Sunday snapshot

The Housewares work area was almost a blank canvas before I started working there in the fall.
No more! Toys are starting to appear.
So far my only playmate there is "Sandr", the coworker who lit the Hannukah candles for us. He put up the carrot car and the rope swing.

Jester in Furniture has also filled his bulletin board with little things. It's funny to me when people DON'T decorate their area,
especially given that we work in a stream of things. I'd expect people to pluck out ones they like.

I guess it's like how some people respond to the Girlettes, and some don't.
When I went for my first Covid vaccine four springs ago, the public health nurse liked Penny Cooper and happily included her.
She even gave Penny a little band-aid and a sticker after her shot:

The Toys are a little wary of Marz. She knows them, but doesn't always want them in her life. Recently she told me she'd put all the toys in her apartment in the closet.

Still, she knows me, and she made me a birthday card with a Bear spirit:

 

Inside it says that I am. . .

"The Most Minor Prophet,
the Prophet of Toys (bears, dolls, etc.)"

Decorating the Fence

Yesterday I hung (with twist ties) the dozen "Don't Be Afraid" prints on the fence next to the thrift store (below). 
Okay, but they looked kinda paltry, and I texted the photo to Emster, saying "I need to make 100 to cover the fence."

(I hate this fence--the city put it up to keep people OUT of the pocket park four years ago, when people were camping there... because they had no homes.)

Em replied, "Let's cover the fence on your birthday!"
Yes, yay! I'll print up a ton, and she'll help hang them after work on Wednesday. She'll make stuff to hang too. (I hope.)

When she worked at the store, we used to do what she called "tschoch drops" together--leaving little apotropaic toy-constructions in the alleys: Alley Protectors.

Reading about the power of Laughtivism from Serbian resistance trainer Popvic, I came across an article I liked that's worth sharing:

"Overcoming Despair and Apathy to Win Democracy", by George Lakey, Ivan Marovic, at The Commons Social Change Library.

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Ramadan started yesterday.

Book's Amina is fasting--she is very observant. She showed me her new portable prayer "rug"--just a sheet of plastic, like the material of a disposable raincoat, with a rug pattern on it.
She was showing me how she can't fold up on her knees properly, to pray--injured knee!--by kneeling down partway on plastic rug on the breakroom floor.  This young woman in hijab and long dress and Star Wars hoodie!

If I remember, I say "Ramadan mubarak" to Muslim customers, but sometimes I just say "Happy Ramadan" in my lazy American way.

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ELONIA MUMP

Yesterday I referred to "Mump" in a text to a pal, and she texted me this back:

There's a STORY IDEA: Melania is the true mastermind of the Trump presidencies. 

Would we be surprised?
She is such a cipher, I have no idea what her deal is.

My pal also said there are reports from KGB agents that Trump was turned 40+ years ago.
I thought that was some loony conspiracy theory--though psychologically it would explain a lot.

But The Hill published an opinion piece assessing the allegations, saying they could be credible:

"Three KGB agents, . . .
including former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, who recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.

"None of these former KGB operatives has provided evidence, but the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. 

"...Lending credence to the allegations is the fact that kompromat on [Russian control of] Trump would easily, simply and convincingly explain the president’s animus toward NATO, Europe and Ukraine, his admiration of Vladimir Putin and his endorsement of authoritarian rule.

"One could even invoke 'Occam’s razor,' the philosophical principle that claims that simple explanations should be preferred to complex ones."

--thehill.com/opinion/international/5162890-assessing-new-allegations-that-trump-was-recruited-by-the-kgb

This interests me because I've always wondered,
How did an American of the Cold War generation come to fawn on a Russian dictator?

It's especially weird, I think, to my generation of Americans to see Trump so eager to advance Putin's aims. I mean, we born after WWII were programed to distrust Russians, not to bow like spaniels before them.
For millenials, it might be like seeing a US president kowtow to the Taliban.

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bink is coming soon for our Sunday coffee and banana pancakes.
Sugar-free, they're best when the bananas are very overripe--sugary!––and today they are. And I have walnuts and frozen blueberries for them too.

I cook them in MY MOST FAVORITE POSSESSION.
(Toys aren't possessions, so they aren't in the running.)
My MFP is... the nonstick, ceramic-lined (non toxic) Green-brand pan bink gave me for Xmas. It is dreamy to wash--just rinses off.

Ok--take good care of yourselves, now.
Ciao!