Life

So Long, Summer Photo Dump

After my third Philadelphia winter, I was really looking forward to doing all the stereotypical summer things (mostly just being outside). It’s been a bit of a blur, but here’s what I’ve been up to:

Running

Broad Street Run

May started with the Broad Street run. It’s a local 10-mile race that I’ve wanted to do since I moved here. It’s all on one street (Broad St, duh), and encompasses a large chunk of Philadelphia, hitting a ton of neighborhoods. You basically start at the top of the city and make your way to the bottom. I thought that it was a competitive race to get into, but I won the lottery on my first try. When race day came, I was one of 28,000 runners (normally it’s 40k)!! It was nuts. The whole race was downhill, and the turnout from locals was encouraging. It was super festive, but a bit of a cluster. I had a great time and would definitely do it again next year, but I totally got sick from this event. I was miserable for a week or two afterwards.

The Philly 10K

The end of summer is marked by the Philly 10k. It felt like a super unique race last year, so I signed up for the 10k again. I didn’t really train and it was way hotter, so I turned in a pretty disappointing performance. I still celebrated by having Ryan come down and meet me for brunch at a local deli.

This summer set heat records for Philadelphia, so running has been a total slog. The only thing I can say is that at least I’ll be faster in the fall. 🙂

Kickball

We joined a local kickball rec league for a season. Games were at the local park a few blocks from our house, so it was beyond convenient. If it were further away than that, I don’t think I would have done it. The season flew by super fast and while we didn’t make any lifelong friends, it was way more social compared to our bowling league, lol.

House Stuff

We got a shed

One of the worst things about living in a rowhome is that you have to drag your garbage through the house once a week for trash day. With the year-round thunderstorms, it gets nasty fast. Well no more! We now have a shed to store our trash cans out front. I was concerned about breaking zoning rules, but Ryan reassured me that we needed to embrace the inherent lawlessness of this city and just go for it. So far, so good!

Another summer of tomatoes

I was better prepared for tomato season this year and had a ton of recipes at the ready: salsa, shakshuka, tomato salad, tomato sandwiches, pasta sauce, ratatouille…

We tried to teach Bogie to talk

Ryan got some recordable talking buttons so that we could teach Bogie to communicate with us. He started out SCARED of these buttons and would run away! This dog!!! It’s been a month but I think he’s starting to get it.

I knit a lot of socks

I made a resolution earlier this year to knit down my sock yarn stash. So I’ve just been cranking through all my hand dyed sock yarn like a sock zombie. Here’s some I’ve finished, and I’ve got 3 more pairs in the works.

The Rye Light socks in Emma’s Practically Perfect Sock – “Take a Hike” <– new fave sock yarn. This pattern is really simple but somehow was fun to knit and fits quite well.

Hermione’s Everyday Socks in FiberStory Fave Sock – “Chili”. This is one of the most popular socks on Ravelry, and it’s fun but not mind blowing. I think it’s popular mostly due to the name of the sock. Who doesn’t want Hermione’s socks?

Not Another Broken Rib Sock in FiberStory Fave Sock – “Hazy”. It’s hard to see, but these are kind of cool in that the fabric ends up looking like snakeskin.

Generic toe up socks in a mystery green yarn. No pattern.

Gentleman’s Fancy Sock for Ryan in more mystery yarn. I think it’s German sock yarn? This pattern is a refresh of a British pattern originally from 1901.

Sunday Swing socks in yet another green mystery yarn (This project has been sitting unfinished in a bag for at least 5 years…). I fucked up the toes but I just wanted to be done, so oh well.

Being Outside

Lots of good events for wandering around:

2nd St Festival

Baseball

Cocktails at the Bark Park

Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire

Pool time

Travel

I was freaked out by all the summer air travel horror stories, so I didn’t go anywhere really. Visited my mom for 4th of July and in August made it out to Westport to hang with Ryan’s friends for a chill week at a beach house.

Saw some live music

Jonathan Richman

Circumstances may change in my life, but Jonathan Richman is a constant. I’ve seen him I don’t know how many times in San Francisco, but I was still excited to see him here at Union Transfer. He’s in his 70s!!

Sleigh Bells

Sleigh Bells were objectively fantastic, but this was the night before the Philly 10k, so I was so out of it and super grumpy.

The Weeknd

Pravi was in town when another friend scored some free tickets to The Weeknd show. I’d never been to a stadium show before, but I totally get the appeal now. Everything is just… bigger. The music, the stage, the pyrotechnics. The Weeknd had to cancel his tour opener show in Toronto due to some AV issues, so this was effectively the start of his tour. The energy was great, and I’m ashamed to say now that DawnFM is an amazing album. Don’t sleep on it!

We had to wait forever for the lights to go out and the show to start. This is a football stadium.

Looks totally different at night

Cut the Act

Saw Ryan’s brother’s punk band for the first time. They happened to be playing at a bar down the street from us. A week later we saw them again in a barbershop punk show complete with a mosh pit. Really took me back to high school.

Sometimes Why

Saw a friend’s 90s cover band a few times.

Made in America

I started May obsessed with Un Verano Sin Ti (I was convinced it was the album of the summer, but my friends didn’t seem interested), so when Ryan told me that Bad Bunny was headlining the Labor Day music festival here I knew we were going. Because our neighbors are obsessed with Burna Boy, we were able to wrangle them into joining.

I’m not going to lie, I had some reservations about going to Made in America. It started as Jay Z’s big festival that included relatively mainstream acts (Beyonce, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Skrillex), but in the past few years it’s become mostly hip hop. Philly had a shooting in the same spot just a month earlier during July 4, so security was super strict. Clear backpacks only and they went through my stuff, fully unwrapping my picnic blanket, the whole shebang. Anyways, once I got there and settled, it was all good. While I didn’t know some of the acts I saw, I’m glad I went.

Burna Boy!

I had no idea what Burna Boy’s stage presence would be like, but he’s pretty game and fun. He seems like a good dude.

Bad Bunny!!!

I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but Bad Bunny earned his headliner status, no question. He played a massive set, and it was just a total dance party for like 2 hours. The best part was being able to give Ryan brief synopses of each song, since it was all in Spanish. “This song is about him creeping on a chick at the beach… This song is about him creeping on a chick at the VIP… This song is about an auntie wanting to know when he’s going to get married…”. It’s really not that deep LOL.

It was a pretty great end to the summer <3. Feeling excited about fall and spooky season of course.

Life, Travel

2022

2022! Here we are! Due to the pandemic 2020 and 2021 have melted together into one great big fuzzy blob of time in my mind. But I wanted to think back and appreciateÂ all the great things from last year. 2021 > 2020, and I can only hope that 2022 is even better…

Highlights from 2021…

Seeing Live Shows Again

Our first show since the start of the pandemic was in October with Big Freedia – an auspicious start! Since then we’ve been able to see Rufus Wainwright, the Magnetic Fields, Talib Kweli, Bob Dylan and John Waters.

Car life

Ryan got a car! He had his sights set on a Prius, and when we went to the Toyota dealership everything we saw was sold out. So Ryan bought the single car that was available on a boat coming over from Japan. We named it Yoshi.

Knitting

The lovely fall weather got me in the mood to pick up the needles again. I spent an afternoon inputting my yarn inventory into my Ravelry account, and I can’t say that it’s any better than having an excel spreadsheet, but I’m glad I did it.

I decided to knit some of my holiday gifts this year, and stumbled across this hat pattern which is definitely a holy grail for holiday presents – fun to knit, fast, low yardage, and very cute.

I had to block the hat in order to get the lace to pop. I don’t have a mannequin head, so I tried using a kettle bell. Worked out ok, lol.

Running

I kept running after my 10k, and ended up running the Rocky 10 mile race in November. Now that I’m running decent distances (up to 12 miles), I’ve been able to take more interesting routes. I’ve been running down by the historical stuff, all the way across the bridge to Camden, but usually down to Fairmount Park, where all the races are normally held.

Invisalign

I’m done! But nobody told me I have to wear retainers at night for the rest of my life. Oh well.

New Restaurants in the neighborhood

In the fall the floodgates burst and a slew of restaurants that I’ve been excited about finally opened. Mostly I’m excited about having more lunch options.

Goldie Falafel – Vegan falafel place. The falafel has been solid, but the tehina shakes have all been divine. I’ve got to get one every time.

Middle Child Clubhouse – A local outpost of a popular sandwich shop. They’ve got a vegan sandwich called the Phoagie that tastes like pho in a bun. Very satisfying.

LMNO – Baja cuisine. Really sexy spot with delicious food that tastes clean. Unfortunately it’s pretty expensive, so more of a special occasion place?

Hook and Master -It’s a seafood/pizza place with 3 different styles of pizza. But more importantly, there are tiki drinks on the cocktail menu! While I don’t think it truly qualifies as a tiki bar, I’ll take it. As people have heard me complain before, wtf with the lack of tiki in this city. There are no tiki bars here.

Primary Plant Based – I was sad when Cadence closed, but this is a replacement that I’m much more likely to frequent. Cadence was delicious but also more of a special occasion spot.

Making new friends

In Austin we made a friend. We were only there for a long weekend!! It was then that I knew that we had to up our friend making game in Philadelphia, Covid awkwardness be damned. One strategy that we’ve been implementing has been to become “regulars” at a local bar. We looked at the bars in the neighborhood and picked one that felt like somewhere that locals would go to during the week. Then we just kept going, at least once a week. We’ve met some interesting people, and nothing exactly has panned out from that, but the bartenders now recognize us and we aren’t carded anymore, so we’re becoming regulars. With the latest wave of Omicron we’ve tamped this back, but we’re going to keep trying.

We’ve also met nice folks at the dog parks, and have even gone so far as to exchange numbers. But it’s really taking that next step where it can fall apart…

We got to know our neighbors when Ryan wrote a post on the NextDoor app complaining about illegal dumping in our neighborhood. Our neighbor responded, and next thing I knew we were out having dinner with them.

We’ve had much better luck meeting people through other people we know. Cool people know likeminded people, I suppose. Best of all is that a few of these people live only a few blocks away from us, making it much more likely that we can bump into each other in the neighborhood and make casual hang out suggestions.

I have gotten better at putting myself out there when I feel like someone might be receptive to friendship. It doesn’t feel so awkward anymore to just say “Hey I think you’re cool, let me give you my number. We should hang out sometime.” But like I said the next step of scheduling something… well that’s been trickier to navigate. I am trying not to take it personally when a potential connection peters out/doesn’t take.

Halloween

Spooky season was back in full force this year. We went with our new friends to the newly revamped “Halloween Nights” at the Penitentiary. Ryan went on a bit of a spree buying museum memberships, and we’re now members of the penitentiary. Love that place.

We also went to a terrible karaoke bar full of college kids in order to meet another friend, but the manager of the neighboring bar came up to us and whisked us all away to a Squid Game themed bar! I felt like a celebrity.

Last but not least – Travel / Family Friend Time

In March Pravi came and visited during her holiday leave. Restaurants and bars were still not open at the time so we didn’t do anything crazy. Just hung around and drank and watched silly movies. It was just nice to have her around. Oh, actually I guess we did sensory deprivation tanks for her birthday. That was wild and kind of messed with my brain.

In April we popped over to NYC for Ryan’s birthday. I can’t believe that I live so close to New York and never go.

Then in May we went down to Austin to visit Pravi since she’s at Fort Hood. Austin was magical as usual, but this time I did feel sad for the locals. Their city is ruined by partiers. I’m sorry Austin!

In June we visited Jill and Brett in Georgia. Jill always seems to find the good in where she lives. Hyper local stuff, historic spots and such. Makes me feel like I should try harder with Philly.

In September my mom visited. I was worried about Delta mucking up her visit, but the stars aligned. Everything was open, the weather was beautiful, and Philly was on its best behavior. I felt a small sense of pride being able to show her around, and the trip definitely left me feeling a little more positively about the city. One of my favorite things about my mom is that she will roll with most situations. Now I will never forget taking her to the local burlesque and seeing Flintstones striptease. And Ryan will never forget either, no matter how hard he tries… 🙂

For Thanksgiving Jill and I visited San Francisco together. Amazingly everyone I hit up was around and available to hang out. Miss my friends there, but San Francisco was still pretty much the same. I ended up making a vegan Wellington for Thanksgiving, which turned out really nicely.

For Christmas I went to Los Angeles. Finally got to see my mom’s new house, and it’s really nice! I also came home with a suitcase full of classic video games, Pokemon cards, and beanie babies to sell on ebay.

Jill and Brett visited Philadelphia again. More things were open than when they visited last year, and we had a small cocktail party. Then we drove up to Maine for a few days to celebrate the New Year.

We put some lessons learned into practice: batch cocktails and ordering tons of food. It really made things a lot easier.

Inventive cocktails at Blythe and Burrows in Portland

It’s a photogenic lighthouse from all angles

Halp we R trapped in the aquarium at the LL Bean store

I don’t have any travel pinned down yet for 2022, but I’m hoping to be more intentional about it, and really make an effort to see people this year.

Life

14 Months of Seymour, Or – An Excuse for Cat Photos

This morning I received an email from Chewy.com telling me that today is National Pet Parents Day! Apparently it’s some holiday dreamt up to be like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Alas, the animals can’t get me brunch or flowers.

Anyways, time flies – it’s been more than a whole year with Seymour! I was so cautious about being tied down by a cat again, but this is a life decision that easily tips over into the PRO category. His presence is worth the trouble of the litter box and the price of the cat sitters. It’s been fun to get to learn his personality over the past year.

10 Funny Things About Seymour

After taking him to the vet for an initial checkup, a specific caloric intake was recommended. Well, he’s been on and off his diet for an entire year and he’s gone from 17 to 15 lbs. The vet says he should be 12. That’s my bad of course as the owner, but I swear this cat just wants to be large. I mean, his previous owners actually named him “Fat Cat.” Maybe we should move toward acceptance, as long as he’s healthy.

Seymour is so fat that he has to go up and down the stairs in one big burst of energy, lest he lose momentum. To go up the stairs, he crouches, his butt wiggles a bit as he prepares mentally, then he huffs up the stairs in a flurry, with a little “mrowwwww!” of effort all the way up. When hurtling down the stairs, he can’t control his speed, and his tummy fat waddles left and right.

Going up the stairs is such an annoyance to him that he does something Ryan calls “Seymour Sonar.” He’ll sit at the bottom of the stairs and yowl plaintively like he’s been hurt, waiting to see if one of us will respond with “Seymour??!!!!”. Then he knows whether it’s worth the effort to go upstairs.

Despite his girth, he’s an agile and ferocious hunter.

He loves to play with string,Â and if I’m ever flossing anywhere in the house (4 times per day now that I’m doing Invisalign), before I’m done, Seymour will show up to watch me floss. To get a better look he’ll stretch up against the vanity and try to bat at the floss. How does he know that I’m flossing? I think that maybe the floss I use is squeaky and sounds like a bird?

He fits a lot of cat stereotypes. He loves boxes, has hairballs, and pops the dog with his paw when annoyed. Just like Garfield!

When it’s cold he sleeps between my legs for warmth. Once he falls asleep, he snores the cutest little kitty snores.

He’s like a litterbox version of the fairytale “The Princess and the Pea”. If there is but one smidge of poop hidden in the litter, the whole box is tainted, and he’ll wail angrily for me to clean it up. If I wait too long to take care of it, he’ll poop outside of the box in protest. Because of this, we have 3 litter boxes – almost one on every floor of the house. Every day I’m running all over the house checking each box, just in case. It’s ridiculous, really. He’ll also poop outside of the box when he’s angry at me. When we went on vacation back in October, he had perfect litter box manners for the sitter for a whole week. I come home, and within 30 min there’s poop on the carpet waiting for me to clean up. What the hell.

I can walk into his room (my office) with a bowl of wet food, set it down, and he’ll sit outside the doorway staring in. He loves dry food, and sometimes he will wait for me to add dry food before he’ll come over and start eating. I’ve figured out how to trick him by just lightly crinkling the kibble bag. Just the sound gets him running!

He is a good cat-brother to Bogie. TheyÂ tolerate each other 🙂

Life

October 2020

Here we are entering month 8 of coronavirus times. Looking back over my photos there isn’t much to share, but here we go.

At the beginning of the month we’d rented a car for our trip to the Poconos. The rental period was by the week, so we had an extra day or two before we had to return it. Having a car allowed us to finally go to a drive-in movie theater! The Philadelphia Film Society recently set up shop down by the navy yard. We saw Tenet there, and while the movie was not one of Christopher Nolan’s finest (honestly it was a hot mess and not even in a fun way), I really enjoyed the drive-in experience. I was dressed cozily and had all my drinks and my snacks. What’s not to love?

I really miss going out to see movies.I don’t think I realized how much a part of my identity it was until I moved here and just stopped going due to inconvenience. I’ve been keeping a running list of movies I’ve been watching this year, and I’m averaging about 15 films per month. Unfortunately I am behind on watching AFI’s top 100 movies, but at this point who cares? Time is meaningless.

We also used the car for a Trader Joe’s haul. It was my first TJ’s trip since February, and I grabbed about 3 of of every TJ’s staple I’ve ever loved over the years. It all came to about $200, which is a lot for me. When I apologized to the cashier, she told me about one family that spent $800 in one go!

Ryan started going hard on the bread making, and he’s been churning out pretty consistent loaves. I am the happy benefactor of his obsession.

Our pizza game has gone from “not bad” to “pretty good” 😀

But then the next time we created these monstrosities. LOL. Best not to get too cocky.

Also the bell peppers finally came in, all at once and a bit too late if you ask me.

I bought a bag of Hi-Chew and became irrationally angry when only 2/10 of the candies were Strawberry. I HATE GRAPE. I’m still bitter and the candy is still in my pantry.

I ended up sending out 75 letters to potential voters. Please vote!

One day while I was out on a run on the path by the water, a swarm of dirt bike and ATV riders came through en masse. I’d seen them plenty of times before, but this time they literally held up traffic for like 10-15 minutes. It was wild. When I got home I did some research, and it turned out that it was “Dirt Bike Rell Day” – basically a memorial for a local dirt biker who was gunned down back in 2014. According to the Citizen app, there were about 3,000 riders out and about. Wild. Here’s a news video from 2018 that explains it a bit more.

As an early birthday present, Ryan got me this plush plague doctor. Isn’t he great?

Recently a new group of bros moved in to the apartments across from our house. Now we have vocal bros to the left, to the right, and across from us. Not to mention the group of women who live underneath New Bros. Everyone likes to party, but the new bros are the most insufferable. They have really loud parties at least two nights every week, let’s not even talk about the lack of social distancing. But for some reason whenever they party they leave all their doors and windows open, so it’s incredibly loud late into the night. Finally one night our Neighbor Bros to the Left climbed up to their roof deck and had it out with the New Bros. I was in bed at the time, and once the screaming started the dog, the cat and I all bolted right up. Then we each looked at each other. It was a strange moment.

The neighbors went hardcore on their Halloween decorations again this year. Similar to last year, it was just a bunch of fratty guys in polo shirts screaming at each other to chug beer, not a female in sight. Kind of sad really.

I don’t know how we ended up surrounded by so many partiers, but it’s still not as terrible as Ralph, the burnout living for the 90’s tweaker who lived above my bedroom in San Francisco. I don’t think I will ever be woken up at 4 in the morning with the walls shaking to “Thriller” ever again, so that’s progress.

Life

September 2020

Time has been weird. While I’m surprised that it’s already October (my favorite month!), September dragged on for ages. Here’s some highlights from the month.

Fun Things in My Neighborhood

I’m always noticing new things on my runs.

Since social distancing started, community fridges have popped up all over the city. Take what you need. Leave what you don’t. I know how I’m getting rid of all those gross egg noodles in my pantry!

You know those “Mystery boxes” that you can get from stores? A box full of different books, or clothes… A neighbor has set up an “Urban Yard Sale” with mystery boxes full of house stuff (glassware, books, garden stuff, sewing, kitchen appliances). It’s based on the honor system. You pick a box you want and then put a few bills in the red box on the right. Pretty cool, right? Well of course on Nextdoor somebody’s already complaining about private use of public land, blocking right of way, blah blah blah…

Ran across this kitty cat village in an abandoned lot. Obviously neighbors built their shelter and donated the cat trees, but I’m not sure if they are fed by humans as well.

Chopped Off My Pinky

tian image — Not much to look at, but surprisingly tasty

One day I was running a little late on lunch, and was hurriedly making this tian from the New York Times. I got a little too into my work with the mandoline, and sliced off the tip of my pinky finger, a straight diagonal. It looked like a part of my finger had just been erased. Then the bleeding started. It was a total mess, so I’ll spare you pictures, even though you know I took them.

I grumpily wrapped up my hand in a kitchen rag and ran across the street to the urgent care center. The doctor told me there wasn’t much they could do since I hadn’t hit bone and had no skin left to stitch up. I should just keep it clean and keep changing the bandages. Eventually it would heal itself.

One hour and one co-pay later, I was back at the stove, angrily finishing my cooking with a raised pinky finger. Should have read the recipe first, because after an hour of prep and baking, you’re supposed to let it set for another hour! It was a frustrating experience, but an excellent recipe (and easily made vegan with fake butter). I’ve made it once again since then, and if you try it, I’d suggest throwing garlic, red pepper and Italian herbs in with each layer, salt and pepper alone is too bland. Oh, also my pinky did make a recovery. It just healed itself up from the edges, pretty amazing actually.

We Got a Pizza Oven

We haven’t quite cracked the code on perfect pizza yet, but between the pizza oven, the smoker, and baking bread, Ryan’s been keeping busy.

City Problems

For the first week or two of the month, we started having problems with people sitting on our and our neighbor’s steps. Drugged out couples, high school kids, and even random construction workers eating lunch and leaving a mess.

One Sunday I noticed a suitcase in the middle of the street. Upon opening the door we found an intoxicated man laying on our stoop and charging his phone in our exterior outlet. Ryan took the dog out and asked him about the suitcase, which he claimed wasnâ€™t his. I came out as well and told him I was going to be in and out cleaning the street, and had him move. Gave him a seltzer water because he seemed out of it, and he took the suitcase and was on his way. We found him charging his phone again, this time with a friend, a few days later around 11pm. That was a little creepy, so we zip tied the outlet to keep people out.

Several days later, we woke up to find the zip tie had been burnt off with a lighter. This was extra infuriating because my neighbors’ houses are identical, and there was an open outlet like 2 doors down.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a way to turn off that specific outlet, so Ryan went hardcore and bought a metal cover with a lock. Ever since, we haven’t had any problems. Hate to be that person, but I guess that’s who I am now.

Hot Poirot Who Fornicates

Detective novels continue to be a source of comfort. I’m still bingeing lots of Poirot and Sherlock. I saw there was a Death on the Nile movie in the works, and came across this Vulture article that tries to pin down the best screen version of Poirot. I had mixed feelings on Kenneth Branagh in the 2017 Murder on the Orient Express, but this description of his portrayal is pretty hilarious:

Branagh plays Poirot just a little bit camp, too, embracing a sentimental side of the character that weâ€™ve rarely seen without becoming too self-serious. A former female lover has been grafted onto his backstory, which Branagh, hilariously, cannot sell. But with Branaghâ€™s ocean blue eyes, heâ€™s the closest weâ€™ll get to Hot Poirot Who Fornicates. (You know, until the inevitable CW origin series.)

The CW part is spot on, really. Who knew they could bring us Hot Jughead?

Work

I’ve joined the A11y team, which works on making our site accessible for learners with disabilities. It’s a different type of work, which honestly can be exasperating in its trickiness, but at least I’m doing something new. More importantly, I’ve joined a welcoming team of company old-timers, and I’m learning a ton. Definitely feel less lonely at work!

In order to cover accessibility for all users, I’m now working on a PC as well. My desk is becoming super crowded!

Volunteering

My summer mentorship program came to an end, so I’ve been looking for something new to put my energy into. Since I’m pretty healthy, I’ve decided to take on some bigger risk opportunities.

I signed up to do some volunteer work with Philly Fighting COVID. They’re the folks we got our super fast, super easy COVID tests from. Hope I don’t get COVID! 🤞

Ryan and I signed up to be poll workers in Philadelphia. The pay is fine ($250), the hours are atrocious (training day, plus 6:30am – 9:00pm on election day), but it must be done. Ryan received an email acknowledgement of his application submission, while I haven’t heard anything at all, which is a little frustrating at 30 days out. I tried to find more information about the process online, and found this absolute nugget from a presentation posted online called “Work the Polls Philly.” Poll working’s gonna be awesome you guys!

When looking for other opportunities to volunteer politically, I shied away from phone banking and text banking. My friend Jill suggested I check out Vote Forward, and write letters to encourage reluctant voters to get out and vote. I’ve been writing letters in batches, and I know every little bit adds up to a greater goal, but it still doesn’t feel like I’m actually doing anything or having an impact. When does volunteering start to have these “positive effects” they tell you about?

Getting Out of Town

The last week of September Ryan and I rented a cabin up in the Poconos. I was still working, but it was a nice break from feeling stuck in the city surrounded by trash. I thought about it, and it’s actually the first trip we’ve taken together since Portugal last November. What a year!

Super spooky fort in the backyard, on a foggy day

Flowers left for RBG at the local courthouse

Love this shop display of two skeletons and their dogs hiking in the woods

Anyways, that’s it. Hello October!