Well, I know I said I’d write about what’s happening … and I’d like to, really … however, all of the plans I wrote about are now up in the air. The first change – we most likely will not be moving into the barn, even after all of that work was done … and the second change – I didn’t have the surgery for the fistula and port as I was supposed to in mid-December, after all. I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle so that I would actually have something to share when I post, but solid details seem to be very elusive right now. Bear with me, please.

There is something else that I can share with you though …

When my kids were homeschooling, I did everything I could to get them to spend time reading. I had one who wasn’t very interested, another one who wouldn’t read any fictions … but loved encyclopedias (!!!), and the other two devoured all of the books I could throw at them. Doug and I were both interested in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and we had a lot of books of that genre in the house. One of our favorite authors was a gentleman named Piers Anthony. He wrote nearly thirty entertaining, and often hilarious, novels about a magical place he called Xanth. He’s also written many other books, and I can assure you that I never read one I didn’t like.

Xanth is a magical place that is actually shaped just like Florida! It does have some remarkable differences, however. If you click on the map to the right, you’ll see a larger version of Xanth. Not only is there an east/west gap across the land, if you look closely, you’ll see that the little island to the south is called “Centaur Isle”. Xanth is a land of magic, interesting characters with special “talents”, and even more puns than you’d hear at a comedians’ convention.

The series was as entertaining for kids as it was for adults, and my daughter Deneen fell in love with Xanth, and tore through each book as soon as it hit the shelves. Earlier this year when Dena and I were visiting, she told me that she had “met” Mr. Anthony online, and that she was communicating with him. I was delighted for her! Imagine striking up a friendship with your favorite author!

Yesterday, Dena messaged me on Skype, and chatted for a few minutes before we exchanged the following:

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Dena: I’d like to be the first to let you know that Doris (you) have been invited to “live” in Xanth

Moof: wOOt! I’d love that!

Dena: [Piers Anthony] TOLD me that it would be a little [while,] but that you are going to go and live in Xanth. Hes going to make you a nice little chunk of land with a HUGE garden and your talent….always seeing the truth.

Moof: You’re kidding me.

Dena: Nope.

Moof: Are you serious?

Dena: I can send you the part of the letter where he told me he would.

I will put Doris in Xanth, with the talent of always seeing the truth. It will be several years before that Xanth novel sees print, however..

Merry Christmas Moof!

…

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Wow! Now that’s a Christmas gift I’ll never forget! :o)

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On Thursday night, I brought my laptop into the kitchen, and sat in front of the wood stove to stay warm. So far, my usual Thursday night routine had gone along smoothly. I was having a nice evening chat with Small Town Doc … harassing him in between patients, enjoying the teasing camaraderie we share. At the stroke of 11 PM, I plugged my headphones into my laptop, and prepared to call Hans Engel, another Thursday night ritual. When it’s 11 PM on the east coast, it’s 8 PM on the west coast. Thursday is one of the days that Hans doesn’t have dialysis, and I know that I won’t interrupt his supper by calling at that time.

It was a nice, cozy evening. I was feeling nice and toasty in front of the warm stove, and I was starting to settle in for a peaceful relaxed chat with two of my dearest friends. I could hear the “tick tingle” of the freezing rain hitting the window panes, but it didn’t worry me; for the moment, I was warm, and content to be with my friends.

Just as I brought up my Skype program to click on Hans’ phone number, the power blinked … twice, three times … and the internet vanished. Dougie checked to see what the problem was, and discovered that the blinking power had crashed the modem. He rebooted, and I finally made my call to Hans.

As he and I happily chatted, I began to hear what sounded like explosions nearby. I text messaged STDoc and Dougie – telling them what I thought I was hearing. Who would be out in the woods shooting off a deep, booming shotgun at 11 PM at night in the middle of an ice storm?!

Okay … so maybe I was too warm and comfy, and it was making me a bit, ummm, slow … but I still managed to have a wonderful chat with Hans. After disconnecting from the call, I went back into the bedroom with my laptop, and wished STDoc a peaceful and quiet day at work … he’s been known to be a bit overzealous in his work *cough*.

I lay down and tried to sleep, knowing that Friday was going to be a very busy day. I had no less than 3 doctor’s appointments, in 3 different towns, and I was a bit concerned about the slippery roads; I wanted to wake up early enough to be at my best before I had to tackle the tricky driving.

As I was dozing off, I heard my oldest son, Darian, come into the house and tell Dougie that the “Guinea Road” was on fire. Nosy Moofie couldn’t pass that up … remembering the explosions, I got out of bed to find out what was happening. Apparently, the ice storm was getting pretty bad – a road adjacent to ours had a pretty good fire started. The power transformers were exploding and burning, setting fire to the tree limbs around them. At the same time, the weight of the ice was breaking other limbs, and they were falling onto the power lines, dropping live wires onto the freezing road.

I headed back to bed feeling a bit concerned. It was just before midnight, and we still had power …

At 3:30 AM, Doug woke up at his usual time … he usually leaves home at 4:30 AM to get to work by 5:30. This time, he woke me up, and told me that he wasn’t going to try to get to work. We had lost power by then, and he was relatively certain that the outages were widespread. I wondered how he knew that as I dozed back off … and although I never did find out how that knowledge was transmitted to him even before he got out of bed, I did find out that he was right. More than right, in fact …

… Daylight revealed the most surreal crystalline wasteland I’ve seen in more than a decade. There were safety cones in front of our home, blocking our driveway … the power lines were laying in the road. We had no phone, no electricity, no internet (ACK!) … no running water.

I looked out of the window, groaned loudly, and went back to sleep. I knew I wouldn’t be making my 10:30 AM appointment in Exeter. We’d had a hard time landing that one, too. Ah well … Mother Nature really could care less …

By late morning, it became obvious that no one was going anyplace – for a good while. Over a battery powered radio, we discovered that more than 1,000,000 people in Maine and New Hampshire were without power. The list of cancellations went on … and on … and on. The word was that power would most likely not be fully restored for as long as a week.

People were encouraged to try to get to a local shelter … all at the same time as they were told to stay home and not try to navigate the 1/2″ of ice covering all of the streets – and everything else in sight.

Perverse individual that I am, I relaxed into the experience. For us, the power outage would simply be an inconvenience. We have no heat other than the wood stove, and that wasn’t affected by the storm … we would be no colder than usual. We ran the farm’s tractor and generator long enough to fill all of our liquid containers with water, and we were pretty much all set. We did our best to stay warm, and if the complaints we were hearing on the radio were any sign, we were more comfortable than most everyone else. Going on four years of experience … … … for us, it was a lot like just more of the same.

On Saturday, Dougie made some chili from scratch, and cooked it on the wood stove. The smell was enough to drive us over the edge all day … but at suppertime, we were rewarded for our patience with some of the best chili we’d ever had.

Sunday morning, the temperatures had gone down into the low teens (about -11.11C) and even the oil for the oil lamps had frozen. We spent the day relaxing in front of the wood stove, chatting, and napping. I was starting to get used to the quiet … ;o)

Sunday night, Dougie and I put a blanket and some pillows down on the kitchen floor, in front of the wood stove. We lay on the floor and watched about 5 episodes of Heroes on the Nintendo DS … until we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore.

Monday … started out very quiet. I was wishing for a nice hot shower … but I was still quite happy to run around in my sweat suit, housecoat, and blanket, and a baaaaad bed head.

The power was restored at 3:30 PM on Monday. I was glad for the lights … for the running water … and especially for the internet ( YES! ) … but a small part of me left bad that we would be leaving the quiet down time behind.

Amazingly, as far as I know, we’ve had only 2 local deaths due to the ice storm. One fellow died of carbon monoxide poisoning when he brought a generator into his house, and another fellow, an elderly man who needed oxygen, passed away. The radios warned people to take those in such precarious medical conditions to a shelter … apparently this fellow didn’t go.

Below are some of the photos that Dougie took on Saturday. He did a great job …. and I wanted to share them with you.

I will be posting again soon, picking up from where I left off on the last post. The problem is that quite a few things have happened since then … and I’m going to have to back up quite a bit to give you the entire picture.

And now … until the next time, be well, my dear blog friends.