But here's Callie right after her grooming. I hope I didn't give anyone the wrong impression; her fur was just lightly trimmed, not clipped down. She had long bits of hair growing out between her toes and on the back sides of her legs. The hair on her rump (one groomer once called that "the skirt") was also very long and knotty. So that all got trimmed off and the fur on her chest and belly got evened up.
My paws are neat and tidy now, but I'm so over it.
The groomer also lightly trimmed her all over, but if you didn't see her before it's hard to tell. At any rate, she's clean, tangle-free, and trimmed up. She also didn't want her picture taken, as you can see. She wouldn't look at me with the camera and absolutely refused to pose. I don't blame her, really.
I heard on the news (which in France is all Japan and Lybia right now) that the country in the world with the most domestic power nuclear reactors is the United States. I had no idea. According to what I saw, the US currently operates 58 reactors, followed by France with 55. I had a quick look a Wikipedia and they say there are 104 commercial reactors operating in the US and 59 operating in France. The United States is the largest supplier of commercial nuclear power in the world.
Neither Wikipedia nor television news programs is a paragon of accuracy. But still, the general information seems to be that the US has the most reactors in the world, and that really surprised me. Most of them are located in the east and mid-west.
Our house is just over 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) from the two reactors at St.-Laurent on the Loire River. Those reactors were commissioned in 1983. There were two older reactors on the site that were decommissioned in the early 1990s; they were about thirty years old then.
The debate has begun again, given what's happening in Japan, about the wisdom of nuclear power in France (and I'm sure all over the world -- Germany just shut down a number of reactors). Except for the Green Party, most politicians say that France cannot and will not abandon nuclear power generation. Eighty percent of France's electricity comes from nuclear generation. That's a lot. But the prime minister immediately authorized a thorough safety review of all of France's plants, and there is a growing consensus to shut down at least one, Fessenheim (near the border with Germany), which is the nation's oldest operating plant.
It's interesting. I know the plants are there; in fact I know where several of them are. But I kind of ignore them on a day to day basis. It reminds me of when I lived in San Francisco. I knew we were on the San Andreas fault, and I was there for the 1989 earthquake. We did some things to prepare for a "big one" around the house (strapping the water heater, bolting shelves to the wall, having an "earthquake survival kit" on hand). But on a day to day basis, I didn't really think about it much.
With this disaster in Japan, I'm suddenly acutely aware of the nuclear power plants nearby.