It was kind of a quiet weekend in the Rambling Khowaga household.  Our dogsitting project ended on Saturday, and Mocha spent most of the rest of the weekend exuding something between exhilarated relief and moping about.  One of the guest dogs taught her a neat new trick: she now has no problem putting her paws on the end table. Time to break out the double-sided tape.

We made a couple of rounds on Saturday: the Costco coupons came out and, like everyone else in these inflationary times, we went to the big box midday.  It was packed, and while Costco attracts a nominally more upscale crowd than, say, Sam’s Club, I am constantly amazed at the sheer selfishness of people.  It doesn’t matter if there are eight hundred people waiting in line with their carts to get through a roadblock in the aisle, caused by the oversized lady in the turquoise muumuu who absolutely had to stop in the middle of everything and block traffic in both directions while perusing the cookie selection, clearly the man talking on his cell phone who’s not paying attention has the right to dodge around everyone else and zip on ahead of everyone.

That there were no fist fights breaking out is either a testament to sheer laziness or Costco’s magnificent security force.  I’m really not sure which.

Among the many puzzling entries at the Costco this time around was a solar powered attic fan — something I never knew that I needed!  Ray and I both stared at it for a bit before moving on–among the many questions unanswered by the box was whether or not it requires one to cut into the roof or if it can somehow fit on an existing vent.

Speaking of alternate energy sources: I am stunned–stunned–that the Texas Public Utilities Commission has authorized spending $4.93 billion dollars to build more wind farms in West Texas–and the transmission lines that will carry the power generated back to East Texas, which is where all the big cities are.  I mean, Jumpin’ Jesus on a Pogo Stick, this is … this is actually something that kinda makes me proud of this state.  I’m feeling all conflicted.

Texas has a history of big industry and big business, and you don’t have to drive very far in Houston to get the sense that we’re kind of big on big oil, too.  If the fact that everything’s named for an oil company doesn’t tip you off, the endless tank farms will.

I figured that this, coming on the heels of Al Gore’s blink-and-you-missed-it challenge to the US to move to renewable energy within 10 years, would be derided as a liberal ploy to waste taxpayers’ money and dismissed without a second thought.

But they approved it.  Holy crap.  Who knew we could be so progressive? Yay us!