Moving messages

Given what’s going on right now, I think it’s time for another installment of Vanity Plates Around Town.

Because I’m running out of words.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Product-market fit

I suppose that signs for services (and events like “government auction—Rolex!”) that pop up around the neighborhood are distributed by people hired for the purpose, not by actual representatives of the company being advertised.

And my point about this is that the people hired to drive around areas and jam the sign prongs into the ground are exactly like the ones who walk around neighborhoods and stick flyers for commercial services on doorknobs or in mailboxes: they’re paid by the number of units distributed, not for the specific locations that might represent bang for the buck.

Witness this one for GC Moving:

It’s at the entrance to the “luxury” townhouse development behind me; the development where the units start north of $1.2M.

I mean—it’s possible that, after you’ve signed a mortgage in the seven figures, you might want to save a few bob by hiring a flat-rate moving company. But I’d really question the wisdom of trusting your high-end furniture to such a venture.

Also—Bit Defender won’t even show me their webpage without me signing a risk waiver, so...

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: not alone

I got this totebag maybe a year ago.

It comes from The Barnraisers Project, a group I joined sometime in mid-2023, because I needed help with the concept of community. (And very grateful indeed am I that I discovered this group.) Their leader, Garrett Bucks, writes a really powerful and inspirational newsletter/blog called The White Pages. I strongly urge you to subscribe.

But it’s this tote that inspires my gratitude today because it was central to a lovely encounter I had last week—you know, the week that stripped all pretentions of law-abidingness and decency from the administration and its supporters.

I was at Trader Joe’s, buying milk, carrots and peas. In the past, one cashier (who’s from South Africa and used to be a flight attendant—some years ago we got talking because I’d just been to Singapore) had noticed the bag and gave me a verbal high-five.

(Interestingly, no other cashier at any other grocery store mentioned it, not even at Whole Foods. I suppose in that job you get to the point where you don’t even notice what the customer is handing you.)

Different guy this time, a Black man wearing a face mask (because we’re in the midst of a major flu outbreak, not to mention measles and still Covid-19). He was zipping through my purchases and then said, “What does this bag say? I have to see.”

When he did, he looked up at me and nodded. And he said that he appreciated seeing that message, especially on that day (Thursday), because we can feel so alone with all this shite (I paraphrase), but we’re not.

“No, we’re not alone,” I replied. And we’re not; we are a community, and it’s important that we are reminded of that.

So that’s my gratitude for today: for the message on a totebag I was using that inspired relief in someone I met, and that he reflected back to me.

Now—here’s another one for my shopping arsenal:

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

When will our sorrows end?

To tell you the truth, I’m still struggling with what I saw on multiple videos of the killing on Wednesday of Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis. An ICE thug shot 37-year-old mother of three three times in the head at very close range as she was trying to maneuver her car amid multiple, conflicting shouted orders from his goon colleagues.

ICE refused to let a man identifying himself as a doctor attend to Good and they subsequently refused to let EMTs carry her in a stretcher, so they had to pull her out of her car by her limbs and drag her across the frozen ground.

Since the first shots were fired, administration officials have been lying about it (claiming self-defense for the thug), and—TBH—I am sick to the back teeth of all of them.

I don’t know what caused Good to be in that neighborhood—whether she was an ICE watcher or on her way from dropping off her 6-year-old son at school (the two are not mutually exclusive) or something else. And the reason doesn’t matter—every citizen has a First Amendment right to be in any public street without fear of government agents hauling off and murdering them as they’re trying to get out of the way.

So my earworm today is from the Irish vocal collective Anúna, “Jerusalem”. I need calming down.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Tears before bedtime

Here’s a change from my usual vehicular posts: the interesting point was not a vanity plate, but the bumper sticker.

I feel their pain.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Wakeup call

The doves in the ‘hood have twigged to the fact that most mornings the sliding door to my patio opens and a rain of safflower seeds hits the ground. So they wait for it. Every single morning.

Because it’s been my observation that they are basically squirrels with feathers—they hoover up everything a
nd bully other birds out of their way—I often don’t throw out seed if I see them; I just go out on my walk. So they wait.

Eventually I do toss out some seed, because my birds count on me. Then they eat and move on to their next station.

Anyway—this is what I woke up to yesterday morning; a carpet of doves.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

The holly bears a berry

Okay, what you’re looking at here is a row of seventightly-pruned holly trees, each with bright red berries.

They were planted last week near the block of model townhouses for the development behind my cluster.

The one where they’re building 82 three- and four-story units on five acres, at $1.2+ a pop. (Well, $750K for the Affordable Dwelling Units, which have only a single-car garage and no "rooftop terrace".)

The reason I took the picture is that these are all female trees; hence the berries. But without a male holly within 50ft, there will be no more berries. And there are no indications of a male (they’re usually kind of scraggly looking) in the landscaping.

Enjoy, yuppies, while you can.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: hydration

Okay, well, 2026 got off to a rocky start. The president of the United States staged a military strike on a sovereign nation, kidnapped it’s head of state and announced that we’re going to run the country until [some vague hand wave about “proper transition of power,” as though this mook has any notion about that]. Oh—and we’re going to take all their oil. Representatives of finance corporations are already getting their shots for the trip to Caracas to see how they can suck all the wealth out of the country.

So—I’m going small for my gratitude today.

Many years ago—in the Before Times—on the recommendation of my hairstylist, I bought a SodaStream so I could make my own sparkling water. I don’t add flavors, I don’t try to turn it into Coke or Fanta; I just make sparkling water.

I'm not sure how much cheaper it is, but the SodaStream allows me to indulge in this small luxury without adding to the plastic burden of the planet. I’m grateful that I can do this and drink as much as I like. (Or, as much as I feel like making.)

At time of writing, mid-day on Sunday, I’m on my second bottle of the day.

It’s good to stay hydrated in these times, so I’m grateful to have this little extra to help me.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

How do you go on?

For the second day of 2026, I’m sharing something from Bonnie Raitt, "Will the Sun Ever Shine Again". It’s pensive and sad, but what I take from it is that not only do I need to look for the sign, I need to make the sign.

That’s my resolution for this year.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Slurping in the New Year

Given what a complete load of shite 2025 was, let’s start out the new year with robins.

I walked into my living room Tuesday afternoon (after finishing yesterday’s post on notable deaths of the year) to see two robins drinking from the birdbath. There were more of them in the trees and on the ground. (It’s been my observation that robins, like nuns, never travel alone; in fact, if you see one, it generally means that there’s a squadron of them nearby.)

We’ve had some cold weather in the past couple of days, so they may have had difficulty finding unfrozen water, but my birdbath is heated. (No, it’s not like a hot tub; it just keeps the contents from freezing.) So it may have been their best source in the neighborhood.

There were so many drinking, I had to replenish the water mid-afternoon.

And I was entranced watching them.

Let’s hope this is a harbinger for 2026.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu