Yay for baby steps, Sheryl!

David & JZ that sounds like a lovely evening.

Sheryl YAY for your parents being moved.

Boo for our chest freezer not working right, M discovered all the food was thawed in it and had to throw everything out. Which, I'm glad I didn't have to face that.

I am skipping to say thanks for the Birthday wishes! I think I just finished my personal thanks on Facebook but I get wary of mentioning how we know each other on another platform. So I can’t say enough about how grateful I am for the Buffistas. You support me know through everything and I know I can always find support here…. Also I think I am meeting my sister ( discovered in 23 and me but also I already knew due to super sleuthing) for lunch soon!

Also, Cashmere, I want to time travel and smite people.

Happy birthday, Sophia! I'm excited about you meeting your sister.

I am trying to cut back on FB and spend more time here, but I did see something this morning that, unlike most things on FB, was totally charming: A German woman popped into a tag group to ask if there was a word in English for a particular kind of sexist, verbally violent white guy on the internet, because she'd seen a bunch of different interactions recently play out in exactly the same unpleasant way and she wondered if we already had slang for it.

All the English speakers asked, "Why do you need an English word? Isn't German already all over that? It's legendary for its infinite array of incredibly specific compound words for uniquely terrible people!"

To which she said, "Those are all very long and hard to remember even for us. You guys came up with snappy things like 'boomer' and 'incel.' I love that!"

And there the conversation went, down a mutual language appreciation rabbit hole with all the English speakers loving on Backpfeifengesicht and Taubenlecker and the German speaker swooning over the short sharp shock of Karen and dickweed.

JZ, that's really cool. I'm still never going back to FB, though: they are responsible for so many deaths and the potential failure of American democracy. (Also they won't let me log in without uploading a copy of my passport, and I'm not doing that, so I can't even delete my account!)

On edit: which is not to challenge anyone else's fondness for the platform! I have not used it much in years, but I know a lot of people for whom that's the only way to talk to a lot of friends/family. We all make those calculations, and I admit that I am on Instagram, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

In other news I just got back from a work trip to San Diego, where I sat in a ballroom with 50 other environmental people for 3 days, and drank too much with said other people at the poolside bar at the hotel for 4 evenings. My body needs a break. It was great, and professionally-useful: I got to hang with people I hadn't seen in several years, and met a lot of relatively new hires. But we were pretty much unmasked entirely because the ballroom was so big (you could play an ultimate frisbee game in there without interfering with the presentations), and while I did make sure to be masked in the airport and in Ubers, I'm still a bit worried... There was a lot of hugging when we all left.

Cashmere, I cannot believe your story: it's so horribly selfish. Even if your dad had been vaccinated, all his caregivers should be too! I hope he and you recover quickly.

In other news, I read that long piece in the WaPo about the GOP strategy and US politics going forward, and it was so disheartening! Makes me wish my family were more recent immigrants to the US, so I could try to get Irish citizenship. I'm really worried about this country.

I keep hoping to meet a nice Canadian or Irish girl or something, Consuela, because likewise none of my ancestors came over recently enough from Ireland. (Some others are more recent but don’t do the same “if your grandparent…”)

they won't let me log in without uploading a copy of my passport

What?!?! Wow.

Yeah, agreed that's unacceptable, and you are right not to do that.

I keep hoping to meet a nice Canadian or Irish girl or something

We've discovered that if we buy a certain amount of property in Greece we can get a Greek passport, and then EU citizenship. Considering JZ's family over there it's viable and tempting.