Small victories

I am making progress on some things, despite having a hellacious cold.

• Had a great time going to see "Escape from New York" at the Parkway Theater on Thursday. Also, kudos to the Parkway for their "Host Your Wedding" ad campaign which features "Rick and John's Wedding Here" in prominent letters on their marquee.
• Am almost done reviewing all 26 grant proposals, many of which are amazing. Lots of great stuff coming down the pike, Twin Cities folks.
• I'm 3000 words into my new story and really liking it.
• Shu seems to be doing slightly better and is a bit livelier (kitty diabetes - 2 shots per day)
• I went to an interesting talk about textile waste, recycling and creating circular market here in Minnesota that reduce waste at The Great Northern our local festival of art and climate change, on Saturday. Then I went to a mending workshop right afterward and successfully patched up a work shirt and one of my house clogs.
• After that, we were off to The Phoenix Theater for a production of Patricia Wrede's "Dealng With Dragons." It was a delight!
• Sunday, I thought I had a crochet workshop at StevenBe's, my local gay-owned yarn shop, but it turned out that I got the date wrong. The nice man at the counter penciled me in for next Sunday though, so it will hopefully work out.
• My friend Matt came over for pizza and the continued watching of "Witchblade," a series I never got to see when it aired but am now viewing thanks to the gift of dvds from a friend. First season was pretty brilliant!
• Did not go see Jana this weekend, but will next weekend, cold permitting.
• Apart from that, have done donations and membership renewals, contacted Congress about various things, poked Target about being stupid asshats, prepped some donations and giveaways and continued working my way through my prep list. I have supplies on hand for a lot of basic things, so now I'm doing wacky stuff like acknowledging that I went 3 days without power last summer and that is likely to be longer and/or more frequent. On their way: a solar-powered lantern that doubles as a charger for devices from LuminAid, a company that helps with light sources after disasters, and a battery-powered portable cooler that can be charged via standard plugin or solar (once you get the setup - I'm going battery only for now) from a company in the L.A. area in part because that's where they're made and in part because they'll need all the help the rest of us can muster. I figure I can help myself and my neighbors as needed with these.

More stuff in the works - stay tuned!