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Storm day

Tropical Depression Ernesto takes out a tree (or ten) in the neighborhood

It's just a lot of rain and wind. You wouldn't think it would cause such a stir. The rain didn't really seem to be coming down all that hard, either, probably because it had been whipped to mist by the winds on high.

Well, actually, the rain seemed pretty heavy when I was out driving in it all morning. Then when I came home, the power sags and the wind blowing stuff around (sticks make a bonging sound when they hit the bars on the windows) were distracting enough that I bailed on translating The Article That Saps My Will to Exist and hung out upstairs reading. I kept hearing this banging sound. I assumed it was something related to the work being done on a neighbor's house, like Tyvek flapping around, but no. It was the sound of buckling metal from where the wind was attempting to peel the roof off a house across the street.

Eventually I got tired of that and went downstairs to try and work. After about twenty minutes of ["You think, therefore you are." Oh, god, no. Do I have to?], the power went out and didn't come back on again. Fun. The phone kept chirping and sometimes had a dial tone and sometimes did not. I finally decided to go for a walk with my decrepit umbrella and my weatherproof camera. I found trees down and I could hear the sounds of generators, house alarms (which go off when their backup batteries run down), and sirens from all over the neighborhood. I also found lots of other people walking around. We compared notes on the power outage and the contents of our freezers.

Back home I peeled out of my wet clothes and did the chores which would be difficult to do after darkness fell, like throwing the pill down Sparky's gullet. Oz got back from work and we hung out on the front steps to watch the storm. A power company truck drove by, the guys were staring intently up at the power lines and asked us what time we lost power. They drove back and forth a few times. We chatted with some neighbors about the burglar being captured.

This hanging out on the front steps and saying hey to people passing by is really nice. We'd do it more often if it weren't that for most of the summer it's the equivalent of sitting in a frying pan.

The telephone pole emitted a pfft! sound around six o'clock and we had power! Then it emitted a shower of sparks and we still had power, but we also moved our cars out from under it.

And now I think the excitement is about over. I'll check the river for flooding tomorrow.