Today the sun visited and finished most of the snow. It was in the 50s. It is Ash Wednesday. I have a package of items from our church, including ashes. Lent begins.
But, today, I heard the most amazing thing, despite windmills being around for centuries, the Governor of Texas claimed that windmills froze and broke their power system. We have had windmills longer than we have had Texas in this country. I happen to know they work in the winter in Michigan. He seemed to forget that I also know that natural gas pipelines must be buried and insulated; otherwise, they do freeze-up. One of the pipelines in the Washington DC area is poorly made, and Anacostia sometimes has issues. It seems that few of the pipelines in Texas are buried and insulated. It was not the windmills–gees!
I try not to make political statements, but we are talking windmills! I know that Texas wants you to burn oil for heat and power, but attacking windmills is just wrong.
Returning to my story, I started at 7ish and was ready for the first status meeting at 7:30. I had two hours of status meetings. I also had a few crises of the moment and helped with a few items.
I slipped out at 9ish.
I then took my note from the post office and managed to get to the post office at 9:15; surprised to see no line, I went in to discover that the post office hours had changed and I was 15 minutes early. I then formed a line outside of the not open post office (limit of two people) to allow anyone to use the Post Machine inside. Someone tried to use it by asking if they could, very polite Portlandia style, and I said, of course. Sadly the Post Machine was non-responsive. They joined the line.
I rang the bell after entering at 9:30 and soon was served two packages: One from Holand and one from Russia. I drove them home with my loot. I quickly opened my packages at home.
The board game Instanbul has a card that contains the items you have to trade and sell. A slight bump and the game could be ruined. GameFit in a city in Siberia, Novosibirsk, makes an overlay to fix this. This time it took three weeks to get here, eight weeks being the previous wait for an item for the game Terraforming Mars, and I was happy to assemble it. It is a bit wrong-sized but can make it work. I suspect that the Big Box version of Istanbul, the version I have, may have printed the wheelbarrow cards slightly larger. It will be OK. I only ordered four and should have ordered five. So it was mostly OK. I will order again and get that last overlay. The shipping costs are high from Russia; you don’t want to order just one item.
The other package is from the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam. I discovered a few months ago that they sell interesting esoterica books, posters, and even PDFs. This is a library that was recently funded by Dan Brown of the DaVinci Code. I purchased a set of books; I did not know they are this big, on The Influence of Hermes Trismegistus 15th-18th Century. How can I resist this?
I had lunch delivered. It has been a long time since I have ordered from Gyro House. I got my normal lamb gyro. Susie had lentil soup–it was not as good as before. My food was perfect.
I returned for two more hours of status meetings and some alignment meetings (these are meetings about items that would require a meeting unless we can agree).
Susie had Physical Therapy today. Michelle and a new gal Polly came today. Polly ran Susie through her exercises and then had Susie practice picking items off the floor. Susie was much better today.
That was the end of my of working when we finished PT. I checked, and nothing was outstanding at the shoe company. Mariah met us at the Golden Valley Brewery and our bartender, Stephen, who we have known for years at places all over Beaverton, is now our bartender at GVB! I had a “The Italian Job” burger, and Susie and Mariah had the meatloaf special. We had drinks and shared a dessert, careful to do it safely.
I had a few moments at home to rest before logging back on to work for IST (India Standard Time) morning.
10,653 people yesterday were vaccinated in Oregon. The number is increasing again. Let us hope it continues to improve as not all the information is available until 72 hours. Our county, Washington, finally reached a 10% vaccination rate.
2,537 people died from the virus today in the USA. It appears that the rate of death is finally decreasing in the USA and decreasing at a much steeper rate than before, suggesting the level of care is better now.
I turned to Here I Am, Lord when I opened the Hymnal. A good song for Ash Wednesday 2021.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 