Feelin' Just Peachy

Pic of the week 

This week's hike took me halfway up the trail to the Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel mountains.  It's a 14-mile round-trip loop, but I decided that might be a bit much for this weekend, so I just went halfway.  Gonna try for the full loop in a few weeks. It was a BEAUTIFUL trail and lucky for me, it was overcast so the uphill half was nice and cool.  Don't worry, I still got plenty sweaty.  AND!  I saw a real live rattle snake!  Another hiker alerted me to its presence, and it just crawled away into the bushes and didn't bug anybody, but that's the first time I've ever seen a rattle snake in the wild.  It was pretty cool.

What's going on?

Happy Father's Day!  

I've been on some pretty awesome adventures with this guy, and even though life has a funny way of laughing in the face of any plans you might have for your children, or that your children might have for themselves, I think I still turned out pretty okay, and that's in large part due to my ol' Dad.  Thanks for all the good times, and the hard times, and the mistakes, and the apologies, and the laughs, and the tears, and the many many many desserts.  Thanks for teaching me to work hard, play hard, and love hard.  Love you, Dad!

One of the most important things we do at Story Pirates is called Story Love.  It's our program where we provide personalized feedback on every story we receive - and that's well into the tens of thousands of stories.  To make sure we can accomplish that foundational goal, we partner with corporate sponsors for volunteer events.  The current state of the world what with the pandemic and all lends itself rather nicely to holding these events virtually and we had a BUNCH this week and I was able to help out with some of them.  It was really fun, and so nice to have something to do!

And then I spent a lot of time reading and working on my puzzle (still doing the 2,000-piece Cinque Terre puzzle, it's a beast.) and napping and trying to stay isolated as much as possible since I was at that march last week and want to reduce my chances of spreading the COVID if I happen to have picked it up in the giant crowd.  I have a test scheduled for this week to verify if I have it.  Fingers crossed that I don't because A - I'm not trying to spread that mess around, and B - it might mess up my travel plans to Utah and I need to come to Utah.

What I'm watching

If you haven't taken the time to watch this one yet, I strongly encourage you to do so.

What I'm reading

Turns out that though there have been notable gains since the civil rights movement in terms of racial equality, the systems that disenfranchised and othered people back then are still alive and well today.

Also THIS ARTICLE.  Which makes me continue to wonder why The Church™ is so reticent to acknowledge and grapple with its own history.  And why as an institution it is so against apologizing - not just for its racist past/policies/culture/present, but for the pain it has caused and continues to cause for essentially every marginalized population.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash The Church™, I think it does a lot of good, and is a bright and important part of my own history, but it could, and honestly should, be SO MUCH BETTER.

What I'm listening to

Vulfpeck Radio on Pandora.  Giving me some chill vibes to drown out the noise of it all.

And continued advice to wear a mask, socially distance, etc.  Let's not take chances, people.  

What I'm cooking

Peach Ice Cream.  Y'all, peach season is in FULL swing and I could not be happier about it.  Fresh peaches are one of my absolute favorite foods, and some peach ice cream just sounded so good.  I also threw in some chopped up cherries just for fun.  However. My ice cream maker failed me in a very disappointing way.  Not sure what happened, but it did not create ice cream.  So I just stuck the liquid in some containers in the freezer overnight and called it good.  It still tasted incredible.  Especially with some fresh sliced peaches.  Next time I may even add some granola.  :)