Utility drama

Our water shifted from one municipality to another.  There is so much growth around here that Georgetown, to the east, could no longer handle supplying water to our community so we switched to Leander, to the west.  Supposedly Leander costs a lot more but the way they calculate water charges on a bill are clear to someone with a degree from MIT but no one else.  So I just figured I'd wait to see whether we were going to have to pay more.  Not like I could do anything about it.

Annnnddd they screwed up the first bill.  Someone made ONE mistake setting up the transition data scrape.  They picked up the starting water meter figure from the last Georgetown bill rather than the ending figure.  So everyone gets this really high bill for two months of water usage PLUS a deposit not refundable until the last bill (meaning to my estate) and NextDoor gets a lot of over the weekend WTF comments among the neighbors.

I called this morning and, of course, they knew about the mistake.  They said to forget the bill and a new one would be coming out.  

The one good thing is that I sent them my ID for a 10% over 65 discount.  Whohoo!!

I'm hopeful that after all the dust settles and we get over the first month deposit, things will be no worse and maybe better.

Dually truck leads to thought on causation

My day began as it nearly always does with my dog, Zoe, insisting I take her on her morning walk.  

On our way back to the car a dually pickup did a screeching acceleration past us.  I take great exception to that kind of behavior.  We live in a neighborhood and that is not acceptable.  He was clearly a worker so when I got to my car I followed intending to get the phone number of his company to report him to the builder that hired him.  But, of course, he did not have any markings on his truck.  He was a window installer with a huge Trump 2020 applique covering the back window of his pickup.  And he had sport wheels like some Friday Nights kid.  It all made sense.  It was a demonstration of American Exceptionalism in action.  

And as such things will happen, I ran across this from Rolling Stone today:

The Unraveling of America  

Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era

www.rollingstone.com

The TLDR is that we're watching the end of the American century.  Not the end of the world any more than the British Empire ending brought it on.  But with the ascension of China we're seeing the start of their century while watching the end of American exceptionalism.

I do not think I've ever read an article with more quotable lines in it.  The author, an anthropologist has a few things to say about Trump but then:

Odious as he may be, Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent.

This, I think, is clear.  He is a symptom to which we are attaching unwarranted causation.

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