I delivered my speech on ex-wives on Saturday. It was a big hit. The ToastMaster, Vitaliy, told me I should make a video of it and paste it on YouTube. I might do that. Considering that I have not heard from the first wife for 35 years, and the second for 11 it is abundantly clear that they do not want to talk to me. I do not have to worry about destroying a relationship that does not exist. Moreover, everybody else who might care, including our kids and her relatives, are also not talking to me. Why not burn my bridges?
The success of my third marriage is the thing that makes this possible. All three kids demand a hug good night, pile all over me when I’m on the sofa trying to do something else, and want to go with me when I go to the store. Oksana asks me every day if and why I love her. Without my miraculously having found and married her close to my 68th year the question of whether or not I could have made a successful marriage would have always hung in the air.
Not all relationships are so successful. Oksana and her mother are not talking to each other. Mother is always extremely critical. Her first words to me this morning were typical. We had no electricity and the reducer is broken on our butane stove. No heat whatsoever in the kitchen. Marianna found Eddie’s leftover sandwich from yesterday on the counter. She wanted it for breakfast and I let her go ahead. Grandma had a cow and chewed me out for somehow not giving her cereal with warm milk.
Last night grandma was making vareniki, Ukrainian potato dumplings. She was trying to use the мултиварка, which my Japanese family called a rice cooker and the translation software calls a slow cooker. Anyhow, the idea is to steam the dumplings. I never use the thing, and Oksana was no help because she’s not talking to her mom. I asked Oksana if we had instructions, which we do in the form of a 20 page book. Grandma read the book and successfully made the dumplings, including a number with just potatoes in dill, leaving out the liver because she knows I don’t like it. Marianna and I were the only ones home. I told Grandma they were delicious.
Here’s an interesting graphic about Americas changing demographics. Short story is that people like me are going extinct in America. I’m no help – I emigrated.
As we soldier on with intermittent electricity and cooking gas, we have to be thankful for what we still have. A reader shares this story about hearing from relatives in the Russian-held area across from Kherson.
Communication with Hola Prystan.
M***** has not heard or seen anything for 3 days now.
Suddenly early this morning (yesterday) she received a phone call from her niece who advised that on the top floor of a friend's house they can capture a mobile signal from Kherson. She used this to update our side of everyone's well-being.
Then my wife became aware from a connection there is now a telegram channel about the Russian Collaborators of Hola Prystan. I have not seen it but it is very much like Facebook I am informed, to let the people know who collaborated with the enemy. M***** told me she was shocked to see some of her exes, some students she taught, former government officials, some local celebrities, and friends from school posted. Both she and B***** were on the phone several times talking about people they knew and never suspected would be turncoats.
Then out of the blue, her mother called last night explaining the Russians have reconnected the phone service. Everyone can make phone calls but no text (SMS) messages or internet. Conversation of course may be monitored so it is nice to know she is well and warm at least. I could hear in my mother-in-law's voice real joy to be speaking with her daughter.
From all, I am told, the Russians are all over that section of the river. They, the local citizens, can hear fighting to the left and the right outside of town. Mostly after sunset. No one knows if it is UAF or partisans. Some people in the surrounding local villages journey to Hola Prystan to trade or connect with family. The Russians are in their locations as well and they also hear the fighting too, mostly automatic gunfire. The guards at the checkpoints mostly harass people until bribed with cash. Russians continue to break into properties that may have appliances, toilets, and food products worth stealing. Mostly houses that are abandoned and not looking like their occupants live below the poverty line. The first sign in Hola Prystan appears to be a cesspool collection point. If the property does not have a cesspool collection point they don't stop to raid the property.
You are always welcome to share - please as always protect names if you choose to update people - it is only hearsay.
Kind regards,
I’m almost halfway through Robert Malone’s book “Lies My Gov’t Told Me.” The first part is personal stories from Malone himself and several other people who have been brutally mistreated throughout this whole Covid affair by a coordinated effort among government agencies, media, academia and others. I am now reading the second section entitled “Lies and the damage done.”
Apropos of this, several people and several online commentators have noted that Stew Peters released his movie “Died suddenly”. Margaret Anna Alice offers 30 questions that one can pose to people who believe the narrative.
One of you recently chaffed me, twitted me, snapped my garter with regard to the fact that I won’t read your Washington Post links or respond to your fact checkers. I can offer you Robert Malone, who certainly knows a lot more than I do and is absolutely scathing in his denunciation of both the ignorant “fact checkers” and journalists who have written about him. I know you will not read this book, but if you wanted an answer, there it is.
Chapter 14 of the book, entitled “Bioweapons - the Future Is Here,” has a lot to say about the bio labs in Ukraine. I wrote a couple of months ago that Bobby Kennedy said there would be some dynamite material in this book. Absolutely right. You can buy the book in Kindle form through the above link for $10, or write to me and I will send you a synopsis of the chapter.
Meanwhile, every day my mailbox is absolutely filled with articles about the excess deaths experienced in highly vaccinated countries over the past year. I don’t bother passing the links along – I am sure you have to work hard to avoid seeing them. I am thankful that per Margaret Anna Alice above it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore both the vaccine injuries and the excess deaths. I don’t have to work to convince anybody – I just have to wait. The story will be much clearer by the time I have to do anything to protect my family.
I have been asked to give yet another speech at Toastmasters. I have chosen the one on education, which I posted a month ago on this blog. I will spiff it up and deliver it as a PowerPoint.
That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the good-looking woman is coping reasonably well with the family dynamics, the above average children accept their grandmother as she is and appreciate the fact that she loves them, and the man of the house finds the strength to cope with it all. In closing, here’s my email, but please, if you can, respond with comments rather than mail. What you say is usually of general interest.
It’s 4:50 a.m. here, and my own set of “family dynamics” is keeping me up at night. Your writing makes me realize that I am not alone in my struggles. And then they pale in comparison to the war you are experiencing on your doorstep. Thank you for sharing. The U.S. is a hot mess, in my opinion. Going down hill fast.
It’s 9:00pm CDT as I type this. After a brutal 16 hour work day, I got home from the office just in time to put my 5yo to bed. Reading this now, I am finding myself overwhelmingly sympathetic to your heat situation. Here in Minnesota, there’s no way the Wokes would survive. They’d have fled long ago. Some of us would stay and take advantage of our abilities to cope. I don’t think anyone envies your current predicament(s). The inconveniences of this war certainly don’t help the tensions between family, not sure that’s helpful or just stating the obvious like an NPC. I think there were some German Jews who felt very similar about the turncoat situation as they watched former business partners and customers jump ship for the safety under big brother. It is rather weak for them to capitulate like this, after an outright land grab by an overly hostile Cluster B nightmare on his last push into the grave... I digress. Thanks for your joyful spirit Graham.