IT HAPPEN

Sometimes, you start writing a post and even add a pinch of sarcasm and cat humor. By the way, I now have two and a half cats in the house, in case someone didn’t know or I haven’t personally informed them of this wonderful fact. As before, I have two purebred Ukrainian girls (Laska and Rubi) and one local native (Lavash), who was found practically in a dumpster at 10 days old in a hot October near the office of an Armenian lawyer. And with that lineup, what else is there to joke about if not cats occasionally hanging on Christmas trees or hunting, ears pinned back and pupils dilated, after a peacefully wandering opossum in the backyard.

And so, my hands are already over the keyboard, the laptop fully charged, fingers poised above the keys, and suddenly: "Ballistic missile threat. Take shelter" flashes on my phone screen. And you might think, where am I, and where are those missiles over Ukraine right now, but every time, it feels as if they are right over your head, and you instinctively want to find shelter, even if that shelter is just inside you. It's powerfully fortified, with ultra-strong walls, no windows, and no light... There, you can curl up in a ball at the very bottom and dissolve into the silence.

And all the words I had prepared for the New Year’s post scattered into letters, which I carefully gathered into a dustpan again and poured into a utility bag, hanging it on the wall.

A new time will come — I’ll pour them out onto the table, assemble them like a puzzle, but for now — let them hang.

Christmas holidays in Ukraine are filled with blood and pain. Every day there is the "heaviest shelling," and jokes about cats aren’t being written, and nothing is being written at all right now...

Christmas without Christ is just a mess. Hold on to God and hold on together.

Happy New 2024.

Yours, Nata Che

#WWW - we will win

#russiaisaterroriststate