Journal of a Sabbatical

September 17, 1999

a windy day frittered away

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pat Rapp

Today's Reading: Bird News by Vern Laux

The power went off last night around 9:00 while I was writing away at this journal. It flickered a little and I lunged for the switch on the power strip and the switch on the back of the new 4 gig hard drive simultaneously. I managed to turn everything off and not sprain anything before the power flickered a couple of more times and then stayed off.

Earlier I'd told Nancy on the phone that even though the news was reporting the most extensive power outages were in the Merrimack Valley, I still had power. Hah! Way to jinx the power, idiot!

My "Mighty Brite" book light was readily accessible. It was clipped on to Danube. I curled up in the bed and tried to read Danube, but it just didn't seem like the right storm reading. I called Nancy again and told her the power was out here. She still had power. We talked for a long time, and she suggested I read something a little less philosophical than Danube. I picked up Bird News by Vern Laux, which was on top of my new books to be read pile, and started in the middle with his essay on hurricanes and continued on through all the autumn essays.

I used the book light to locate my flashlight on the desk, and the extra batteries in my dresser, but I really didn't need to do that. I only used the flashlight to give Wilbur something to chase.

The power came back on around quarter to 11, and stayed on just long enough for me to reset the clock before it started that awful flickering and went out again. I woke up when the power came back on in the middle of the night, went back to sleep immediately, and slept in until 10:00 this morning. Should've put a battery in the battery backup for the alarm. Not that I had anything major scheduled for today anyway.

As I was getting dressed to go out and get the darn newsletter copied, the phone rang. Zsolt's power went out this morning and when it came back on the file he'd been working on didn't show the 2 hours of changes he'd put into it. He says autosave was on, but no .bak file was anywhere to be found. He got a couple of other phone calls while I was trying to walk him through troubleshooting, so it was an hour and several phone calls later when I finally got out of the house.

The wind has been howling all day, blowing mainly out of the northwest. There are branches down all over the place, but I didn't see any trees down unless you count the lilac in front of the unit across from mine. Those lilacs have been dropping like flies in the last year or so. Every storm knocks down more of them. No wonder the landscape committee is so unhappy.

I frittered away the windy day with coffee at Starbucks with Tom and Dan and Geri. Then frittered away more of it standing over the copier while it made 100 newsletters, which I didn't set to staple. Now I'm home folding and stapling newsletters and stuffing them in envelopes. All of of which I'd planned (well, except the stapling) to do yesterday.

Oh, the other waste of time was a trip to Plum Island to see if any pelagic birds had gotten carried in on the wings of Floyd or if any migrants had gone off course with this northwest wind. The wind was blowing so fiercely only the stupidest most inexperienced birds were trying to fly - that is, one lone ring-billed gull and a tree swallow. The herring gulls and great black backed gulls were all sitting in the sand up against the dunes taking advantage of the protection from the wind. At Hellcat, several hundred ducks of some kind(s) were similarly huddled in the lee of the dike for protection from the wind. But me, I walked directly into the wind and got a mouthful of sand and a little windburn for my trouble. Proof positive that the average herring gull is smarter than me. But it was exhilarating. I walked from lot 6 around to Sandy Point and back again and felt like I'd had quite a workout.