dreamshark

I spent over an hour working on this collage without being able to quite pin down the name for it. Initially, I titled it 'Imbalance,' but that word didn't quite capture the ominousness of what I was trying to convey. Eventually, I decided upon 'Upheaval.'

I remarked to someone this week that I didn't envision the beginning of my retirement being quite like this.

Besides all the uncertainty over the usual issues at this time of life like 'what do I do with my time?' and 'what is my new budget going to be like?' there are other questions, like 'will my next door neighbor be arrested?' and 'is this neighborhood business open, or have all their employees been kidnapped?' and 'what are the chances that my car is going to get rammed by ICE?'

I'm not going to go into great depth about all the news events that this collage is reflecting. If you are not aware, the Twin Cities are under siege by the federal government. Constitutional rights are being absolutely ignored. Rather, the ICE agents cruising around the city are making a huge show of deliberately and flagrantly violating constitutional rights, apparently just to demonstrate that they can.

There are rumors flying around the city, and everyone is angry, stressed, and yes, afraid. Yet the city is pulling together, with people joining Signal groups to protect their neighbors, setting up patrols to guard schools, churches, and day care centers, and donating money and supplies to support immigrants in hiding from ICE. All these actions are like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm.

A stormy sea with a lighthouse, partially obscured by fog. A woman stands unsteadily on top of the waves, in three overlapping poses, arms flailing as if struggling for balance. A giant, ominous-looking kraken lurks partially below the surface of the waves, brandishing its tentacles threateningly, center right.

Upheaval

2 Upheaval

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Current Mood: stressed

dreamshark

Democrats in Congress don't have a lot of options for fighting the ongoing authoritarian makeover of the US Government, but for the next two weeks there is an opportunity to fight back, be it ever so tenuous. Congress is currently trying to pass a series of funding bills to avert government shutdown with a deadline of Jan 31. After last week's horrifying events in Minneapolis they managed to get enough Republican support to pull Homeland Security funding out of its "minibus" bill so it could be debated separately. Actually Defunding Homeland Security isn't likely to happen, but the Democrats hope to attach policy riders that restrict the behavior of federal agents in American cities. Or insist on the right of local governments to prosecute ICE agents for murder. Or ban masked agents and require body cameras. Something, anything.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to message your Congressional delegation, so I did that. They all have comment forms on their websites. I actually did use "Defund Homeland Security" as my subject line, but did a little quick research on how to word the text of my comment so that it was specific and coherent. Here's what I came up with.

I am a constituent, and I am writing to instruct Representative ..... to vote NO on the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 4213) unless it includes specific policy riders that mandate body cameras and behavioral oversight for ICE and Border Patrol agents. This may be our only chance to reign in the unconstitutional and illegal behavior of these Federal agents. DO NOT BACK DOWN! This is very important to me!

In the case of senators the action on the table doesn't have a name yet, so I was instructed to refer to the FY2026 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. But either way, I imagine the intent is clear.

mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

Finding my damned glasses, which were lurking underneath the pile of sweaters, blankets, and other stuff draped over the arm of the couch nearest my desk.
Discovering that nova, my fileserver, still has python2.7 on it. The reason I wasn't able to post through it was that neither python2 nor my posting program (ljcharm) was installed.
Assuming this can be posted, being able to upgrade (Thinkpads) Raven (which I was using for posting) and Panther (which I hadn't realized wasn't upgraded).

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag

kaffy_r

Per the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Maria Corina Machado says she offered her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump.

She did not answer reporters' questions as to whether he accepted it.

We are indeed in not only the darkest timeline, but the most fucking surreal timeline.

*wanders off to find alcohol and a wall she can bang her head against*

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Mingi, "ROAR"

carbonel

Hi! It's been a while, so it's a bit embarrassing that my first post is asking for help, but maybe it'll inspire me to do a better job of posting (I do read DW regularly, at least).

I posted this query in a couple of unrelated forums and got a lot of suggestions but not the correct one, so I’m trying again here.

On a group on Ravelry, someone posted Mary Engelbreit’s classic illustration of life being a chair of bowlies, and that reminded me that I’ve been trying to remember the name of the same sort of popular artist from the 1990s, but her specialty was cats. Mostly realistic-looking cats based on ones she actually knew, in characteristic cat-type positions, but with lots of colorful decorations in the rest of the picture. I had a couple of calendars and an organizer with her work, but I’ve totally forgotten her name. It might be a three-name name. There were a couple of years when her art was pretty much everywhere, and then she faded quickly, alas.

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

ETA: One of my friends on Ravelry finally found it after (counts) twelve wrong guesses. There are a lot of cat artists out there! The artist in question is Lesley Anne Ivory.

Names that it's not:

B. Kliban
Laurel Burch
Doris Hays
Susan Herbert
Lesley Fotherby
Linda Jane Smith
Lisa Frank
Elizabeth Blackadder

mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

Garlic. Other aliums, but mostly garlic. Also chlli peppers.
And pickles.
Antidepressants, when they work. That remains the subject of experimentation at the moment. Same for antihypertensives. NO thanks for conditions that require that kind of experimentation.
Getting the medical appointments I need. NO thanks for having to use a phone -- including navigating menus in a language I don't know -- to get them.
Grocery (and other) deliveries. (It's worth noting that our family does not have a car, and that Scarlet-the-carlet is currently out of commission.)

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: not very much this week

laramie

I don't think many people saw this when I posted it originally. I'm looking especially for feedback from other creative types...

I've been thinking about compiling a collection of my artwork. I don't have a very consistent body of work. What I have is a visual record of explorations through a wide range of media and motivated by a range of inspiring thoughts and events. So, I'll need to talk about what inspired me, what I was trying to accomplish and what I learned in the process of the work. I'm thinking of interspersing the artwork with a series of essays and memories. Here's a start. Hopelessly pedantic? Meaningful? What do you think?

Why Make Art?

For my own part, many motivations join forces to move me to create.

In one sense, it seems an absolutely essential aspect of my identity as a human being. Making art is a continuation of the playful explorations of childhood by which we learn about our world, and ourselves, and our capabilities.

Such play is a process employed in building our maps of cognitive reality, in exercising and building intelligence through practical application of what our senses reveal in conjunction with what our social training requires.

Humans are wired to create works of art (visual, musical, visceral, muscular, gustatory, literary, and more) the way birds are wired to build nests. Some might argue that nests serve a more practical, observably useful purpose than do works of art.

That would depend on how much we value cognitive maps making sense of our complex world and how we value the kind of thinking that builds bridges between individuals and society, between the worlds of the senses and of objective rationality, the kind of thinking good at finding creative solutions to the plethora of problems we encounter while living in the material world.

So, one reason for making art is that I like to explore my sensory experiences in a playful way. Different artists, obviously, produce different work. Different media, different tools and materials, different circumstances can all lead the explorations of a single artist into new and different paths.

Put pen and ink in my hands and I’ll explore fine dark lines in relation to a blank page. I may explore them abstractly, looking for patterns inspired by the movement of my hands to music or in relation to a grid, or by combining variations on the theme of a single curve. Or I may explore in relation to what I see in the world around me, reproducing the curves of a face or a tree, a landscape or cityscape. Or I may explore what my imagination or dreams inspire: drawing a unicorn, mermaid or gryphon – as informed by reality, but not confined by it. My explorations may lead me to combine any number of these differing approaches.

Put crayons in my hands and I’ll explore the potential of bright colors and thick lines and the texture of the paper in conjunction with the waxy material. A light hand shows the texture of rough paper. A heavy hand emphasizes color over texture. Crayon resists watercolor, which will flow into the gaps the wax fails to cover… Again, I can explore abstractly, representationally, expressively, surreally or in any combination – but the results will look very different from those produced with other materials.

Similarly, explorations in three-dimensional media, or in computer-generated images will produce very different results according to the potential of their types.

Exploring across multiple media teaches me to look for and recognize the potential in a range of differing creative environments. Take away my pen, my pencils, my crayons, whatever tools I’ve been using – and I will still know how to approach turning whatever materials are at hand to creative ends.

In another sense, creative work is about power. The world is vast and complex and almost entirely beyond my power to affect. Almost. All but this one spot at the point of my pencil or pen or brush. All but this word, and the next one, and the next. I have the power to change just so much, and to share what I have done with – at least some of – the people around me and make it a part of their experience as well as mine. In turn, I can see and hear and feel the changes they make. Together we create a culture of shared experiences. We create civilization by sharing our creative experiences and our understandings in this way.

In that sense, creative work is about relationships. Art builds bridges between individuals and society. No two individuals see the world from the same position at the same time. If you want someone else to see things your way, you need to reproduce what you see in a form you can share. This has gotten a lot easier since the invention of photography, and even the best photograph loses something in translation.

The potential for seeing the world through the eyes of others – that’s huge. Like hearing the music born of another heart and recognizing one’s own passions there. We lead different lives, separate lives – as becomes only too clear in times of pain or suffering. However much we sympathize, we do not feel the same pain as the individual who has been injured or suffered a loss. You don’t feel my aching toes, courting frostbite as I walk home through sub-zero weather from a bus stop. I don’t feel your stubbed toe or mashed finger or your craving for that next cig or drink or whatever it is you may be craving.

But an evocative description or representation can remind me of my own pains and needs and I can understand that what you have experienced is similar enough to warrant my sympathy. The arts give us tools for recognizing the validity in one another’s individual experiences; they create a bridge between subjective experiences and objectively verifiable reality.

Art also builds bridges between the internal worlds of the senses and a more objective rationality. The left hand may not know what the right hand is doing. I may not know how to put what I’m feeling into terms that anyone else could understand, but an abstract expressionist painting could get the idea across, not only to others who might see it, but to my own distracted, abstracted conscious ego.

Different artistic approaches reach different audiences. No one work will reach everyone. The deaf will not appreciate your music. The blind will not appreciate any of my visual works or approaches. No one will relate to every possible work from every possible artist. Our choices, our differences in these ways help to define us as individuals and to define cultures and sub-cultures and fan groups and marketing niches. It’s all very frustrating and wonderful and confusing and amazing.
Samples of my artwork

dreamshark

Yes, we still subscribe to the paper copy of our local city paper, the Star Tribune. It's not perfect, but I very much want to keep what's left of local journalism alive. And Richard doesn't use electronic media, so he actually reads the whole thing.

But last weekend it just stopped being delivered. Curiously, that means that two different carriers just stopped showing up: the weekend one and the weekday one. When I reported it I got a canned response and credit for the missed papers. But there probably isn't much they can do about it. The paper carriers are probably in hiding from ICE.

lydamorehouse

Image: albino loon (one of which has been spotted near Minnesota) melting ICE with LASER EYES by Cat Saint-Croix.

I have to say that I also really love the outpouring of art that has been happening.

Speaking of art, last night I happened to see that a group of my Hamline-Midway neighbors were gathering at a random street corner to sing. The idea was just to gather in a low-risk way so that some very little children could join. Also, in hopes that if there were neighbors nearby in hiding from the gestapo, they could hear our voices. The temps are dropping here, so there weren't very many of us. Probably a dozen? But we stood together in a circle and raised our voices and sang old protest songs, some hymns, and even one pop song ("Lean on Me.")

Did it stop ICE? No. Was it extremely cathartic? Fully. Did I heal my soul a little? Yes, it helped.

In my effort to do SOMETHING every day, I'm hoping to join one of the pedestrian bridge brigades today. It's at an awkward time for me (right when I need to get Shawn from work), but, if nothing else, I might spend some time making a poster or two.

It's funny because we are absolutely a metro area under seige, but it is also fully possible to go through your day and not see anything? My grocery stores are open--even Shanghai market. Shawn is going to work. Mason is applying to law schools, going over to his uncle's to do handiperson work... life is kind of going on, while also very much NOT for so many of us.

lydamorehouse

Image: the "don't tread on me" snake being beheaded by a laser-eyed loon with the Minnesota flag on its chest (created by Andrew Prekker).

You know I love my laser-eye loons and I could not have been happier to see this art pop up on my Facebook Feed. Andrew is selling this art on Redbubble and I bought a t-shirt immediately. (Feel free to click the link and get your own merch.) For those of you new to my journal, I posted about Minnesota's collective enjoyment out of imagining that the red eyes of the loon could (and should!) shoot laser beams in the past. My library card has a loon with lasers shooting out of its eyes and we NEARLY had a state flag with a loon shooting laser beams out of its eyes.

One thing I have learned while living in a police state is that I need to do one good thing a day or I go out of my mind with stress. Today, when I realized I was just pacing around the house trying not to doom scroll, I found out that Smitten Kitten (for out-of-towners, this is a sex positive, trans and queer owned sex shop) has been acting as a distribution center for people who are in hiding from the gestapo. They put out a call for diapers, etc. So, I hopped in my car, bought a few things at my local Menards, and then drove over to drop them off. Just feeling the energy in the shop, being greeted by people still excited to see my queer D&D t-shirt (actually ConFABulous, which I talked to the person about potentially coming to this next year)... it felt good, maybe even kind of normal in a This is NOT normal sort of way?

Right now, at 6:30 pm, I'm going to go throw on my coat and go sing with some neighbors. I am, apparently, someone who needs to DO.

Stay strong out there, everybody!

kaffy_r

Now and Forever?

I certainly hope not. And yet, when I got up this morning and started to clean the kitchen, I found mouse droppings. Yay. We figure we have to pull out the stove's lower drawer to access the floor and the wall behind it, since we're pretty sure the mice are getting into our place from the outside somewhere in that area.

I'd bet Bob that we'll find no baseboards behind the stove, but it's too obviously a bad bet. We're going to keep an eye on the kitchen counters near the stove for a day or so to see how bold the little buggers are. If it's little to no action, then we'll wait. But if we spot their leavings, then it's time to do the inspection. Which, of course, I'm not looking forward to, especially since we can't really use the foam barrier spray near the stove. Oven heat could end up releasing toxic or potentially toxic fumes, and so we're going to have to buy a whole lot more steel wool. It's going to be a mess.

*wanders away, grumbling*

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: nothing, at the moment

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

mdlbear

Not a great week. Many things to worry about. Spent a lot of time curled up on the couch wrapped in a fuzzy green blanket. On the other hand, I started the week by watching Flow, which I've had on my to-be-watched shelf ever since it arrived in July. (I'd pre-ordered the DVD in March, as a slightly-belated birthday present to myself.) Highly recommended. Sunday also has links to a couple of "making of" videos on YT. Note that it was made using the open-source 3-D animation program Blender. And I had a really good cancer support group session Wednesday evening.

On the gripping hand, Renee Good.

Breakfast this morning: Raisin Bread French Toast (for one person; scalable):

I started with two raisin bread buns, sliced vertically into about five 1cm slices. Use what you have.
Beat one egg with a little milk.
Pour the egg mix into a flat-bottomed bowl.
Melt a pat of butter in a non-stick skillet (cast iron counts).
Using a pair of tongs, dip a slice of bread in the egg mix, quickly flip it over to coat the other side, and transfer it to the skillet. Repeat as needed.
Use tongs to flip the toast to the other side and to transfer it to your plate when both sides are done
Add maple syrup, butter, raspberry jam, et. al. (I just used maple syrup this morning.)

Linkies: Pecorino Romano Recall Now Class I Over Listeria Grated Romano numerous brands, including Boar's Head, which was distributed throughout 20 U.S. states. "Dream Cat." Or how “Flow” reached the Oscars -- more under the cut on Sunday.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: not much

lydamorehouse

"Ope, Gotta Go!"

My family has been hearing me say that a lot. Though, so far, both of the MONARCA calls for observers that I answered ended up to be false alarms. This morning there was a sighting of a forced entry not far from me on Fairview and Wellesley, which turned out to be real police on actual lawful business.I stood around with neighbors waiting for the official all clear. Until that comes in, people just keep streaming in, so a bunch of us agreed to stand by and wave people off.

Y'all? A lot of people kept showing up.

It was incredibly heartening.

I was glad to be there, but I also need to remember to pace myself. The unfortunate truth is, ICE isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I would like them to GTFO right now? But, that doesn't seem likely at the moment. So, I need to take time to breathe. Pick my battles--maybe even pick a day to battle, a singular day of the week--because dishes still need to be done, food needs to be made and consumed, and gods know the laundry doesn't do itself. Probably a shower and hydration are also important?

My regular D&D group was supposed to meet today. I'm a little sad that we didn't because just getting on with things, including things that spark joy, is also extremely important right now. But I can also understand how maybe pretending to be "murder hobos" isn't exactly hitting right this week for some folks. Our group actually isn't very murder-y? In fact, we were poised to rescue some folks, but, again, I get it. Still? We're going to need to figure out how to just carry on, especially considering that 2026 seems poised to be a continuation of the very worst timeline.

Ugh.

Well, speaking of, I should probably go do the dishes.

kaffy_r

Pills and Novels

There's nothing like getting up, grabbing the handful of pills you normally scarf down, and having one of the horse pill-sized vitamins get caught in your throat. There's that initial split second of "Oh, it'll go down when I swallow again" and then panic - and pain - as the damn thing doesn't go down.

Actually, painful doesn't even begin to describe it; agony is probably a better description. I kept trying to dissolve it with water, but it wasn't working. I was literally on my knees because of the pain. I woke up BB and between crying and gagging I managed to tell him what was wrong. He got up and did the Heimlich maneuver on me. It didn't shoot the pill out of my mouth, but it did move it just enough so that, about a minute later, I was able to cough, and the cough finally sent the thing stomach-ward.

Truly, for him to roll out of bed, bleary-eyed, and immediately know to do the maneuver, just reminds me that he is by far the most level-headed man I know.

As of tonight, my throat feels as if I've come down with something flu-like. I know my struggle to get the pill down my gullet caused some bleeding, since I had that coppery taste in my mouth that's unmistakable. With any luck, it will heal relatively quickly.

I'm never again taking all my morning pills at once. 😬

On the other hand, I finally put up the 19th and final chapter of "Gleaning Musutachi," the original novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo, of blessed memory, over on

originalkaffy_r . It's monumentally flawed, and wouldn't make it to anyone's slush pile, much less publication, but I didn't write it to get published. I wrote it because I wanted to complete something of novel length. I'm fond of the characters I created and, despite the flaws, the world I created pleases me. I also managed to keep the plot from completely disintegrating. Yay, me.

So pill pain, and something I could put up as a completed original novel. I love Fridays.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ateez' Hong Joong "No 1"

pegkerr

New year, new 52 Card Project. As I did last year, I'm doing it as an entirely digital series, since I'm using transparency effects in so many cards.

I will post the cards as I do them each week in a table here. Clicking on the link in the title for each card will take you to the post about the individual card.

( This is what the 2026 52 Card Project looks like so far )

Click here to see the 2025 gallery.

Click here to see the 2024 gallery.

Click here to see the 2023 gallery.

Click here to see the 2022 gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 gallery.

Click here to see the 2016 gallery

pegkerr

This, my first collage of the new year, did not come easily, and in fact took several drafts, which doesn't usually happen. I am still not satisfied with it, but I have not been doing particularly well the past couple of days, and it's the best I can do.

Compare the first collage of 2021, Betrayal.

The past several days have been hovering both above and below freezing. The temperature gets up to the mid to high 30s, melting the piles of snow, and then plunges down, freezing overnight. As a result, sidewalks and streets everywhere are covered with thick layers of bumpy ice.

When I first heard the news about Renée Good, I felt numb. I took an ice chopping tool and went outside to chip away at the coating on the sidewalk and steps in front of my house, as I thought about what I had learned so far. I wasn't aware of much other than it felt good to physically pulverize the dangerous layer of frozen water that made everything treacherous in every direction.

I came in and saw the Venn diagram that

naomikritzer had published on Bluesky:

It seemed fitting.

SUV trucks with out-of-state and blank license plates and tinted windows have been speeding around the streets of my city, like barracudas. I get text message reports several times a day: they've now been spotted at a construction site in Blaine. Now they're at the Minnetonka library. Now at a day care center. Now at an elementary school.

And now this.

Renee Good was killed a couple of miles from my home, on a street that I used every time I came home from work. Later that afternoon, ICE agents swarmed a high school eight blocks from my home as it was letting out, seizing two staff members and pepper-spraying students.

Minneapolis Public Schools have reacted by closing for the rest of the week.

The President flat-out lied in response to questions about what happened, defending the agent who committed murder and slandering the dead woman (who had just dropped off her kid at school) as a terrorist.

The next couple of days in my neighborhood have had the feeling of being under siege. Helicopters have been circling overhead, bringing back difficult memories from 2020. Many businesses, particularly those run by immigrants, closed the next day.

I went to the site on Portland Avenue today, and I spent some time listening to the speakers and looking out over the heaps of flowers, stuffed animals, and candles.

Then I came home and talked with two women from my block club, who came to my door to get me connected with Signal groups and warn me that ICE is reportedly going door to door, demanding that people tell them 'where the immigrants live.'

I have had difficulty sleeping.

This feels like the worst possible timeline.

Image description: A virtual sea of memorial flowers and candles. Center: a square sign with a stylized blue butterfly and the word "Remember." Foreground: two gold star balloons and a heart-shaped balloon with the word "Renee." Lower right corner: a blue plastic whistle. Background, behind flowers: an open peach rose (the flower I bought and left at the memorial.)

Renée Good

1 Renée Good

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Current Mood: shocked

kaffy_r

Stupidity and Mice

It's not the mice that are stupid. Well, they're not very bright, I know that, poor little buggers. I like them. I just don't like them in my home, something I posted about back before Christmas. Well, we had a new mouse adventure recently, one that ended with me wishing ill fortune to the complete fucking idiots who gut rehabbed our building back in 1999 or so, a few years before we bought our condo. Yep. They're the stupid ones, not mus musculus in general.

But let me not get ahead of myself. *clears throat*

One of the two mice we saw at the very beginning of the incursion escaped from Carter and ducked, we figured, into a small space between one side of our refrigerator and the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We shone a flashlight in there, and saw what appeared to be the spot where he/she/they probably got into our place. So we figured we'd get the fridge out of the very small alcove it's been in for the past 22 or so years, then mouse-proof that area, either with steel wool or the fast-expanding, fast-hardening foam that works very well as a barricade against mice, possibly both. Not quite easy-peasy but fairly straightforward.

Ha. And I repeat, ha.

Tonight, Bob and I are recovering from hauling the fridge out of that alcove in order to do the proofing. We manhandled and half-inched the fridge out and viewed what no one has seen for decades. I knew it was going to be horrid back there, and it certainly was. But you know what made me want to hunt down the "rehabbers" (yes, they're snicker quotes, why do you ask?) and harm them?

The fact that they didn't think it was necessary to put baseboards behind the fridge.

There. were. no. baseboards.

What there were, were lots of were holes and cracks in the walls down near the floor (which was also exceedingly badly laid, we discovered, so there's that as well). I told BB we were lucky that we hadn't been snowed under by mice years ago. We put down the anti-mouse foam around where there should have been baseboards, and I did as much cleanup as I could stand while the foam hardened. I cleared out some gunk that might have been interfering with an air intake section of the fridge. Then I manhandled the fridge back into place and put the kitchen back to rights.

We've probably effectively mouse-proofed the kitchen (or at least I most devoutly hope so) and I suppose we can consider that a win.

But no baseboards. No. Fucking. Baseboards. Those guys deserve to be peed on by many, many, many mice. I certainly hope our mice can be aimed at them. Idiots.

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ateez "Treasure Ep. 2"

lydamorehouse

I started this entry a couple of times. It's really hard to be articulate right now, but I'm going to do my best.

I was at the vigil for Renee Good, the legal observer who was murderer by ICE yesterday. The speakers were all very good and there was a lot of calls to "get organized." I agree? But, saying that sort of misses the point. Renee was only at the scene because Minneapolis/St. Paul *is* incredibly organized. ICE is afraid of us because we're actually very good at this.

On the flipside, one of the other speakers last night suggested that tragedy happens for a reason and only to people who can handle it. He was, I think, trying to encourage the crowd to keep fighting and that we should continue despite this tragedy, but there is a six year old child who can not handle their parent's death. Nobody in that family is okay today. They might never be okay again.

But here's something hopeful.

naomikritzer and I went out when another call came out and drove over to Minneapolis from Saint Paul. On our way, I saw a random guy, by himself, marching with a sign that said "Fuck ICE" on it. (On our way back, I noticed that he'd picked up another random protester.) When people in other parts of the world wonder, "When things like this happen, why don't Americans just flood the streets?" From what I could tell? Those of us who could, did. Spontaneously, all around the city, I saw signs taped to lamp posts with the same message to ICE. And, while Naomi and I never spotted any "federal activity" we did see a whole stream of human beings just marching and blowing whistles, headed into downtown MInneaoplis. We stopped and got out of the car and marched with them for a while. Every car that passed us shouted in solidarity. When we were parking, even, the person who parked across the street from us was also joining the spontaneous march (having also been out on patrol for ICE) and I gave them a whistle.

Then the vigil. Like, I say above, there were, for me, some low spots, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of solidarity. Of being shoulder to shoulder with people who were as angry and heartbroken and motivated as me.

Rest in power, Renee Good. We'll keep up your work until the last of those gestapo thugs are gone.

mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

Having fled the US a year and a quarter ago.
Linux Weekly News - LWN.net, and DistroWatch.com
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Reunions on Zoom (or other virtual places).
Also, support groups on Zoom. Support groups, period; it's just that my main needs for them developed after Covid.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag

monksandbones

I just got back from the first curling game (and post-game beer) of the second half of the season for my Wednesday night Open League, and I have to do some dishes and go to bed very soon, but I must sneak in a little entry for today's

snowflake_challenge challenge #4 before I go.

Alas for the curling, my team lost. I made some shots, but overall I didn't play very well. Hopefully soon I'll get all the bad shots out of my body, and in the meantime, I'll dine on the sick shot I made to win our game for my Rookie League team last Sunday. Possibly I'm going to have to go to open practice ice one of these Saturdays, though!

Anyway,

snowflake_challenge. Challenge #4 is: Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

My last page, before I got to the challenge entry on my reading page, was the Greater Victoria Public Library page, where I was checking my position on the hold list for Heated Rivalry. I'm up to #2. Fingers crossed for this weekend! For most of you, my local library will not be your local library, and I'm sure I hardly need to say this for this crowd, but I do recommend your local library!

My other recommendations, perhaps at the "something a bit more eccentric" end of things, are some curling go-tos. For curling scores from all the events (ALL THE EVENTS) and rankings for all the teams with word curling rankings (ALL THE TEAMS), there's Curlingzone. Are their news reports up to date? No! Is their website user-friendly? Also no! But are the scores for, again, ALL THE EVENTS and rankings for again, ALL THE TEAMS there? OH HELL YES!

Also, for pro curling, there's the Grand Slam of Curling website, bringing you media and live and on-demand streaming from the Grand Slam of Curling pro curling tour, and the soon-to-be pro curling Rock League!

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dreamshark

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Style: Ivory Alcea for Mobility by branchandroot
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2026 52 Card Project: Week 2: Upheaval

Defund Homeland Security! Something you can do (time sensitive)

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Dept. of JFC

Found!: Looking for the name of a cat artist

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what Art is about

Our paper has stopped coming

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More Laser-Eyed Loon Art

Dept. of Mice

Done Since 2026-01-04

Life Continues... Interrupted

Dept. of This and That

2026 52 Card Project

2026 52 Card Project: Week 1: Renée Good

Dept. of Urge to Kill

Stand Up, Fight Back

Thankful Thursday

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