In the hotel complex

I’m trying to protect your sensibilities. This is a statue that is placed behind a seated area with curtains. It caught my eye. 

Today people came in to observe our process and they were thrilled. We’re so efficient, so collegial, so professional. This is my first time doing this and I’m grateful to be with such a good team. One of us will think something is a good idea and we will all agree or one of us will know why it actually isn’t and then persuade the rest of us. There is no bickering. There is no ego. There is cooperation and camaraderie. (I so hope we aren’t jinxing it.) 

I finally lost something! After dropping things repeatedly, having them spill out of my bags repeatedly, I have finally lost my backup battery. Fortunately I’m in a major city so I was able to buy a new one in the protected complex.

Speaking of - based on the rule that we cannot walk even during the day, I assessed the danger here as worse than Maputo or Bogota. Those places, as long as you weren’t carrying anything or in the wrong area, you could walk during the day. Here we are forbidden. It turns out that years ago someone was mugged. Not murdered! Not knifed! Mugged. Banning all walking seems to everyone here an overreaction. I complained about the online training about applying tourniquets when legs are blown off in bombings and then asked where people’s tourniquets are - aren’t they supposed to be carrying them all the time so I can apply them? Oy. 

Greatest point of the day - I brought Icelandic chocolate to the man who told me about it in the first place. I brought every bar they make of dark chocolate with pretty orange tissue paper in an OmNom box. He was thrilled! It turns out he’s started an Instagram account - @boycottchocolatejunk where he rates all chocolate. 

John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, told reporters that a sign of Putin being in trouble is how often he changes generals. 

The European Union is set to propose a new package of sanctions on Russia. They might also sanction Wagner. 

Norway will send eight Leopard 2 tanks and other equipment to Ukraine. It will also send four special purpose tanks from its armored engineering and bridge layer category. They are tanks, so they can go where tanks go, but they can lay down a bridge so other tanks can traverse it. 
There was a huge fire in Moscow at a car service center right next to a research & development facility for precision instruments used in naval and aviation missile weapons. Huh.