Circle Time // 7.2.26

Mother Nature is pissed, SCOTUS rulings, Sloppy Joe's, and how to clean your oven like an adult.

Circle Time is our weekly huddle / digest every Thursdays, in which I share the things bringing me joy, current events to stay informed, recommendations, and thought starters!

Y’all, it’s 100+ºF for the SECOND day in a row today.

I remember looking at the forecast earlier this week, knowing this heatwave was sweeping, having seen the headlines of record-breaking heat across the U.K. and Europe, and I can’t help but internally scream about how this is SO NOT NORMAL.

Ocean warming has broken records for the 9th year running, as of 2025, and this El Nino heat this year is shaping up to be pretty rough.

It’s a little ironic how I, like many other millennials, turned to gardening as a reprieve from our constant *unprecedented times* lifetime, yet the gardening experience has only reinforced just how you really can’t escape from politics or the reality of the world— the pest pressure is enormous because of violently unusual and inconsistent weather, intense humidity, pollinators are dying off, pesticides galore eliminating beneficial insects too, and tons of crops are struggling this year from abnormal heat waves starting so early. I had to abandon my Korean radishes and snap peas, and my dill and basil have bolted multiple times by the beginning of June.

ANYWAY. Onto this week’s Circle Time we go!

My body has been in crash-mode this week, both due to heat (a forever enemy of any inflammation-based chronic illness) and demands outpacing recovery, so my comfort re-watches and re-reads have been a faithful source of joy— am heavy into the world of Westeros with House of the Dragon and want to talk about nothing else!! 2 episodes into season 3, and I’m more obsessed (and distraught) than ever.

As a part of my usual weekend routine, I was slicing up some of my freshly-baked GF sourdough bread and it hit me that this now-ordinary part of my routine is only now here because I decided to learn how to do this about a year ago. I love

Bonus Issue #7: My GF Sourdough Bread Recipe + GF Starter Guide

I was huffing and puffing through a busy day of chores, then sat down to vacuum some extra bath rugs we have strewn everywhere for Benny so he doesn’t slip, and this boy shoved his way into my lap and curled up. He’s always my physical embodiment of “touching grass,” and regulates my nervous system like no other.

• 🚨SCOTUS rulings (if there is any bit you stay to read in this section, let it be this one)

  • SCOTUS ruled 5-4 on upholding birthright citizenship. While the headline itself may look like a sigh of relief, understand that the ruling that SCOTUS had to make was on the constitutionality of the Constitution… so the vote to uphold the Constitution was 5-4. AKA not unanimous, as it should be, as it is the literal foundation for the law. This also indicates that 4 justices believe the President can effectively rewrite the Constitution through executive order. This in itself should be the alarm bell heard around the world, and you only need to look to the non-partisan legal institutions of this country fighting to uphold democracy to understand how dire this is. We need a court expansion, reform, and term limits, NOW — and that comes with a blue sweep in 2028, starting with midterms in 4 months. Lock in, y’all.

  • They voted 6-3 to strike down limits on political spending by party.

    • Why this is important: after Watergate, Congress passed a law that limited the amount of money individuals can give to political parties AND how much money political parties can spend on their candidates. PACs and Super PACs have no limits on fundraising or spending, but unlike political parties, they cannot coordinate with candidates. But now because of this ruling, political parties can coordinate with candidates AND raise unlimited funds.

    • This, on top of Citizens United’s ruling in 2010 that reshaped our politics, that made it so that corporations have a First Amendment right to unlimited spending on elections? The corruption knows no bounds. Side note, crypto firms have already spent $189 million so far on 2026 US elections.

  • They voted 6-3 to uphold a ban on trans athletes from womens sports.

    • Trans rights are human rights, and this ban has no substance other than discrimination.

• Venezuela has suffered massive earthquakes, back to back with 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude, killing at least 1,943 people, injuring more than 10,571, and left tens of thousands missing amid the rubble with 58,000 buildings estimated destroyed. More than 100 Venezuelans who were deported from the U.S. hours before the earthquakes are missing.

• If you haven’t heard what happened to Pete Buttigieg’s family, please read his substack here. This is beyond the pale, calling CPS on a family and having a parent separated from his 4-year old daughters for 24 hours— because of your political views.

• Tom Kean Jr., a Republican Congressman for NJ district 7 has been AWOL for 4 months, missing over 100 votes (still getting paid his taxpayer-funded salary, FYI) with no explanation for his absence and not being seen by the public at all. He returned to Congress for the first time publicly on Tuesday, revealing a depression diagnosis that he attributed his absence to.

  • This is extremely notable, as this district is one of the biggest potential swings to take back the House during midterms, with Democrat Rebecca Bennett running to flip this crucial seat.

• As mentioned in last week’s issue, the bipartisan housing bill (21st Century ROAD to Housing Act) is moving through Congress this week. Popular on both sides of the aisle, this bill would boost housing supply, bring down costs, and stop private equity from buying up single-family homes as investment properties. Trump called the bill a “yawn,” and called it unimportant, but Speaker Johnson has passed it off for Trump’s signature as of Monday, and it will become law with or without his signature, but he has 10 days to sign it.

• Dua Lipa is that girl: not only does she have an incredible book club, in which she highlights amazing authors (mostly women), she’s opening a physical library in Portugal that features 100 banned books.

  • She said: “This library is a shrine to books that have disappeared, to authors whose courage unmasks structures of power and control, and to readers who refuse to be told what book they are allowed to read. You are invited to visit and decide for yourself what belongs on these shelves. Because sometimes the most subversive thing you can do is read a book and then talk about it.”

• The “Great American State Fair” was… could have been an email.

• Aaaand would you look at that, ignoring public health has repercussions:

Don’t mind the photo that makes this look like a pile of slop, but I’m not sure how else a Sloppy Joe is supposed to look! But I promise, it’s ridiculously good. Like, I would eat it for lunch and dinner for days straight, as someone who grew up on the old-school canned Manwich (lolz). Sloppy Joe holds instant nostalgia for me, but this grown-up version that actually is delightfully nutrient-dense hits the tangy, savory craving just as well, and it’s remarkably easy to put together.