Modern Inconveniences

This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it. Eeyore

I usually do my blogging in the mornings right after I get up. But it rained yesterday, so our internet was out today. (Don't ask.) It finally became available again around 3 pm, but I was highly annoyed all morning, thinking that if I was going to mess up NaBloPoMo, I'd rather it be on my own account and not forced into it by failed technology. Then this evening I read an article in my alumni magazine about fellow alums who decided to give up their New York City existence and live as people lived in the year 1900. (They chose this year partly because, yes, toilet paper had been invented by then, even if indoor plumbing hadn't.) There was also a PBS series about an English family who spent a number of months living "in the past," which inspired them. They gave up all electricity, had an outhouse, grew all their own food, no car, no phone, no computers, the works. They POTTY-TRAINED THEIR CHILD USING AN OUTHOUSE!!!! It gave me hope for my daughter. But I realized how much I take for granted. People ask me fairly often if I feel isolated up here on this mountain with the kids, and I don't. I don't have a cell phone, but I have email, and the land-line telephone (though I do prefer email - invariably if I get on the phone the kids pick then to have battles that involve blood-letting). And the blogging every day. Even if I don't post every day, I do enjoy reading and commenting on others' blogs. These folks did this 1900 year in 2001. They had relatives and many, many friends in New York on September 11. They heard the news from neighbors, but they stuck to their plan and had to depend on the US Postal Service for news from and about their loved ones. Just like in the old days, when you might not hear about a relative dying until far too late to attend the funeral. I had a tomato plant this year. It got to be 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall and produced 4 tomatoes. They were quite tasty, but not exactly a bumper crop. I'm pretty sure we don't have enough sun to grow enough crops to provide all our own food. And I'm VERY sure I'm not willing to live without electricity for more than a 4-5 day camping trip.

I just noticed a warning above my page here: "Scheduled outage at 11 PM PST." Which is 2 am EST. I hope I'm not awake then . . . oh, wait, I have a 2--year-old, so I will be. But the computer will be sleeping. Perchance to dream - hmm, hopefully not. We'll have to start calling it Hal.