best laid plans

I did nothing I planned to do.
I got up, which I did not want to do. I rushed about, got ready, walked Sam, went off to the metro, realized I would be about 30 minutes late for the group's walk around the Tidal Basic to see the cherry blossoms one last time. I went to the group app. The trip was CANCELLED. At least I found out before I went all the way in to DC. 

I thought about whether I really wanted to spend 3 hours watching baseball, with severe wind threats possibly impacting my trip in and back, when it was with co-workers, who, though lovely, are not friends. I decided to skip it. 

In exchange, I got so much done. I picked up my drycleaning. [Reason #214 on why telecommuting is best - OMG dry cleaning is expensive.] I went to the nursery. I bought more Irish Moss. I bought sweet basil, Thai basil, and cilantro. I placed an order at a nursery for hepatica, the only impossible-to-find-native-ephemerals they supposedly carry that they have in stock. I bought a couple of other plants that might go well in the garden and several bags of potting mix. 

My hanging tomato garden finally tumbled over so today I planted a nice big, on-the-floor planter, on my deck, and moved the chives there. The other herbs will go there. I will just permanently give up on peppers and tomatoes since I only managed to grow herbs anyway. It all looks much tidier than the hanging garden, and certainly than the hanging garden leaning sideways. 

I replanted the new Ukigumo Japanese Maple that I bought to replace the tiny Ukigumo SOMEONE ate all the leaf buds off of. Then I fertilized the eaten Ukigumo, just in case, and I fertilized the absolutely devastated Mikawa. The leaves it still has are coming out but oh it will look terrible for a long while. Rotten birds. 

I finished potting the lilac tree. 

I hauled a bunch of garbage from the new container and all the bags of compost/planting soil/mulch off the deck. 

Everything looks so tidy. Where do trowels disappear to? 

The Collective Security Treat Organization (CSTO) is the Russian answer to NATO. While Belarus has let itself be used as a military base, not one member has backed Russia's war with troops. Instead, they are trying to distance themselves. Armenia refused to host this year's CSTO war games. In Feb  Kazakhstan hosted Anty Blinken, America's Secretary of State. 

Russia was caught making a fake video of a Ukrainian attack on a woman and child. The Russian Foreign Ministry had to delete the video. One of the propaganda outlets that was circulating it revealed that it was a poorly staged fake. It was geolocated in an area in Russian controlled territory. Even pro-Kremilin Telegraph channels admitted it was a fake. 

The Wagner Group has been embarrassing itself so badly that it is apparently go to go focus on Africa, which is bad for Africa but good for Ukraine.