Hello, Friends. Happy April! How are you? How was your week? We’ve had good things and not-so-great things this week. A good thing: We finished the entryway bricks! A not-so-great thing: France has a new lockdown starting tomorrow. A good thing: Because we’ll be home for the rest of the month, the family won’t need to get up early. (It’s a small bright spot, but I’ll take it!)
This weekend, we’re going to do some spring cleaning, figure out something simple to do for Easter, and maybe do some baking. If the weather is good, maybe we’ll work in the Secret Garden. How about you? How is your weekend shaping up?
Ready for your link list? Here are a few things I’ve wanted to share:
-Here are the questions and answers from the Washington Post live chat. The topic was Family-Friendly design (though I got questions about France too!). I only got to half the questions, and then the platform turned off. But the questions were great!
–Women told the FBI they took MDMA with Matt Gaetz, had sex with him, and received cash. One was asked to sleep with his friend; another to procure girls. The DOJ is also examining whether he and his friends slept with (that would be raped) the 17-yr-old (yes, that’s a child) in the Greenberg case.
-If you’d like to decorate Easter Eggs this weekend, but don’t want to deal with dye baths, or track down craft supplies, take a look at these eggs, made using highlighter pens. So clever and gorgeous.
-Biden’s infrastructure bill is wildly popular — even half of Republican voters like it. So Republican politicians are going to try to “Potato Head” it by turning it into a culture war/identity politics thing.
-Such positive news — the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine seems to powerfully protective in children ages 12 to 15. Isn’t that great to hear?
-In a crowded field of wrongness, one person stands out: Alex Berenson.
-Meet the Nepalese climbers who removed 2.2 tons of rubbish from Everest while the tourists were away.
-I need to replace my worn out vans. I was going to choose red again, but then I saw these green ones. Such a great shade of green!
-AOC on the border: “Anyone who’s using the word ‘surge’ around you, consciously, is trying to invoke a militaristic frame. And that’s a problem. Because this is not a surge, these are children. And they are not insurgents. And we are not being invaded.”
-We made a video of Springtime in Normandy. The hillsides here are currently covered in jonquilles — small, wild daffodils that you can gather by the armful.
Here are some tweets I saved for you:
–Hahahaha.
–A needless barrier to access.
-I love discussions about infrastructure. I hope the current lawmakers take it seriously.
–Hahaha.
–More thoughts on kids at the border.
-This kind of thing is so maddening.
-Oh my. I am so fascinated by this. Did you know you can book passage on one of those giant container ships?
I hope you have a lovely weekend. Happy Easter to all who celebrate! I’ll meet you back here on Monday. I miss you already.
kisses,
Gabrielle
How is the vaccine distribution going there? Are you guys able to get vaccinated soon? In a couple weeks CA will open up vaccines to 16 and older! Hurrah!
I live in San Diego, and they brought around 500 of those immigrant girls to our downtown convention center for housing/services/etc – these GIRLS are ages 13-17. On one of my local news channels (and yes I’m kicking myself for not having noted which news outlet), when they aired this story, the live newscasters referred to these girls as “young women” like FOUR times. I was appalled and so angry! These are not women, these are GIRLS – CHILDREN.
When the follow-up stories aired in subsequent days, the term “young women” was not heard as I flipped around channels – so I’m thinking / hoping someone pointed out this very important distinction.
This is yet another heart-breaking phase of our border’s history – no one’s talking about these children not being with their parents, a crucial component of growing up – having the support and care from your parents. (Can you imagine not having your parents around at that age? Or if you’re a mom, not having your kids around when they’re 13?!) The fact that these parents are making the gut-wrenching choice to separate from their kids because that’s the better option (than staying with the kids, in whatever horrible country/situation they’re living in), it’s just too much.
Now that the era of Trump is behind us, overall yes – I am feeling SO MUCH better about our country, there is so much relief that we’re back to “politics as usual” (for the most part). But I find myself still shedding tears a few times/week when I read about things that are happening. Part pandemic-fatigue, part “what is this world coming to?!”, part the inherent load of being a parent and seeing the world in general with a heavier eye…..but it’s hard. It’s really hard some days.
Jodi from Legal Nomads did a container ship journey and it was fun to read her recap! I’ve also read that you can do the same for cruise ships that do a point-to-point journey and have to return to their original port. I’m very intrigued by it!
To the girl that wanted to provide the 2.25 raise and then said she hated America. Wish I knew the whole story there. Also, it’s nice to live in America and be able to use OnlyFans freely…
I hate blanket statements like “I hate America”. See what I did there :)
Good luck for this new lock down. How are you feeling? We’re in Paris, and it feels soo different from last year! we know what’s going on and school is so organized! I feel so relieved. Now we’re just waiting for the vaccine! I do some work at a vaccination center and let me tell you, it’s going strong and fast!! Many good wishes for your family, hoping you can reunite soon with your older children.
I LOVE hearing that about the vaccines. I only know a couple of people so far that have been vaccinated here. But I saw a headline that Europe is expecting people to be vaccinated by June, so that must mean things are really ramping up! Which would be great. As vaccinations go up, deaths and infection rates fall.
Re the container ship journey – the Tweet is fairly misleading because while you “can” book, it’s a 3-4 month process of emailing the ship’s captain to get permission, lots of paperwork to make sure you can disembark at each port, and it is usually about $100/day, often up to $110-130 per day. Despite a fair bit of research, haven’t found a way to book directly with the captain of a ship :(