Storm A 'Comin! And A Goin'!

We are awaiting a Tropical Storm today (with a name that I seem unable to pronounce; maybe that's just as well as if you give things names, they gain power!). High winds, lots of rain (which we need!) and possible trees down, power outages etc etc- which we don't need! Last night we had an unexpected fore-taste of Isaias- sudden thunder, lightening, downpour and excitement out side the bedroom and then quiet. We were able to reopen the windows afterwards. This morning is drizzly but mostly quiet; the quiet before the storm.

And speaking of quite, check out my new piece, above: in this day and age if you're not paying attention or speaking out then you're part of the problem. Thank goddess that people ARE speaking out! And yes, I sewed around all of those little points...

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It is now a full 12 days later... where have we been??!?!

The electricity blinked off for a couple of minutes during the storm and then our Internet went down. I called Frontier (an altogether evil and ineffective company!) and received vague generalities as to "uncertain when Internet would e restored", "widespread problems" blah blah blah. I called and recalled Frontier (did I mention what a vile and totally useless company they are?); I must have phoned them up seven or eight times. Each time I encountered what could have been "humorous" had it not been so infuriating: they insisted that we only had a phone account through Frontier, not Internet- this with me staring at a screen that gave me the number to call to report problems with our FRONTIER Internet. Finally one semi-alert service representative figured that it was because our bills are not bundled and one is listed under Bob and the other is listed under Robert. With that cleared up, I was handed over to yet another representative who finally spewed some weird explanation about a cut wire on our road.highly technical explanation, that!

And I still have their inane and potentially mind-damaging muzak stuck in my head. I implored the last person I spoke to to please, please NOT put me on muzak; he demurred and said he couldn't do that. So I sat, and sat and sat... I finally hung up. (And need I mention that they requested a phone number in order to call us back should we be disconnected? This from the company that we have phone service with, which seems to suggest it's on the computer screen in front of them!??!? And did they call us back?!?!??!!? NO!!!) Have I suggested what a truly awful company Frontier is?!??!?

So later that morning, I called my riding instructor to just touch base. I mentioned that our Internet was till down. She was horrified and said, "Well, maybe try what my son does when our Internet is acting up. Just shut everything off and unplug the whole system. Let it sit for a few minutes and then re-boot it." I did just that and hey presto! My eighty year old riding instructor did what Frontier couldn't- she got our Internet back up and running!

So here we are, 12 days later and I have over 400 emails to delete in my inbox. Welcome to modern-day America!

Could Have Been Worse!

I never thought I'd say this but I would have taken snow! There is an inch of ice on everything. Sparkly-yes! Luminous-yes! Pretty from the house-yes! But it's miserable out there. I guess I really don't need to tell you this if you live anywhere in the NorthEast...
This morning, at 6:00 when it was -1 degree, I was half way the barn with Maggie's bucket o'slops when it dawned on me that it was dark and incredibly cold AND very slippery. If I happened to fall down no one would know (as Bob was still in bed) and I'd no doubt freeze to death. (No one that is except Robin who was already back on the terrace, waiting to go in- unusual behavior for her!) Fortunately, I'm here to write this blog so I obviously kept my footing and all is well. (How beings like Maggie stay outside is beyond me. She seemed fine, swaddled as she is in her heavy-duty high neck waterproof horse house coat.)

(Our fence, crested with Bob's magical miniature houses, are delightful in the ice.)
So we were smart and cleared the ice off the cars yesterday, figuring that they'd probably freeze shut overnight. I was deep into ice-encrusted snow removal when Bob pointed out that the tree directly above the car was leaning precariously and endangering both me and the car. I got the keys and Bob moved the car across the driveway by the truck. A half hour later, safely back in the house, I had a urge to look out the back door. Guess what:

Bob had had a premonition! The tree fell down and would have crushed the car! (in which we had only the day before replaced the starter motor.) There is indeed something to be said for trusting one's instincts! Boy winter sucks; but we had it cleaned up within an hour- that's Bob with the chain saw to the left above. But haven't I mentioned recently that that's all we did this year??!?!?)

So it could have been worse... but it's bad enough. There's ice everywhere, it's fucking freezing outside and my curator is cancelling (again). But we do have power and food and the wind wasn't as bad as predicted (which means fewer broken trees and less chance of loosing power) but we're getting "shack-y whack-y". (That's an updated form of cabin fever, according to our mechanic friend Bob). Can we believe that Wednesday is supposed to be in the 40's and rainy?
At least the lousy weather was good for something: I finished my piece, "Your Words Have Consequences".

A Rude Awakening

I can think of few more calamitous events to encounter first thing in the morning than no electricity. This is because with no electricity comes no coffee. Bob went down stairs to make our morning brew and was greeted by the apparent death of Mr. Coffee and then realized we had no power. I went outside to relieve Jules and happened to encounter our neighbor Meagan. She was also out of power (which at least answered the question of whether it was a blown fuse or neighborhood-wide). But she saved our lives by providing an already made 1/2 carafe of coffee. Yay! Hoorah for neighbors.
We in turn assisted her by schlepping buckets of water from our stream so that she could flush their toilet. (She has four children to prepare for school; I just can't imagine). Of course, after hauling seven or eight buckets of water, the power was restored. I'm not going to complain about that.
But, sadly, our Mr Coffee did die; the timing of his demise was simply a peculiar coincidence.