Hah!!
The power never went out!!
Dewey wins!!!
What a reactionary I am….worried about the future….scheduling blog posts ahead of time because I’m sure that the power will go out.
Funny little pessimist….the roads are bad but the power stayed on.
Who saw that one coming?
Man….it’s snowing this morning and I have no confidence in Duke Power’s ability to keep my juices flowing….in the future.
I’m talking about the POWER, MAN!!! THE ELECTRIC IN THE WIRES!!! THE ELECTRIC!!
If this has published itself….automatically….a scheduled post to protect the sanctity of my daily run of blog posts….it means that we are without power…juiceless….snowed in.
How’s that for drama?
In reality, there’s nothing so dramatic about being without power in the mountains.
We’ll just put some more wood in the woodstove and light another candle.
The drag is not being able to rinse out the cloth diapers and not being able to watch SpongeBob on Netflix.
That’s when you miss the power.
So…if this post has appeared like some spectre from the past….that’s whats going on.
I don’t trust the electric.
It comes and it goes….without explanation.
“All these invisible threads that we weave…..think of electricity…”
“special delivery” Billy Mernit
OK….the power didn’t go out….so we still have internet and satellite and refrigeration and water and….what else?
I’m so thankful for power.
It makes it so easy with the kids with the power on.
What would we do if we didn’t have power?
Play a board game by candlelight?
Read to them?
Pshawwwwwwww.
What’s fun about that?
I’m a pessimist.
When Duke Power warns me in an email that winter storms are hard…and that I should charge all my devices and stay away from sagging power lines, I wonder if they don’t expect me to be in the dark at some point.
So….I’ll set this to pop up tomorrow….when the power might be out…and…thereby….secure my OVER THREE YEAR RUN OF NEVER MISSING A BLOG POST!!!
WHOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Man….what a winter wonderland.
OK….just got the call.
I don’t have to go to work.
They decided that it was too dangerous.
My Bad.
All that talk about how the USPS doesn’t care….how they don’t want me to be safe….no matter how many safety talks they give me or how many pages I initial….well…that was wrong.
I WAS WRONG.
The USPS loves me.
They really love me!!
At work, they give us “safety talks” ….to keep us safe.
They tell us things like, “ice is slippery” or “don’t walk up stairs if they’re icy”.
We listen….and then we initial the sheet to show that we internalized every word they told us.
This is to keep us safe.
Knowledge is power….and if we understand that it might be dangerous if a 3/4 ton truck with screaming and excited teenagers behind the wheel….a rebel flag stuck in the bed…that flag sagging under the weight of accumulated ice and snow….if that loaded truck comes screaming over the top of the snow-covered hill….with me, sitting in my snow-covered Mail Jeep, banging on an ice-crusted mailbox, trying to get it open so I can put the important ad for Viagra substitute into it…..when they come screaming over the top of the hill in 4-wheel-hi….never expecting anyone to be stopped anywhere on the road….when they come hammering over….in the ice and snow….well….the USPS wants me to acknowledge that I know that it could be a dangerous situation.
The USPS wants to have proof that they warned me about the dangers….and that I understood.
That’s what it means when I initial every page they throw at me.
Now, of course, I could avoid initialing all the papers….and get management upset with me….and have a bad day.
But, instead, I sign everything and try to stay alive.
I get the impression that I’m kind of screwed if anything happens, anyway.
I’m on my own.
I think that if some kind of Anti-Postal Kraken or big red devil landed in front of me….its cloven hoofs tearing up the asphalt….and then it shot fire rays out of its eyes….blowing me and the mail into the next dimension….the dimension…..somewhere “over there”….well, if that happened….the postal service would have me admit (before I was transported) that I’d signed safety talk 10231-43a and deny my surviving family members whatever surviving family members are supposed to get.
Safety talks.
Blehhhhh.
I work at being safe all the time….but I love it when somebody is sincerely worried about my well-being.
Take today, for instance.
Please.
Please …”take today”.
It’s snowy as heck out there….and, apparently, this is the “calm” part of the storm.
It’s supposed to get bad later in the day.
Later in the day is when the real snow is supposed to start falling.
So….I’ll drive around….hunting and pecking out a route that might be safe….trying to avoid danger….because, no matter what the USPS thinks, I have enough sense to know that no matter how much they cover their hind quarters with a safety talk, surviving is better than the alternative.
My goal is to get out and get back.
Snow is fun. Snow is beautiful. I love snow.
I just like it when the choice is mine whether or not to take a vehicle into some pretty wacky and steep places.
Put that in a safety talk if you want to protect me.
Save me, safety talk.
I got up really early today….after going to bed really early the night before.
The power went out yesterday after a light dusting of snow.
Someone must have hit a pole because the weather wasn’t the kind that would cause a blackout.
Something must have happened.
But….”something” always does….happen.
Anyway….there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than go to sleep…so that’s what we did.
I’m thinking about Idaho again.
When I was younger, I kind of mythologized Seattle….wanted to get back out to the Pacific Northwest…..get back out West.
I was born in Seattle….but was really young when we moved away….so my idea of “what Seattle was” was one that I’d been able to invent.
My mental picture of Seattle was one I’d only formed from….pictures of Seattle.
I didn’t know what it was, really.
Anyway….I’d formed this picture in my mind that Seattle was some sort of Mecca….better than where I was….better than my “now”….better.
When I finally got back out there, I realized that the place I was living was pretty good after all.
I guess that Idaho might be that for me now.
The reality of the situation is that we have a place we could go to….build a cabin….figure out a way to live there….figure out a way.
And…that’s a powerful draw.
It’s beautiful out there.
But….again, “but”…here is good, too.
Pick a place…any place….and turn it into something good.
That’s the best I can do.
Man, though….Idaho is so beautiful.
Here’s a video of a bunch of folks running around out in Colorado.
That’s putting it lightly.
And….here’s the answer to the Bizarro question “how you gonna keep them down on the farm….after they’ve seen Pareeeeeeeeeee”.
My wife grew up in Colorado.
How am I going to be able to help her sustain any interest in the Carolinas if I keep letting her see videos about places as beautiful as this?
“Letting her see”.
Hah….”letting”….she’ll like that.
Hardrock 100…big race…out in the mountains….Silverton, CO.
I’m not running right now….and I never ran like these guys are running….never did huge distances….but this looks pretty good….fun.
Dang hard to run a 100 miles….fun to be out in the mountains.
Awwwww…..what the heck? Here’s a taste of some of the kind of trail running we have out in North Carolina….
Wherever you are….wherever you go…you can find beautiful places to celebrate.
It’s just that out in Colorado, the beauty gets right in your face whether you’re looking for it or not.
Funny how you end up being a mailman in the Carolinas.
I had a dream last night that the pond was filling up with water again.
The property looked like a park….beautiful and green….and the pond had a clean, sandy bottom…..great for swimming….great for anything, really.
The water was coming up…..and I pointed out the fish to Jenny….3 feet long and golden….koi.
The koi part didn’t make any sense….but I remember pointing them out to her and saying, “See!! The fish didn’t all go downstream when the dam broke!!”
“And….look how beautiful those grass carp are! I didn’t know they’d turn that color!”
It was peaceful….and we walked along together….imagining how nice it would be when all the water had returned….walking on the paths I’d built around the pond’s future edge.
That was when the snakes started to chase us.
Jenny ran….but I was slower….curious….curious about why these snakes were chasing us.
It was a whole family of ringed snakes….poisonous, probably….chasing…chasing….and then I was running, too…..and right before I woke up, a flying brown snake launched itself at me….snapping its jaws at the air…..trying to bite me.
Man.
A good thing can turn weird at the drop of a hat.
That can happen in dreams, too.
That pond did look a lot better with water in it.
I’ll never know what it must have been like.
I don’t have any battles to fight like that.
I don’t really have anything to “overcome” ….or to change in my life.
The changes that I might want to make are changes that are my choice to make.
This day is another holiday for me….another reason not to deliver the mail…but this day is a big deal.
Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thanks for stepping up.
happy birthday (Stevie Wonder)