As usual, the day after I publish a covid post, something big comes out and that something big is that over 95,000 people died of covid in January, the largest death toll for one month since the pandemic began. That's nearly 1/5 of the total deaths in one month. I wonder how many of those people were infected during their Christmas gatherings.
Tuesday was a fairly laid back day until...
I slept late, only waking when the alarm for my 9 AM pill taking sounded and I was deep in REM sleep. I've had several wakeful hours in the middle of the night three out of the last 5 nights and last night was no exception. I woke briefly before 6 and then sank back under.
After breakfast I set up the sprinkler since the promised rain was not forthcoming but my little temperamental sprinkler would not spin, or rather, it would not spin with the water on, it would spin freely in my hand giving it a push and I argued with that thing all last year so I threw it in the trash and went to the feed store and got me a new sprinkler. Set it up and went in to wash the dishes that were two days overdue, had lunch, moved the sprinkler around, walked the dog, saw two of my neighbors and stopped to chat for a few minutes, moved the sprinkler again at the far back flower bed where the poppies grow and the banana trees are and the hose will barely reach to the middle of that bed and I gave it a big tug, which I have done many times over the years to see if I could get it one more inch further and it gave. And when I say it gave, the PVC pipe coming out of the ground that the hose bib is on broke off at ground level and water started geysering up. By then it was 3:30. Turned off the water to the house and Marc and I dug it out a little to see if it was something we had the wherewithal to fix ourselves here and at 4:30 I called Rocky. He was just finishing up and would be right there so I continued digging it out and cutting the roots out while I waited for Rocky so he could see the best way to proceed. The goal was to just cap it off for the night so Rocky had cut off the part that needed to be replaced and I made a mad dash to El Campo before the lumber/hardware store closed which I thought was 6 PM and got there with 10 minutes to spare only to see that they close at 7. But, I got the stuff, called Rocky, I have the stuff and I'm heading back, and he was waiting in the driveway when I got back and the pipe was capped off and we had water to the house again. Further repairs to be made today.
the repair
And here's some spooky little woo woo, Monday I was talking with my daughter about the new stimulus package and she hopes it comes through because the company she works for will probably have to close in 6 months if it doesn't pass and that she'd have to have two jobs here and still wouldn't make what she makes now. That evening coming home from yoga I mentioned this to Pam and remarked that Sarah could job hunt in El Campo and Rosenberg as well. The next day, my email spam blocker report showed four spam emails about jobs, three of which were specifically related to El Campo. I have never before gotten spam for job opportunities in El Campo.
Well, the Republicans had a chance to disavow Trump and save what little shred of integrity they may have still had and they put on a good show of it for a couple of days with their speeches but they seem determined to embrace the lies and wackos with Lindsey Graham threatening to call in the FBI if the Democrats call even one witness against Trump in his impeachment trial coming up, as if we wouldn't want that. Ten Republican senators had a meeting with President Biden with a counter offer stimulus package that was 1/3 the cost of the Democrat proposal and he rightly rejected it as being too weak to solve any problems. As usual Republicans only want to give the very rich money they don't need and tell the rest of us to just suck it up. Schumer is going ahead to pass the stimulus package through a process called reconciliation. Watch the Republicans scream even though it's the same process they used for their trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy.
Saw these yesterday in the easement in front of the shop.
