Gaza, and a Valentine's Day Cactus

I walk beneath this second-floor lounge and restaurant in Swiss Cottage most days. It's right across the street from Ye Olde Swiss Cottage, the closed pub I wrote about yesterday. It looks like kind of a colorful place but again, as with the pub, I've never been inside. Apparently it's a shisha bar. I've never smoked shisha and it isn't something that appeals to me, but I like Lebanese food, so maybe I'll check it out sometime.

It certainly has a colorful staircase. I'm not sure about the wall of plastic plants, though.

How to describe yesterday? Another day, another head-spinning, reality-bending dramedy from the White House. My jaw was once again on the floor reading Trump's statements about Gaza. This president who ran on a platform of isolationism and ending foreign wars suddenly wants to "own" Gaza and transform it into a tourist mecca? After taking steps to dismantle the government's main agency for foreign aid? And he's going to move two million people to adjacent countries that don't want them, in violation of international law?

I really don't want to turn this blog into a daily round of "what Trump did yesterday," but honestly, this Gaza thing was so far off the charts I can't avoid mentioning it. Even his ardent supporters on the right-wing news site I regularly read were dead-set against it. They elected him to be America-first, and understandably they do not see "owning" Gaza as a step in that direction.

As one of them wrote, "I wish he’d just shut up in these forums and make such outrageous announcements in a reasonable, objective manner elsewhere. This is far from something we’re 'going to do.' He needs to cool his jets and stay focused on the current challenges."

I consider it very promising that even his voters are saying, "WTF?!"

Now apparently the administration is trying to walk back this idea and portray it as Trump speaking extemporaneously (even though he had written notes) in a way meant merely to shock and provoke action from Middle Eastern leaders. He's just a bumbling narcissist who respects no institution and sees everything as a real estate deal -- an extractive capitalist who apparently has no idea of the costs associated with such a ridiculous scheme. (Maybe this is why his businesses have been forced to declare bankruptcy six times?) He's like a cartoon character with dollar signs in his eyes, his tongue hanging out.

Meanwhile, an even deeper danger comes from Elon Musk and his college-aged minions, slashing their way through the federal bureaucracy with no constitutional authority to do so.

I am not going to write about this every day. I am not, I am not, I am not.

Here's one of the Thanksgiving cactuses at work, which has decided to also become a Valentine's Day cactus. I took this picture right after spraying the leaves down with an alcohol-and-water solution to kill mealybugs. I am still on a campaign to rid this cactus and its much larger parent plant of pests. It is a never-ending campaign, but it's a good way to decompress between busy periods in the library.

Oh, and one last thing about American politics. I know there's been a lot of talk about the price of eggs in the United States. Out of curiosity, I asked Dave, who handles the shopping, how much we spend -- he said we pay £3.50 for six eggs, from a grocer who delivers them to our door. That's about $8.50 per dozen. But it's possible to buy much cheaper eggs here -- Sainsbury's is advertising a dozen free-range eggs for £3.15, or about $4. So I'm concluding that 1) The UK is not having the same egg price crisis as the USA, and 2) Dave and I pay too much for our eggs!