Alpine Columbine

I accidentally got 18 instead of three but the good news is that they aren't all making it. 
I gave three which had actual green away. 
I put three pots on the front stairs, of which one is growing. I think I have 8 that are growing on the deck. Now I have my first flower. 

We have a co-worker in town from South Africa. I threw a picnic. Everyone but me loved it. Everyone was thrilled I had put it together. The weather was perfect, which is good because someone took the space I reserved and paid for with the roof. We didn't call the police because "they" were the Montgomery County School System doing an outing with special needs children. Calling the police would have been a __ move but of course, taking our paid-for, reserved space and assuming we wouldn't call the police because they had special needs kids was also a ___ move. At least they cleaned up because if they had trashed it, it was on my credit card. 

We didn't pick the park we'd scoped out last week because someone else had reserved it, so I had never been there and got lost twice trying to find it. 

But they loved my gorgonzola quesadillas. Definitely on the list to make for Kate in Iceland. 

I now have two cooking themes:  eggs and tortillas. (I think I managed toast months ago.) But I only make one dish per meal. 

This is hard to credit but there is an article that says that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has fostered LGBTI rights. 
1) The LGBTI community has raised funds for one of the country's strongest volunteer military groups (does that make it a militia?), the group knows it gets money from gays, and the militia includes far-right members who used to terrorize gays. 
2) Joining the EU means improving your civil liberties which means closer to equal rights for LGBTI
3) Being attacked by Russia has fostered more of an inclusive feeling within Ukraine
Fingers crossed.

Scouts working for Ukraine behind enemy lines directed artillery attacks on two Russian bases in the occupied Kherson region. "In one episode this week, the scouts approached a Russian army installation in the village of Chkalove, and discovered many foreign fighters stationed at the base along with Russian soldiers and heavy weaponry, the senior official said. They fed the coordinates for the base to a Ukrainian artillery unit stationed about 12 miles away. The Ukrainians then pulverized the base...."


"Later that day, scouts directed another artillery attack, this time on a resort complex in Stara Zburivka, near the mouth of the Dnipro River, killing dozens of enemy soldiers, including two generals, the senior official said. One of the generals was from the Russian army and another from Russia’s counterintelligence service, the F.S.B."


"The scouts are local partisans who aid the Ukrainian military on Russian-occupied territory. They might be former soldiers or simply civilians gathering information like the location of enemy units. They can be men pushing potato carts, or farmers, or a grandmother with a cellphone."


The Ukrainian government is providing online advice for insurgents including how to behave in captivity, how to hold a secret meeting, how to commit domestic sabotage, and how to make a smoke grenade at home.  


Data suggests this insurgent activity is growing. 


Russians have realized that they won't have enough wine for the holidays given sanctions so there is a rush on wine.