Thankfully there’s not a lot of to talk about, so it won’t be an overall long post. That said, it’s been an interesting few weeks. Less games, a LOT more rain, more theatre, more volunteering, and an updated on Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Most of California is now out of drought conditions. I believe the folks on NPR said we got 8.5” in the last month, which is the most we’ve gotten since 2008. And boy did we need it. Plus it made me feel less guilty about staying indoors and playing on the computer.
Two Fridays ago I went and saw the musical Urinetown for I think the second time. I have some vague recollection of seeing it with dad back in D.C. years and years ago, but I didn’t remember anything from the show, so it was all fresh to me. And it was a great production! It’s a satirical comedy which ends up being rather timely with everything going on in the U.S. right now.
The next day was the annual Tri-Birthday Party, shared among myself and two of my friends who have December and January birthdays. As we’ve done the last couple of years it was a potluck and I was thrilled to see a lot of people who don’t normally attend to show up. AND I managed to not overcook this time around (at least not by much). My "go to" mac & cheese recipe made an appearance, as did the pomegranate couscous, along with a lot of homemade pineapple vodka.
As great at the party was, it was only half of a pretty amazing day. The morning was spent taking part in my first ever protest march, the Women’s March in downtown Los Angeles. And it was BONKERS. They had originally be expecting about 80,000, and had the rain kept up they probably wouldn’t even have gotten half of that. But the weather was beautiful and they ended up having 750,000 people show! 750,000!
Links to photo album
As expected in the face of such numbers, the metro system was no match for this outpouring of social activism. Our plan to catch a train at 8:40am to be there in time for the 10am march was shot down by the masses. We spent over an hour at the train station before giving up and grabbing an Uber with two women who were in the same boat.
We arrived near the end location of the march, just in time to see folks start piling in. We stuck around for a while attempting to listen to the first couple of speakers, then moved back a block to get a better view of the scene. And that’s when the second wave showed up. The designated streets were already packed, so the people starting overflowing into adjoining streets. We ran into a couple of friends, but for the most part we were awash in new faces. Eventually we headed back to the house and were fortunate to get on a train instead of having to Uber back, which would have been ridiculously expensive.
Last week was a lot less busy (and rainy), with only a couple of notable exceptions. Friday was my friend Jeff’s birthday, and continuing his tradition for the last few years, invited a small group of friends over and cooked us his mother’s recipe for Oeufs en Meurette (poached eggs in red wine sauce), which is basically a superior version of eggs benedict, using bacon, mushrooms, butter and red wine for the sauce. It's amazing, but so rich you'll want to eat it in small portions.
Saturday was my first time volunteering the animal shelter that wasn’t training. I spent two hours cleaning the dog cages and socializing with them. I can't take them out for walks or to the play area yet, as that requires me to do the level 2 training, which is only available after 8-16 hours. But I still had a lot of fun hanging out with the animals. I had a number of errands I had planned for the rest of the day but ended up staying home baking brown butter ginger blondies and playing a ton of the Legend of Grimrock 2. I'm taking a breather from Endless Legend for a bit so I don't burn out on it and this old school dungeon crawler is a hoot, though some of the puzzle require some internet help.
The last big note is that I finally heard from Big Brothers/Big Sisters about a potential little, but haven't managed to connect with them over the phone yet. I've got a called scheduled today during my lunch break so hopefully I'll have more to tell you next week. The idea of being any sort of mentor is kind of scary, but I think I can do a lot of good, and I think (starting) this year it's going to be more important than ever that people, including myself, take an active role in trying to make the world a better place.
No comments:
Post a Comment