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Today's theme song clocks in at less than 2 minutes long, but it actually made the hair on my arm stand up.

Nearly every line is a powerful summary of where we're at. I like it. The beginning is near.

1. Breakfast dal. This experiment continues to work extremely well.
2. I have definitely reached the point with the Incomplete White Puzzle where it's speeding up significantly on account of enough pieces are in place to significantly reduce the number of possible combinations that need checking. Today's decision was to start filling in from the bottom edge, where I still had a chunk that was just edge and no middles, because I think that up in the top left (interior) corner I've identified The Missing Piece, and will get annoyed if I wind up with non-contiguous gaps...
3. Today alternating Locate One Puzzle Piece with Do One Useful Job has been nice and smooth and easy. I have got Several things done. Is pleased.
4. Really really enjoying my ridiculous washi tape collection. Today I self-indulgently Added More Week Dividers, including replacing some pre-existing ones that I was Not Enjoying, Actually.
5. ( Exercise & embodiment. )

I have introduced my mother to this, I have introduced the Child's household to this, I am writing it down because clearly It Is Time for me to do so.

( Read more... )

I normally sleep in on my "weekends" like today. Now that I have shifts for safety patrol at a local school, though, I find myself still waking up on "work schedule" even on my days off. So it wasn't unexpected that I should wake up at 5:30am today and find myself with little to do but roam Reddit on my smartphone while resting snugly in my electric blanket-warmed bed on a cold snowy morning.

This resistance song was posted to the Minneapolis subreddit by a child of the singer, a family member woken by a text message informing them of the song's posting to YouTube. Welcome to today's theme song:

...I'm an ordinary American. I grew up blue in the promised land.
Two tours in Vietnam. 40 years Republican.
But I drive my old Ram pickup truck. I sold my house because my pension sucks.
I buy scratch tickets when I'm out of luck. Then I watched the news and said, "What the fuck".

I'm an ordinary American, no longer Republican.
I can't sit down when I need to stand, when government men kill an innocent man
and a mother in a car trying to drive away from a masked man on a frozen day,
pumping bullets in her face just to make her pay for living her life the American way.

We are ordinary Americans on a Minnesota street in a messed up land,
Thousands marching hand in hand to bring us back to a promised land.
Wake up America, heed the call. High saints, you know musket balls.
Stand up strong and stand up tall. Stand together for one and all.

I'm an ordinary American. I grew up blue in the promised land.
Two tours in Vietnam. 40 years Republican.
Hey, now we're fighting in another war.
But now I know what we're fighting for.

Welcome to the Resistance, old man.

For the moment, the story of the "Concord Hymn" poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson (pictured on the statue in the video, about the Battle of Concord in 1775) is still available on this Park webpage. I'm sure that it will soon be removed, lest people get the wrong ideas about this Republican government's fascist authoritarianism. It's safely recorded at Archive.org too.

Now, excuse me. I need to get dressed for my shift at the nearby school, watching so I both 1) warn children and teachers about the federal government coming to abduct any of them and 2) record illegal conduct to assist the abducted and prosecute the abhorrent offenders.

I am anti-fascist, and you should be too.

Specifically: I find myself in possession of both a superking duvet cover and a deep fitted double sheet that are mostly Genuinely Nice Cotton... and have both got holes worn through them in one specific place.

I have accepted about myself that I am not a person who will tolerate sleeping on patched bedsheets (because Textures). I am loathe to just hand them over to rag recycling. I am scared of trying to sew anything out of them, but might manage it with some encouragement.

I would greatly appreciate people Being Opinionated on this topic.

Yesterday afternoon I'd been discussing auditor traps. Yesterday evening we walked out of the supermarket and were confronted by

[description in alt text, better to follow]

I've said several times over the years that I'm still optimistic about the future of humanity, without offering evidence to support that opinion. I still expect things to get worse (by a lot) before they get better, but here are some things I can point toward that convey "the vibe" that I wish others to feel with me.

In reverse chronological order, I recommend viewing these videos in this order:

1. about stopping and rejecting:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oO5QSjDQRc, "The Great Refusal Has Begun" by The Functional Melancholic
   The first 11 minutes or so are sufficient to convey the sentiment, but there are great quotes farther in too, like "Laziness usually is just a corporate word for a soul who is refusing to be fuel for the machine." Also, "We're starting to realize that the most radical thing you can do in a world that wants to harvest your every waking second is to embrace periods of time where you are fundamentally unapologetically useless. And I know that's not easy because most of us are caught up in this dysfunctional show." And the last 2 minutes. Good stuff.
2. about deciding to choose:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Ay73HHHrE, "How to respond to societal collapse | Sarah Wilson | TEDxSydney"
3. about what we're choosing:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfeRLwlnuHo, "Will the End of Economic Growth Come by Design — or Disaster? | Gaya Herrington | TED "

A portion of the United Nations itself is recommending immediate change. As I've been fond of repeating since the Occupy days, "The Beginning Is Near."

Reading. A Variety of books with the Child, including One Fish, Two Fish and A Squeeze and a Squash.

For my own purposes I have been continuing with The Rose Field, Philip Pullman, and I do indeed continue unimpressed. Not enough to stop! But.

I also picked up What Is Queer Food? (John Birdsall) from the library when I was having an insomnia; I have made it most of the way through the introduction but I am not yet grabbed.

Writing. Words... increase.

Listening. More Hidden Almanac catch-up! "While doing the laundry" or indeed "weeding" continues to work quite well.

Playing. Puzzle progresses! I am not calculating current %age but Significant Progress.

I think we did a leeeeettle bit more of our current run of Inkulinati? But it is petering out.

Cooking. Pineapple upside-down banana bread! This time with some ground almond in it. Otherwise I think... very little of note.

Eating. I was very excited to get to try a Neuhaus dark chocolate poppy seed praline, which on the one hand was not actually quite as dark as I would like and on the other has given me Ideas.

Growing. I got some broad beans in the ground?

One (1) duplicate letter from the DWP, which I had actually requested, because the council is apparently incapable of giving me the concessionary rate on the basis of disability without me providing one letter per year from the DWP telling them I'm still disabled, despite the fact that for anything that is not the allotment rent they can work this out from all the other information available to them without needing me to have Special Executive function;

three (3) rolls of washi tape from Sweden, one of which I have been Tempted By for probably actual years at this point and the other two of which are relevant for this year's notebook set-up and I was sad and wanted a treat;

and one (1) book, Citrus: A History, because it was £4.56, on a topic I have previously been interested in, and Interest Has Been Expressed in me yelling about it. (When will I get to it? Unclear, because once I've finished reading The Rose Field I should probably do some more pain reading, but. Eventually.)

(And why have I been sad? I genuinely do not know; my brain has just been having a Sustained Patch of Uncooperative. I would like it to stop. In addition to post, today's efforts in that direction have included a batch of pineapple upside-down banana bread, this time with some of the flour replaced with almond meal.)

Before getting myself onto the mat: all is woe, everything is too much and takes too long, I Cannot Face Cooking, we shall be forced to Resort to Sad Pasta

Ten minutes after getting myself onto the mat and starting moving: ... actually, you know what, stir-frying the purple sprouting broccoli with Stuff sounds both achievable and Vastly More Appealing, scratch the Sad Supermarket plan

It was just warm-up! I hadn't even got the endorphins going yet!

This article is the only objective evidence I have for the observer abductions that happened on Friday last week. I'm disappointed that more mainstream outlets aren't picking up the story.

Yes, I've heard that Homan spoke words claiming that ICE will now stop the extreme escalation in Minnesota that was called "Operation Metro Surge". You do know that this Republican administration lies, right? I'll believe it when I see it on the streets here. And whoever you are, reading this blog post, you had better hope those agents aren't reassigned to your area. What's happening here will happen in other areas of the USA. We haven't defunded or dismantled ICE yet. It still has a bigger budget than most of the world's military forces, although not quite yet bigger than the U.S. Marines. It's still an absurd budget, of course. All of this "action" is so unnecessary.

In more practical good news, I saw that Ring will cancel its business partnership that allows ICE (and other law enforcement) access to home camera footage. Flock confirms it. That's good.

I've slept a whole lot of hours last night and today. Sleep debt is real. I wish it were possible for me to retire someday, because I'm just plain tired. I guess I'll rest when I finally land in one of those spiffy new concentration camps.

(Which last I took in part because A only discovered last week that many snowdrops have decorative green bits on their frilly inner noses, courtesy of a waist-high planter outside one of our local pubs!)

I actually made this as a protein to go with Meera Sodha's winter pilau, after An End Of Breakfast Dal went really well and for the purposes of using up the chaat masala I made for The Ongoing Cook All The Book Project, freely adapted from a number of recipes (which were The First Few Search Results when I prodded the internet). A is sufficiently convinced that I provide notes herewith in service of being able to repeat it in future.

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A drone has been flying over my Jordan neighborhood tonight. I caught this video (with closeup) as it turned from southbound to eastbound over my house.

I expect this night time surveillance means that ICE will invade even more heavily tomorrow than it has been the past few days.

Edit 8:15pm: It was apparently a Cirrus SR22 small plane, rather than a remote drone. The FlightRadar24 information for it overhead indicated it was Minnesota State Patrol. It was overhead more than an hour, circling over north Minneapolis. A chat group was saying there was both a drone and this small plane overhead.

Reading. I have FINISHED Index, A History of the (Dennis Duncan), including both indexes, including The Games Therein, and had a Great time.

Started (just now) The Rose Field, volume three of The Book of Dust (Philip Pullman). ( Grousing; vague spoilers for vol 2 )

Writing. Did you know that getting knowledge out of your own head and into other people's is a specific set of skills that has very little to do with how well you know the things you're trying to communicate? TRY TO LOOK SHOCKED, PLEASE. (6.3k words, and am absolutely in an Iterative Cycle of trying to make the introduction more-or-less work. It is progressing, just... very slowly.)

Listening. I realised that Hidden Almanac was possibly in fact exactly a useful sort of thing to listen to while Wrangling Laundry, and have therefore started again from the beginning, at least in part as an attempt to actually listen to some of the episodes I dozed through while they were playing in the car...

Playing. Incomplete White Puzzle progresses. (Today I have added I think three pieces to the contiguous section, two of which I had already joined to each other as a free-foating lump, and made another couple of free-floating lump connections.)

I think we also did a bit more Inkulinati before I got horrendously distracted by Puzzle. And the sudoku fixation continues, though it is at least ramping down a little.

Cooking. I have been having A Rough Week brain-wise, but I have today managed to make some bread, and I did earlier in the week gently fry up some celery and garlic to add to the mashed potato & parsnip that we were having with Vegetables and Veg Sossij. I think that is about the extent of it.

Eating. VEGETABLES, including a couple of peppers from an overwintered plant. (Restricted diet for a week up until the Tuesday just gone, so the return of Fibre was Extremely Welcome.) Favourite chocolate stars with raspberries. Fruit With Skin On. Lebkuchen. Stollen. Seeds and nuts.

Growing. I think the nematodes (applied as a split dose a few days apart) have dealt? at least temporarily? with the sodding Sciarid Flies? for now?

Lemongrass needs pricking out. Physalis are showing zero indication that they have any intention of germinating, which is mildly annoying. There are still three not-dead Lithops seedlings, though I doubt they're the same three as last week. Orchids getting increasingly enthusiastic about their plans to flower.

Have not managed to get anything else sown, yet.

Observing. Lots of bulbs: daffodils and crocuses various and snowdrops are Definitely Underway, at this point. We are fairly convinced that the Yelling from the garden around dusk is Amorous Foxes, though we have not (yet?) bestirred ourselves to ask the internet if what we think we're hearing is in fact what we're hearing...