All posts by Dona

Another High Wind in Bethesda

Weather, , ,

Earlier in the week we had an earthquake and last night / this morning we had a hurricane. Someone or someones on Twitter called it the week of the hurriquake.

I fell asleep last night to gentle rain and mild breezes and woke up around 1:30 AM to bursts of rain heavy rain and loud wind gusts. I think that’s what woke me up — either that or the sound of a transformer blowing somewhere nearby. I checked the clock and saw it was still glowing, so knew the transformer was the one that connected to our power lines.

Tweet from Mike Leroy
Tweet from Mike Leroy

Unable to sleep, I went upstairs and logged onto Facebook and Twitter to see how others were doing. Some had lost power, others had seen it go out while on their way home from nights out. Most were just posting from home hoping their power didn’t fail. I posted a couple of updates and then I received my favorite tweet mention of all. It was from Mike Leroy who sang the title song in one of my favorite movies when I was younger, A High Wind in Jamaica. I blogged about this song in my song a day blog and Mr. Leroy commented on that post.

Anyway, we survived and so did our power. Only minor damage to the house (a downspout came loose) and a few downed branches. Nothing much else to report.

Here’s hoping those of you to still meet Ms Irene will come out as unscathed as we did.

The Birthday Quake

Events, ,

Just a quick post to let you know we survived the earthquake on August 23. I was sitting at my computer in my attic office when the desk began to shake. My first thought was — as it always is when my desk shakes — EARTHQUAKE. Then I thought it was probably construction or a truck driving down the street. Then it got stronger and I thought, EARTHQUAKE! Then I thought, YAY! EARTHQUAKE ON MY BIRTHDAY. Then I thought, SAVE THE KIDS! and ran downstairs to tell the kids, who were running around the house yelling, EARTHQUAKE!! to get outside, NOW!

They went out the back door and I went out the front door. We all met in the front yard along with all the neighbors who were home at that time. Everyone was asking, DID WE JUST HAVE AN EARTHQUAKE?

Later, after we went back into the house and confirmed that we did, in fact, have an earthquake, the kids named it a birthday quake. We assessed the damage:

Some photos fell down
One fell to the floor
Some crystal fell in the china cabinet
A framed tapestry fell to the ground
My file cabinet drawer opened.

Then the kids went out and bought ingredients for my birthday dessert. I gave them 4 suggestions. They chose the berry trifle.

It was delicious.

Too many screens

Technology

As an afterthought to my last post I began counting the screens in our house then I lost track because I was distracted by one of them. I seriously think this could make an interesting short story.

We have 3 screens in the basement — a television and two monitors for a desktop.

On the main floor we usually have 8 screens — a television in the back room, Clare and Dean’s smart phones, my Nook and 4 laptops.

On the third floor we currently have 2 screens — a television and Andrew’s laptop.

Finally in the attic/office we have 4 screens, all at my work area. My work laptop is attached to an external screen so I can have more room to work. I also have a smartphone and a 7 inch tv connected to a Roku on my desk for distraction while I work on repetitive tagging of PDF files.

So, if I added correctly we have 17 screens in the house right now (not counting my old smartphone in the drawer and various digital cameras around the house). This number may be reduced by 4 in the near future, but why would a family of four need 17 screens? Better yet, why would two people (which we will be once the kids are at college) need 13 screens? I admit to using 3 at a time when I work sometimes — maybe 4 when I check my phone, but I think 6 each is a little much.

When the kids were younger we’d punish them by taking away “screen-time”*. I’m only now beginning to understand what a powerful punishment that was.

*we also established Sundays as “no screen days” — for kids only of course. Man were we mean!