Be Wiched to Save the Day

This morning, the timer on the coffeemaker was one minute from going off when — ZZZZT! POW! — out goes the power. We're having major winds, with gusts up to 55 mph, and they hit us early.

If you've had the misfortune of experiencing morning Mark before he's had coffee, you are aware that this is a horrid state of affairs. After several hours in this state, we hauled ourselves into town and found coffee, plus a really fine breakfast, at Be Wiched, in Uptown Martinsville. Thus, I am marginally alive again. Be Wiched owner Kathy Kitzmiller also owns a brand-new boutique — The 9th House — and today was its grand opening. There were mimosas and other treats, so Brugger was ecstatic about finding such a cool place in town.

Happily, we made the best of an increasingly uncomfortable situation, and the power came back on a short time ago. It's freezing out there, and it was getting that way inside. So, we're hoping the wind dies down, and we don't go dark again tonight. Temp is supposed to be 13° F, with a wind chill below 0°.

Ironically, we're about to have a generator installed, but alas, too late to help us this go-around.

 

Last night, though, was an enjoyable time. Lately, we've been spending Friday afternoons at Hamlet Kitchen, right up the street from us. They have a good selection of their own wines, and some decent food you can get for take-out. Last night, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours with some wine. Our regular hostess brought us a couple of glasses with "personalized" napkins — a party theme for Brugger (naturally!) and a semi-humorous Hemingway quote for me (even more naturally!). For afters, we watched Alien: Covenant, which really isn't a favorite, but we've been watching others in the Alien franchise, so we figured we otter.

 

In the immortal words of the late, great Dr. Franklin Ruehl, it was better than a slap in the belly with a wet trout.

Blobs, Rebels, and Rogues

It has not been a particularly cheery week, what with ice storms, power outages, tax time, technology issues, dealing with my mom’s and brother’s estates, unexpected bills (big), and being generally indoor-bound. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this much water fall from the sky, frozen or otherwise. Whatever passed for my front yard is a partially frozen lake. Geocaching has been right out. And although I’ve been exercising like the dickens, inasmuch as I can in the house, my old body hasn’t felt altogether right after a week and some change of no hiking. Thirty-six hours of the past weekend were spent without power at home, so I took up residence at Brugger’s place (make no mistake, I count my every blessing that, at least for the moment, I had the luxury of a place of refuge as the temperature dropped). This morning, as the latest ice storm moved in, I lost power for several hours; thankfully, it was restored, though the sky is once again falling and the temperature is dropping. It ain’t over yet.

In the plus column, I finished a brand new short story for an upcoming anthology. I’m pleased with it; the plot involves an “Owl Man,” which is kind of like the Mothman’s first cousin. I sent it off to the editor last night, and now the waiting game begins. Also, the very welcome news has come down that I, and the rest of the office staff, now have the option to work at home for the long haul. It’s a far, far better option than commuting out to the badlands every day.

For last night’s entertainment, I put on the original The Blob, which I hadn’t seen in a good while. Frazier and I enjoyed it as always, though Droolie appeared nonplused, probably because he thought that, based on the title, the movie was about him. Alas, no.

So maybe I’m an even bigger Star Wars geek than I realized. A while back, just for shits and giggles, I put on the animated Clone Wars series. I can’t say I expected it to grab me, but guess what. It grabbed me. Really grabbed me. So then I went straight into Star Wars: Rebels, which — again — at its start failed to tweak the right nerves, but then suddenly it did. So I ended up compelled to watch that whole series. Tonight, having finished Rebels, I kicked back with Frazier and Droolie for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which has been among my favorite entries in the series since I first saw it. The guys enjoyed it quite a bit, as you might infer from the photo above.

I don’t anticipate a sudden turnabout of fortune or mood, but I haven’t kicked off the planet yet, so that’s something for the plus column as well. Cin-cin.