A' wede away

It’s been a week for sorrow. The ashes of USCP officer Brian D. Sicknick lay in honor in the Capitol rotunda he died to protect from insurrectionists last month. Following a service attended by his comrades and members of Congress, he was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Sicknick suffered fatal injuries when the Trumpists beat him with a fire extinguisher on 6 January.

Also this week an Idaho National Guard Blackhawk crashed, killing three men, who were known to one of my colleagues. As their commanding officer said, the Guard’s aviation unit is a tight-knit community, and the loss has been very, very hard.

I’m feeling the need to lament, and you know who really does laments? The Scots. “Flowers of the Forest” is one that has always managed to start the tears flowing for me, so that’s what we’re having.

The folk song commemorates the Scottish defeat to the English at Flodden in 1513. As a bagpipe piece, it is so thoroughly connected to the loss of life that some pipers will only play it publicly at funerals or memorial services. I’ve seen it associated in particular with military funerals, which seems apt.

This instance is not technically a funeral, but close enough: it’s being played at the nightly Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium, which commemorates the British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in and around Flanders during the First World War. Except for the period of German occupation, Belgian and British officials have conducted the ceremony every night at 2000 since 1928.

Rest in peace, Officer Sicknick, CWO Jesse Anderson, CWO George Laubhan and CWO Matthew Peltzer.

 

Ducky

 A while ago I was walking through the ‘hood and caught something off to the side.

This is an enclosure that the townhouses have in the front to hide the AC condenser and your trash bins. Don’t want that sort of thing lowering property values.

Anyhow, someone has an imagination and a drole sense of humor.

 

 

Uninvited guest

Well, the party’s over.

A squirrel showed up on Monday. And then back again yesterday. Only the one, though, so that’s not too bad. (I also had a swarm of robins, but I was in the middle of a call and couldn’t move to get a photo.)

Here his is, noshing his way through the snow.

Clearly communicating

Saturday, I had to mail a package to Canada. Since the USPS self-service kiosks won’t let you mail international parcels, I had to go into the main post office in the People’s Republic during working hours.

As I was waiting in line, I noticed the big, splashy electric banners over the service windows, the ones that let you know all the cool things the USPS can do for you:

Um…

 

Gratitude Monday: snow peace

Big snow storm came through the District They Call Columbia yesterday; supposed to be a nasty day today on account of melting and freezing. I’m grateful I don’t have to commute in it.

But it certainly was beautiful, if you didn’t have to drive anywhere. Kids in the ‘hood went sledding—or, I guess, technically, more like sliding—down the slope in the back, and folks were out with their dogs in the corporate campus beyond. (I saw one dog that I swear looked like a coyote, but since it was obviously fetching something for a human, I guess I was wrong.)

In my own back yard, I had visitors all day. At times, more than 25 at a whack, and all getting along. I must have fed them a couple of pounds of seed throughout the daylight. Some of them were picking up supper up until 1730.

And you know what? Not one single squirrel, all day long.

So, that’s what I’m grateful for today: a feast for birds without greedy Scuridae.

 

 

No words needed, really

Technically, my earworm for today isn’t, uh… Well, it’s not… Which is to say…

Look—it’s different. But we are living in a Warner Bros. color cartoon produced, directed and performed by the Republican Party, and I, for one, believe we should acknowledge this. This clip cracks me up, and we need the levity.

The orange mouths completely did me in.

 

NOT at the library

<sigh> During the first phase of 2020 lockdown, Fairfax County Public Library—like many others across the country—completely shut down. Then, maybe early summer, they allowed patrons to place holds on materials; when they were ready the library staff delivered via curbside checkout. Towards fall, they opened up the facilities, but were limiting people to 30 minutes inside.

About a week or so ago, they announced we’re back to curbside pickup.

This troubles me because it cuts off a certain percentage of the population who don’t have either Internet or mobile phones (both necessary for the process). Public libraries are there to serve the public, to open the world to people without great means. This is another example of COVID-19 exacerbating the wealth divide, and it sucks.

 

 

Frozen beauty

We got hit with some wintery mix here in the District They Call Columbia early yesterday. There was some snow on the ground, which didn’t last, but when I looked outside I noticed water frozen in various configurations on plants, so I took some pix.

Gratitude Monday: Unexpected help

A few days before Christmas a colleague on a Teams chat informed us of an organization that allows people to provide an extra computer monitor to school teachers who are trying to carry on remotely with mostly a laptop screen. Two Screens for Teachers takes the requests from the teachers and then matches the donor; the cost is about $115, give or take (depending on the location, because taxes). You can either donate money or go to Amazon to order the kit—monitor plus HDMI cable.

I thought that was a good idea, so I signed up for two, and specified I wanted the monitors to go to teachers at low-income schools. I got one in Chicago and one in Huntington Park, Calif. The deal is that the teacher has to take delivery at the school; I assume because otherwise people would just sign up for free monitors. So both teachers confirmed their school addresses before I placed the order.

Well, there was a bit of a blip because it was during school holidays, and even though I unchecked the Amazon boxes for weekend delivery, naturally USPS attempted to deliver on a Saturday at both schools.

Well, I heard nothing back until a week ago when the teacher in Huntington Park said she hadn’t received hers. (For some reason USPS in Chicago did successfully deliver, but never notified me. And the teacher never acknowledged receipt.) This was entirely in USPS’s hands, and I admit that I was not sanguine about having to sort it out.

I first called their national “customer service” number; when I input the school’s ZIP code, the VAR basically told me they could do nothing and hung up. I had to Google how to launch an inquiry into non-delivery, because the USPS site is not at all intuitive. And once I did that for the two packages (monitor and cable) I got automated emails saying they’d been received. That was on the 16^th. I was not filled with joyful anticipation.

On the 20^th I received an email from a customer service rep in the local post office saying that they were holding the packages because the school was closed and unable to take delivery. Well, but here’s the thing, there was a name for the rep, Ahsha Jones, and a phone number. So on Thursday, I called her.

I asked if I could either send the parcels on to the teacher’s home address, or return them and re-order. Neither was possible because of the class of postage Amazon and UPS used (UPS uses USPS for last mile delivery). But the teacher could come in and pick up the packages. All she needed was ID because they were addressed to her.

And then Ahsha told me, “We’re holding three more of the same things for [school] teachers.”

Me: “Monitors and cables?”

Ahsha: “Yes. You want me to get the names?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

So she did. I thanked her profusely and notified the Two Screens for Teachers and my teacher, and as a result four elementary teachers in Huntington Park have 22” monitors to help them do their jobs.

And today I’m grateful for the opportunity to help teachers in a trying time, and I’m super grateful for Ahsha, who absolutely saved the day.

 

 

Food for the soul

Back in maybe October, the Gift Fairy swung by my place and left a squash at my front door, just because it was beautiful. And it was:

I left it on my dining table because it was so pretty, and I watched it ripen:

Then I cut it open around and it was still beautiful:

Also, it was delicious.