24 Hours

Yesterday was the day from hell.  It all started slightly before midnight on Friday. 

We had some big storms coming through the area on Friday evening.  Since I never cut my lawn during the 90 degree heat wave last week, I decided to go out and 'beat the clouds' and get it mowed.  I then waited for the rain.

Actually, it was a lot of wind and noise, and with everything so dry the rain did little to sate the appetite of my plants for water.  I went to bed shortly before 11.  The wind and rain were doing their thing.  I have security lights on the back of my home and they came on thanks to the trees blowing in the wind.

I ignored the lights, figuring they would eventually turn off, but the storm woke me up shortly after midnight and the lights were still on.  I clicked them off and went back to sleep.

When I woke up Saturday morning and turned on the radio, the local classical music station came on instead of the local news station.  That could only mean that the power had gone out.  Sure enough, I walked to the other side of my ranch home and heard my generator running.  No problem.  I can still continue on with my day.

Since I had the fortune to have cut my lawn, I decided to go outside and apply the fertilizer for July.  The bag seemed abnormally heavy.   When I opened it up, it was full of fertilizer clumps.  I thought I could break it up and still use it, but no matter what setting I used on the spreader, it just didn't work.  So, I had to head off to the garden center to exchange the bag. 

Back home I fertilized the lawn, picked some weeds in the flower beds, dead-headed flowers and decided it had just gotten too hot outside to continue.  I came in the house and thought it seemed rather warm so I clicked on the air-conditioner.

I took my shower and then decided to check my email.  Oops.  No Internet.  No cable TV.  No phone.  Everything was out.  I called the cable company on my 'emergency only' cell phone and found out that the entire area was affected.  The recorded phone message tells me that I can get updates at their website.  DUH!  I have NO Internet!

While I sat here I thought that the house wasn't getting any cooler so I checked the thermostat.  Hmmm.  No change in temp.  I looked outside at the compressor unit and it was not working.  Since the generator was running, that must mean I have a problem with the A/C unit - again.

Well, actually, it turns out I don't.  As soon as the power came on around 10:30 A.M. the A/C started working.  So, that means it is not hooked up to the generator and I will have to called the installers tomorrow to get it fixed.

The mail arrives in the afternoon and I discover that my cable bill, the same cable service that is completely out, has gone up in price by $30 a month.  I check emails from them but can find no explanation.  That means a call to their billing department tomorrow.  Maybe it is now time to ditch the home phone.

My cable services were still out when I went to bed at 11.  I hit the sack just in time to hear the AWFs start up.  As best I can figure they were coming from some area well north of where I am.  They actually sounded just like the gunfire I heard last year when one of our police officers was shot and killed in a stand-off situation.  This continued on and off until 1:00 A.M. when they either stopped or I fell asleep from complete exhaustion. 

I honestly do not know how anyone with PTSD can stand this.  I actually am finding myself sitting up in a state of nervousness.  From what I read in the papers, I am not the only one who is thoroughly disgusted.

This morning the Internet and phone are back.  TV I can take or leave, though I did spend a good part of yesterday watching 'House of Cards'.  (Here is a show with not one character I would even want to say I know if they were real folks.)

I watered my flowers this morning.  It is cool and absolutely beautiful outside.  I have a wonderful video of my morning walk around the north garden.  If I can figure out how to change its .mts format in HD to something Google accepts, I may upload it in the future.  Such is my week-end.

For now, you must content yourself with this picture of the daylily Spanish Beauty.  It is one of the most prolific I have.  I even planted it many years ago at our Town Hall.  I wonder if it is still there?

Staying in Touch in the 21st Century

Progress.  Supposedly that is what they call this age of constant communications that we live in.  But, I for one, am not so sure.

I have a cell phone.  It is in my purse.  It is not even on.  I have it for emergencies.  (I still have a land line.)  I used to tell people that if I was so important that I needed to have a phone with me all the time, I would also have a red phone next to my bed.  I am not and I don't.

I do not understand this attachment to phones and being in touch.  I see women older than I am constantly with the phone in their hand.  They are texting and talking and doing god knows what.  They can barely take a one-hour yoga class between playing with their phone.

I am planning a trip to Europe for three weeks.  I am debating whether to take my cell with international service for the month or just get a phone card.  I started thinking back to what I had done in the past when I was out of the country.

On my last trip to Europe I did not keep in touch at all.  I used no Internet, no phone.  Nothing.  If the world could not get along without me for eight days, then the world would just have to end.  It didn't.

In 2000, when I went off to Australia, I bought a phone card and gave my staff and my family the code for it.  We kept in touch that way by leaving phone messages since their day was my night.  It worked just fine.

The year before I was on a cruise with Internet access so I just emailed everyone if they needed something.  But that same year, I was also in Paris and did not communicate with home.  I did, however, take a photo of a woman at the top of the Eiffel Tower talking on her cell phone.  This beautiful view and she is standing their gabbing away on a phone. 

I was discussing this via email with one of my children.  I told him that the first time I went to Europe in 1969 the only communication I had from home was a bi-weekly pick-up of mail at the local American Express office.  Everyone I knew had an itinerary for the trip (it was originally for 16 weeks, but a death in the family cut it short after 10) with addresses and directions to make sure they mailed it to a stop further down on the list than where we were. 

Of course, back then I had no children or a job to worry about.  Now I still have no job, but I have a home and children.  I am sure they will be fine.  And if something happens at home, there is not much I can do from some mountain in Switzerland.

So now, I will head off and finish part of that original trip, 44 years later, only this time I will not be traveling with 'Europe on $5 a day' as my guide.  And I'll not be picking up mail at the Amex office.  I may not even 'phone home.'