I have a wonderful friend who has just come back from Canada where she had been visiting her daughter’s family and young grandsons. She sent a video of the family skating on a pond or small homemade (I think) ice rink outside their home. You know, where someone can flood a cleared space and let the extreme cold freeze the area into a personal ice rink! Anyway, it was so cold-looking and so beautiful that it made me a little jealous…. maybe, but not really.
I actually have had some real snow at the ranch like a lot of people in San Saba and Lampasas counties during these last two weeks, and the snow too was beautiful! In fact, this winter, we have had more cold weather and snow than all the twenty-plus years I have lived on the ranch. Brrrr! I have loved it!
Sadly, many Americans have suffered in the vast cold, unfortunately, especially now in the age and economy of the pandemic. Personally, I had no heat for the last two days of this past week. My issues were not economic, but instead, simple obsolescence. It was cold! My oven didn’t work, and the wood was so wet from the rain that I had no luck in building a fire! Just burned up my meager supply of fire starters. Thank goodness, the electric co-op came out and replaced some obsolete part of the electrical transformer! I repeat! Thank God for heaters and the electric co-op repairman! So very much wish others in our country who may have suffered from the cold were able to get heat like I finally did.
Speaking of cold, I enjoyed watching the Inauguration this past week. Usually Washington D.C. on January 20th is cold and snowy, and while I know it was cold out on the steps of the Capitol, it appeared less snowy and icy than inaugurations of the past! Again, I say “Brrrr!” It was truly a relief to see the Capitol again in all its glory on Wednesday after it was trashed on January 6th! Even in the midst of the awful Civil War, Abraham Lincoln knew to continue building it! It was and is the symbol of the United States, of a “more perfect union,” and of ourselves!
I am sorry! I must confess I do not understand! How could citizens of this country attack the Capitol? I guess it was at the behest of those national and international followers of Putin’s ploy “Democracy: RIP.” You know, those insurrectionists, oligarchs, strong men, dictators, cowboys, and rugged individualists who do not like the others of us who think and act as a part of the majority of Americans.
Even so, I must point out that the smart Framers of the Constitution still outfoxed the insurrectionists. Balance of Power implies the Three Branches of Government. In theory, all three are equal, the Administrative, the Legislative, and the Judicial. Even if the Administrative and the Legislative branches had fallen (they didn’t!) to the seditionists (new word), the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary would have been in place to advocate for our democracy which they have done repeatedly over the last two months. Also, more importantly, the vast majority of us, all colors, all ethnicities, all religions, would have been there to contest the moves of the insurrectionists. Hey, I am old, a grandma, but I would be there to stand up to the insurrectionists or “domestic terrorists,” too. Good riddance!