North Texas is gradually drying out, though for a bit this afternoon it looked like we might get dumped on again. Now, with rain behind us, we’re in that season when weather forecasters talk about the heat index. When I was a kid, they simply told you what the temperature was. Nobody thought about heat index. You knew it was hotter in the sun, cooler in the shade—what more did you need to know? I do not want to be told it feels like 107—if it’s not really 107, don’t go there. Tell me it’s 91 and humid. I can handle that. Unfortunately, the heat index is supposed to be high for the next several days. I am going to ignore it.
But no rain until maybe Friday. I don’t know if that’s true in England or not, but did you read that the ark is dry-docked in Ipswich, England? It seems that British marine authorities are not sure it’s seaworthy and won’t let it depart. The ark is a 21,000+ square foot “replica” structure built on a flat-boat that houses a Biblical museum—I’m not sure what kind of artifacts it holds but I am almost willing to bet they aren’t genuine from the time of Noah’s Ark. In fact, the owner, appaarently a man from Ipswich, admitted that he had live animals on board but they proved too difficult, and he settled for carved imitations.
The
ark has no power of its own and must be towed wherever it goes. Before landing
at Ipswich, it had visited the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Once
in England, it began to accumulate detention fines, etc., so that now moving it
will be an expensive proposition, unless some compromise is reached. The
owner(s) want to tow it back to the Netherlands but are held up by paperwork requirements
and the need for fire equipment, life jackets, small boats, etc.
Where
is Noah when you need him?
And
speaking of weather-related phenomena, there’s always last winter’s extreme
snowmageddon. Governor Abbott has assured us Texans that the legislature took
all necessary steps to ensure that the power grid was ready for any emergency,
and we would never again have the catastrophe we had. Comforting—until ERCOT
(Electric Reliability Council of Texas) today urged Texans to willingly turn off
some power to preserve the grid, which is approaching a breaking point because
of high use during this hot weather. Wait. A. Minute! What happened to that
legislative fix?
The
only bright spot I see in this is that now when Jordan complains that my
cottage is too hot and musty and surely, it’s not good for me, I can tell her I’m
being patriotic and protecting the grid.
Thanks
to Avis Herndon for the new word for today. It’s drachenfutter, which is
straight from the German. The literal translation is dragon fodder. Today, it means
a gift given to someone who is angry with you in an attempt to soften that
anger—in other words a peace offering. It occurs to me I should be keeping a
list of these new words; otherwise, they will slip from my vocabulary, and I’ll
never use them. Then again, I doubt few of us will slip drachenfutter into our
daily conversation—so much easier to say peace offering. I have enough trouble
with schadenfreude, which is fairly common in use—to take pleasure is
someone else’s pain or difficulty. And then there’s doppelganger—look alike, or
“double walker.” We owe the Germans a lot of language debts.
So
gute Nachtschlaf eng. Sleep tight, sweet dreams.
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