New Shoes in the Rain

I was reminded of this repeating line from the Ron Howard film "Splash," in which a scientist played by Eugene Levy keeps having things happen to him, each worse than the last.  Our premise today is that a good many people can and probably have said this in the last seven days. Let's start with our friends who reside in the state of Texas, where the triple-whammy of extreme and unseasonable cold temperatures, a complete failure of the largely unregulated power grid and subsequent failures of in-home plumbing and municipal water systems have left a large number of the citizens of that state to suffer one issue after another after another. Last week I checked in with a good friend from college who was my roommate for a couple of years after we both finished school.  He and his wife and kids have lived in greater Houston for over twenty years, and in an exchange of text messages he reported that they were subject to the "rolling" blackouts that some utility officia...

Hello, my friends, from central Kentucky, where it's a balmy 14 degrees!  We've had rotating bouts of snow and freezing rain and sleet and all manner of weather over the past few days.  Ice so thick on our sidewalk last week that I actually waved off the pizza delivery guy and met him in our garage.  And we have a tall shrub next to our front walk that has essentially drooped in three different directions.  I'll leave it alone until temperatures warm up but I'm not optimistic. I'm certainly lucky that I work from home when I'm not traveling, and, thanks to COVID-19, I'm not going anywhere regularly.  So on days like this I am thankful I don't have to risk my life to work. I'm also grateful that we were able to schedule the first dose of the COVID vaccine for my wife last Friday.  We had her signed up with four different entities, I believe, but the change came when the federal government released supplies of the vaccine to several national pharmacy c...

I hope everyone is having a good week, despite that pesky Punxatawny Phil having seen his shadow on Tuesday.  Incidentally, why don't they take into account the many TV lights in use when they drag the little guy out of his "house" to see what he "says?"  Always wondered about that. It's funny and a little sad that many of us thought that when the primary occupant of the White House changed last month that things would move into a more normal mode.  And, to be sure, they have.  There are regular briefings by a professional spokesperson who appears to be well-informed and empowered to speak on behalf of the current Presidential administration.  We have three-times-a-week coronavirus briefings led by professionals and featuring unfiltered comments by medical and scientific experts. But yet a lot of the conversation out of Washington still centers around controversial people, one who just left office and one who just assumed office.  I think you know both to w...