It's been an "interesting" few days.
On my April 24 post - a month ago today - I had a list of stuff that was bugging me. I've dealt with it. The jeep has been sold and taken away (that still hurts, even though it went to the best possible home where it will get the care I didn't give it). I did the paperwork for the trailer and handed it over to Rik. I got the maintenance done on the car in places other than where I went for the previous 24 years. I put on my new hubcaps.
And I got my Reclast infusion for my osteoporosis on Wednesday (4 days ago). I was nervous - a likely side effect was flu-like symptoms, maybe with nausea and/or headache. The infusion itself was easy - it took about an hour, but the needle they used was tiny, and I was in a comfortable recliner in a private room. Then I beat feet home so that I wouldn't be driving if those side effects hit.
Which they didn't - at first. I was fine that afternoon and evening. I was fine when I went to bed. Then I woke up at 2:00 a.m. . . . . .
"Flu-like symptoms" can best be described as "run over by a bus filled with a little league team on a sugar high who all jump out to beat the crap out of you with their little baseball bats." I was sweating, I was shivering, I hurt all over. About all one can do at that point is get up, walk around, take Tylenol, make a cup of tea, curl up on the couch, and turn on the TV. Up popped "You might like this movie." It showed a guy standing in front of an ancient crumbling mansion so what the heck - I hit play.
2:30 in the morning, sick, fevered, I watched this guy check in, get lost, the hotel is a big labyrinth filled with strange people (and occasionally a marching band in the hallway), and no one knows the way out. There is a salon with an aging grande Dame and her retinue, and he gets shoved into helping out in the kitchen where cooks have to apprentice for 7 years separating eggs before moving on to be allowed to whisk them. No one has been outside of the hotel for years. He notices that the hotel is shrinking - the hallways are getting narrower. Two little old ladies are moving their furniture to the hallway because it doesn't fit in the rooms any more. Finally the crowds are mobbing him, but he finally gets rescued by the giant squid that's living in the walls of the hotel.
I fall asleep wondering what the heck was in that infusion - or maybe how bad was that fever? Later that afternoon, I go back and check. The movie is real.
I was really sick (I kept telling myself that I wasn't sick, just having a reaction, but I lost that argument) Thursday (I was seriously wondering if the chickens wouldn't mind if they didn't get let out of their coop or fed - but I was able to get out there). Thursday night was a little rough, but Friday I was feeling better and I was able to go to work on Saturday. I figured I could get a decent night's sleep on Saturday and be all caught up.
The best laid schemes of mice and men . . . .
A storm rolled in Saturday night - not complaining, as we need the rain. The power went off around 10:00 p.m. It was totally black in the house (Bob used to use the phrase "darker than three feet up a bull's butt" but I'm not sure if he ever actually checked that out). Obviously, I went to bed. It took me awhile to get to sleep; I'm usually antsy about sleeping during a power outage because I know I'm going to be snapped awake when it comes back on. But I finally slept for a couple of hours. I remember the tag end of a dream - it might have been a nightmare for some people but it's a fairly ordinary occurrence for me - I was going to pick up some eggs from the nest box and saw that there was a snake in it. I stepped back, and then I was enveloped in darkness.
It took a few minutes for me to realize that I had waken up and the power was still out. I got up to go to the bathroom and heard/saw a flash!crack! and then a FLASH!BOOM! as a transformer blew somewhere.
I tried to go back to sleep. I had the windows open but it was still stuffy (obviously no fans running). The owls were being noisy outside the window. The hooting is pleasant, but barred owls also make this wild squawking monkey noise and seriously guys, can't you take it a little farther out in the woods? I'm starting to drift when the room is flooded with bright white light - from the outside. First panicked thought was "FIRE!" but it was white, not orange, and while it was moving, it wasn't flickering. Second thought was "aliens are landing." I got up and looked out the window. The electric company truck had come up my drive and was using a searchlight to follow and check the power lines.
By now it's after 3:00 a.m. and for some reason I'm wide awake. Now that the searchlight is gone, I'm also in the pitch dark, which is rather boring. I decide to read a bit. The Kindle has a light, but having the screen as the only light is a good way to hurt your eyeballs. I grab my headlamp with the LED strip light on it - it gives a soft general glow. It has also decided that it needs to be charged.
Now I'm wide awake and quite annoyed. My little electric spinning wheel has a battery pack. I grab that, and open the drawer that has the charging cords.
Goddess as my witness, I label cords when I get a new device, because the small plugs seem to be different for each thing. At 3:30 in the morning, nothing seems to be labeled, so I'm peering into little sockets with a flashlight, comparing it to the tiny plugs, finally find one that fits and I'm able to plug in my headlamp and read my damned book for awhile.
After that I sleep for a couple of hours and wake up to the power still off. I check the local FB page on my phone - post to see if anyone else has power, and apparently *everybody* else has power. Someone posted the outage made that showed that only two household were still without power (I don't know who the other one was).
But the lovely electrical people were here by 8:00 a.m. It turned out that the initial "flash!crack!" that I had heard was my own personal transformer blowing, so they had to bring in the big cherry picker and replace it. Nice people.
For some reason I haven't gotten much done today. I did have to tackle the freezer a little - nothing had thawed enough to worry about, but I discovered when I tried to get some ice for lunch that all of the ice in the ice maker had fused into one lump so I had to spend some time liberating that.
So that's the last four days. Maybe tomorrow will be a bit less interesting.
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