That was a surprise.

O.k.  I know ya’ll are keeping close watch on my weather this year.  But let’s review:

1.  Snow

2.  Snow

3.  Snow

4.  Earthquake (Did I miss telling you about this one?  Crazy-weird.  I was awake,  drinking coffee.  Ned was hanging out on the island, next to me.  I hear this noise and I had a zillion seconds to try to figure out what it was.   But I couldn’t come up with anything.  I looked at the critters – to see if they were responding and Ned was getting up from a down position  – only his little legs were splayed about as wide as they could go, for stability, and his body was low to the ground.   And the whole room rode the crest of a wave.  Very cool.  Except Nickie hid under the basement stairs for about 6 hours.)

4a.  Thunderstorms:  Absolutely awesome this year.  Possibly more so because Aurora no longer seems to care about them and the kittens are always surprised and amusing.   Especially Nickie – when she’s hanging out on the patio all by herself and a big wind starts up.  She turns into a puff ball and needs cuddling.

4b.  Heat:  I think, I heard that in an average summer, this region has 37 (or 38 or 36) days above 90 degrees F.   We’re at 42 with 6 or 7 weeks to go.   We’ve also topped out the number of days above 100.

5.  Now a tornado?  (I haven’t heard the final analysis but at least 70 mph gusts of wind, and someone was surveying damage to see if it could be called a tornado.)

Like any good office worker,  I had put all the chores off until Sunday evening – just in time for the power to go out.

And out it went.

No electricity.  (Turns out a tree was down and 4 telephone poles were snapped in half.)

No land lines (not, uhm that we have one – but that meant we couldn’t call from a cell to a land line – all switching was of line.)

No AT&T Tower.  No cable or FIOS  (you know, if you had a generator.)

No Air Conditioning.  (Over night lows of 84.  I try not to look a the triple digit highs.   Today’s HIGH was 84.  Which was really nice because I don’t think too many people figured out how bad the storm had been till today.  Yesterday we were all “o.k.  Wind.  Power out.  Hot.  Situation Normal.”   Today we were all trapped in place, with reasonable weather, and talking to each other.)

Things I had left undone in preparation for the week:

laundry

dishes

charging anything that requires a charge

cooking dog food and assorted harvests

Things I had not left undone in preparation for the week:

After returning from the “dog walk” (during which we waded in the creek), I properly removed my shoes and socks before entering the house and left them on the hothot driveway to dry.

(And then the sky dumped 3.6 inches of rain on them.)

Things I need to think about:

The generator – that I’ve had for the first time in my life (and apparently become way to dependent upon)?

A squirrel got it.

I never expected to find out how attached I was to the internet by staying home.

FacebookDeliciousTumblrDiggEmailShare