Happy Hannukah!

Snowdrops bloom in Virginia in January and February. I had a wonderful two-hour hike with a friend but I am still surprised to see snowdrops in December here. We saw a very modern, cool architecture house open so we checked it out. It was beautiful. It had gorgeous floors, so many windows, very modern styling. It had so many bedrooms it could absolutely house way more people than I would ever want to live with. The place could have been an embassy. $3.3 million. 

One of the homes had tiny little toy animals glued all over the fence. See extra for the Ukrainian flag flying. 

This year's flu shot is a good match for the flu in circulation. I'm glad I got one - the person I met the other day? and fell in front of? she has the flu. You can catch it outdoors, but you're much, much more likely to catch it indoors. While I did shake her hand, it was cold so I was wearing gloves.

China is being slammed with Covid. My friend in China was telling me that her students were getting sick while on zoom classes and half the foreign teachers were sick. Now she's sick. The good news is that she got an American vaccine while here. The Chinese vaccines are not as good. 

A Biden administration official recently told members of Congress that Ukraine has the ability to retake Crimea. There is no expectation that an attempt is imminent. 

A Kremlin propagandist admitted Russia underestimated the impact that U.S.-supplied weapons would have on fighting in Ukraine. ""We were joking about American weapons," he continued. "After getting to know HIMARS and 155mm projectiles up close and personal, it's not very funny any more....""

Russia lost 43 tanks in the past week. 

A new report claims that more than one million Russians have called a Ukrainian surrender hotline or visited its website. 

Ukrainian programmers developed Delta, software that helps the military see the battlefield more clearly and predict enemy moves. Delta is run by an innovation center whose staff was drawn from volunteer organizations of drone operators and programmers. Ukrainians are far ahead of Russian forces in making their forces more connected and agile.