Today Jazz Hampton ([email protected]) dropped by my senior residence, Becketwood for something and then just sat and chatted with a few of us. He was delightful, didn’t even mention he was running for mayor. I’m ranking him for sure.

On the Parkway with friends, a gorgeous day out and lots of honks and waves.

The mayoral forum at Sabathani Community Center, Frey represented by a name sign and a bottle of water. Seems about right.

The mayoral forum at Sabathani Community Center, Frey represented by a name sign and a bottle of water. Seems about right.

I went to see Cabaret @guthrietheater.bsky.social and it reminded me of seeing the Irresistible Rise of Arturo Ui there in 1968 and got the same gut feeling that fascists are here to stay.

Went to Aldi today and what we call the fun aisle was almost empty, they’d moved some random food into part of it. Usually it’s full of random items, I bought a potting table there. I think we’re seeing the first effects of tariffs.

Yesterday about forty friends and neighbors celebrated John Lewis’ birthday along with similar groups all over the twin cities. Today the Star Tribune noticed none of this.

I’m happily lying on my couch listening to live music outside my window. I was thinking that if I wasn’t old I’d go down to listen. But I remembered one of my favorite memories from my twenties was lying in our makeshift camper listening to BB King. So maybe I have always liked music this way.

I just got a letter from Social Security saying that because of the new bill my SS would no longer be taxed. I know this is a lie but who knows how many people might believe it.

I am missing my husband so much today. Between the T/Musk rumble and Aaron Rodgers forgetting to retire and signing up for the Steelers, there is so much he’d want to discuss.

So I’m canceling my subscription to the Minneapolis Star Tribune as they have quit covering local news and are slipping to full MAGA, I don’t need to pay for fluff and whatever bits of news they can’t avoid. I’ll send that money to local progressives.

I saw the orthopedic doctor yesterday and got cortisone in both knees. I'm not a candidate for new knees which is fine with me. She recommends walking but no stairs. I've been trying to do stairs here but she said use the elevator all the time.

I started on Bluesky trying to replace twitter of 2010, tried Mastadon but was disappointed. But now I’ve gotten Bluesky titrated to the point that it’s better for local news than the Strib by far, equals the MN Post and for truly local news, the neighborhood and ward news is exceptional.

I’m slowly getting rid of Substack, I’m going to miss a lot of the writers but it’s clear I need to leave. I did Venmo one writer their fee but won’t do that again. Hopefully some of them will move.

The League of Women Voters has for the first time in their history gone against their nonpartisan stands.

www.lwv.org/newsroom/pre...

In this time of despair, I’ve been reading Robin Wall Kummerer’s book, The Serviceberry. The first chapter was so full of hope, I decided to read a chapter a day. Now I’m going to reread it, a chapter a day so I can have some positive thoughts.

I just deleted Instagram, they are removing abortion information from all their spaces, imagine Facebook will soon follow.