My house is a fixer-upper Victorian definitely not designed for anything but tea parties. I have to hope my location in a smaller town in the middle of the country will escape the worst of whatever is coming — be it war, another pandemic, economic collapse, severe climate change or some nasty surprise not on my radar. My feeling is we need to forge stronger connections with the people around us so we can all help each other out. I’m not cut out for warfare. (But then, neither are the grandmas in Ukraine. You don’t always get a choice.)