Monsoon of Zenith
Jul. 6th, 2025 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoWe had an ironic morning. We went to bed early last night, because we felt incapable of doing anything else. We woke up early with the intention to get busy arranging things for visitors, to include stuff like vacuuming . . . BUT. It turned out the power had gone out at some point in the pre-dawn. When queried, the power company said it was probably because of "trees," and it would probably be fixed by 10:15. THEY LIED. When our pals arrived, I was frying bacon with a flashlight in one hand, because it was too dark in the kitchen to see if the bacon was browned enough. I had to go mostly by the sizzle. So we invited them over on the grounds that everyone might enjoy some AC. When they arrived, not only was there no AC, but there was no power of any kind. Ha ha, such an amusing turn of events. By this time, the power company had changed its mind, and said the power would not come on until 2:15, and the probable cause of outage was "equipment failure." DUH!!
It was still pretty cool in the house from overnight, and there was no shortage of bacon, a yummy egg casserole, and some delicious fruit salad and cinnamon buns, contributed by our friends. We had a fun discussion over brunch, much of it about the apparent desire of some younger group members to live off the grid. We talked about that, and reasons why we might not want to. I never got around to sharing my reasons why not. A relatively trivial one would have been HELLO, AC AND ELECTRIC LIGHTS, but two more important ones would have been 1)books and 2)health care. Books don't do well in your average non-climate controlled shack in the woods. They apparently survive in scriptoria and castles, but probably not in a cabin. Parkinson's off the grid is a death sentence, as are simpler things like a broken hip. So I'm inclined to stick with the precarious techno-industrial system until the wheels come off of either it or me.
About 1 pm, the power came back on, and we were all happy. We had a lively, spirited and prolonged discussion of the Paradiso, though we only got through three cantos because everything leads to something else and there were many opinions. The kids played and read in the family room adjacent, with the littlest one enjoying the grandfather clock's workings every time it struck, until it was time to go home. The Sparrowhawk and I were congratulating ourselves on a job well done when the power went out again. We were contemplating going out to dinner when it came on again an hour or two later, so we were able to get leftovers out of the refrigerator instead. And watch an episode of Murderbot. There's nothing like a bit of deprivation to give luxuries an extra spice.
It was still pretty cool in the house from overnight, and there was no shortage of bacon, a yummy egg casserole, and some delicious fruit salad and cinnamon buns, contributed by our friends. We had a fun discussion over brunch, much of it about the apparent desire of some younger group members to live off the grid. We talked about that, and reasons why we might not want to. I never got around to sharing my reasons why not. A relatively trivial one would have been HELLO, AC AND ELECTRIC LIGHTS, but two more important ones would have been 1)books and 2)health care. Books don't do well in your average non-climate controlled shack in the woods. They apparently survive in scriptoria and castles, but probably not in a cabin. Parkinson's off the grid is a death sentence, as are simpler things like a broken hip. So I'm inclined to stick with the precarious techno-industrial system until the wheels come off of either it or me.
About 1 pm, the power came back on, and we were all happy. We had a lively, spirited and prolonged discussion of the Paradiso, though we only got through three cantos because everything leads to something else and there were many opinions. The kids played and read in the family room adjacent, with the littlest one enjoying the grandfather clock's workings every time it struck, until it was time to go home. The Sparrowhawk and I were congratulating ourselves on a job well done when the power went out again. We were contemplating going out to dinner when it came on again an hour or two later, so we were able to get leftovers out of the refrigerator instead. And watch an episode of Murderbot. There's nothing like a bit of deprivation to give luxuries an extra spice.
