That was a day or two.

To recap the topics at the top of mind:

The governor of Texas is messing with Texas, specifically with the parents, guardians, and caregivers of transgender youth. I wish many terrible things on him. People with more emotional bandwidth than I seem to have are organizing, and contacting their own state lawmakers and saying that this sort of shit is wrong and should not be done. Because too goddamn many states think this is a good thing to try, and not enough people are going NOPE NOT ON OUR WATCH.

Internationally, Putin is hardcore fucking with the Ukraine, which a large number of people are extremely unhappy with and are taking some pains to demonstrate, in assorted ways. I saw a picture which said it was protestors outside of Putin's office, which is extremely brave. Some of the folks in IRC are wondering if Putin's general motivation is legacy-making, if he's coming up against some age issues. One of the more eyebrow-scorching reactions is attempting to crowdfund Ukrainian military response, which is ... certainly a take.

Domestically, and a lot lighter, two dudes with a website-flipping business and a podcast just bought knitting.com for a fuckton of money and think they can squeeze a fuckton more money out of knitting grannies, because for Some Mysterious Reason, Amazon is not the shop of choice for knitting tat, and they think they can muscle in on an "untapped" revenue stream. Twitter is starting to happen to these bozos, and the EcomCrew guys' response seems to be some slimy backpedaling. (Rah isn't allowed to start another business until the PT kicks in a little more.)

Jorts and Jean (JortsTheCat) have been putting attention on some things that need it, including a breathtaking attempt at NFT-izing a video of refugees in peril in a boat, and Starbucks doing their damnedest to union-bust.

Alex and I went out to do some errands this evening, and I sadly saw a cat who had lost an argument with a vehicle. It had been there a while. I put up a note on Nextdoor about the sighting, and the location, in case anyone is looking.

Escape Calico wants Outside very much, even though it's cold. We had some snow, even. She wanted to say hello to the ladies (avian) next door, but they didn't seem too ruffled due to the number of fences in between. She was retrieved.

Belovedest got the new storage chip for the Pi Hole, and it's back up and running. Yay. In smartwatch news, the PineTime units are also ordered, but they are likely coming via e-packet, which often involves a slow boat container ship. This was prompted in a large part because the rubber on my remaining Pebble is cracking, and you can now see the backlight through the lower right button if you look at the right angle. And I thought that I was going to extend its life by babying the battery. Sigh.

Prior to the trip Out, Alex noted that we had many of the supplies for sushi. So we picked up some things at the grocery store. It took A While, but we got some put together. Rice prep is probably the thing that should be done furthest ahead next time, because that needs time to cool down and we could prep the other things closer to assembly. I'm still having the problem where I leave a little too much slack in the roll, so that when it compacts there's an awkward gap. There are some leftovers.

Tay and Mama have been sending pictures in the group text. Occasionally I send a cat.

Everything happens so much.