Adventures and "interesting times"

As you are no doubt aware, the US is experiencing severe winter weather. It is particularly hard on Texans. Our homes are built to endure heat, not arctic temperatures. Our power went out briefly about 3:00am on Monday morning and was restored 15 minutes later. I slept through that, waking a little before 8:00am on my own, as my clock radio was flashing because of the outage. We had power, but we had no internet. I could not get my router to fully reset. We lost power for good around 10:00am and started adding layers of clothing.

That night Middlest bundled up like a polar bear in his room, and when I awoke for a comfort break around 1:00am yesterday, I invited Fourthborn to join me in my room. We may or may not have slept. Around 3:00am, we were all most definitely awake, so Fourthborn and I sat up, and Middlest sat at the foot of the bed, and we talked until a little after 7:00am, when I texted our friends who had offered their home if we needed it.

We packed up and headed out. The roads were treacherous, but I grew up in Idaho and know how to drive on them. About half of the signal lights were out. Our friends fixed us scrambled eggs and pancakes. We thawed and visited and thawed some more. We were all masked, except to eat or hydrate. They've both had both of their vaccinations, and the three of us have each had our first. My kids crashed mid-afternoon in the guest bedroom and were still sawing logs when I went upstairs to an incredible fold-out bed a little after 9:00. Easiest way to catch you up from that point is to steal from various Facebook posts.

Post the First: In which your intrepid heroine missteps and executes an impressive back somersault down the stairs. (I crumpled into a neat little ball and rolled.) Nothing broken. Neck is fine. Scared the dickens out of my friends. Toes, right shoulder, and a couple of fingers are likely to be colorful in the morning. Heart rate is nearly back to normal. CPAP is plugged in. I'm [soon to be] dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep. Y'all, I'm *warm* and it's lovely. (This was about 9:30 last night.)

Post the Second: Pleased to report that I'm none the worse for wear after last night's "let's roll down the stairs" adventure. No visible bruising. Barely more than the normal amount of stiffness. Neck is a little more creaky than usual, but I attribute that to sleeping in a (blissfully comfortable) strange bed. Slept like a rock. At the urging of my kids and our hostess (who is a physician's assistant), I am reluctantly downing *an* ibuprofen. (One works as well for me as 2 or 3 work for many people.) And I might go take a nap. (This was about 10:30 this morning.)

Post the Third: We are home. We are safe. I was only able to drive Diana partway up the driveway, even with Middlest pushing, but she is not hanging out into the street or impeding sidewalk traffic. In the 45 minutes or so that we've been home, we've rebooted the furnace, the router, this computer, and the oven is preheating to bake a box of stuffed green peppers that we didn't take with us to [our friends']. When we walked in the door, the temperature was 55F. It was up to 56F when I checked a few minutes ago. In an update to last night's excitement, [our friend the PA] encouraged me to follow up with my doctor if my neck and shoulders continued to hurt (they were only slightly more tender when I awoke this morning, and two ibuprofen ~ yes, I took a second one an hour or two after taking the first ~ have worked their magic). Which I will, of course, if things start hurting. At this point, still no bruising. I responded: "Seriously, I feel as good or better than I have in weeks. Maybe I did a hard reboot of my body?" (Posted about 5:30 this evening.)

As of this writing, the temperature is now 59F. Which suggests that when we wake in the morning it will be our preferred 69F. We seem to be warming up at a little more than 1F per hour. I would insert degree marks, but my right monitor, where I park my Word and Excel documents, is not communicating with my CPU, and I'm not in the mood to troubleshoot. I did not take that possible nap while at our friends' today, so I might go to bed in an hour or so. Bonus: this house is all one level, so no chance of falling downstairs!

I'm a little miffed that at my next checkup, I will have to disclose last night's adventure. I hadn't had anything that could be considered a fall since my chair broke at work and tumped me on my derriere. I'm not quite sleepy, but I think I'll bum another ibuprofen from Middlest and watch an episode or two of The Musketeers. I'm in the mood for some mindless entertainment.

Night, y'all. Be careful out there.