If you’re still on the fence about whether to contact your elected officials about Trump, Musk and other bad actors in Washington, there’s a tool that might make it easier for you. The tool is a free app named 5 Calls.
I downloaded it a couple of weeks ago and have found it exceptionally helpful. Once you plug in your address, the app identifies your legislators. The home screen lists top issues and provides talking points that articulate the progressive position.
Yes, the app is proudly partisan. And non-profit.
Once you decide what you’re going to say, you click on who you want to call first and the process begins. I arrived for an appointment early last week and thought, oh, I have time to make a few calls. I sat in my car and used the app to contact my legislators about the spending bill.
While I prefer emails, I’ve read calling is more effective. Speaking spontaneously is a challenge, but it got easier when I figured out shorter is better. On my first attempt, I got a voice mail and was cut off after I blathered on too long. Now I just say my name, where I live and then one or two sentences about the issue. I try to remember they’re probably just keeping some sort of log in favor or against, and so that’s really all you have to say.
What I’m eating
Late last year, I made a list of our winter comfort foods, and we’ve been knocking them off one by one. Dale made chile verde last week, and I made flour tortillas to go with. There’s only one more to go – venison meatloaf.
The weather is starting to warm up, although we’re getting another week of cooler temperatures and rain, so there’s still time to finish the job. Tomorrow is the big washout, so I’m thinking venison meatloaf, asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes.
Dale bought some gorgeous artichokes, so I cooked those this morning, and they’re chilling in the fridge. They’re huge, so we’ll just have artichokes for dinner. Occasionally I make aioli but most of the time we just make a dipping sauce from store-bought mayonnaise mixed with some good olive oil.
There’s still coconut cake in the freezer, so, you know, tick tock, tick tock. That might be a tasty breakfast on a cold rainy morning. Oh? Is that tomorrow? What a coincidence.
What I’m watching
My original pledge to reduce spending on Amazon by 50 percent morphed, and it’s pretty close to a complete boycott. I’m no longer watching movies or shows on Amazon. There are plenty of other streaming services to choose from.
We like a bad sci-fi movie on Friday nights with pizza, and we used to order them on Amazon. But I switched to the Classic Sci Fi Movie Channel, and it has been so fun. Attack of the Giant Leeches, Attack of the Crab Monsters, She Demons. Only the finest. Sometimes the sound quality isn’t the best, but we make do.
I’m also burning through season 2 of The Mountain Detective on PBS Passport. Former policeman Alex Hugo leaves the big city to find peace in the French Alps but ends up confronting violence in paradise. The show is in French with subtitles.
I’ve read it’s filmed on location, and the scenery is breathtaking. Too bad about all that crime!
Alex is Mr. Mountain Man and never leaves home without climbing ropes and all that stuff. When they’re talking about a place they need to go, he might say something like, “that’s a three-day walk.” I sort of love that, and even though I have no interest in climbing, just seeing an older man in good physical condition stomping about the mountains keeps me motivated to do my exercises.
What I’m reading
The library is my friend. My recently completed list includes:
Locked In by Jussi Adler-Olsen. This is the last of the Department Q series featuring Danish detective Carl Mørck. Sometimes finales suck, but this was great, and I absolutely loved the ending.
Pro Bono by Thomas Perry. A young lawyer who specializes in financial crime tries to help a young widow recover money embezzled from her late husband’s accounts. Oh, and the lawyer has a shady past.
The Last Policeman by Ben Winters. Published in 2012, this is the first in a trilogy about a young detective trying to solve crimes even though everyone knows the world will end in six months when an asteroid collides with Earth. It’s not as dark as you would think, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can’t wait to read the other two.
Guide Me Home by Attica Locke. Another finale to a three-part series featuring Texas Ranger Darren Mathews. I tell myself I don’t want to read about current events in fiction, but it’s actually way better than reading the news. Let’s hear it for the arts!
Darren, who is black, spent most of his career fighting white supremacists and framed a bad guy for murdering a member of the Aryan Brotherhood because he wouldn’t let a black man go to prison for killing him. Now Darren is facing indictment. And plenty of self-loathing.
At one point, Darren tells his friend, Greg, who is white, how tired and defeated he is. Tired of fighting oppression when it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the end.
Greg responds, “You know who isn’t tired? Donald Trump. That motherfucker pops up every morning looking for something else he can fuck up, some other angle on this presidency thing, who he hasn’t grifted yet.”
“And you know who else isn’t tired? The fucking Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, the Patriot Front and the Proud Boys, the needle-dicked folks who worship him, who think he’s going to change white folks’ fortunes, when a Mexican or black person has never been the reason they can’t afford health care, that they can’t get a decent job, that this country has no fucking safety net for anybody, black, white, brown or purple.”
