You Don't Live Like I Do

Nearer to "home" for me, this story from St. Peter Minnesota about local cops actually blocking the kidnapping and murder squads from kidnapping someone made me have lots of feelings. All cops are bastards because it's the job and not the individual that sucks, but it's different in small towns. "It's believed to be the first time a local police department in Minnesota intervened in a federal law enforcement action since the surge in immigration enforcement began two months ago," the article says. And it's clearly because they were trying to kidnap someone whose husband knows the police chief (though that's easier in small towns), has a lawyer, knows that ICE aren't allowed to search his wife's car without a warrant. But it seems to have made a hell of an impression on that police chief; here's hoping it's able to affect his work and his colleagues for the better as well.

V watched a video about it (they follow a few YouTube streamers, including at least one who happens to live in Minnesota, so they're getting lots of video clips of this kind of stuff) and said an ICE agent was stomping up and down the road having a tantrum because he wasn't allowed to steal somebody.

Mostly Moira of course.

But I'm also missing my DVD boxset that included Waiting for Guffman and A Mighty Wind.

Today was a hard day, one of those where I'm just worn down I think.

Today I'd like to share this Letter From Minnesota. I keep thinking that Minneapolis, St. Paul, other Minnesotan cities have big populations of refugees, from Somalia and from the U.S.'s "secret war" in southeast Asia. Not just in living memory but people my age who arrived as children. My heart breaks that people who came to Minnesota specifically for safety and sanctuary (Renee Good among them) are now finding it so unsafe.

So. Anyway. Some good things:

1. I got a message saying my bloods are fine, which is especially exciting because this means I can finally (six months later than expected) get blood taken only every six months instead of every three months.
2. I went to the gym and actually felt the good brain chemicals from it this time. Also, an annoying charge that had been on my account for a month was just wiped out by the young person behind the counter, who didn't even give me a chance to explain why I thought it was unjust, he just sorted it right away!
3. Not only has a transphobic group been blocked from a transphobic attempt to keep trans women out of women's swimming places. More than 32,000 people said they wanted the ponds to remain trans inclusive – 86% of the respondents to the consultation on this. This followed previous votes overwhelmingly supporting trans pond users, and a petition with over 14,000 signatures asking to keep the ponds inclusive. Transphobes are disproportionately noisy and have too much access to power in the UK. But it's important to hang on to the reality which is how neutral-to-positive the majority of people are towards trans people.

This afternoon, my phone got stuck in a boot loop. It was bad enough when I was looking at it with utter confusion, but when D finished work and I could ask him to have a look at it, he looked just as baffled. Uh-oh!

I missed it immediately: my day is so much easier to get through with podcasts or audiobooks to keep me company. I struggled more to eat lunch (leftover balsamic mushrooms, on toast) without the distraction. There was a nice "like in the old days" element of having to read my library book and being left to just Wonder if an email I was waiting for had arrived or not, but it was difficult when I didn't have anything to drown out ambient noise when I was trying to relax. I do understand why separate mp3 players are having a resurgence (though I'd want a podcast player as well as an audiobook player and that sounds Complicated).

When D and I went to walk Teddy, V was upstairs so I wanted to lock the door. I grabbed their keys instead of mine, probably because I'd done that yesterday when they and I had been the ones going out and D had been upstairs working. But this time, by the time we got back to our street, the Tesco van was in our driveway, earlier than the time slot we'd been given. Poor V had had to scramble and move stuff to open the kitchen door and the side gate, and pile all the groceries on the dining table. We got back in time to put everything away but they were clearly exhausted and I felt absolutely awful at having inadvertently locked them in the house (my keys were right near the door but they didn't know that so it didn't actually help) and made them deal with an extra hurdle because Tesco was so early and with no earning.

I slept very badly last night and had an early start, going with D to his latest dental hospital appointment, so by the time I finished work I was feeling really gross and thought I'd lie down for a bit. I ended up falling asleep and waking up only when D told me dinner was ready and he'd sent our apologies for queer club which had already begun by that point. Oops. But it was kind of a relief, not to have to go anywhere else today; I was feeling gross even despite rhe nap and being around people felt difficult.

After we ate, D said he suddenly had a craving for a root beer float, and I said that thinking about ice cream made me want ice cream all of a sudden. We couldn't get root beer on such short notice but we did drive to the Co-op and get Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream. D had had a big day with another minor oral surgery so early in the morning, we'd been good and a treat seemed like a good idea. It'd been a while since we'd done something silly just because we can.