I agree that there's so much awfulness and terrible, heartbreaking deatails all around. The parrots thing I actually find amusing.

If you'd like to see something more hopeful - though it does include some details - one of the stories is of four Bedouins who came to rescue their cousin. But first they rescued 30-40 other people. [link] it's sad, and incredible, and there are literally thousands of other stories like this. I try to focus on them.

Another wonderful story is a story of a nursery in one of the Kibutzes. The survivors thought the plants were all gone. Few people came back to get some stuff back to the families in the places they were evacuated to, to a living nursery with a sign, "we're sorry we had to break in. We wanted to water the plants", left by some other soldiers.

I still can't believe so many people can't return to their homes or rebuilt them (those who want to). They survived unfathomable things. I want them to be able to come back home (if it's not burned down/destroyed). They won't be able to do so for a very long time.

The consequences of this mess for so many is unfathomable. If they somehow manage to find some resolution soon there is still going to be a huge amount of rebuilding to be done. Plus all of the emotional toll. I'm so inspired by those who are doing what they can to give aid and comfort. Seeing the good people helps with maintaining hope for humanity.

Work-related article (for me, anyway) in this week's New Yorker, about the upcoming retirement of the last official lighthouse keeper in America: [link]

(I suspect it's paywalled, sadly)

Those of you who have kept in close touch with me over the past year or so know that my wife Lisa's mother Joy has been dealing with a recurrence of the lung cancer that she's gone a couple of rounds with over the last decade.

Joy came home from the hospital this morning with a hospice team. They don't know how long she has, but I suspect it isn't going to be long.

Lisa and her mother have had a very up-and-down relationship over the years, and Lisa has been her primary caregiver roughly since last November. I would humbly ask you folks for easy-passing~ma for Joy and comfort~ma for Lisa.

Thanks for listening, and giving me a place where I can talk about this stuff, even if I don't have the heart for it most days.

Timelies all!

{{{{Karl and family}}}}

Karl, I'm sorry. 2023 is really taking people out. ETA: I'm thinking maybe you have enough heart for the Pacific Timezone; maybe you have *too much* heart for this.

Very sorry for what you’re going through Karl.

I actually quite like Teams. And I never use my phone for calls now even more than I never used it before!

Salesforce is made from pure evil.

Ok but there’s no arguing with that.

Definitely don’t use my phone much for calls! But we really only use teams for chat and meetings. I know there’s more things but have never managed to get people using the rest of it really.

Consuela the article was not paywalled and was very interesting!

Weirdness to me: body dysmorphia going both ways. I have lost a lot of weight in the past 7 months, but in my brain, I didn’t look as big as I was when I started, and I don’t look all that different now? But next weekend I am going to a big dance event and will see a bunch of folks I haven’t seen since before I started on the weight loss drugs and I suspect it will be weird. I’m a size 12 in my heart, apparently?

I’m a size 12 in my heart, apparently?

The exciting news I can share with you from the Land Of Older is that you'll stop worrying quite so much about your body weight/shape and your new obsession will be "What's Wrong With My Skin?!" (aka, the thin envelope that encompasses my body).

I did multiple tasks today which were not truly Onerous but which I didn't want to deal with for Executive Function/Dysfunction reasons. But bills were paid, checks were cashed, dishes washed and credit cards activated.

As you would imagine, I've been having little phantom limb pangs of wanting to talk to JZ about this or that or just missing her. But recently Matilda has reconnected with her friend Nora and that has dredged up a lot of feelings that only JZ would understand.

In brief, for those of you keeping score at home, Nora and her mother Hannah were incredibly close to us all during Matilda's childhood. Then at the dawn of the pandemic there was a horrible friendship break where Matilda lost Nora, another friend (Davi) and one of her closest friends (Isabella) at the same time her grandfather died and schools shut down for 18 months.

Matilda became very depressed during this period (while I watched Hannah post social media pictures of Nora and Davi happily together summering at a lake during lockdown times.)

But this is not simply a Heroes and Villains scenario. During JZ's hospice care, Hannah was one of the inner circle people who dropped everything (work and family) to tend to Jacqueline's last days.

And I don't know who to talk about who understands the weightiness of Matilda reconnecting with one of her closest friends who did such tremendous harm to her (unmaliciously).

Oh, Karl, so many easy-passing~ma for Joy and comfort~ma for Lisa and all good vibes for you.

I've been having little phantom limb pangs of wanting to talk to JZ about this or that or just missing her.

Oh, JZ would definitely have been the perfect person to understand the complexity of the situation, and have compassion and wise words spoken with passion and heart for every single person in that situation.

Laura, I hope your travels continue as well and smoothly as possible.

Today is my Sister-in_Law's (Hebrew-date) birthday, and in honor of that, we had a family gathering on shabbat (Saturday, yesterday). Not everybody attended: one of her siblings is enlisted now (he had a less-than-a-day's vacation last week, to see his family for the first time since he left on October 7th), so only his wife and kids were present. Also, another - um, how can I phrase it? Nephew-in-law? He's the son the DH's brother - is also enlisted, and his mom and sister were stuck abroad on October 7th and didn't manage to catch a flight back until now (they may return today, hopefully), so all of them were missing, too (He had a weekend off, on the former shabbat, during which he almost entirely only slept, he was so exhausted).

But on the bright side, it was the first shabbat since the war started that there were no alarms where my sister in law and her family live, for the whole time we were there, and the drive back home, so that was a nice surprise.

A good time was had by all those who could attend, so we were glad we did it, even though beforehand we debated among ourselves wether to postpone until more quiet times.

And timelies, y'all.