had dinner with my mom on Tuesday and talked through some of the problems, and that really helped because a) as a sensitive person, she gets it better than anyone in my life, and b) mom time is always therapeutic for me. I have a hard time reaching out when I feel this way because I don’t want to bring anyone else down (as someone who takes on the energy of people around me, I’m sensitive to the fact that I can be the one to bring someone else into a sad, depressive state), but I’m always reminded of how much I need to do this when I’m feeling low like this.
5) I’m reading White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo right now, and man, it’s so good. I have highlighted so many pages and my book is filled with stickies. I’ve been taking photos of certain passages and putting them on Instagram Stories because I just can’t keep this knowledge to myself. It’s uncomfortable to read about all the insidious ways we all practice racial inequality, even when we think we are “woke.” Some passages to ponder:
One of the greatest social fears for a white person is being told that something that we have said or done is racially problematic. Yet when someone lets us know that we have done such a thing, rather than respond with gratitude and relief (after all, now that we are informed, we won’t do it again), we often respond with anger and denial. Such moments can be experienced as something valuable, even if temporarily painful, only after we accept that racism is unavoidable and that it is impossible to completely escape having developed problematic racial assumptions and behavior.
Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as the norm or standard for humans, and people of color as a deviation from that norm. Whiteness is not acknowledged by white people, and the white reference point is assumed to be universal and is imposed on everyone. White people find it very difficult to think about whiteness as a specific state of being that could have an impact on one’s life and perceptions.
People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against white people, but they lack the social and institutional power that transforms their prejudice and discrimination into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual. Whites hold the social and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in the way that people of color do not … When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have the power and privilege over white people.
6) This is quite an interesting book to read, too, in conjunction with this week in politics, where the president of our country used racist language when talking about four congresswomen of color. It’s appalling but not surprising, infuriating but expected from someone like him. Also, isn’t it great to know that there are rules forbidding lawmakers from calling the president racist, but no rule to forbid a president from being a racist? Interesting, that. It’s almost as if we care more about how white people are perceived than how people of color are treated! /sarcasm
7) Oof, I have a busy weekend planned and while I’m looking forward to all of it, I’m also crying at the lack of naps. (Naps are life, okay?!) Tonight, I’m meeting up with a friend for a reading date. Tomorrow, I’m going to a pool party to celebrate a friend’s birthday and then, potentially, going to a painting event in the evening. Sunday, I have my usual writing date and in the evening, I’m going axe throwing! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and it should be super fun!
What are your weekend plans?
Oof, you do have a busy weekend! As a fellow introvert I know the feeling of looking forward to it but also wishing you had less going on. I hope you end up enjoying all that you have planned and can sneak in some quiet time!
Our book club changed the way we picked books in 2019, too! In January, we met for a dinner and everyone sent me the 3 suggestions for the month they would host and I put a voting sheet together. I tabulated the results that night. I had looked at the hold lists at the library ahead of time so knew which books didn’t have long waits, so for February we chose the book with no wait (a lot of members – including me – almost exclusively use the library!). And then I sorted the rest of the selections by wait time and sent out the order that we would read the books so people. Before a person would host the book club and select the book. It worked out ok, but this approach is much better as now everyone has more of a say in what we read!
Our weekend isn’t too busy which is nice. We are staying in tonight. Tomorrow we have a family reunion for Phil’s family in the afternoon which I’m looking forward to as I really love his family. And then Sunday we might go to the farmer’s market in the morning and then to a pops symphony orchestra outdoor concert in the afternoon. The concert is at 2, though, and Paul typically naps from 12-2 so we’ll see if he’s up early enough to hit up that concert. I’ve been wanting to hear the pops symphony orchestra as they usually play super fun, entertaining songs!
Wow – your weekend sounds so full and fun! Have a great time!
That passage you copied from “White Fragility” is really thought provoking and makes me want to read the whole thing.
Your car issue might just been a loose connection in the door that’s causing it not to lock all the time! We had that issue once upon a time with our truck and a trip to the dealership got it all fixed.
I would feel SO much pressure if I were tasked with choosing a book for a book club! Tastes are always so different, I would hate for the majority of the group to dislike my pick!
I’ve never trimmed my cats claws, and outside of the rare snag on clothing, everything’s been fine! There are caps you can get for your cats’ claws, though. They come in fun colors or even glow in the dark, I think. Maybe Lila would be ok with that?
We can trim Apollo’s claws all at once, Starbuck’s one at a time, and Khali’s NEVER. LOL. Like you, I watch to make sure my girls are doing okay since they hate them being trimmed. 😉
So do you read the book before you recommend it? Or I guess not, since you are looking at your TBR list? That is so fun. I know they will love your suggestions !
Do you want to be a person who is not so sensitive about everything so you don’t get pulled under? (Seems like a dumb question, but what I am getting at is, it’s totally ok to be so sensitive. The world needs all sorts of people!) I am glad talking to your mom helped and you remembered to do that <3
That book sounds really good. I am not surprised you are highlighting so much – I would be too.
That book sounds so interesting and like a must-read! Putting it on my to-read list!