Assorted Technical Difficulties

There is, I don't know quite how to say this, a tree in my yard. Yes, I know what you're thinking, I live in the wilds, there should be, conceivably, many trees in my yard. But this tree is different. This tree is decidedly...

horizontal.

Now I'm no treeophile, but I'm pretty sure these things are supposed to go up/down not side/side. As god was continuing to vent his weather anger on account of our war/gays/health care reform/MTV he inadvertently deposited one of his up/down trees in our yard in a side/side manner. I found this quite funny (after doing the math necessary to realize that my car was protected by our bedroom and that our television was protected by our attic). Because nature is generally amusing, and side/side trees are particularly so. Also, devoted partner and I were about to leave the manse for our anniversary evening in Manhattan (please start your teasing now).

And I would have thought nothing of it, save for wondering if this is our landlady's problem or ours, had we not returned yesterday to discover that trees, apparently, are subject to group mentality. For another tree decided to align itself in a side/side manner; this time blocking our driveway.

As devoted partner went to alert our neighbor, whose tree it was, I went to park the car. Sort of. You see, devoted partner's garage door opener wouldn't work. So I got out of the car to open the door using the keypad. Which also didn't work. Funny that. I let myself into the house by the front door to discover a certain lack of light, not super surprising considering we had been absent a day, but even the ambient light from things like hard drives, oven clocks, and cable boxes was mysteriously absent.

Oh, yes, because we had no electricity. Because the trees were now unionized and many of them were now choosing to be side/side trees as opposed to up/down trees. Now I have experienced a lack of electricity before, dare I say I'm an old pro. People like air conditioning in the summer and sometimes they like to have more air conditioning than the folks at Con Edison can provide and then there is no power. Generally for about 2 hours. Sometimes 4. We light candles and play gin. But something about this lack of electricity was odd. Our neighbor told us at 2:00pm on Sunday that he had been (and by extension our neighborhood) without electricity since 8:00pm the previous day. My math skills kicked into high gear and I can now tell you with a strong measure of assurance, that is a full 18 hours without electricity.

That just seems barbaric.

We took refuge in the house of the mother-in-law (or rather, I took refuge while devoted partner "bravely" fled the scene to go to his office). When we returned at 11:00pm, there was still an obvious lack of electricity (hour 27). We set iPod alarms and such (though we needn't have bothered come to think of it as I was awakened by both the iPod alarm and the regular one, prompting me to think the crisis was over when really it's just that we have one of those alarm clocks that has emergency battery power). I dreamed that electricity had been restored. But, that was merely a dream. As I left the house (hour 37) I wondered how long we would be without sweet sweet power. Our neighbor had said he thought power would be restored sometime today (Monday), but 1010WINS ominously warned that some areas affected by downed lines might not have power until Thursday.

Well I cannot live at my mother-in-law's until Thursday, despite her willing hospitality. I couldn't live at my parents' house until Thursday.

So the reason there is no picture of the awesome tree in our yard is that, while my digital camera has it's own power source, the computer does not, preventing me from the download upload. Believe me when I tell you the downed tree is pretty spectacular, though it will become less spectacular in summer when I want to traipse around the yard naked and the neighbors, from whom we were once shielded by a tree, decide they do not want to see my naked traipsing. And devoted partner assures me the law is on their side.

I shall therefore predict that this summer many of these updates will be made from the Greenwich pokey.