Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Eight Inches! . . . No, Really.

I have heard that it takes 28 days to form a new habit. Last night I learned that I have formed a blogging habit. We had terrible rain here in Denton yesterday - the national news reported nearly eight inches. We were fortunate that the rains were not accompanied by tornadoes. In fact, the only ill effects at my house were displaced fire ants (that sought revenge by attacking my feet while I was outside with the dogs) and a down DSL line. The lack of DSL service meant that we had no Internet or email access. I realized that I was OK without email but, I was bummed by the fact that I could not write a blog entry last night. It was at that moment that I was forced to confess that I am a blog addict - both as a writer and a reader. I suppose that I could have worse addictions. We are not talking about the yarn and the books!

I was supposed to be at a knitting guild board meeting last evening but thankfully it was cancelled due to the weather. So, I had the gift of an evening at home. What should I do? The mound of laundry called to me but, it is not a good idea to overburden the septic system when the ground is so saturated. It would wait. I could work on the upcoming issue of Spirit of Knitting but, the thunder and lightening with accompanying power blips made working on the computer a poor idea. I made pumpkin bread. I know - if I could not work on the computer because of possible power outages, why did I think that I could bake in the electric oven? Don't look for reason.

Then I decided to do something I almost never do - watch a television show "live". There are not many TV shows that I enjoy watching regularly; House and Grey's Anatomy are the exceptions though I generally record them and watch in the wee hours of the night. Tuesday night is the night for House and I was going to watch it - commercials and all.

Often we lose satellite reception during bad storms. Not last night. And because of the storm, the dogs did not want to go outside - no interruptions. Life was good. Until . . .there were possible funnel clouds southwest of us. This resulted in the interruption of House to "bring you this special weather bulletin". I realize that such information is vitally important but why did it have to come at the climax of the show! Now I will have to wait until next week's rerun to find out whether or not the woman actually died because of the misdiagnosis! Or . . . there is Itunes . . .

I guess this probably sounds a bit whiny. Really I can deal with not seeing all of House. I just find it ironic that the one time I sat down to watch it intentionally, the weather thwarted my plans. And the blog thing . . .I don't know what I would have written had I done so last night. I just know that I was genuinely bothered by the fact that I did not have the choice to write or not to write. Insight gained.

The other thing I learned last night is that people really do care about me. With no email to engage in the idiotic late night banter with my buddies (you guys no who you are!), I received several phone calls asking if we were OK. What a nice feeling.

All is well now. The flood waters have receded so there is no need to build the ark. Our DSL line is back in service hence I am able to write this and receive email. However, I still must wait to find out whether or not the radiation treatment resulted in the patent's death.