more silliness

This is the bit of bleeding heart that was broken off. I blame the rabbit. 

My neighbor's handyman friend now owns a contracting company and is sending someone tomorrow morning to save me. Pretty wonderful to send someone an email over the weekend titled, "urgent mouse situation" and have an appointment on Monday morning at 8:30. 

I was ridiculously productive today, including finding a new hole the mouse was creating, cleaning the mess, and filling it. I rewarded myself by finishing putting wood mulch everywhere that I had put leaf mulch. Then, just for the heck of it, I moved stones in anticipation of my eventually getting that 70x24 inch stone to put under my little table and little chairs under my deck. Nothing like hard manual labor to make you feel accomplished. 

Hundreds of thousands of professional workers have left Russia, including each workers, scientists, bankers, and doctors. They are going to Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey. Many people are taking their businesses with them. The pace of people leaving hasn't been seen since 1917. 

Russian assets seized in Switzerland jump to $8 Billion. The EU has frozen more than $32 Billion in Russian assets. 
I never watched the movie Red Dawn. It was released in 1984 and portrays the Soviet Union invading the US and high school students fighting them in their hometown. After a battle the mascot of the high school team, wolverine, is spraypainted on Soviet vehicles. Well. Someoene graffitied "wolverines" on the side of a Russian military vehicle in Ukraine. 

The war has pulled together people around the world in revulsion and determination. Everyone is doing what they can, from individuals to companies (except the companies that stayed in Russia https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-600-companies-have-withdrawn-russia-some-remain). More than $1.3 billion in grants and pledges have been made. 
- Chris Hunter made a videogame where players drive a Ukrainian tractor and collect abandoned Russian tanks. 
- Emma Baravelli created a two-foot hollow chocolate egg last month. One side of the 22-pound egg is painted blue and yellow with edible paint. The other side is painted with Ukrainian crops and sunflowers. She owns Baravelli's , a chocolate shop in Conwy, England. She's using the egg to raise money for the British Red Cross. 
- Citizen Brick, a Naperville Illinois-based company that makes custom Lego sets and pieces sold $100 figurines last month of Lego pieces built to look like Zelensky. They sold Lego Molotov cocktails. They've raised $145,000 for Direct Relief, a charity that delivers medical aid. 

Good luck this week.