Smaller Than Usual....

Today is Easter Sunday and our plans changed from brunch for four with Megan and Mike to brunch for two....stupid stomach virus got in the way and they could not join us. So we went down at noon and ended up eating with another neighbor.....just three of us but a nice conversation.

Still I couldn't help but remember past Easters when we were decorating and hiding eggs and filling baskets for little kids or grandkids. Yes times change and it's good to have a Plan B. Our day was quiet but included the nice brunch and we had a nice walk around the block and we finished packing the RV so we can leave tomorrow.

And there was a table decoration that appeared from it's box in the cupboard to grace our dining room table. 

I think my sister gave me the rabbits a long time ago and I cut the flowers from quilting fabric. The plastic eggs were probably from a local Dollar Store and the annual "tradition" of a Cadbury chocolate egg for Dave completed the picture.

Happy Easter everyone who celebrates.....and happy SPRING!

Once Again.....

And so the first day of spring arrives in Milwaukee along with about six inches of new snow. It's pretty on the trees and bushes and I know other parts of the country are getting hit with much worse weather than we've experienced.....but still.

The pile is back near the front entrance....I guess we could start another "contest" to see when the last of it will melt.

And walking home from the neighborhood pharmacy yesterday Dave and I noticed the "hat" on our little free library.

Maybe we'll just start a "shorter" contest to see when this slips off and people can open the door to grab a book. It shouldn't be long.......

Make Them Watch.....

After dinner last night Dave and I settled in and looked for something interesting to watch on the tube. The "regular" offerings did not seem very intriguing.....and then I remembered a documentary that was recognized at The Academy Awards this year. We found "Twenty Days in Mariupol" on Amazon Prime.

This was not an easy watch.....about 90 minutes following a team of reporters/videographers as they documented what was happening in one of the first Ukrainian cities overrun by Putin's Russian troops. The team tried to move around the city day by day as the bombs and tanks and troops got closer and closer.....hitting civilians, hospitals, schools, playgrounds. Dead bodies lay in the streets.... citizens who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, teenagers playing soccer in a field. Hospitals were out of pain killers, antibiotics and other medicines. Doctors trying to deal with the worst possible injuries as bombs fell nearby. A maternity hospital was wiped out. Bodies wrapped in plastic sheets and dumped into mass graves. Thousands dead in one city.

This was  very difficult to watch but it was an important reminder of what Putin started and what continues to go on in Ukraine.

As the documentary ended we both said "Every GOP government asshole who is holding up aid to Ukraine should be forced to watch this." Other world  crises have moved to center stage....and we, as Americans, should care about and be involved in providing aid wherever we can. 

Watch this documentary....and think about Putin's representatives who are on film saying "This was fake news. This was staged...these were actors." Sound familiar????

And Then A Laugh....

I didn't read 45's immediate stream of tweets during and after President Biden's State of the Union speech but there was one where 45 said "Biden's hair looked better from the front than in the back" or something like that. Couldn't help but laugh.

I'd say he never looks in the mirror but as a narcissist he probably spends hours on his grooming. Ugh.

Didn't Plan to Watch.....

Nursing a crappy head cold I was headed to bed early last night. I've had to sleep in Dave's recliner for two nights because it seems to help "stop" the cough for awhile. I knew the President's State of the Union address was going to start at 8:00 but I figured I would turn off the light and TV and let the talking heads tell me about it in the morning.

However when President Biden walked into the chamber and slowly toward the podium, stopping to talk to so many members I started to watch...and when he started to speak I was hooked. So many sentences stand out. He quoted President Regan thundering "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" He went on to say "Now, my predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, "Do whatever the hell you want."

About January 6th "...these insurrectionists were not patriots. They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power." "You can't love your country only when you win." And looking right at the Supreme Court Justices "Women are not without electoral or political power." (Did you notice which judges were not in attendance?) I love when he welcomed Sweden's Prime Minister representing the newest member of the NATO Alliance and described the critical importance of our strong relationship with countries in Europe and around the globe. And, in contrast, 45 has invited Hungary's Putin-friendly prime minister, Viktor Orban, to Mar-a-Lago. (The guys will probably play golf and 45 can get some tips on how move closer to an authoritarian regime.)

I loved each time he turned to the GOP who were yelling criticisms to call them out for hypocritical decisions in some pretty humorous ways.

All in all I found the speech inspiring and hopeful. Were there some misstatements and exaggerations? Probably. Talking to such a large audience for over an hour that might be expected and one can only wonder what kind of nonsensical ramblings would have come out of 45's mouth, and what rousing statements of doom and gloom. 

Will President Biden be able to reach all of his stated goals......no but hats off to him for trying. There was no doubt in my mind about how much he loves America, how proud he is to be American and how he'll work for the people of America.

I made it through about two minutes of the GOP rebuttal but listening to that young Alabama Senator, Katie Britt, sit in her homey kitchen and sort of shake her head in a dismissive way all I could think was "You irritating Alabama bitch." The sneer on her face made this 77 year old really pissed off. 

You Go Joe....FOUR MORE YEARS!!!

 

The Third Good Read....

I am finishing the final book in Fredrik Backman's trilogy about the small hockey-obsessed town in the woods. When I started the first book a few months ago and realized it was about hockey I figured I would just return it to our ECP library. But the setting, the characters and the layered story caught me. Beartown was a good read! Then came Us Against You to continue the saga. I read them and handed them off to Dave (who played hockey growing up and all the way through high school).

And now I am 300 pages into The Winners once again drawn into the story and the people who "live" in Beartown. 

I don't know if this novel will stand up to the first two and if I will be "satisfied" at the end. But so far there have been many sentences that made me stop to re-read them.

"Our children never warn us that they're thinking of growing up, one day they're just too big to want to hold our hand, it's just as well we never know when the last time is going to be or we'd never let go. They drive you mad when they're little, yelling every time you leave the room, because you don't realize at the time that whenever someone yells 'Daddy!' that means you're important. It's hard to get used to not being important."

"....but when some people die it's like watching the string on a balloon snap. We don't miss what she was but what we lose when she isn't there."

I think Backman's novels just grab me because of his style, his way with words. I love books that make me just stop....and re-read.

Residue.....

I looked out our fourth floor window this morning down toward the front entrance and noticed that our pile of snow is gone....the snirt sculptures are no more.

What's left is just so "pretty".....

I know that our ECP crew will get this cleaned up before long....and who knows, it's been such an odd winter we may get another snowfall to cover it up before they can get at it. I look at the dirt shape and sort of see a "head" shape - nose to the right, eye with leaf eyebrows and skinny neck off to the left. And it's balancing a flattened soda can on its head. Ah....imagination!