Checking In

"So, where have you been?" I hear you ask. (No, really. . . a couple of you actually did ask. I am duly chuffed; it's nice to be missed.)

For a start, Southern California Edison announced that they were going to turn our power off for a day so they could mess about with their local electricity conducting equipment. You know, those mystery boxes that hang off the power poles at the end of the street. So they did that and the PC remained unplugged for a day.

And then as the (please God!) final phase of the house aggiornamento, we had the ancestral manse tented for termites. This entailed spending 4 days in a local hotel where the Memsahib and I got deathly ill after eating in a local restaurant. The details of this you do not wish to know. Suffice to say, I learned that one can lose ten pounds in two days and, although I can certainly afford to do so, I don't recommend the method.

That was week one. The second week's excuse is largely, well, lack of interest. And energy. I think it's that ten pounds in two days thing. It takes the starch out of one. The urge to berate political silliness, cultural devastation, and liturgical numpties didn't survive the trip to the desk where the PC lives. An extra nap even trumped posting a piping video.

So here we are on a Sunday afternoon, feeling pretty good, mostly, and filling in the time until evensong. ("Evensong"? Yes. I'll tell you more about that another time.)

And before you ask, yes, Herself is better now, too. In fact, somewhat embarrassingly, she recovered much faster than I. I mean, after all, I'm the guy. I'm supposed to do the heavy lifting and take care of her. Instead, I was still in bed dead-to-the-world and she was out buying me bananas and juice. Proverbs 31:10 et seq is not inappropriate. No, I do not exaggerate.