Question for whiskey lovers. What’s better, Glenfiddich, Macallan, or Laphroaig? I’m looking in the 15-18 year range.

It’s for a gift for someone fancy. I gave some really nice Scotch to the doctors who helped me with my second pregnancy. I remember the doctor’s brows shot all the way up when he saw it but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was called.

I love Americans, I really do. But there’s one thing about them that bugs me to no ends, and it’s a wide-eyed, happy-clappy belief that theirs is the way and they are “the light, and the life, and the truth of the world.”

See this link and watch the short video at the end for a glaring example of what I’m talking about. There are no words to express how annoying people around the world find this burning need to lecture, reform, and improve them.

We got our first birthday party invitation for Klara since COVID. And the book fair is back. The art fair is back. The local artisan fair is back. The balloon festival is back. The food festival is back. I have every Saturday this month busy with kid activities.

I’m so happy I could cry. I love these local gatherings more than words can describe. The artisans, the painters, the writers, the musicians – these are all the same local people you meet every year. It’s so cool! I’ve led a nomadic lifestyle for so long that I can’t bear missing any of these local events.

I don’t remember if I mentioned this but one thing I learned from the struggle session is that my husband and I belong to different races. We look like first cousins but still. Because Russians are Asians, got it? And Ukrainians are Europeans. We are an interracial couple, got it?

Yes, most of the territory of the Russian Federation is located in Asia but that very sparsely populated Asian territory was conquered by very European Russians centuries ago. Russia conquered the Far East and parts of Central Asia but that didn’t make them racially Asian any more than conquering parts of Africa made Englishmen black.

And now excuse me, I have to go oppress my BIPOC husband with my whiteness.

Folks, this is great news. I’m all for this. I mean I’m all for not mandating either but if I have to choose, I’m totally for something I can remove as opposed to something that I can’t.

I only just now figured out why I colored my hair mahogany red for two years. It was the color of my friend who died. I was trying to keep her alive in that way. The second anniversary of her death is this week, and I went back to my normal color because I can grieve her without this prop now. I have started talking about her more, so I think the grief is moving to another stage.

This was all completely unconscious.