Thursday 13 #5

1. We lost power Tuesday night at 10:30 pm after it had been blinking for two hours (ice storm).

2. My husband and sons made Bittersweet Chocolate Pancakes with Roasted Pear Butter and Maple Pear Syrup for Valentine's breakfast, thanks to a stove with gas burners. We also gave each other bars of dark chocolate (naturally). I'm writing from my husband's music store in town where we seldom lose electricity.

3. The electricity is due to come back on by Friday night.

4. Last night we huddled around the woodstove at home, wearing hats and our warmest Pjs, with blankets thrown over us and reading by the light of the Aladdin kerosene lamp on the hearth. We heard a loud crack, different from a tree snapping under the weight of ice, followed by the encased hearth mirror falling in pieces and causing the kerosene lamp to also fall and land on the rug. It was like watching a small ball of fire fall in slow motion, my husband quickly picked up the lamp--amazingly still in one piece--and put it aside. The rug did not catch fire, we were fortunate. After that we decided to have another sip of red wine, I believe it was merlot. We laughed nervously; this was a Valentine's Day we'll never forget.

5. Ice storms are deceptively beautiful; everything is transformed into the appearance of sparkling cut glass. Our deck furniture, house and cars have shiny icicle fringes along edges. Trees and bushes particularly, but even ordinary objects such as grass, barbed wire fence and sign posts are turned into glittering works of art.

6. Using a battery powered radio, I briefly listened to the news this a.m. Is anyone concerned about Iran? It hasn't been resolved whether President Bush is sending more troops to Iraq, yet the news is abuzz with eerily similar discussions on Iran to those of Iraq, now four years ago.

7. Four years ago feels like it could be ten. I had turned 40, my husband wasn't yet 40 and our sons were almost 13 and 7 1/2. We were in a different phase of our lives raising sons who were still boys. We hadn't yet built our addition nor started down the path to become Foster Care Providers.

8. In years past, I've started tomato plants from seeds on February 15. My target this year is March 1.

9. A month ago today we had a new record high of 67 degrees in nearby Blackburg, but believe it only reached 65 here in Floyd. Was that really just a month ago?

10. It's now Saturday 2/17. I went to the gym with my client yesterday so he could work and I could shower. Hot water never felt so good, it was very cold in the house Thursday night and sleep was hard to find.
11. Our power came back on at 6:44 pm last night for a new record of 68+ hours without power. Our previous record was 57 hours when remnants of Hurricane Jeanne passed through in September 2004. Emerson and I did the jig of joy and promptly went throughout the house turning up the heat to unfreeze water pipes. Luckily, none of our pipes burst.

12. If it wasn't for being so darned cold, we would have enjoyed the power break as we have in the past. The absence of electrical humming from appliances allows the house to be truly quiet and peaceful. My good friend Laura lives off the grid and therefore never experiences the magic and thrill of a power outage.

13. I'll finish The Poisonwood Bible today, I just have the last two short chapters to read. I'm sorry to come to the end of this book, but I've got good ones waiting in my stack beside the bed.

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$2.9 Trillion Dollars

On Monday of this week, President Bush unveiled a four-volume, 2,500 page, $2.9 trillion dollar budget for the U.S. Government. My initial thought was to the environment, "How many copies are printed? What a waste of paper; they must recycle since it's the government." I repeated the $2.9 trillion dollar figure in my head.

How much is 2.9 trillion dollars? Round it up to 3 to make it easier. $3,000,000,000,000.00. Twelve zeroes to the left of the decimal point. A trillion is a million million dollars. In Jim Loy's article, A Trillion Dollars, he states "It will take me more than 30 years to count (out loud) to one billion and more than 30,000 years to count to one trillion." In other words, 2.9 trillion is a number too high to count and hard to comprehend. My desk calculator only goes to twelve digits--as high as 300 million. It, too, can not compute a trillion dollars.

Of the immense sum, $145.2 billion goes to war, mostly for Iraq and Afghanistan (from October 1) with another $99.6 billion dollars for the remainder of the current fiscal year (to September 30). This is a humdinger of a total. $244.8 billion dollars spent on war for 12 months or $20,400,000,000.00 per month. As you turn a new calendar page, another $20.4 billion of taxpayer dollars goes goodbye. If we collectively decided enough was enough, could we save it and apply it to debt or redirect how the $245 billion dollars was spent?

Mr. David Leonhardt suggests a few ideas in his New York Times article "What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy", he writes:

"Treating heart disease and diabetes, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion." Earlier he mentions that more money could be contributed to the reconstruction of New Orleans.

The President's budget is part of a five year plan to have a balanced budget by 2012. He assumes we'll quit spending money in Iraq (hopefully he's right this time) and various other expenditures. But I ask, can you take five years to balance your family budget or would that land you in Bankruptcy and/or Divorce Court? At our house, if we can't afford something we don't buy it. Sure, we've made plenty of mistakes over the years. When we purchased items on credit, the end result is a future bill that must be paid. We've learned our lesson and work to eliminate our consumer debt, but how about the government? Can it wait to reduce its debt? Can we really afford the war?

President Bush Said...

Yesterday President Bush attended a Democratic congressional retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia, the first he attended since 2001. In last night's news on NPR, it was reported that President Bush said the war in Iraq is "sapping our soul." This quote struck me; it resonated with my strong personal feelings opposing the war in Iraq. I actually agreed with him--and that surprised me. Yet it didn't sound like something he would say unless it was, perhaps, coming from a religious perspective. If the President truly believes the war is sapping our soul, how could he possibly commit 21,500 more troops to Iraq? Could there be a glimmer of hope that he is waking up, or is it more likely that he said something to appease the crowd of Democrats? The soul-sapping war will begin its fifth year in just six weeks.

Read the article which mentions the quote: Bush Puts 'ic' Back in 'Democrat Party' (The Associated Press).