spynotes ::
  January 29, 2006
Crabs

This weekend has not been stellar. We have all been sick. My fever finally broke on Friday, but I still have a long and wheezy cough that sounds like I�m doing my best cartoon geezer impression. My husband and I did manage to escape to a very nice party at a sceney new restaurant in Chicago last night for a friend�s 40th birthday, but we were both feeling lousy by morning. The general lousiness was no doubt aided and abetted by the lack of heat in our house. Our power went off sometime last night and didn�t come back on until late this afternoon, by which point I had long since passed grumpy and moved onto surly or possibly deranged. I am still feeling grumpy.

AJ noticed the power outage first. He appeared at my bedside (my husband was sleeping in the guest room because I had been coughing so hard when we went to bed) at about five this morning, crying, �Mommy, I can�t find my clock!� We had actually just moved his clock from his art table, where it was taking up too much valuable real estate, to another table where it is a little harder to see from AJ�s bed, but is more out of the way of important projects. I figured that in his sleepy panic, he had just forgotten about the change. But when I walked him back into his room, I realized his nightlight was out too. After I crawled back under the covers, shivering, I dialed Com Ed.

By 7:15, our yard was crawling with men in hard hats peering up at the utility poles along the stream, which was raging through the backyard after all our recent rain. We could dimly see flashing orange lights from somewhere on the street on the other side of the barn. We were hopeful. AJ and I went out for breakfast and to the grocery store, figuring all would be well by the time we got home. Alas, that was not the case. It turned out that a large tree had fallen on the power lines in almost exactly the same location as the last time our power went out for a day. But after they got that fixed and were about to turn on the power, another tree fell and knocked the whole thing out again. It�s been a tough year to be a tree around here. We�re starting to wonder if we should be investing in a generator.

I wish I could have enjoyed a day of unexpected freedom from the computer and phone. I wish I had been in the mood to build a fire and settle in for a nice family day. But instead I was in a foul mood. AJ was miserable too and we wasted much of the day fighting about just about everything, which was a total waste of time and really, I should know better. And now I�m feeling sorry for myself for having to work tonight when I�d really much rather be reading the new Julian Barnes novel, which I�m greatly enjoying but which I am now unlikely to finish before it�s due back at the library tomorrow. Perhaps I should just pack it in and start fresh in the morning. Things are sure to look brighter then.

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