I mostly sleep in my big comfy chair nowadays. It's actually a bit more comfortable than my bed, and easier to leap out of when I hear missile alerts.

I also doze off frequently in the chairs in the shelter. Whenever I come to, it takes a moment for my eyes to open. I have to figure out, from audio and tactile cues, whether I am in the shelter or my apartment, and, if the latter, in my chair or in bed. Not that that matters that much, but I find the moment interesting.

Our first alert this morning comes at about 6 AM. Nothing unusual. By the time that I get back upstairs, I see that it's just about time to put my shoes on and go back down to the nurses' office for my blood sugar check and insulin.

The nurses are mostly ready for me -- but I also get my Ozempic on Thursdays, and they haven't taken the injection pen out of the refrigerator yet. No problem. A little while later, when it has warmed up to the proper temperature, one nurse brings it up to my room and does the injection there.

There are four or five more alerts and alarms during the day. Oddly, in one of them (I forget which), only a handful of people and one of the dogs show up. The shelter is close to full for the rest of them.

Home Front Command announced yesterday that some rules on gatherings have been loosened as of noon today. While schools are still closed, gatherings of up to fifty people are allowed -- as long as people can get from them to a shelter in time. Non-essential businesses can also open, as long as people there, too, can get to shelters.

As of tomorrow, the House will resume activity groups, such as Pilates and group discussions with the social worker, that gather in the spaces also used as shelters.

The city's English-language WhatsApp channel posts: "Thank you to the Arad Scout Troop members who volunteered today in the municipal hotline’s outreach program to senior residents. They made hundreds of calls to check on the wellbeing of elderly residents and identify any needs." Some folks here are surprised to get calls checking on their well-being. In the afternoon, I miss a phone call from a landline number (they use different area codes than mobile phones do), which may also have been from that phone bank.

A friend ventures out to the drug store and picks up some disposable razors for me. I had run out, and hadn't shaved in a couple of weeks. As it is, I haven't left the House since some time before my medical crisis. Effects of the high blood sugar (and possibly other factors) had left me addled enough that I was afraid to leave the building, except for doctors' appointments. A relative accompanied me to those.

I see that the US President has canned the head of Homeland Security -- though he is moving her to the newly coined job of special envoy for the Shield of the Americas. Who knows what that will actually mean. The President may have watched too many Marvel movies. Maybe Operation Epic Fury was supposed to be Operation Find Nick Fury. Maybe he can cast soon-to-be-former-Representative Dan Crenshaw in the role.

Just as I'm trying to figure out how to end this post, at about 10:30 PM, another alert goes off. So be it. We go down. We wait. We come back up.

I sit down at my desk to write that, and there's another alert. We go back down. This time, there's an alarm. There are reports of booms, and reports and footage of cluster bombs landing somewhere in the region.

It's a bit chillier than usual in the shelter. A woman near me, wearing what may either be a coat or a thick bathrobe, black with bright images of Mickey Mouse on it, tightens its belt. Across the room, another woman kicks off her shoes and rubs her feet. Her socks are bright purple with green trim.

The woman sitting next to me conveys greetings from her daughter. Apparently the daughter recognized me once when she visited from the States. I didn't see her, and don't recognize her name. She says that we met somewhere near Philadelphia, sometime in the past half century.

We get the all-clear. I come back up. Time to finish and post this, put away some groceries that were delivered this evening, and see how much sleep I can get in the chair before the next alarm.