...but if January is any indication of the coming year, well -I'm ordering a recall.
One would assume from my last entry that the weather cleared up and life went on. I just wasn't prepared for what happened an hour after I posted it .
The bottom line is simple : without heat or power for a week, sitting in the dark listening to the ice snap our  big trees in two for a coupla days. Privacy fence taken out in four places by huge trees falling, chain link crushed, my tool shed demolished, with the riding lawn mower in it. A mammoth tree crashed over the top of my garage- it will have to be cut up just to move it off.
Fortunately I've got pictures of all the damage for the claims adjuster, and I'll be happy if they  let me even almost break even over this.  At least I'll be reimbursed for repairs to the power lines that got knocked out and the ruined outbuildings and so forth. A  tiny corner of the house caught fire but fortunately burned itself out almost instantly - but not before the girls screamed for me to get out, dragging me out the front door in 18 degree weather, in the sleet, my hair still in a towel. A house two doors down partly burned and the one right behind us caught, too - but was put out in time.
Somehow, the pneumonia I had three weeks ago didn't come back though we've been sleeping in rooms you could see your breath in for the last week. I'm grateful to be well.
I am  giddy, too, that my house  didn't burn, my kids are safe and the neighbours are well. We sat in a scary, blacked out section of town  with little but the constant wail of sirens, and it seemed that way for about 48 hours. Another house on fire, or a wreck caused by people who wouldn't wait their turn at one of the many signals left dark by the relentless ice. A policeman impaled by a falling tree branch. So many accidents  that I didn't even consider possible for one to have, before this.
But I also saw kind, dirty, worn out  people hold doors open for each other in fast food places. Nine out of ten people were overly cautious about stopping and letting other people go  first at dark intersections. The streets were filled with neighbours checking on each other, dragging logs out of  the road or helping an old person into their car to drive them someplace warm for the night.
Seeing that gives me pause  and chisels away at the shell  that  modern life tends to  form around my heart.
Things will be okay in a few days -just  a different version of  'okay'.