Lately, the world has been having far more life-threatening problems, such as Covid, heat domes, droughts, great fires, infrastructure failures, and vast numbers of Afghan people suffering a political transition. Each of these has had its unique impact on me that is serious, but that would be welcome respites for many other people. For example, my house heat pump failed during the scorching weather and hasn’t been fixed for six weeks, and the repair people are saying it will be several more weeks, and perhaps not until winter. One would typically expect this to be fixed within the day of calling the people who installed the system, but after nearly two months, it is still in limbo, even though we have made a down payment for the new equipment. The same thing is happening with our emergency backup power supply from a different company. Fortunately, the nights are cool enough, and some days the smoke from local forest fires is thin enough to let the air blow through our house overnight. It doesn’t get hot until late afternoon, so it isn’t dangerous. So, I feel okay, even if the problems are stupid!
I can’t do anything about what’s happening in Afghanistan, so I hope my government is doing the right thing.
The forest fires are a real threat even though we haven’t had one close by, but we have the same kinds of forest around us that are burning out of control both to the north and south of us. I have done everything possible to make our home fire-resistant, like clearing everything down to bare dirt around the house. The various garden water faucets are hooked to hoses, and if there is water pressure, I can wet down what little is exposed.
Hopefully, the Covid risk is controlled by my getting the vaccine shots and only talking outdoors to my social gatherings of friends who say they have had their shots. I am voluntarily doing what the CDC suggests are the prudent things to be doing. I worry that this Covid disease will be with us for a long time, with probably new variants coming along because most people in the world haven’t had vaccinations.
At the personal worst, I could die any second, but I have already lived eighty-six years doing what seemed interesting to me at the time, so I’m okay with that too.