SUNDAY MORNING SUN DEFIES HORRORS OF WAR

THROUGH THE DRAPERIES OF MY BEDROOM COMES THE SUN.  Have to get up early to take my dog out.  Go back to bed.  Snuggle for warmth. Have to go to the store for groceries this morning. Don't feel like getting dressed. Would like to read one of the books I ordered in but have been watching one YouTube video after another to follow developments and listen to opinions about what's happening in Ukraine.  Of course I support Democracy over Dictatorship. 

Musk links Ukraine to the Internet from space.

McCain was right.

Our intelligence was right. 

Thinking of various people I've met over the last couple years - in stores, in coffee houses, taking walks... who informed me that they did not TRUST our government.

Walmart dog food isle:  Man and his wife and I start talking about all the dog food coming in from China on those backed-up ships and dog food shortages and prices going up.  Start talking about nonprofit groups that spay and neuter at no charge. Man says they called everywhere after having cats and dogs - kittens and puppies - arrive to their yard.  Have you tried Sam Simon? Conversation, lead by husband, turns to why they are not wearing masks, not taking vaccinations, and fast forwards to his list of governmental agencies you cannot trust.  His list includes the FBI.  "They are all corrupt," He says.

I know I have to get out of the conversation at that point.

I still think the United States of America is the best.

I wish them a good day and move on.

On my list of things to buy today is dog food.

I see the film of refugees heading for the Polish border especially and people in their winter coats and hats, pulling wheeled suitcases, and some of them have brought their pets along.

A  white chihuahua in a lady's arms.

HUMANS IN A DOG'S DISGUISE

My human in a dog's disguise is sleeping a lot.  Some days she wants to half run around the block, some days she doesn't want to get out of bed, or goes right back in...

Has Putin gone mad?

How will this play out?

We are on high alert for nuclear war.

C 2022 Christine Trzyna

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT : LOOSE CANNONS : TALKING TO STRANGERS

Went to the library to order in some books. A memoir and a biography.  It seems these are the two genre's I read mostly these days.  Distanced from fiction.

But every few hours I check the news on the war being staged in UKRAINE.

I try to imagine what it would be like if there was combat in the streets here.  If apartment buildings were being hit by missiles here.  If thousands of women and children were taking shelter in the subways, without food and water. If men eighteen to sixty were told they must not leave the country but must stay and fight in any way they can. 

Reports that Putin is actually mentally ill.  Suggestions that he has been affected by a Covid infection - something wrong with his brain - not thinking straight.  Notions that he wants to recreate the Soviet Union as his last effort before he leaves office.  Notions that he will never resign or retire.

Sean Penn in Ukraine filming.

At the library there was a woman who told me that she had just gotten out of a mental hospital. She said so much was going wrong in her life that she just couldn't take it any more.  She's been trying to find her adult son.  She suggested that he was involved in criminality and was an addict.  She had to find him.   He was somewhere in LA. I had to wonder if he was the main cause of mental distress or if she hoped he would help her.  Too many people lost to the maze of drug addiction.  Too many criminals, sociopaths, who deliberately seek out those who need escape, to hook them, to traffic them.  Too much evil.

A boom goes off in the neighborhood.

Somewhere down the street - possibly in a house - there is someone who likes to shoot off something once in a while.  A gun or perhaps something in the category of a firework. This person always does this at the exact top of an hour.  I imagine this person to be a man and imagine the man going outside into a yard. And usually at a time when many people are sleeping. Just one loud and unexpected boom.

Does he feel relieved after he destroys the sleep of others?  Is he discharging an emotion?

Is he someone who should be bearing arms?

"I feel overwhelmed," I said to the woman at the library.  "It's all so much bigger than me."

On the walk home I encountered some workman blocking a sidewalk in front of a house that looked like it needed some refurbishing.  Old trees had been beheaded months ago and their trunks stood in front of the house. I asked a man," Are the trees dead? Is there any sign that they are going to sprout?"

"It's been six months.  No leaves," he said in accented English.

We agreed that the trees were too traumatized from beheading to be alive.

"Where are you from?"

"Hungary."

The man told me he had gone back and forth to Hungary for some years and then one day he realized he was not going back.  He was from the southern part and had been born in what is now Yugoslavia.  He talked about Hungary being chopped after World War II, so that it's now one third the size that it was before.

I knew about that.

"Do you think refugees from UKRAINE are going to flood into Hungary?"

"No, they will go into Romania.  The border with Hungary is small.  Romania," he said.

What is it like to flee with nothing but a rolling suitcase, not knowing where you will be safe, where you will sleep, where you will find a bathroom when you have to use one? 

Here in America, our refugees are the homeless.

One place to go is the library.

C 2022 Christine Trzyna

YESTERDAY and TODAY : TALKING TO STRANGERS

Yesterday outside the library there was a woman laying on the cement under the porch with a little viscous dog protecting her.  I thought I heard her moaning.   I asked her if she was alright.  

"My arm hurts" she said.

"Can you sit up?" I asked

"A little," she said.

Then she curled into a fetal position and started to cry, openly..

"Are you OK?" I asked

She cried, "I want my mother."

***

My eyes feel strained.

My chair is uncomfortable and my back feels tweaked.

Actually, I've been typing for hours today, lots of things to attend to and several long letters I may never send. Really, I want to stay in bed all day tomorrow and read, and pretend I have no problems.  I would feel guilty if I did.

What is the point?

To what shall I turn my attention to now?

I saw a librarian I like smoking a cigarette.

We await definitive news about the possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  I hope not. 

The ships are coming in, the empty containers are stacked, there are ads out all over for truck drivers.

I'm still wearing a mask every day when I go inside buildings.

I got one of those free three-mask packs that the government sent out to pharmacies for distribution. 

The prices at the grocery store are so high so suddenly it's frightening. What really got me was seeing gallons of water, supposedly bottled in the mountains north of here, at fifty cents higher. 

Children who are getting free food at school are littering the neighborhood with it, not appreciating it, just throwing it to the ground on their walk home. Pizza, salad, carrots, apples, oranges, nuts, burgers, in wrappers, littering the lawns. I have lost my pity for them.

My dog is still alive but more fragile than ever. I know she cannot live forever. I'm not ready for her to die.  I check on her when she's sleeping. I tell her I love her more frequently.  She is going blind, one eye much worse than the other.  She moves her head from left to right to scan. She scares more easily.

The slum lord with the empty building near me fake-tried to rent the remodeled unit. We all know that she does not want to rent it. 

This past weekend garage sales started.

After three days of unseasonably hot weather, it turned cold and it hailed!  Tonight I will be under blankets again.