In totally random news...

I'll be honest-- this entire post hinged on photos, which my phone is refusing to send to my computer. *sigh* I'll post the info anyway, and maybe, eventually, I can get the photos online.

*  Squish turned in her books today and graduated from the 8th grade! She got to the school, handed off her book, was shoved through a door, the principle announced her name, and one teacher applauded while another one handed her a certificate and she was like, "Huh?"

Anyway, I took her to Starbucks and we called it a day.

She also made plans for a one-on-one visit with a friend today, since California is lightening up on restrictions a bit. I'm just so glad she's going to get to go somewhere.

* I finished a red shawl for a friend. Woot!  This is the same pattern as the purple and green one from my box of shawls--I like it so much in a crisp, plain yarn! And it was Cascade, so the hand might have been crisp but the feel was squishy soft!

* Snacks the bird (as you might remember) ended up at Wildlife Rescue, where he will hopefully be fed until he can be released. Bless his little heart... For people obsessed with what kind of baby bird he was, the people at Rescue said he was a house sparrow.

*  Yesterday we held a public shaming for Nebula the Destroyer--his second this week. The first was for the death of Snacks the Bird's mother--and the injury to poor Snacks himself--but this was for the destruction of a work in progress. I was, in fact, so frustrated with the destruction that I refused to restart the project itself and instead went with something a little simpler. Shame, Nebula the Destroyer, SHAME!

* ZoomBoy just came out humming Mr. Blue Sky-- he is apparently one assignment away from being done with school. Whether he's  passed everything or not is totally irrelevant. He's ALMOST. DONE. WITH. SCHOOL.

* Mate is making plans for a soccer season this year--which feels, by the way, BONKERS. He keeps waiting for the news or the Governor or someone to get loud with, OH FOR FUCKS SAKE WE DON'T HAVE THIS UNDER CONTROL YET... but so far, no. Tentatively, we hope.

* I have a small Black Lives Matter sign up on my house (I put it up over a week ago)--it can be read from the street if anyone sees it. I'm awaiting a larger sign that doesn't look homemade. I'm a liability in a protest--I can't run, I'm super slow, and I can't get down on my knees and up again with my hands over my head. But I'm reading the Neighborhood App, with all of the casual racists assuming that everybody feels the way they do. I figure this I can do. I can tell my neighborhood that their opinion isn't unanimous. That the neighborhood is only as racist as they make it. Between this--and donating money to the bail funds for the protestors across the country--I feel a little more involved in this super important thing that's happening across the world.

And a moment about that--my Patreon money clears on the second of the month. This month, I told Mate we'd have the money in the bank after he'd spent the entire day looking at the news.

"Good," he said, voice choked. "Donate as much as you can to the bail fund."

I couldn't donate all of it--I donate to the Keith Milano Fund for Suicide Prevention this time every year. But donating part of my Patreon to that cause was important to the family. It's strange, isn't it, how putting aside something you want--l mean, I've had my eye on a new swift and ball winder for a long time now. I WANTED it, like, so bad--for something more meaningful, can make you feel better about the world.

Kindness matters. All kindness matters. Strength in kindness matters. Peaceful protest matters. My friends and family matter. Justice and equality matter.

Black lives matter.