Silly Sam

We went for a very slippery walk this morning and again, hooray for the Arctic Grip soles. The snow was frozen. I walked fine, Samuel, poor thing, slipped around repeatedly. 

Tonight we did a test to see if these red shoes, which do not have Arctic Grip, would help but he couldn't even walk in them (and he slid with the steps he did take in them) so tonight will be the last time he's ever subjected to them. I got them for him over a decade ago. We used to play in the dog park for so long that his feet would bleed. (People would tease me for getting him shoes right up to that point of the story.) The shoes took care of that, and they spare him from when the snow is exactly the right composition to form little ice balls between his footpad and toes and make it hurt to walk. That said, like any normal dog, he hates them and will probably be relieved to never be forced to wear them again. 

The extra is a derelict photo! You see the bridge with cars above? Go to the side of the path here, near the stream, and there is a hood of a car and a tire. Thank you for hosting Marlieske. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on whether policy in Texas will change. I have absolutely no guesses. I do think the anger will continue because now people will have to go through the expense and hassle of having their pipes fixed. Water utilities are unable to provide safe water. Also, there is a company in Texas that sells electricity based not on a fixed rate, like 11 cents a kwh, but on market rate, and the price of electricity during this week went so high that some people are getting hit with $8,000, $10,000, or $11,000 bills. That is an anger that will last and .... I don't know how some people could ever pay that. 

In 2012 my area had a "derecho" - a storm that went in a straight line through multiple states and did so much damage that the utilities could not live up to their agreements to help each other because they were all in trouble. People died, there were millions of dollars in damage, and we lost power. My house lost power for a week in 110 degree heat (43 degrees C). I learned I have a "stupid house" by which I mean that it was built on the assumption of electricity and was actually hotter inside than outside. Many very serious, horrible things were happening in my life at that exact time so I have a lot of emotion tied up in that power outage. 

People in my area were furious with the power company. The power company already had the worst reliability rating in the country. Their PR attempt was pathetic. Then they asked the utility commission for a rate increase and were slapped down. THEN they took public anger seriously and put together a PR campaign, not of the CEO giving excuses, but of the men and women working for the company and doing their best to get services back up and improved. 

It was nearly 10 years ago and I'm still stressed when I think about it. More people died in Texas from the outage than died from the derecho. But will that lead to policy changes? I don't know.  

(Our utility company is much more reliable now.)

There has been some beauty. One of our politicians has raised over $4 million dollars to help the people of Texas and is in Texas now helping to put together boxes of food. Another politician started a phone bank where people called elderly people and when they found someone in need got someone to drive out to help them. A furniture store owner opened his stores, with their beds and couches, to people needing a place to stay. There was a couple who took in a delivery driver who got stuck in their driveway just as the storm hit - for five days - and they all hung out and cooked together and had fun even though they started as strangers.