I started off my day slipping quietly out of the house early to meet a few of my classmates for our ‘71 Divas Do Coffee gathering. It was so good to see the girls…some of whom I hadn’t seen since our class reunion last August. They all looked so wonderful and healthy. It did my heart good to spend time with them.
It was getting really windy by the time we came out of the coffee shop. I had a couple short stops to make before I headed back to Marshmallow Ranch. Mr. FixIt was just finishing his lunch when I got home and then he got back to work on the hallway. I noticed a few things in the project on Friday night that I wanted to tidy up so I did spend a little time working on the computer.
Mr. FixIt had just finished and was sitting down to watch golf when the lights started to brown out and flicker off and on. We kinda held our breath, but we knew it didn’t look good. Sure enough, about ten seconds later, the electricity went off and that was that. I brought a take-and-bake pizza home to cook for supper but without power, we were pretty much out of luck. Since he ran out of caulk for the moulding in the hall, Mr. FixIt suggested we run into town to get more and then go out for supper.
We stopped at Walmart to buy the caulk, but the near empty parking lot told us the power was out there, too. Of course, Lowe’s next door would be no help. We decided to go up to Vienna to the Walmart on that side of town. Walmart didn’t have the caulk, but the Vienna Lowe’s did and we were soon set.
Since we were on the north side of town, we decided to head up the river to Marietta, Ohio for the best ribs in the Mid Ohio Valley…Boathouse BBQ. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been very cautious about eating in restaurants hence we ordered our food to go and ate in the car overlooking the sweeping view of the river. Between the high water and the stiff winds, the river looked more like a muddy ocean with choppy white-capped waves than its usual placid surface. I would have loved to sit out on the beached dock, but the wind had a decided nip to it even though the temperature was in the seventies. So, we sat in the comfort of the car. I cant tell you how many “car dates” we’ve had in the last three years.
On our way to the restaurant, we passed an apartment house with an enormous tree that crushed the roof in. I haven’t heard anything, so I do hope everyone was safe. I watch a scanner page on FB and there were reports all over town of down trees and power lines across a large swath of the surrounding area. As we drove slower to home, we saw some of the electricity was restored but alas…ours was not. There was no indication on the power company website when the service might be restored.
As I am writing this, we have the battery-powered camping lantern on the table beside Mr. FixIt’s Big Red Chair and I am sitting happily in the dark on my side of the room tippy-tapping on my keyboard…writing my thoughts to you. I have to say, I’m loving the peaceful camaraderie with no TV. The peepers are going crazy out there and this might be a night to sleep in the camper. Maybe I’ll hear an owl…or a whippoorwill. Or just a calmer wind blowing through the trees on the ridge top beyond the far field.
?
“He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.”
Psalm 107:29 ESV