I thought that was a weird childhood fear, like my fear of the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz.

I still remember being a child and terrified the first time I watched the Wizard of Oz. And probably the next few times too! Family watched it every year, and I dreaded it.

My little sister was scared of the flying monkeys, and I think we didn't watch Wizard of Oz because of that.

I thought that was a weird childhood fear

I thought it was a rational fear that we all shared but there was no reason to talk about it. I did hope there was less chance of it actualizing these days, although never zero, of course.

Almost thirty-four years ago now, in the summer of 1988, my paternal grandmother took me on a trip up the Dnieper River with some of her chapter of the Alameda County Gray Panthers (of which I was the youngest member for quite a while.) The trip was co-sponsored by a local nuclear freeze group, SANE/FREEZE. We flew to Odessa/Odesa, and took a riverboat up to Kiev/Kyiv, with pauses in towns along the river and an excursion to the perimeter of the 30km exclusion zone outside of the (then very recent) reactor disaster at Chernobyl. I got to practice a bit of the Russian that I'd been studying at Berkeley, and learn a little bit of Ukrainian. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I will be thankful for it for the rest of my life.

All of these Ukrainian place names -- Karkhiv, Kherson, Cherkasy -- all of these are places where my feet have touched the ground. My heart is breaking today, and I am not resigned.

{{{Karl}}}

((Karl))

2 of Peanut's classmates have family in Ukraine - mostly in Kyiv. The parents are very worried, of course, but also a bit "here we go again." Ptui on Putin, I say.

Oh Karl. That's heartbreaking.

Although one or more of you (can't remember exactly who) gets credit for amusing my doctor - when she was warning me what sort of ultrasound she was ordering, I said, "Oh! Dildocam." She had never heard it before.

Heh. I once made my ObGyn turn bright red and choke/laugh using that term. "Is that what women call it?" "The women I know do."

I got through a lot of my to do list, and the remaining things on it I have decided I don't care about.

Now I'm torn between finding news I can listen to or read basically nonstop or completely avoiding the news.

I got back from vacation at 2am last night (this morning) and I have to say, I am really not impressed with my reentry into civilization. I would like to go away again and when I come back I would like for Russia NOT to be starting a massive world war and for Texas NOT to be actively engaged in state sponsored child abuse.

Worth a try, Jess. It would be nice if that worked!