today the enshinening

Okay, that didn’t really work as a blog post title, but the Suzanne the Cleaning Specialist and Carer will be here today and Jeff and I have sworn a mighty blood oath (okay maybe it was coffee and PowerAde) that we’ll clean out the fridge today as our part in the enshinening.

Two kudos overnight; word count stands at 4890; my fave sentence out of the last writing session is

He tried to get in the front seat and she stared at him, a bleak and judgemental reckoning which took in every aspect of his appearance until the impossible happened; he got redder.

They’re about to visit a brothel, but not for any regular reason. Aren’t you anxious to learn why? NB he’s red because he’s sunburned, and not because he’s a tourist.

Jeff and I emptied the fridge of its rottenness (Jeff was the motor). We now have three different kinds of cheese, and condiments. Shop tomorrow I reckon. I am taking a 20 minute break because my back is screaming and then I’ll wipe down the bums of all the containers and plug everything back into the fridge.  Next up: scheduling the next clean. (later it’s on the household calendar) I believe according to the Sidetracked Sisters you’re supposed to do the fridge once a month but if we do it twice a year that would be amazing. Suzanne will do it but she’s only marginally bendier than me and Jeff and she does charge extra for that, so …. (Later, still have to clean one piece of glass and wipe out the freezer but it’s done)

and in war news, the tank manufacturer in the former Soviet Union has shut down the line, no parts. Whoever told Putin YEAH SURE WE ARE TIGHT AND GOOD FOR SUPPLY CHAIN ON ARMAMENTS is probably licking out privies in NovySibirsk now under the lazy eye of a guard who’s probably busy wearing out his pocket icon of Our Lady Derzhavnaya in thanks for not being posted to the front.

aaaaaand them damn gritty Ukrainians be torching Russian ships, which are large and invitingly shootable-at and pretty much defenceless given the collapse of daytime air support for Russian assault troops and supply chains…  since it turns out that the Ukrainian air force, tiny as it is, is blisteringly effective, and the mobile rocket launchers are STILL BEING OPERATED from inside Mariupol which means that whatever the fucking Russians say, Mariupol has not been pacified.

Tyler Rogoway, whom I started following on twitter some years back (he’s an American military aircraft journalist with Ukrainian ancestors) says that Putin has to quit, because if he wins, he’ll be facing the worst insurgency in the history of warfare; porous borders with hundreds of millions of dollars of modern mobile armaments, and a civilian population armed to the teeth, properly trained and disciplined and bitter af, and people around the world who can’t tell the difference between a sh and a shch will be raising money to make it even worse for the grunts on the ground; while Russians starve and he’s forced to figure out whether to withdraw troops to pacify his own civilians, especially the ones closest to Ukraine who are getting more of the real story. If a billionaire who isn’t a citizen of the NATO countries starts ordering and shipping aircraft to Ukraine man that would be entertaining and horrific — and I want the Russian army to go home and stay there.

Katie’s coming with both the boys after Suzanne leaves.