Ugh. This will definitely impact our going to Samsonville today, if our house is involved (as it usually is). One thing I want to do while I am there is sort out the fried computer situation. My sister, bless her, has already fixed about 90 percent of it. But I'll still need power to finish the job! Unlike here in the Capital District, it rarely takes just a few hours to restore the grid.

The other agenda item for the long weekend is research for the non-fiction story I have in the works. I don't need power for that, and the interview is set for Sunday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Yesterday after my lament I buckled down and started checking off to do list items. I felt a lot better after I did it. In the back of my mind, I was hoping to go out in the late afternoon and start working on the plants, but then the tornado warning came, and I decided hail would hurt the seedlings - why risk it? We did have a terrific thunderstorm very late at night, but nothing else, so I suppose I could have done some planting. Just as well, though - guess what is on the agenda for today? So excited! (Pictures are on the way, stay tuned.)

A couple of days ago I had a strange facebook experience. I received one of those notifications about a friend's birthday. What's weird about that? This person died in October. Not only was the message a sad reminder, but it sparked me to think about her facebook page, continuing to meander along, on autopilot...leading me to contemplate an entire technical world structure without the actual people, going into eternity.

Added: speaking of fb, I decided to put out a call for information to see if the electric is out in S'ville. When I didn't get an immediate response, I thought, "guess that's my answer!" But then someone did respond: Yes, it is. That ability to gather information not easily available by any other means is one reason I am not among the fb detractors. Then I went to the Central Hudson website and found this! The difference between the yellow and orange is only because of density of population - I'm sure every house in the colored areas is out. Pretty cool, even for an unhappy answer. (Unfortunately, if you were in the colored area - you would have no way to see it without electricity, since there is no guarantee your smart phone will get a signal. Lots of folks do have generators, though.)