bad things, stop/ Lake St. Photos/ Lady Whistledown Regrets

I. bad things—stop

How you know things are different now:
You ask a Minnesotan how they are, 
and they don't say, "Fine".

Now, they, and I, say things like, "Well . . . ".

 A famously touchy customer at the thrift store where I work, snapped at me, "How do you think I am?"

"Probably like the rest of us," I said, and she apologized.

All my Hispanic and African coworkers are US citizens, some born here to immigrant parents. But ICE is picking up anyone.

A favorite coworker grew up in Mexico. She is always teaching me bits of Spanish (which I barely retain). 

At work, I myself often used to say I was "super great!"

"How you you say 'super great'?" I'd asked her.
"¡Super bien!"
That I remember.

 Yesterday I asked how her family is. She grimaced.
"I want this to stop."

"How do you say 'stop' in Spanish?"

"Parar", she said.

Another coworker added, "cosas malas parar".
bad things stop

_______________ 

II. Some photos from East Lake Street
 
East Lake has long been home to immigrant communities--Scandinavian, one hundred-plus years ago.
 Five blocks down the street from the thrift store, Ingebretsen's Nordic Marketplace remains. Mr Ingebretsen from Norway established it in 1921. (It does lots of its business online--which is how it survived Covid.)
[Their history: ingebretsens.com/our-anniversary]

In recent years, Hispanic and Somali small businesses line the street. They took a big hit during the George Floyd uprisings--literally. Windows broken (as were the thrift store's), fires, loss of business. And Covid, of course.
Lake Street had only recently started to feel really vital again--new murals, lots of little shops and restaurants--food trucks. Real 'mom-and-pop' establishments.

ICE has seized customers and workers with no concern for their legal status) in the past months. 
Many shops are closed and dark, . . . for now. 

The sign's circle-dotted i's ^ make my heart clench. 
They are like a girl would write in her diary.
___________

BELOW: Signs posted all around Midtown Global Market for the statewide ICE Out for Good strike tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 23:
No Work, No School, No Shopping.
A rally downtown is planned, but temps will be well below zero F (–18ºC).
Amazingly, even the thrift store is closing. They rarely take a stand. As much as anything, I expect they figure it's pointless to stay open.

Besides being an act of solidarity for us on the ground floor...

 "Organizers hope that 'the CEOs of all these corporations that are based in Minnesota take notice'. 
Large US corporations headquartered in Minnesota include Target, Best Buy, United Healthcare and General Mills". 
--"Economic blackout day planned in Minnesota to protest ICE surge", The Guardian, 1/20/2026, 
theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/20/ice-immigrarion-minnesota-economic-protest

__________
BELOW:   The white star on blue is the Somali flag.
A little square on the "WE ARE FAMILY" poster reads:

LOVE 
HOPE
R I S E

I can't find anything about the origin of the ^ FAMILY poster, but it showed up after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good through her car window.
 The butterfly pattern looks to me like glass cracked by a bullet.

I'm put in mind of this because of the crazed hole in our store window. From a gunshot in the night--drug dealers, most likely. Accidental it seems--someone doing street business told a coworker they had nothing against us, and I believe that. They shop at the store!

It's been there a couple years. 
From outside the store at Christmastime:
 Poinsettias frame the bullet hole 

III. Lady Whistledown Regrets

A friend sent me this--their neighbor was going to have a party for the opening of season 4 of Bridgerton, but cancelled because of ICE.
The neighbor sent out this notice:

Lady Whistledown
SOCIETY PAPERS 

Dearest Gentle Reader,

It is with a decidedly heavy quill that this author must share news most unwelcome.

Circumstances beyond the control of even the most carefully governed household have arisen. A foreign invasion upon the kingdom—unexpected and deeply unsettling—has rendered the realm quite unjolly indeed, casting to the wind some who are most dear to us and dampening spirits that ought instead to be lifted in good company.

In light of this disruption, the forthcoming Bridgerton viewing party must be postponed.

Society may rest assured this delay is not born of indifference, but of care. Merriment, after all, is best enjoyed when all may attend freely, safely, and with hearts inclined toward joy rather than worry.

Fear not, dear reader. The candles shall be relit, the cushions fluffed, and the tiaras returned to their rightful place in due course. When the kingdom is once again settled—and when all who matter most can gather beneath one roof—this author fully expects our revels to resume with even greater enthusiasm.

Until that happier moment arrives, take care of one another, keep those you cherish close, and remember: the season is merely paused, not concluded.

Yours sincerely,
Lady Whistledown 🪶
_________________________
I understand this person is too distressed to hold a party, and I sympathize. 

 I don’t agree that merriment is best enjoyed in safety though – – we need joy in these conditions. 

But I 100% understand if a person isn’t up for it! Often I’m not either.

________

Okay, Precious Spirits--I'm off to work. Will try to take more photos. I would do a Photo Walk, but it's so damn cold!
You take good care of yourselves and one another!

Sun Rise

I've been making Sunrises since a friend in another state asked for a sunny God's eye, for hope. (Did I already say? Besides everything else, one of her former students had been killed in December's mass shooting at Brown U.)

I'm sending her this one.

I don't usually add tassels. 
At first because I didn't want to spend the time, since I was making so many for the first fence installation.
Do you like them?

I've been wondering about weaving yarn into the fence where I hang the eyes--the side facing the busy street...
A local yarn-bomb artist, HOTTEA (www.instagram.com/hotxtea), has woven in his signature font in bright yellow-green yarn on the chain link fence of a major intersection:

RENEE NICOLE GOOD. 

I was thinking of weaving in yarn,

 God Is Watching. 
The phrase is both a comfort and a threat, depending on what you're doing...
It also fits the neighborhood:
many (most?) people under direct threat are Catholic & Muslim (same God).

And it goes along with the vibe of people saying to ICE agents things like, 
"See you at Nuremberg". 
(Such good timing that that movie about Göring on trial recently came about.)
____________

My neighborhood association held an open meeting this past weekend for neighbors to coordinate action plans and other responses to ICE. 

I went to Needlework instead, but I was happy to get their resource list on email today. 

I want to make a new sign to join street corner demonstrations in my neighborhood. 
Since Trump's inauguration last year, people have been signing on different busy corners during rush hour. Now another site has been added--a pedestrian bridge over the highway.

"God" would not fit as well in this mostly Anglo white, middle-class neighborhood.
Maybe Karma Bites Back.

Or, less threatening, because karma is everything, not just the unloving acts.
Karma Doesn't Miss.

KARMA .   
…WAIT FOR IT.

Or something. Short is best.
I will ponder...
(Ideas welcome.)
__________
I mentioned the busy street by the store. 
It's not so busy now--many immigrant-run store fronts are dark as either workers or customers are at risk, and stay home.

The thrift store's business is down 50%.
Not good. 
(ICE has not descended on us ...yet.)
How is this going to play out if they stay very long???

It's been extremely cold here lately--well below freezing. When it warms up to above 32ºF, I will go make God's eyes at the Whipple Federal Building. 
There is an ongoing protest there. 

People warn you to come prepared with mask, goggles, and a plan in case you're arrested. ICE isn't supposed to use tear gas and pepper spray anymore, but who believes they won't?

My friend KG said she'd like to go with me--she could bring camping chairs! 
I'll have to check if that's legal--I never see people sitting. Is it obstruction of the sidewalk or something? 

So, just brief this morning...
Off to work now.

Keep your hearts up, wherever you are!

PS. Update 

At the bus stop, on my way to work  

History on the Hoof: "Suspended in Confusion"

Another of the Minnesota resistance badges by Bryan Hansel, a photographer in Grand Marais. 
This is a favorite: SUSPENDED IN CONFUSION

It fits my mood.

"You should be writing a literary Diary of an Occupation," I say to myself. "You should be coordinating with creatives who are plugged into the action".

Ha, as if I had this poetic clarity, floating above it all.
As I've said before, this is the opposite of a Hollywood movie where the camera is always placed and the actors positioned and the action choreograpahed so you, the observer, know who's who and What Is Happening.

This is not that!
This is history on the hoof.
I am collecting bits and pieces for later reflection.

Anyway, that voice--"you should be more important" is temptation talking.
Hold steady.
Trust Penny Cooper. [Penny Cooper is the lead Girlette. She is eight-and-a-half years old.]

Penny Cooper says, 

"Don't bother throwing rocks at those boys. 
Sneak in and rescue the frog."
__________________________

Oh! I think she's thinking along the same lines as Isaiah Blackwell, the Black man who stepped in an ushered the cornered white supremacist Jack Lang away from an angry mob.

(The water might look harmless if you don't live here. 
But in these temps, flesh will freeze in minutes.
Remember that scene in A Christmas Story when the little boy licks a frozen pole, and his wet tongue freezes to the pole?)

Let us not underestimate our own ability to descend into barbarity.
I can imagine that if I were in that mob, I'd have wanted to rip Jack Lang apart. 
I am old enough that I don't think I would, 
but sometimes I avoid crowds just because of that:
I DO NOT ever want to do such a thing, to become just like him and his ilk at the US Capitol on January 6. 

Blackwell told the Minnesota Star Tribune that he stepped in because

 “I’m a man, and I believe all humans should be treated the same. It doesn’t matter.... I took my voice, and I told them, ‘Don’t touch him. Let him go.’ I made a space so he could get out of there.”

Blackwell said he came to City Hall at that time because,

 “God, my Father, told me to stop by. I just had to stop by.”

---Via msn.com/en-us/news/us/man-reveals-why-he-rescued-right-wing-influencer-jake-lang-from-crowd-outside-minneapolis-city-hall/ar-AA1UxkQm

God invented irony.

                            Also God:

                     
While I’m loving all our creative responses, I see our wolf in the shadows too. And I’m so interested in how God shows up in these things—on all sides…
 _______________

Meanwhile, ICE is literally falling down on ice.
You've maybe seen the18-second video:
youtube.com/watch?v=eiThiPGTbOk

Marz says they need to go to their room and think about their lives.

______________

Anyway... 
Literary? As if writing were a sausage factory? 
That's an approach suitable to AI.

The Action?
This is looking at life as if it were a Hollywood movie, where the important parts are stuff blowing up. 

If you consider, as I do, that the 'important stuff' is what is happening in our own hearts and minds, and the social connections grow organically out of that, it's a different movie.* 
A very slow movie, mostly. 

Though not always.
My favorite thing--and our strongest bet---is creativity, and sometimes it's noisy and visible and not slow at all.

To meet ICE with the same mentality they have is simply to amplify it. Gotta THINK DIFFERENT.

I love this video showing that, from a woman in Portland, OR:
 "Minnesotans show us what American Resistance looks like."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4WMIBGc4g&t=118s

She says it's "Effective acts of nonviolence resistance that you might not be hearing. Nonviolent direct action is not peaceful... 
Effective nonviolence must be highly disruptive."

[Effective politically, I think she means. 
Though creativity is also by its nature somewhat disruptive---from Latin disruptus,  "break apart, split, shatter, break to pieces," 
This ^ describes a seed emerging from the ground--do emergent thoughts look like this too? 
Maybe more like lightning storms?]

BELOW: Hippocampus neuron, from Scientific American:
"All the external world coming into our brain has to be filtered through that system,"

scientificamerican.com/article/how-your-brain-detects-patterns-without-conscious-thought

_______________________ 

In the video about resistance above, the brass band musician says Audre Lorde said to make revolution irresistible. 
She did say that, but she was quoting Toni Cade Bambara.

TCB said various forms of it. Here, 
"The job of the writer is to make revolution irresistible." 

Kennedy Prints, by Amos Paul Kennedy, , Jr.
From Library of Congress: www.loc.gov/item/2023634995

These writers, below, all gone now, were well known (in my circles) when I was young. I don't know if they still are, but I loved hearing Lorde quoted, so maybe... in some circles.

_________________________

*Who said that a movie about writing poetry would show someone lying on a couch for hours?

Here! Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska––from her Nobel lecture, no less:

"It's not accidental that film biographies of great scientists and artists are produced in droves.
... Of course [they are] all quite naive and [don't] explain the strange mental state popularly known as inspiration, but at least there's something to look at and listen to.

"But poets are the worst. 
Their work is hopelessly unphotogenic.

"Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines only to cross out one of them fifteen minutes later, and then another hour passes, during which nothing happens ...

"Who could stand to watch this kind of thing?"
 

Ha. And who could stand to live it? 

Small Boy Frozen in ICE / "This object took three billion years to emerge."

ABOVE: Objects gathered in the exhibition "Szymborska's Drawer",
via culture.pl/pl/superartykul/szymborska-gdyby-rzeczy-mowily

. . . To me, the small boy in the poem below is trapped in ICE...

"A Film from the Sixties"
--by Wisława Szymborska 
Trans. Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

This adult male. This person on earth.
Ten billion nerve cells. Ten pints of blood
pumped by ten ounces of heart.
This object took three billion years to emerge.

He first took the shape of a small boy.
The boy would lean his head on his aunt’s knees.
Where is that boy. Where are those knees.
The little boy got big. Those were the days.

These mirrors are cruel and smooth as asphalt.
Yesterday he ran over a cat. Yes, not a bad idea.
The cat was saved from this age’s hell.

A girl in a car checked him out.
No, her knees weren’t what he’s looking for.
Anyway he just wants to lie in the sand and breathe.

He has nothing in common with the world.
He feels like a handle broken off a jug,
but the jug doesn’t know it’s broken and keeps going to the well.

It’s amazing. Someone’s still willing to work.
The house gets built. The doorknob has been carved.
The tree is grafted. The circus will go on.
The whole won’t go to pieces, although it’s made of them.
Thick and heavy as glue sunt lacrimae rerum.

But all that’s only background, incidental.
Within him, there’s awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy.

God of humor, do something about him, okay?
God of humor, do something about him today.


-- Wisława Szymborska (1923 - 2012),
 Polish woman, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature

   
Wisława Szymborskaw with mask, photo by Adam Golec 

Eyes on the Prize (Hold on!)

1. Below: God's eyes, made by bink yesterday 
at the 1st Crafting in Icey Times. Watching! 

The two eyes are not attached, and I don't think she made them as a pair---I saw that they went together when they were in the jumble of twenty eyes I'm taking to hang on the fence today.
Twenty, yay!

Oh--wait--maybe I'm not taking them in just today.
I just checked the weather. 
Wind chill "feels like" temp is –28ºF / –33ºC

I will rearrange my work schedule for the week, because that's awful--even dangerous--weather to stand at bus stops. I have to transfer buses too, and connection times aren't reliable, especially in bad weather.

2. This Friday, Jan. 23 is a Day of Truth & Freedom
for an economic blackout (no work, no shopping) in Minnesota, 

and a march downtown Minneapolis at 2 PM, so I'll be taking that day off too.

ABOVE: Methodist minister JaNaé Bates Imari led the conference calling for the Day of Truth & Freedom. She said...

"I believe that this is going to rock this state in the most beautiful and glorious of ways. 
It is going to open our eyes to what is possible. 

For too long we have been told nothing is possible, bow down, obey and do whatever it is that somebody at the top says to do. 
But we know that that is a lie from the pit of hell."

--CBS report: cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-day-of-truth-and-freedom-economic-blackout-ice-operation-metro-surge

This is such a perfect action for the week of Martin Luther King Day.
Nonviolent tactics take coordination.

"Only chain that a man can stand
Is that chain of hand on hand.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Hold on! Hold on!"

Lotta people sing this folk song, "Eyes on the Prize". 
From childhood, I know it from Pete Seeger.

Here, a cover from PBS doc American Experience: Soundtrack for a Revolution.  
Doesn't look like that's streaming on PBS right now, but you can watch it on Vimeo, here: vimeo.com/87053287

Joss Stone (from above Soundtrack):

_________________________

3. Three people came to the first Crafting in Icey Times at my place, and with me, the four of us pretty well filled my living room. 
Crafting takes space... 

I can rearrange the room to open up more space. Get a couple little TV trays or side-tables too, for people to set their tea and crafting stuff on.
Still, a dozen people squeeze into a smaller room at the library Needlework group. A bit tight, but that encourages chat.

So nice. Inviting people over was just the right thing. Being with people in tense times helps raise energy, opens airways to breathe, and reminds me that I am (we are) not alone.
(I'd often prefer to have people over than go out myself, too.)
_____________

4. If you're looking to help or need help:
 Minneapolis Mutual Aid Link Tree rounds up live links to donate to or volunteer at Organizations on the Front Lines, Food and Rent Relief, School and Church Aid groups, Go Fund Me's, et cetera.
https://linktr.ee/mplsmutualaid

______________

Let's pick ourselves up and wade in the water!

Minneapolis Mutual Aid: link tree

Want to help or need help in these ICEy times? 

Look here:

https://linktr.ee/mplsmutualaid
 Minneapolis Mutual Aid Link Tree

 Mpls Mutual Aid link tree live links to Organizations on the Front Lines, Food and Rent Relief, School and Church Aid groups, et cetera.
You can donate, or get directly involved.

Showing Up in Bodies (unarmed & disarming)

1. I decided to hold a weekly Open House for Crafting in Icey Times 

EVERY Sunday at my apt, from noon--2 pm, starting today.
If you're in town, come on by!
(Help with my God's eyes, or do your own crafty thing.)

I'm doing this "for the duration".
When "this" situation ends (it will, it will), I might move it to every-other Sunday, but for now, I'm committing to being here every week.
(I am anyway, mostly.)

I invited my Needlework group and some friends,
I don't know if I know enough people, honestly, outside of my workplace, which is not a Craftivism crowd.
Maybe it will grow slowly... Or, who knows?
In any case, it's win/win because I want to keep that time open for me to make God's eyes.

AND inviting people over makes me stay a little tidier.
Here's my stash tied up, as of yesterday. 
It looks ample, but it's dwindling, so I'm putting out the call to knitters to send me their leftover yarn.

2. I wanted to say, I regret that I'd described the  young woman (maybe 20?) I gave my hat to at the bus stop, underdressed in near-zero weather, as a "dumb ass".

She was like a tattered sparrow, scattered in body and soul. 

I was experiencing this icky phenomenon--do you know?--that sometimes I (we) can feel angry at someone for being vulnerable--a displaced anger, for sure.

 They are like carriers of pain we do not want to see.
I did NOT blame her, but I did want to shake her and tell her to get it together and stand up for herself! 
Which I know would make no difference.

But I did stay kind in my actions toward her in the moment.
When she told me she wanted to die, but that God wouldn't let her, I replied,
"Maybe God wants you here. You have some good work to do here."

Anyway, I gave her a warm hat... and a warm tamale too--
I'd just bought a couple from the steamtable at the Mexican grocery store by the bus stop.

(You have to ring the doorbell to be let in, now, and the store which usually has long check-out line was almost empty.)

I think the anger is also at how powerless I am in the face of such enormous need. And knowing how little any help I offer will actually be of help. 
Still, kindness is not nothing.

It's a hard thing. 
I keep coming back to HOLD THE FAITH. I was reminded of my friend Em who spent ten years on heroin, and was probably much like this girl. 
Some people make it.
And even if they don't, any little kindness along the way matters.
________________
 

3. You know how the people trying to defend 
the Venezuelan guy who got shot in the leg had hit ICE 
with a broom and a snow shovel?

I'd thought that was secretly hilarious, it's so Minnesotan––(it is snowing again as I write this.)---but it turns out it's not so secret...

Someone made up these patches, below: 
NORTHERN LEFSE & LUTEFISK INFANTRY.
 
[You know? Lutefisk is Scandinavian dried cod rehydrated in lye,---you love it or you hate it (I've never had it), and Lefse are Norwegian potato crepes/tortillas]

They are armed with the same 'weapons' (not that you couldn't inflict serious damage with a metal shovel! especially if the other guy was not covered in military armor).

(bink sent them ^ --no attribution--Lmk if you know. I assume AI-assisted? )
 

4. I was greatly heartened to read this article a friend sent me about how effective ICE Watch here is deescalating violence!

"The vast majority of men are only willing to engage in public violence if they feel like the people around them will approve of — and reward them for — that violence."

--"I’m a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here’s how ICE observers are helping." Nicole Bedera, MS Now, Jan. 16, 2026, www.ms.now/opinion/minneapolis-ice-watch-protesters-violence-research 

ICE Watch is regular folks keeping watch (on major street corners, or driving around in their cars, etc.) and alerting others on Signal and/or --I love this--by the simple act of BLOWING their bright orange WHISTLES. 
It works! I've even responded! 

This  de-escalates violence, this sociologist reports, because public disapproval punctures the Group Pride that ICE promises men.
___________

We're seeing this group response work---you saw this video?
When a woman near the Somali mall here calmly (so calmly!) keeps repeating that she doesn't have to show her ID to these ICE agents "in my home"--she is legally correct, of course---she is attended by people honking car horns and people on foot blowing whistles.
And the ICE guys just... drift away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2WKlRDZRWE

It makes me sad that there are so many disaffected men at loose ends--they need to bond and do men things---and that used to be... what? 

I don't know, what?
Like all the Human Monkeys... doing stuff IN PERSON. 
Showing up in bodies.
Even goofy things like marching in feathered hats in Knights of Columbus, or riding in mini-cars wearing fezzes, like the Shriners.

Vacuums of meaning & action make all of us of all genders susceptible to Group Think and being manipulated by people who harvest our healthy needs for bonding for their own unhealthy ends.
And we're seeing that.

Obviously men don't like this either!
You know Man Carrying Thing? 
This is his "probably how ICE hires people" 42-second vid from yesterday (Sat Jan 17) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FZzzmy51aQ

And there's Vincent Green-Hite, Political Crochet Activist, who crochets outside the ICE facility in Portland OR
 https://www.instagram.com/knot.bad 

I'd make God's eyes at the Whipple Federal Building here, if it ever warms up enough to take off my mittens!

And many, many other men, of course--I see some standing on street corners with their orange whistles.
__________________

And now, I must clean my apartment. It's cold and snowing--I wonder if anyone will come.

If not, I will try out this podcast a friend recommended just yesterday:
Nonviolent Jesus
beatitudescenter.org/the-nonviolent-jesus-podcast 

 

“Blessed are the Peacemakers”

I also want to read Pope Leo's New Year address:
Towards an “unarmed and disarming” peace. 
Read:
vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/peace/documents/20251208-messaggio-pace.html 

Nonviolence--being unarmed AND disarming--is quite the art, eh? 
It's far more than obvious things like not hitting people with snow shovels (even if they deserve it), much less not shooting them in the face. 
It's not calling people as 'dumb-asses' or 'Nazi scum'. 

(Even if they are acting like it.)

January Umbrella Sales

A couple umbrellas were sticking up from the cart of priced goods I wheeled onto the sales floor yesterday, and Em at the cash register said, 
"Good, get those out! People are asking for them."

Temperatures are in the teens (–10C), snow and frozen water cover the ground, and umbrella sales are up.

People protesting ICE are carrying umbrellas to shield against pepper balls. 
[Pepper balls are breakable projectiles, shot from a paint-gun-like weapon, filled with chemical irritants, including capsaicin II, a lab-made replica of the natural chemical that makes peppers sting. 
They are used along with tear gas and pepper spray. --via Wikipedia]

UPDATE: 

Oh! Umbrellas may not be needed? I’m happy (but wary)—a friend alerted me:

a judge ruled yesterday against the use of pepper spray and other “non lethal” weapons. 

Here from CNN:

[end update]

____________

The store is in the thick of the ICE occupation, 
and I'm surprised they haven't targeted the store itself [yet].

We don't have much of a plan, 
but we do have PRIVACY signs on doors leading into the back work areas, and from there, people can leave out the back doors. 
Or stay in the break room.

Legally, ICE agents can't go in private areas, 
though they haven't seemed concerned with legal niceties.

The federal raid looking for ICE's stolen guns across the street from the thrift store (the raid with the tank) yielded nothing.
. . . Maybe because they went to the wrong address?

The warrant was for a top floor apartment, but they raided the first floor--not legal. The poor woman who lives there returned to a home totally torn apart.
But they wouldn't have found anything at the wrong address anyway--no one lives there.
_____________________

I felt really low yesterday, after revving high for ten days, ever since ICE murdered Renee Good. Mushroom Jester nailed it:

"I just want this to be over."

Me too, I said. It reminds me of Ukraine, though not as violent, the feeling is so grim, the awareness of armed men (mostly men) who are not here for your good. 
And everyone's high emotions--mostly fear or anger.

In some cases, there's disinterest, which I also find disturbing. 
One coworkers said he's not sticking his neck out for anyone. Understandable, but hardly en-couraging.
Still, I get it--everyone makes their own way, for their own reasons.

I am very jugdgmental, but really and truly, the longer I live, the more I see that everyone has their own stories they're living out, 
and to try to interfere with that, unasked, is not very effective.

(I'm not talking ^ here, of course, about trying to stop or hinder harm being done.)

One volunteer talks openly of "staying in the light"--and I really appreciate her bringing that New-Agey perspective to it.

She's not just talking woo-woo. 

She shows up.

She's the retired doctor who had knelt by the young man shot in the store's parking a couple summers ago (it was a drug-related assassination ).
At that time, she'd told me, 

"There was nothing I could do. 
I just held space for his spirit to leave."

God forbid I'm ever shot, but if I were to be, 
I'd want someone like her kneeling next to me, praying in love, 
not someone yelling "fuck you" at ICE over my body
(understandable though that would be).
Or, conversely, I'd want to follow her lead, if anyone were ever harmed in front of me.
____________________

Here's a good article in today's Guardian---most of the places and the photos are near the thrift store, or in the 3 miles between my work and home:

"‘Make no mistake, this is an occupation’: 
ICE’s deadly presence casts long shadow over Minneapolis"
theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/17/minneapolis-twin-cities-ice-dispatch

___________________ 

The energy is heavy, dark. 
Unless I get in their way, which is possible, I am not the direct target of ICE. However, they are harassing everyone. For instance, they stopped an 87-year-old white woman who volunteers at the store while she was driving to the doctor and asked for her ID and car registration.

But the occupation of 3,000 federal agents is not going to end here for a couple more weeks--and not then, either. 
I mean, even if ICE leaves here at the end of January [looks unlikely], they'll go elsewhere. 
Gotta spend that $8 billion/year!

And as long as this administration is in place, 
their Power will keep expanding, or trying to.

I sing, I pray, I talk to people, I make God's eyes... 
I am doing what feels right to me, for now.

I keep my spirits up--important.
Today is Needlework group, and this afternoon I've invited a few people to make God's eyes at my place.

There's supposed to be an anti-Muslim march today (by Proud Boys and the like--many have come into town from out of state)––they're targeting the Somali community--
 and there's a counter-protest in a different location, downtown. 

I feel a sort of evil delight that the weather forecast for today and the next ten days shows temperatures in the teens, and below zero at night.
Locals will have their cold weather gear. 

Oh, that reminds me––I am grumbly about this–– 
I gave my new furry Pendleton (!) ear-flap hat to a scatty girl at the bus stop yesterday evening, in the bitter cold because she was only wearing some sort of fleece poncho, with no hat. 

She was smoking a cigarette she'd bummed off a passerby, hands exposed. She said she had no gloves, but I drew the line at giving her my mittens. 
(My coat has a hood, but it's not really warm enough. I can layer it with my frog hat underneath--its synthetic material doesn't breathe, so it's surprisingly warm.) 

I need to remember to carry warm gear in my bag, so I don't give away my best and favorite ones I'm wearing. 
I MISS THAT HAT ALREADY.

The humans! We are our own worst & stupidest genius enemies!
How have we survived so long? 

 Shine on, anyway!

Don't stop dancing: it gets weirder.

You know how sometimes it seems there's nothing much happening to blog about?
Right now I'm in the opposite position---there's TOO much to write about!
Where to start?

I. Johnny Jones, Song-and-Dance Patriot 

I'll start with a small thing:
I found the origin of Johnny Jones, a stuffed toy giraffe I'd loved to pieces when I was little, named by a parent, not me. 
Recently I was wondering where his name came from––and felt sad that there is no one left alive to ask.

Well, just now I was looking up songs I want to sing to keep my spirits up-- ROUSING SONGS--including songs from one of my mother's favorite movies, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). 

In the movie, Jimmy Cagney plays vaudeville song-and-dance man George M. Cohan. Cagney, famous as a tough guy, started in vaudeville himself--he was a dancer!
In the movie’s song-skit "Yankee Doodle Dandy", he is a jockey named Johnny Jones.

That's it! I am absolutely sure that's who my mother named my toy giraffe after--it fits her in every way.

Then I listened to "You're a Grand Old Flag".
Geez, it made me cry. 
The old-fashioned patriotism, with freed Black people singing to Lincoln; nurses and factory workers marching in unity to support WWII soldiers (Antifa!); and in the end, Cohan in uniform holding hands--my favorite move--with his flag-draped sisters.

Also, there's something of a Girlette (one of the Duquette family) about Jimmy Cagney. 

Here--a terrific 1-minute dance--Cagney & Ruby Keeler in the "Shanghai Lil" number in Footlight Parade (1933).
He does a little Moon Walk!

What happened to this Grand Old Flag spirit? 
I even find myself quoting Ronald Reagan, a bad president who promoted that American spirit--and worked for undocumented immigrants to become US citizens. (Not only fulfilling the American Dream, but far, far cheaper than ICE's $ 8 billion/year. 
I'm not making that up: ice.gov/about-ice#)

 

___________________
II. Whenever you feel afraid... just whistle a happy tune!

I'm so glad I'd already started to prepare myself with some Tools for These Times.

Yesterday I was standing by the door when one of our most emotionally fragile customers came in--as he does most days.

There was a tank outside (more on this in a minute) and heavily armed people in uniform milling around (not ICE!)---and this guy looked more pale and nervous than usual.

"Do you have any good drugs?" he said to me.

I laughed. "Sorry."

"You know I'm kidding," he said. "I don't do any drugs or drink since I was in prison."

"I know," I said--"You've done a lot to heal!' [He has told me of his childhood in hell.] "What I've been doing lately is singing..." 
And I started to sing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain"--loudly.

He smiled (wanly) and said, "That's not a bad idea."

I count that a victory.
_________________

III. About that tank

Okay, it wasn't a tank. A friend who'd been in the military told me it's an "armored personnel carrier".
But to this civilian, this is a tank, and it was outside the thrift store yesterday, full of people in military garb carrying machine guns.

One is standing in the turret (turret?) here--looking at us!


But they were Friendlies, not ICE. Federal agents from Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, looking for stolen guns.

Everyone at the store was so relieved, we were kind of giddy:

"Oh, whew! It's just ATF!"

But there's a weird ICE story behind it:

After ICE agents shot that Venezuelan guy in the leg the other night, they left three of their vehicles behind (in a rough neighborhood) – – and people broke into them and stole the weapons that were stashed in boxes – – (’cause you leave your high-powered weapons unattended in your car?) – – and then beat up the vehicles. 🤣

What idiots the agents must be. Or, you know, to be generous, how poorly trained they must be. 
"Count the kids before you leave the highway rest stop."

BELOW: Posted on a light pole at my bus stop:
"Welcome to Minneapolis! Enjoy your Stay" 
Charlie Brown is ICE.

Anyway, those are the stolen guns the ATF were looking for in a house across the street from my workplace.
I guess they didn’t find them because the FBI's offering a $100,000 reward for them. 

And that's my report of the moment because friends are coming over for coffee. I am going to work late, to avoid a staff meeting.
Big Boss and I had a good talk after the tank incident, but I just don't want to risk my reaction to his leadership style in meetings.

Polish your tap shoes, ya'll!

Letter to Ann [It's ICEy Out]

Ann, an old, old friend I haven't heard from in years emailed me yesterday, checking in on me and asking what I'm seeing here in Minneapolis, occupied by thousands of federal ICE agents.

I've already blogged about most of what I wrote to her in response, posted here, below, but I'm adding it to the record.  
And it was good to try to present a quick overview, and to start to put it in some order for myself. 

My Letter to Ann:

Hi, Ann!

Thanks so much for reaching out,
it's nice to hear from you!
I am well, thanks, but rattled, naturally, living in a city occupied by federal agents. 
It's Crazy town!

And so, it's really heartening and grounding to receive love and concern from friends around the country (and world!).

We're all in this together, no one is immune...
A friend wrote that they lives "outside the zone"

--and I wrote back, "Don't you believe it!" 
But of course Minneapolis is physically in the spotlight--the cross hairs!-- of these forces of ill-will right now.

And it is Very Weird:
It feels like being in a slow-motion civil war in a science-fiction movie.

I. ICE in person

Yesterday I had my first close-up (luckily physically harmless) experience of ICE---
I'm in my 8th year at the thrift store, in a neighborhood with lots of immigrant businesses and residents. 
The store is one mile from George Floyd Sq., which is mere blocks from where ice murdered Renee Good.
ICE is circling like sharks around sea turtles.

When I got off the city bus on my way to work yesterday morning, 
I heard people blowing whistles (they're effective!) and honking car horns at the big intersection a block away.
I walked in that direction, across a big parking lot, filming the melée on my phone––(we learned from Darnella Frazier filming George Floyd's death the power of that)––
and saw other people doing that too. 

Some young folks were running toward the corner, blowing whistles as they ran, (young lungs, ya know)
(one girl sprinting at top speed  looked like Athena 😍 to me)

 and many were already there.

I am so proud of them! 
(Even if some of their political rhetoric is as rigid as the other side's. 🙄  So was mine, when I was twenty. Or thirty...)

It was NOT like a movie, though, because it was entirely unclear to me what was actually happening!
"This movie is badly directed." 
LOL

By the time I got up close, the traffic had dispersed--
only later on my little video (less than a minute) did I see white vans pulling away. Was that it?

On my way there, I had passed a van of agents sitting with windows down, and they were SCARY!
Staring straight ahead, faces covered up to their eyes in black masks, bulky with armour.
They looked like terrorists and hijackers... Fittingly.

I turned to the person who had been walking, filming in front of me--a trans woman (I mention for the full social flavor of the scene)--and we hugged each other.

So, it's like that:
danger and intimidation met with bravery and a sense of togetherness that arises when you face a common, outside enemy.

II. Creative Actions

It's different than after the police killed George Floyd, because then it was a city tearing at itself.
In contrast, it's pretty easy to see ICE as "foreign", even though it's fellow Americans...

And they are making it easy to demonize them--just shot another person yesterday, you'll have seen---and killed others around the country, and they say vile and hateful things too. 
They are not following the Peace, Love, & Understanding route. Hardly!

Poor Minneapolis!
And Portland, Chicago, and others.

I would say I/we all have some intense karma to work out here––some awe-ful big lessons we are invited to learn. Obviously the US has built up a history with a huge karmic debt---"unlearned lessons in love".

I am not an optimist, exactly, but I do SEE opportunities--possibilities!-- for us to get it together--for the future...

And I do see people acting in creative, smart, and practical ways to help.

A favorite example: 
a feminist sex shop (near where I transfer buses!) has turned its entire operations over to coordinating the collecting, storing, and dispersal by car of groceries and other goods to people who cannot go outside because of ICE. 
Volunteers are showing up to help sort and pack, and standing guard outside too. 

(We also have ice, as in, frozen water, and sidewalks are really dangerous right now.
This sort of service should continue every winter for people trapped by that kind of ice too!)

Hey, today is MLK's birthday! 
I don't literally believe there's a moral arc in the universe, as he says. I'm with astrophysicists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox:
the universe doesn't care, it's not a caring consciousness---
But WE care, and we have a moral arc... 
And we create stories that reflect that and teach that, and that all matters.

Along the lines of Good stories:
I think of your husband's clowning theater. 
There's an en-couraging action, designed to boost resilience~to keep our hearts up!

And speaking of clowning, my favorite political action of this era is the inflatable Portland Frog!!!
"Strategic Silliness" I think the Economist called it.
Also, I LOVE to see the people crocheting and knitting outside the Portland ICE facility.
People are protesting at the federal building here too, 
but it is waaay too cold to crochet!!!

I do have a frog hat though, which I wear to keep my spirits up.
A friend  kindly expressed concern that it makes me a mark for ICE.
Weird that this is likely right.

III. God's Eyes

My main thing is,
 I've been making God's eyes since the summer.
You know those yarn-wrapped crossed sticks, like from summer camp (but originally--and still---as you may well know, living in the southwest--they are protective icons made by the indigenous Huichol people of Mexico).

It came to me that they were something I would enjoy  this repetitive task, woven with good intentions-- offered with grace--
a kind of prayer, like the rosary, etc.

I started hanging them on the fence next to the thrift store in September-- a sad little corner, ugly with trash, along a sidewalk where people take drugs or sell stuff (sex, drugs, whatever).
And yet it can be people just hanging out and socializing too.
Beauty in the breakdown...

Anyway, over time I made a couple hundred, plus--with some help from friends:
my little art heart project.

People take them (my intention) almost but not quite as fast as I can replace them. Enough eyes always remain so that the fence is always bright with a line of them all the way around--also my intention.

They say, "I see you. I care. Beauty is possible."

 I'd slowed making them over the holidays, 
but just this week a friend asked me if I could make a sunny one, to help keep their spirit of hope up.

Of course I could. 

I've been working on making ones in sunrise colors---haven't got it quite right yet---
will keep messing with the balance and colors---
but these first two are nice anyway. I'll add them to the fence.

The one on the left I was making at a nearby deli that hosts neighborhood meetings to respond to ICE raids--they've targeted a Cuban cafe and the Catholic church within two blocks of my apartment.
Photo below that, sunrise outside my apartment.

So I'm back in production, and have invited a couple friends to help me make more this Saturday.

Q: "What did you do in the war?"

A: "I wrapped yarn around sticks."

And I stand by that as a good thing to do, actually.
I'm not strictly a pacifist,  but I do wish we had some more visible creative nonviolent response here, like the frogs. 
Hard to do in the extreme cold. 
For instance, in 2020 after George Floyd's murder, artists immediately started painting murals--
but you simply cannot do that when it's below freezing.

But people do find creative ways!
There was a Singing Action, where a group walked and sang songs through the streets (near the thrift store, though I didn't see them)--and I think they will continue.
There is plenty of that, and I love it.

And of course I am not faulting people for things like throwing snowballs (!) at ICE, even if it escalates the tension---ICE agents are shooting people!  
I know you know. 

I'm just saying... I get it!
 If I were there, I'd probably hit them with a snow shovel too! 
I heard this happened?
 LOL---I had to laugh, even though the poor Venezuelan guy got shot in the leg---it's just so Minnesotan! Something out of Prairie Home Companion, back when it was good.

Along those lines, you've likely seen this photo in the news today--people have taken to carrying umbrellas against chemical weapons.
(I carry a lightweight rain poncho in my bag.)

Oh, my---
thanks, Ann, for giving me a reason to write this out. 
It's all very stress-hormone inducing.
Yesterday after just seeing the ICE agents sitting in their van I was shaking.

Ok, all for now---write if you'd like--would be happy to hear your news!
My best to you and yours! 💕
XO Fresca

My 22 sec. ICE video (nothing happens)

Nothing overtly happened but, damn, I am still shaking, 20 minutes later. On my way to work just now, I got off the bus and heard whistles and honking nearby– – so I walked over to what was some sort of ICE action – –videoing with my phone– – the more footage there is if something happens, the better— for different angles.

I was doing the Little Book of Calm breathing and self-talk, and still my adrenaline shot through the roof. Besides the alarming noises, those ICE guys are SCARY.

I walked past a van load of them sitting with van windows down – –they cover their entire face except for their eyes in black masks. Dual purpose to hide and to intimidate. Worked on me!

But I was SO PROUD of our young people—some were obviously coordinating with each other, on Signal or something— blowing whistles and syncing their movements. At one point a slim young woman sprinted past at full speed, blowing her whistle, toward where ICE vans were gathered —she was like an Olympic gazelle, and my heart ❤️ swells in gratitude for her.

My 22 sec. video below is safe to watch—nothing happens —just loud honking (drowning out the whistles, which actually were very loud!).

  It died down – – ICE drove off – – I couldn’t quite tell what had gone down…. Real life is confusing and not like a movie scene.  

The person walking & filming in front of me turned around and walked back towards me, and as they came near, I reached out and they gave me a big hug. “For grounding”, they said. We exchanged a few words of sophisticated analysis along the lines of “Those fuckers!”

 I hung around for a few minutes—offered a whistle kit to a bystander, who took it—but it seemed the agents had moved on – – to spread fear and to arrest innocent people elsewhere. (I suppose some of the people they arrest are guilty of something, but mostly I’m hearing from coworkers and customers about people seized who’ve done nothing but lack papers. Or not even that.)

Well, I’m glad nothing happened, since this was my first encounter. Trial run, for me. 

Maybe I’ll be calmer next time, but I doubt it. As you can hear on the video, the noise alone is enough to alarm and jangle your nerves.

"It ain't what you do, it's how you do it."

I.
Polaroid printed sayings on their darkslides (the light-blocking unit that ejects when you load film). 
Like this one, below:

 "It ain't what you do, it's how you do it."

Whatever that means. 
Style over substance?
It reminds me of Billy Crystal as Fernando Lamas saying:
"It is more important to look good than to feel good." 

Cool old ^ wizard candle. A coworker priced it 99¢. 
I see them online for $5-30. At least the coworker didn't deem it worthless and throw it out, which is entirely likely.
I was tempted to price it up, 
but I left it for someone to get magic, cheap. Thrift stores should have some weird old stuff for cheap.

In this job, I must guard against fretting over other people's minor misjudgments--errors that usually amount to no more than a few bucks.
It's not really the money I fret about, of course--it's the lack of care and knowledge. But that way lies scrupulosity!
"It's a sin that they threw away this item!"

It is not. 

My job really puts me through my mental and emotional paces--like an obstacle course. A steeplechase. Soooo many minor irritants.

I suppose 'it's how you do it' does apply here too. 
My daily tasks are mostly low-stakes stuff;
 the art is in how I handle it. (Say, people pricing things wildly wrong.)

The skill I try to practice is:
 NOT taking it personally, not getting super-annoyed, etc.
You'd think that'd be easy, but we get attached to anything we do, even if the stakes are objectively low.

After I studied Funeral Science for one semester at the U, one reason I decided to drop it is I read that being a funeral director ranks high on Risks of Annoyance scale. 
And it's not low-stakes stuff, it's engaging with high-emotion family dynamics. You're supposed to be the peace-keeper, for instance, when the dead woman's kids duke it out over mom's casket. 

Back then, I wanted to think of myself as a nonjudgmental angel of mercy. ANYONE who knew me knew that was deluded. But I knew I would be terrible at that and hate it.

I am in the right place. I can keep my annoyance to a simmer.
The other day, a touchy customer who was angry at the cashier said, 
"You are always professional, not like some of your coworkers."

This was more a slam at the cashier than true praise of me;
but it does express something true: 
while I find this customer difficult, 
I do always keep my cool with him.

I see coworkers battling with difficult customers, and it's just insane. You will get nowhere! At the end, everyone will be more unhappy.
 
Okay, so, may be I am proving that "it's how you do it" that matters, in this case, more than in what you do.
Most anyone can handle the tasks of a thrift store job.
 Some of my coworkers are not great, but even the most literally brain damaged can manage okay.

The real art of the job comes in the "how" of it.
Some of that is sheer personality power.
Two of my favorite-ever coworkers were Louisiana and Mr Linens, who could barely hang clothes on hangers. (Or pretended they couldn't--it always looked like a resistance tactic to me.)
But they were both fantastic storytellers who got everyone laughing-- or howling in protest. 

Mr Linens from the beginning warned me not to take the work seriously--and not to rush. He was full of wise remarks.
"You'll never be done," he would say.

"None of this stuff is ours."

And, "Ask yourself, 'What difference does it make?'"
(Usually, very little.)

He had to quit because his emphysema got so bad, and he took that in stride too. He wasn't interested in assigning blame to tobacco companies and the like.  
"It was my own damn fault. I smoked all my life, now I'm paying for it."

I disagreed, in part---tobacco companies targeted young men like him--but his choice to claim full responsibility served him well. 
His resentment meter had a dim bulb, 
and his sense of self-worth was good, and not inflated.

II. Platitudes are not action plans.

I practice (try to practice) basic skills.
Like, drink some water! (It makes me walk away to the sink, if nothing else.)

Rub your ear-lobes and say, "whoo-sah". (That's from Mr Furniture, a calming anger-management tip he saw in the film Bad Boys II.)

It's fun to make it personal like that.
Most mornings when I walk down the alley to work, when the store comes into view I raise my arms and call out, 
"Hello, Bedford Falls!"  

That's from Jimmy Stewart––recalled from deadly depression in It's a Wonderful Life–– saying, "Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!"

Lately, I've been singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain". Singing a whomper like that forces you to breath.

Blogging! It helps me untangle my confusions.

And, you know, making little things with yarn.

[Tips? Your ideas are welcome!]
___________________________

Anyway, that's all challenging enough with low-level stuff, but I do okay, and I think I've gotten more able to stay light.

It's far harder to stay light when the matter is dark and heavy.
I've said before, the lack of leadership during the era of Covid & George Floyd's murder, and now while ICE is rampaging around town, really shapes the emotional environment. 

I do my little things---hang god's eyes, hand out whistle kit bags with buttons that read I stand with immigrants. 

"I see. I care. Beauty is possible in this ugliness".

In contrast with even the quietest expression of concern, leadership's silence reads as tacit approval of what's going on. (Even if that's not the intention.)

So, yeah--it matters what they do, or don't do.
AND it matters how they do it.

I'd change the saying:

It's not only what you do,
It's also how you do it.

______________________

III. HOT Thinking

I've been loving listening (free, from the library Libby app) to Michael Pollan reading his book 
"How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression" (2018).

(Oh, I see it's a mini-series too. I'd love to watch it. Have you?)

He gives examples of how people on LSD and other mystical trips come to conclusions so simplistic, they sound as cheesy as a Hallmark card.

"Now I understand, IT'S ALL LOVE!"

I laughed out loud at one woman who sat up in the middle of a therapist/scientist-guided trip, took off her eye-shade, and told the researchers to write down the insight she had that was SO IMPORTANT.

When she came out of the trip, she saw that she'd told them to write down, Eat right, exercise, take care of yourself.

I love this! 
That is so important! It is "all one"!

The challenge, right? is figuring out how to live in that when the very real daily grind breaks The One down into many little annoying motes that stick to our eyes.

We don't live in an All One, All Love world.
We need--another concept Pollan talks about--(I hadn't heard this term)-- HOT Thinking--Higher Order Thinging.

Leadership in my workplace (and plenty of others) barely does any of this---it works on implicit unexamined knowledge.



HOT generates actual heat because it uses energy. 

("The brain has high levels of metabolic activity, and all energy used for brain metabolism is finally transformed into heat."--via)

And, you know, systems want to conserve energy;
 so we often don't think about stuff if we can help it--if we can instead take a shortcut and assume we know what's what.

And that's what's make this era so INTERESTING.
We can choose to ignore what's going on in the 21st century, or, anyway, to not think too much about it, after assigning it a familiar label.

People all over the political spectrum do this.
The 'Die Nazi Scum' attitude of people enraged by ICE is an example of lukewarm thinking.
Fair enough! 
Normal when you're under attack.
But it's the brain equivalent of the ICE-agent thinking itself.
Not a great long-term strategy.

Do we even have a long-term strategy?
LOL
Not at my workplace we don't.

But I think it really behooves us in these interesting times to rise to the challenge and get ourselves one.

I've adopted the motto, "Stay, and be beautiful",
and am working on the strategy of HOW.

That motto is not about denial! It's not glossing over the ugly.
No! I can--and do--feel all the uglies . . . and still hold this overarching ambition.

I feel embarrassed to say this sometimes; 
it sounds foolishly romantic, childish, ridiculously earnest--also, possibly self-aggrandizing?

But it's like what people discover on LSD trips:
Eternal truths are simple.
They're just really, really hard to do.

I don't do them well,
 but I am trying to do them in my slow-poke way.

________________

"It ain't what you do, it's how you do it." 

But how do you "do what you do"?

Gotta fire up the old brain to figure that out. 
(And then do it.)

Also... you know this old chestnut.

“The way to do is to be”—Lao-tse

“. . . To be is to do”—Dale Carnegie

“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra