One Less Thing to Track

Am I the last person to adopt wearing a sleep tracker? Everywhere I go I see people wearing Aura rings and if they aren’t they tell me they are wearing their Apple Watches to bed to track their sleep.

I don’t track my sleep. I wouldn’t mind knowing how I am doing, but really don’t want to wear my watch to sleep. I feel like I track so many things, how did I do in wordle today, what happened in the stock market, did I drink enough water and eat enough protein, how many more people did I teach mah Jongg to. Having yet another thing to track might push me over the edge.

This week I had multiple days where I was teaching three classes and not finishing work until 9:00 pm and still needing to drive home. It takes a while to wind down and fall asleep. Then I have to get up early and do it again.

I fear that if I were to track my sleep I would add anxiety that I am not going to sleep fast enough to get in enough good quality sleep. By not tracking I am fine with getting whatever sleep I get and also being very busy.

Please tell me what the obsession is with tracking your sleep? Perhaps I don’t understand.

Jane’s Big Day

Happy Birthday to my friend Jane. So sorry I could not come swim and eat cake with you and the K-town girls to celebrate you and your big happy brain.

I will never forget the first time I met you at mah Jongg class in K-town. You asked me where I was staying. When I told you, you said, “Why aren’t you staying with me?” My response was, “I’ve never met you before, but do you have an inn or something?”

So the next time I came to town I did stay with you, thinking it was an bed and breakfast. When I tried to pay you that is when I found out I was just your guest. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I wish I could be with you in person celebrating, but we will have to find another way. Happy, Happy Birthday.

We All Keep Learning

I’ve decided that what I really teach when I teach beginner mah Jongg is not a game, but reading comprehension. I was not great at reading comprehension as a young child. I know now that I had undiagnosed dyslexia. I have always been a terrible speller, as all you readers already know. I made up for it all by being a good story teller.

I was creative and could describe scenes in colorful ways, but as far as retaining written information went for me, it took me long into adulthood before I was good at that. I made it through college successfully by being a great public speaker and an only so-so writer.

As proof that we can always learn and improve, my reading comprehension is good now. I am much more precise in my use and understanding of language. Perhaps my poor quality in this as a child has helped me to be the teacher I am.

Over the years I have developed by beginner class to maximize teaching people how to read and understand the card in a way that helps them get up to speed in playing the game the fastest way possible.

Recently I have had advanced students who had not taken beginner classes from me who ask me all kinds of basic questions that they should know the answers to, but they were never taught how to read the card and translate it to words that they can understand. If you don’t have the vocabulary you can’t comprehend it.

I can remember in fifth grade asking my teacher how to spell a word and she would say, go look it up in the dictionary. This was totally unhelpful for me, as a dyslexic if I could not figure out what the first three letters were. I knew the word, I knew the meaning. I knew how to use it in a sentence. I just could not spell it. Having that as my learning history makes me want to always ensure people have all the tools and can do all the steps so they can figure things out on their own eventually. I know that we all learn differently, but we all do need to understand the vocabulary and the meanings before you can go on. It’s basically just reading comprehension.

Watermelon-Lime-Ginger Sorbet

We had a not great watermelon. It did not have a lot of taste so I decided it would go to the Cremi machine. But a not very flavorful melon would need a lot of help to make it a good sorbet.

Lots of ginger and lime juice was an easy fix. I use the frozen ginger cubes you buy at Trader Joe’s. I thawed six cubes and added 2 tablespoons of spoons of lime juice with a pint of watermelon cubes.

That was all I put in it. I froze it for 24 hours and ran it in the sorbet setting. It was fantastic. It was spicy with ginger and tangy with lime. The watermelon provided a little sweetness and bulk.

I took the flavorless watermelon and made it something yummy and healthy. Wonder how cantalope will do?

Teaching My Mom Technology

Russ and I had a lunch date at Croasdaile with my Mom today. On our way in we saw Barbra Collie and the Atwaters with the Barnes. Seems like today was everybody’s day to go to brunch. The big reason for our lunch date was so Russ could act as IT support for my Mom.

Thank goodness the issue was easily solvable for him. He had feared it might require a call with Apple and that would not be good. While Russ fixed her devices I showed her how to make her Facebook posting of her painting shareable so I could share g the posts.

So she post a new painting/collage of some flowers and I shared it. I was planning on sharing it here to see if anyone wanted got buy it. But my blog is much too late. I had some inquiries about the size and the cost and so did my sister Janet and she sold it less than two hours after I shared it.

If you liked it, don’t worry. She has lots more paintings and I will be sharing them. Her house is on the market and we are going to have to get rid of lots of stuff once it sells.

For now I am just trying to get her to post things in the right orientation and with the pertinent information about the size and the price. All her paintings are a deal.

Tomato Days, Who Knew?

Russ and I went to the Durham Farmers market very early this morning. It was packed. Parking was full and the crowds were huge. As we entered the car free zone the first thing we noticed was a very long, like hundreds of people long line snaking down the center of the street. I could not tell what all these people were waiting in line for.

The line was not at a vendor booth, but went down the street and made a hard left hand turn into the middle of the open field. We decided to just get shopping since we never wait in any line unless we are desperate for what is at the end of the line.

As I was picking out corn at Lyon’s Farms I asked the woman next to me if she knew what that line was for. She too was clueless, so when the two of us got lot up to the pay station we asked. A young man working there said it was for Tomato Day T-Shirts.

Apparently today was the very important Tomato Day. The farmer’s market created a cool black t-shirt for it and the money raised from selling the t-shirts went to help fight food insecurity in Durham. A cause I support, but I would rather just give money directly online and not wait to buy a t-shirt.

We did our part in helping support local farmers. We got corn, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, peaches, cucumber, cantaloupe, okra, cheese, crab cakes and flounder. We should be fine all week. We did not need clothes, so no t-shirts.

But glad to see so many locals buying local. I love the farmer’s market in Durham.

We Still Need You and Will Feed You

Today is a big day of celebration for one of our family favorites. Beloved City Mouse, Logan turned 64 today. And being such a good sport, we took him to a hot Durham Bulls game and he sat next to my Mom who talked his ear off about sports.

He judiciously had only one beer in celebration of his day and he may have purchased that for himself. It is very hard to surprise Logan, but we did.

In the middle of the fifth inning we turned his attention to the giant screen on the big blue wall and he immediately noticed the Happy Birthday City Mouse announcement. Russ was quick to catch Logan’s big smile in a photo.

It could have only been made better if Ellis and Carter had been with us to watch the Bulls and beg for old baseballs from Pat the bat boy as we have done their whole lives. So many wonderful years celebrating every milestone together. We will still love you Logan, now that you are 64.

Home

I hade a great time at Figure 8 this week. I had a most special class of beginners who are off and running run and a fun and rollicking class of beyond beginners. The Figure 8 yacht club staff are always so nice and accommodating to me. And the teachers at the yoga and dance classes that are in the adjoining room could not have been friendlier. Especially when we are loud in mah Jongg. By we, that is mostly me being loud in Mah Jongg.

One of my beyond beginner students told me the best phrase that I am going to have got start to incorporate in my teaching. We were talking about having to obtain a pair of tiles for a hand and she said, “If you don’t have a pair, you can’t grow a pair.” (If you play mah Jongg you will get the joke.)

By the end of the last class I was tired. I missed exchanging a joker and said a bad word. No surprise there. But everyone was a good sport and we had a lots of good lessons learned. Mostly, don’t miss getting a joker.

I drove home tonight and Russ and Shay were so happy to see my they quickly passed out in bed. I am just happy to be home with them and in my own bed. Love teaching, love Russ and Shay more.

Reconnecting

I have been incredibly lucky over the years to get to work with some really nice people from the Food Bank of central and Eastern North Carolina. One of my favorites is Kristin Mc Peters. She and I worked on the campaign for the Wilmington Branch we built a few years ago. As a development professional she is the best and I really came to be good friends with her during that time.

After the campaign successfully finished Kristin moved on to bigger things in Wilmington and I did not see her much. She happened to be at the Figure Eight Yacht Club a few weeks ago and saw that I was going to be there this week. So she contacted me and we got together tonight for dinner.

She generously found a place for us to go near where I am staying. It turned out to be a restaurant on the grounds of a retirement community. It was lovely even if the location was odd.

Kristin now works for the Novant Hospital Foundation and it was interesting to learn what her job is like now. She is as delightful as she was when we worked together on Food Bank work. I am so happy she reached on when she knew I would be in her neck of the woods, or should I say, her stretch of the beach.

Wilmington Friends

Came down to the coast to teach at Figure 8 Island this week. So happy to be back in the saddle of sharing my favorite game. Also great to have so many returning students. It’s just more fun when students are friends. It’s also easier when they know what I am like and what language I might use.

I had the pleasure of getting together with three of my favorite Wilmington friends, Carol Anne, Darby and Mah Jongg Mary for dinner. I invited them to have dinner and they tricked me by taking me to a private club so they took me to dinner. We sat outside by the ocean and it was windy, but lovely. So there was no accounting for my hair.

Mary’s son stopped by and I got to meet him which was very sweet. We had fun conversations catching up on everyone’s big life events. It would have only been better if we could have played mah Jongg. We did discuss a few mah Jongg dilemmas, which we solved so all will be right in the world.

Thanks to my sweet Wilmington friends. You need to come and see me in Durham so I can trick you and take you out to dinner.

Please Forgive Me

I got a letter from the city Planning office today. Apparently we have a volunteer shrub that grew too close to the road and too high. I had not noticed, but once it was brought to my attention I totally agreed that it and it’s neighboring shrubs all need to come down. Russ is cutting off the tops now to bring it into compliance of being over 2 and a half feet tall. Then I want to have them totally pulled out.

The letter started out with a sentence that “someone had complained” and the city inspector came to our house and measured and photographed the offending shrub and sent us a letter. That was a lot of work.

I wish the complainer had just put a note in our mailbox and said, “that shrub is blocking the view of the street.” Or anything else that made me aware it was a problem. I agree it’s a problem. I just did not pay attention to it. The complainer did not have to sign the note. Just be neighborly and let me know.

We are not getting fined, as long as we fix it in 30 days. I am happy this letter came while we were home so that we did not miss the 30 window.

I am sorry we did not pay attention to the shrub. Quite frankly most things have not been growing due to the drought, so anything that was growing I was just keeping. Of course we have gotten a lot of rain recently so things are growing again, but this complaint had to be made prior to that.

I will be calling my landscaper and let him know to keep an eye out for these kinds of problems. I am sorry the complainer did not feel like they could bring this to my attention. I hate that the city had to do it.

Also you can clearly see we have not watered our grass as there is a watering ban. I am not complaining about my neighbors whose automatic sprinklers are still running every night.

The city did come on trash day, which I can tell from their photo. I wish they had noticed we have the same trash can we inherited from the previous owners 34 years ago. It is cracked in three places with foot long holes, but we have kept it and never asked for a new one. As long as it can contain the one bag of trash we create a week I see no need to bother to ask for a new one. Does that count for anything? No.

You Never Know When Your Legacy Will be Set In Stone

I woke up to the news that Lindsey Graham had died. My first throughout was, “Now the news is mixing up all MAGA politicians. Didn’t they mean Mitch McConnell?” But no, it was Lindsey Graham.

As I read the news about his death the thing that I was most distressed about, and yes, I was distressed about something. The fact that he was only 71 years old, just six years older than me. How could that be?

How could someone who was basically my contemporary. Grew up in almost the same time in history as I did, come to be who he was compared to who I am. Now I grew up in Connecticut and he grew up in South Carolina, but I spent my summers in Pawleys Island and I have plenty of South Carolina Cousins, also close to the same age as Lindsey, and NOTHING like him.

I lived in Washington DC from 1983-1993 just missing Lindsey’s move there in 1995, but I knew the Washington he moved to well. How did he turn into the man who took away LGBTQ rights away, opposing the Supream court’s Decision to allow gay marriage. He voted against protecting people against sexual discrimination in the work place, voted against allowing gay and bisexual people in the military. The human rights campaign recently gave him a score on their congressional score card on LGBTQ equality.

In this day and age, I hope that younger people are fine with letting people be who they feel they are and stop worrying about trying to take away people’s rights.

I have read a few tributes to the Lindsey Graham who was kinder in his pre-Trump era, I am sorry he followed Trump for whatever his reasons. He ran out of time to leave a legacy that might be admired. He might have thought he would have more time to create an admirable legacy, but you never know when you are going to run out of time. No admiration here.

Poor Sports End Up Alone

I’ve been getting a lot of requests from Mah Jongg Players to post etiquette and good sportsmanship type stories so they can one, learn from them and two, use them as teaching opportunities for new players and three, point them out to egregious poor sports or out right cheaters when they are wrong. I have loads of stories. Some from my personal experience and often ones from students who send them to me asking me to referee, or just comment. Often the comment I want to make most often is, “Oy vey.” I am not Jewish, but feel like I was in a past life.

Today’s lesson is about racking and calling tiles. A tile that is discarded is available to be called from the time it is named, meaning the person holding the tile says the name of the tile, or the person holding the tile has placed it on the table and taken their hand off it. Notice I said placed it on the table, not dropped it. If a tile slips out of someone’s hand and they have not said the name of the tile, that is just a mistake. Have a little grace.

That discarded tile is available to be called from that time until the person who is naturally next in line has drawn the next tile from the wall and it is placed in her rack on with the bottom of the tile touching the bottom of the sloped rack. Not tapped the tile on a rack, that is nothing. Not having the tile still in her hand just touching the back of the rack, actually resting on the bottom of the rack.

Let’s say player 1 discards a Red Dragon. And player 3 says hold. Player 2 does not pick the next tile from the wall. If player 3 seems to be hemming and hawing, and says never mind and Player 2 goes ahead and draws her tile from the wall, but does not get the drawn tile resting on the bottom of her rack and Player 3 says, “I’m calling that Red Dragon,” technically player 2 has not gotten the tile in her rack so that Red dragon is still viable to be called, even by the person who said call once and then changed her mind. It is no different that if Player 4 said call after player 3 said never mind. A tile is not dead until the next player in line, in this case, player 2, gets the tile drawn from the wall in the bottom of her rack.

So in today’s story this is what happened. But player 2 was furious with Player 3 for being wishy washy, and said, “Well, it touched my rack, so it’s too late.” And Player 3 pointed out it had not touched the bottom and claimed the Red Dragon and exposed it. Player 2, had to put the tile she had drawn back in the wall exactly where it was, but said, “If you win I will be mad.”

Player 3 did go on to win and Player 2 refused to pay her her rightful winnings.

What a poor sport. Yes, Player 3 hemmed and hawed, but did not break any rules. Player 2 not only tried to cheat, by claiming her tile was already racked when it clearly was not, but then cheated by not paying. Telling someone you will be mad is a toddler’s response, not paying the winner for a game you lost is just being a bad sport.

Always consider if the shoe was on the other foot and you were the one who changed your mind, even if untimely, but within the confines of the rules, you would like to be paid for your win.

This is just a game, even for money. Do not lose your humanity over losing a game. Graciousness is always rewarded in the long run. Poor sports find they have no one to play with.

Post Wedding Let Down

I knew about post letting let down. Friends had told me about it. I purposely planned a trip right after the wedding to avoid that scenario. But I made a different mistake and it was one that I could not help. Due to July 4 being on a Saturday I did not have any classes the week before or after. Summer is slow teaching time unless I am at the beach and I am running out of people who I have not already taught. This happens after 30,000 students.

Today the post wedding blues hit me. We had spent a year and a half excitingly anticipating the wedding. It was wonderful and perfect. And today I got the feeling that I don’t know what to look forward to now. This feels selfish. I have plenty to look forward to, just not wedding level. And with only one child it was the only wedding we will be giving.

I did fill my week working on a baby quilt for someone who is having a baby in September. I finished the top and stated the quilting, but I am not thrilled with the quilting and may undue what I have done. That is a bummer.

I designed a needlepoint I need to work on. I only did it on paper. It involves a bunch of circles, which are hard to translate so I am rethinking that. I worked on a beaded Christmas ornament, but bored quickly of that.

I need a good series to binge. I need some full classes to teach. I need something to look forward to.

A Rare Mah Jongg Day

I don’t have time to go play mah Jongg with new people often. Today was a rare day when I accepted the kind invitation from a true Mah Jongg maven, Ilene. Ilene contact me a year or two ago as she was originally a Chinese mah Jongg player and was looking to incorporate American playing into her repertoire. We communicated and I knew she and I were on the same page about the game.

I finally got to meet her in person on Sunday and she invited me to come play at her beautiful home today. She has turned her office into her Mahj room and has more sets and mats than anyone I have seen.

We played with the most beautiful set of Crisloid Trach/Bach tiles, with cute roller skating elephants as jokers. Ilene invited Vanessa and Lauren to play with us who were lovely women to sit at the table with.

After Lauren had to leave we enjoyed a quick bite to eat with Jim, Ilene’s husband, who then joined the game. He prefers Chinese mah Jongg, but he beat us at American just the same.

I look forward to returning the favor and having Ilene come play at my house when we are both in town in the fall. I hope she won’t mind playing with my standard old tiles.

Accountability

Remember Al Franken? He was a comedian turned US Senator from Minnesota. He was a fairly effective democratic senator. Then in 2018 he was accused of having kissed two different women in years past and then when he was posing in a photo with a woman at the state fair, his hand apparently was touching the side of her breast. Because of these allegations he resigned.

At he time, Trump was President and I thought, for goodness sake, let’s have all politicians hold themselves to that standard. If only that had been the case.

I am happy that Platner in Maine has these allegations come out in time for him to hopefully drop out and let the Maine democratic committee pick a new candidate. Why is it so hard to convince people who might have questionable behavior in their past not to run for office.

I know that the Republicans don’t roll over as easily when accused. They fight to the living end. Hey, Ken Paxton, How’s London with that woman who is not your wife?

Speaking of the living end, or speaking of speaking, to all the GOP members who have had a “conversation” with Mitch McConnell in the last three weeks, PROVE IT? You all record everything. You must have recorded your phone calls with him, right? And why the hell did his wife go to China when he was in the hospital?

Don’t get me started on our representation at NATO. Why were war crimes charges not brought when you had the guy in the room with you. We would be fine letting you keep him while he awaits the trial he should face.

At this point Al Franken is the least egregious politician on the list today. The only one who took accountability.

Sage and Swift’s Dinners

You know I can and like to cook. I am just not good at cooking small amounts. So with just the two of us at home poor Russ is often stuck eating the same thing day after day.

He got the “dinners to go” email from Amy at Sage and Swift and suggested we get it this week since we are both home. I thought the menu looked fantastic and was happy to not cook. I volunteered to go do the pick up since that would give me a chance to catch up with Amy.

The dinners to go deal is a deal. It was three entrees and three sides and a dessert for two people and only cost $140. We do tip just like you are at a restaurant, but even with a good tip what we got was the equivalent of what we would have at a nice restaurant but cost less than half as much.

Tonight we had the Shirmp and grits and the panzanella salad. OMG. It was so good and lots of food. I probably should have had the salad with Salmon, but I could not wait to eat that and Russ had his mind set on grits. And no regular grits at that. They were fresh corn grits with poblano chilies.

I have a feeling Russ is going to want Saga and swift every week. I may never cook again.

Happy Birthday, Friend

Nothing is better than when your students become your friends. I meet lots of people every year. That makes keeping up with old friends hard. To go from meeting new people to becoming friends takes a little more time. So just because I meet so many people I don’t have much time to become friends with them all.

One friend made it easy for me, Susanne Dudley. She showed up at a class of mine in the Mountains. Then she had to her town in Florida. Then she came to see me at classes in Virginia, Twice. All in about a year. It was easy to become her friend because she is about the nicest most positive human being.

Since today is her birthday I want to give her a shout out. I am certain that her many Florida friends are celebrating her appropriately. It helped that her is Susanne since I tend to adore people named Susanne, no matter how they spell it.

For Susanne Dudley, I hope you won many Mah Jongg games today and took home all the quarters. Happy Birthday, Friend.

The Preventative Maintenance Debacle

We have PM contracts on our HVAC units. Twice a year the company comes out to check our HVAC units to make sure they are in tip top shape. They came for the summer visit last month right before we left for the wedding. The tech showed me a fan motor where the bearings were worn down and strongly suggested replacing the fan motor.

The unit was working perfectly. I asked the question, “What would happen if I waited until the fan motor failed and then replaced it?” I got the old, “It could burn up your HVAC unit, especially if you did not notice right away.”

Since I don’t have time to sit around and watch my HVAC fan we went ahead and replaced the motor. Then we went away for 10 days. Came back. And felt like the front of the house was not as cool as the back (we have two systems.)

Then this heat wave came. The front could not get cool. So this morning we called our HVAC company. Russ was the one who was home when the same tech arrived who changed the motor.

Turns out he put the wrong motor in. He owned up to the problem being caused by him, and Russ said, “You know you are lucky I am the one here and not my wife.” The tech acknowledged his luck.

So here we are. Down one unit. Awaiting the word on how long it will take to fix what was not broken when they “fixed” my unit last month. Who knows what damage to the unit was done by this wrong motor straining to work, especially though this heat.

I wish I had listened to my instincts and not replaced that motor. The saga will continue.

I Love My IT Guy

Russ was dreading this day. Not July 4. Not because our country is 250 years old and we are not celebrating it in a big way. No, today was day one of the two days he set aside to update of our home mesh system.

For the last fifteen years we have had a group of five devices trying to provide wireless service to our higldy-pigldy house. We have three levels- twice,front and back, to our house so getting signal in every room is hard.

When we were in Canada it was Prime day and I got in my head that we should replace our wireless system. That was no work for me. I just write the change order and send it over to my IT department, Russ. I did a little research and sent that along with my unschooled recommendation.

IT agreed with me and ordered new hardware, which sat in the receiving department of our front hall for a week and a half. IT told me that he thought it might take two days to complete the change order with no guarantees that all the legacy equipment would work.

IT went to work this morning. A half hour after the unboxing, he was testing all the devices. Fifteen minutes later I, as the novice user, was stress testing the system. 35 of 36 connected devices were detected and up and running. IT was unsure what the 36th device is, but perhaps it is something so old and probably not used.

So today, for the first time ever, the TV in my sweatshop ran without a hiccup for five episodes of The Bear, while I worked on a baby quilt. Then tonight the TV in our bedroom did not buffer once, a first in the last two years.

Was IT sand bagging by telling me it was going to be two days? NO. He was unsure if old devices, which still work, but were not supported by software updates, could seamlessly transition to a new mesh system. Thank goodness his worst fears did not come true. I knew IT would come through with flying colors.

Too Hot

Our house is old by Durham standards. It was built in 1954. That is a young house in my life’s history. I grew up in a “house” that was technically two barns put together. One was over 300 years old when we lived in it. It had no insulation, no air conditioning, no doors to the outside that locked. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but it had a lot of charm.

Our “old” house has two HVAC units for which I am externally grateful on this day where the actual temperature was 102°. The “feels like” was even hotter, but what difference does that make once you are at 102.

The old part of our house, the part built in 1954, does not have good insulation and so our bedroom is the warmest room in the house. Last night it was very warm to the point that I woke up at 3:00 am and could not go back to sleep.

The new section of our house is much more efficient. So the bedroom on the bottom floor of the new section is like a freezer compared to my bedroom on the top floor a world away.

I was down in the “sweat shop,” my sewing room next to the coldest bedroom, this afternoon working and it was so cold I had to go turn the air up four degrees. Since it is still over 100° at 8:00 at night, I have decided to sleep in the freezer bedroom tonight. Why not be as cold as possible and get a good night’s sleep.

Heat is debilitating and I would like to keep going. I am conserving as much as I can by not going outside and doing unnecessary activity. I know I am lucky. If you have to work outside please be careful.

I am thankful to have air conditioning. Not like my no air conditioning childhood, where we used to jump in a cold shower and then lie naked in front of the box fan. Only kept us cool for ten minutes, but it was ten minutes we might have had a chance to fall asleep.

A Day Like 2016

Due to July 4 being a Saturday, I have the week before and the week after off from classes since so many people are taking one or both weeks off for vacation. This has afforded me the luxury to live life like I used to before the mah Jongg craze took over.

Today was the most throw back day I have had in a long time. I started this morning with a great meeting with two fantastic food Bank of Central and Eastern NC employees, Cody and Emmy. They both started at the Food Bank long after I rolled off the board so this was our inaugural meeting. Having served on the board longer than any one person beside Ash Pipkin I had a lot of history and opinions to share with them.

It was a wonderful chance for me to catch up on the day-to-day goings on at my favorite non-profit. All my love for the mission of the Food Bank was right at the surface and I am looking forward to helping these big hearted young people.

Following that meeting I went to lunch with Lynn so we could rehash the wedding. We met at our usual Thai Cafe, where we have been having lunch together for over twenty years. I don’t know why they give us menus, we know it by heart and still only order the same thing every time.

By the time Lynn and I were almost done yakking, I noticed we were one of three tables. To my left were my old friends from Durham Magazine, Ellen and Rory. So we all got to talking and Ellen said she had just run across a copy of the “Collin Firth Issue.” We relived how it happened that I was able to get that big interview with Collin when the media relations department of his movie had said “No interviews” to everyone else.

Ellen told us that the “Collin” cover was the most highly read issue online to this day.

Spending time with Food Bank people, Durham Magazine people and Lynn all on the same day felt like a throw back to my life ten plus years ago. The nay difference is I just did not have to go to school pick up. I kind of miss school pick up.

If a Tree Falls in the Woods…Does it Mess up Everyone’s Day?

I woke up at 7:50 AM. Felt kind of late, but it was quiet. Russ, who rarely Sleeps pst 5:30 came in and announced, “The power has been out since 2:50.”

Yesterday, Russ finished the move out of his giant downtown office. Most of his team members live in other places and it was ridiculous to keep a twenty thousand square foot office. So welcome to working exclusively from home, without power.

I had a FaceTime private mah Jongg lesson scheduled with a UK student. I needed WiFi to have this lesson. Not ideal for me that Russ no longer had his office, where I could escape to and use his WiFi.

Russ had studied the Duke Energy outage map and told me that our whole neighborhood was out of power. So no calling a friend to use their power. Since we never open a refrigerator during a power outage Russ decided that Chick-fil-a was going to be the right thing for his and Shay’s breakfast. I was happy that was his choice as they have acceptable iced tea. For the record, Shay is very thin and we probably should be buying her a chicken biscuit everyday as she thought that was a mighty fine breakfast.

When Russ got home he told me it looked like the power was on at church. Ah-Ha. The answer. Our church has tons of classrooms that were not being used in the middle of a summer weekday. So I packed up my mah Jongg stuff and toddled over to church.

I was met by friendly staff who welcomed me in and I set up in room 105 and had a nice talk with pastor Thankam. She left me a few minutes before my call was to start. I started playing an online mah Jongg game as a warm up, but lost connection half way through the game.

Thankam came in room 105 and told me the power had gone off in the church. I had not noticed since I never turned the lights on in room 105. I texted my UK student and she generously pushed back our lesson.

I packed up and went home. Russ had discovered that the news found the culprit to the power outage. A tree had fallen across multiple transmission lines, in the dead of a calm, storm-free night.

What a pain, that we are so dependent on power that can be taken out by one tree. Thankfully, our power came back on at 12:15, 45 minutes earlier than Duke Energy predicted. It still was out for almost ten hours.

I was able to get my lesson in with my sweet student, who was so flexible. After a couple of hours I let Russ open the refrigerator. I have a very analog system for telling how warm the freezer has gotten during power outages and it worked perfectly this time.

I have a plastic pint container in the freezer filled with water that once it froze solid I place a penny on top of the ice. If the freezer gets warm enough that the ice melts the penny will sink and if the power comes back on and the water refreezes the penny will no longer be on the top of the ice. This way you can tell if your freezer ever got so warm that food might have spoiled and then refrozen.

Today the penny was still on the top of the ice. So keeping the refrigerator closed it was just like a giant cooler and all the frozen stuff in it was cold enough to keep itself cold enough.

The answer to the question about the tree, well it did not totally mess up my day, it could have been worse.