January 10

 It is still dark here and will be for about another hour. It has been a busy week with appointments and shopping. We don't put all our errands into a single day any more--much too exhausting. I did a couple of the New Year's chores on my long list. 

Yesterday was generally frustrating. I started working on the cross-stitch table cloth which quickly became a catastrophic mess. As I picked up my coffee one of my cats decided to jump onto my lap sloshing some onto the cloth. Anyone who does printed embroidery pieces knows what happens when liquid hits water soluble ink--the ink goes away. After I finished yelling at the cat and throwing the cloth across the room, I put it on the washing machine to dry and started thinking about what to do with it. One corner, the corner on the hoop, is unworkable--the pattern is simply gone. A couple of small motifs are also damaged. However, the other three corners and the center motif are still untouched. So I will work them and then cut them apart to work into other pieces. I might look for another cross-stitch project AND I will keep my water/coffee/tea and the cat far away from my work. One of the bloggers I read regularly does quilting and embroider with three cats "helping." Her cats appear MUCH better behaved.

Then I switched to one of the crochet doilies I found a serious mistake and had to take out almost two rounds. Swearing the whole while I pulled those rounds out and then got the pattern going again properly.

While I was doing all that we watched the Carter funeral and the coverage of the LA urban wildfire. The funeral was a very dignified affair and as simple as a state funeral for a former president could be. I loved the eulogies read by the sons of Walter Mondale and former President Gerald Ford. Those along with the eulogies by the Carter kin really humanized Carter. Throughout I was surprised by how much of what happened during his administration or which was set up by his administration I really didn't remember. Recently I decided I needed to read more history. That really puts current events into perspective and context.

I noticed more frequent references on the news segments/interviews to "climate change." Lawrence O'Donnell made an eloquent point last night about the power of wind. As he noted a heavy rain storm is simply a heavy rain until you get a driving wind. A hurricane provides prodigious precipitation but add in the rain and you get Helene or Milton, or Katrina. Those caused damage people will be or have been dealing with for a long time. Without the wind the fires in LA would have been easily contained. With the Santa Anna winds it became an inferno. I noticed a come pundits casting blame on politicians for their failure to be clairvoyant. People on the ground made the points that their water infrastructure was more than adequate for the usual urban fire that engulfs a building or a block. NO ONE ANYWHERE is prepared to fight an urban wildfire whipped by high winds. Already the politicians are making plans to try to rebuild what has been lost and, as a few commentators have said, are not questioning whether it should be rebuilt or how. Bill McKibben posted this article which touches on some of this and a good bit more. Brian Merchant at BLOOD IN THE MACHINE posted his first hand account of the fire from his home nearby.

A stray thought: Listening to some of the interviews and news segments from the LA fire I recalled a couple of controversies that bears a bit on some of the comments. We prepare, as individuals and as groups, to meet "normal" circumstances and normal is defined by the recent past. Everyone has said that the fire was, to use a word that has appeared frequently of late, unprecedented. So the firefighting systems and infrastructure was developed to handle "normal," expected possibilities. Changing the infrastructure and systems is expensive. What is the likelihood of another fire (or another Katrina, or another Texas ice storm) and would the expenditure really be cost effective. I am reminded of a cartoon a couple years ago which showed a climate change meeting outlining what action (expensive action) the participants thought would be needed. A person at the back of the room asked "What if you do spend all this money and create your better world and nothing happens?" The insanity of the comment is that making nothing happen is exactly what the proposals are supposed to ensure. But what if a different catastrophe arises and you don't have the resources to counter it?