Happy Sunday! Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at ReaderBuzz. Check out her post and the links to see what other bloggers have been up to in the last week.

How’s the weather?

We set a record with 76 degrees one day last week but returned immediately to our previously scheduled winter. We’re expecting more snow this week.

What are you reading?

I raced through my skip-the-line copy of The Mirror by Nora Roberts before the library could reclaim its e-book on the due date. It has all the excitement and lack of completeness that I expect from the middle book of a trilogy. Goodreads says that we will have to wait until November for the final installment of this long paranormal story about a haunted house on the coast of Maine.

Next up is Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo, because that’s our February Black History Month selection for our book club.

What are you watching?

We’re watching The Gilded Age on Max, written by English producer Julian Fellowes, the creative force behind Downton Abbey. This drama is set a few decades earlier, in New York in the 1880s when old money and new money squabbled over social status and power.

What are you doing?

I’m calling elected officials. I believe the former congressional staff people who say that daily phone calls are the most effective, especially for issues that require immediate attention (which feels like all the issues in the current chaos). But I’m also reminding myself that perfection is the enemy of good. So, I’ve given myself permission to make calls two or three times a week when daily is too much. I’ve also used the contact pages for written messages when a phone call felt overwhelming.

I made calls on Saturday when I knew I would be leaving voice mails rather than talking to a real person. That was partly because leaving a voice mail is easier for me and partly because the issue of the day didn’t feel like it could wait for the whole weekend. A chaotic disbanding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will impact the most vulnerable among us, first, but will ultimately damage everyone’s ability to find good resources for making financial decisions.

Here’s what I learned. Making that first phone call was nerve-racking. Every call since has been exponentially easier. I’m only about five calls into this and it already feels like something that I can do with little effort. More importantly, I feel so much better after making these calls. I have done something that is at least somewhat more productive than complaining on the internet.

This piece by Rebecca Solnit quoting a friend with relevant expertise, was both encouraging about making these calls, right now, and reassuring that the calls and other forces in our government will reduce harm and get us back to a safer environment.

How are you this fine Sunday?