So there I was, perusing the newspaper while waiting for the computer to boot up (ours takes about ten minutes). A storm raged, or at least agitated, outside. The lights flickered. I hoped that was all they’d do. It was not.
“Son of a bitch!” I heard Steven expressing himself upstairs.
This was, indeed, a heck of a note.
My blog post! “I’m going to the library,” I said. “They’re open till seven.” Basloe Library has saved my blog before. I looked out the window. The rain was coming down in sheets or buckets (pick your metaphor). I couldn’t even see all the way into the backyard. “Maybe I’ll stay in the house,” I amended.
After a while I reconsidered. My blog is important to me. Steven had found our lantern. It is a cute little battery-operated thing, really more of a decoration than a source of illumination. We had purchased it for a prop for Dirty Work at the Crossroads, the play we recently put on at Ilion Little Theatre (just had to sneak in another reference to that). Steven had thought it might be nice to have on our deck this summer. It worked perfectly well in this situation, too. After all, one hesitates to light candles when one has a rambunctious pet.
I decided to call the library and see if they had power before I got myself soaked getting there. This necessitated groping around in the dark for my flashlight so I could look up the number. No answer. That saved me a trip.
I sat on the floor and played solitaire by the light of the lantern. My eyes didn’t like it very much, but it worked. Steven sat on the loveseat and petted Tabby, who of course was not liking the thunder. We marveled at all the things you can’t do without electricity. No TV, no computer, no light to read a book, don’t dare open the freezer and eat ice cream. I couldn’t help feeling I ought to have more imagination and figure out something more fun to do. Still, I like to sit on the floor and play solitaire.
At last the storm stopped. The sun came back out. I turned off the lantern and waited for the electricity to come back on. I looked out the window to see that the rain had completely stopped. I suggested we take Tabby for a walk, to pass the time till power was restored.
The rain had temporarily washed the humidity out of the air and cooled the temperature. Everything looked clean and fresh in the sunshine. Lots of people were out and about. Well, sure, why sit in your house with no electricity? We walked up to German Street and started toward Prospect (Tabby wanted to go that way).
When we turned down Prospect to avoid a couple of dogs on German, we discovered the cause of our electrical woes. The entire top of an electrical pole had broken off. It lay in the middle of the street, wires drooping in a forlorn fashion. Part of a large tree in front of the synagogue was down as well. Branches from other trees lay here and there.
“We’re not going to have power again tonight,” a woman predicted.
“My blog post,” I lamented.
“Our supper,” she worried. At least Steven and I had already eaten.
They clearly did not want us walking by the downed power lines, so we turned around and headed back home. I saw a young lady reading on her front porch and suggested we follow suit. It was fortunate this happened at a time of year when it stays light till almost nine o’clock.
Sometime in the middle of the night I woke to see that power had been restored. I suppose a really dedicated blogger would have leapt out of bed and rushed to the computer to make that post. And here we come to the ugly truth about me. I rolled over and went back to sleep. I didn’t even look to see what time it was.
I had spoken with my parents on the phone earlier. Mom was of the opinion that this didn’t really count as missing a blog post, because it was circumstances beyond my control. And yet the mortification lingers. If only I had made my post before going to dinner. Well, as I have observed many times, one can’t foresee everything. To put it another way, shit happens.
