This isn’t a story about refugees or immigration, it’s about blogging, addiction and some serious things too.  The Post article I could laugh about this morning is entitled “Storms’ Fury Cuts off Data lines that bind.”

Yes, I could laugh moments after the power came back on this morning.   I was reading the Washington Post on the porch with my convienence store cup of coffee in hand, just as I’ve done for a couple of mornings this week, ever since we lost the power in a freak storm on Wednesday.   

I wasn’t laughing as I tripped and stumbled up our farm lane that first afternoon—a lane that had become completely impassable with downed trees and saw our storm ravaged farm.   I wasn’t laughing either when I had to figure out how to haul in hundreds of gallons of water for livestock in ninety degree heat.   And, I can assure you I wasn’t even giggling a little when I packed garbage bags full with our food from the refrigerator and freezer to take to the dump.

All I could think of was how to survive day to day.  Yes, I know it was only two and a half days!    It felt like two and half years without the computer.   That was what was so funny about the Post story.  One more night and I would be checking into a hotel room (like the family in the article) just to have internet service and get back to the news and your e-mails and of course, researching posts for RRW.

It all seems very funny now.   But, it isn’t.   It really hit me this week how vulnerable we are.   My whole town was not affected by this not-quite-tornado and certainly I am not comparing our situation to those who have lost much more in recent real tornados.     I could still get in the car and get what I needed (like my morning cup of coffee), and neighbors not hit so hard came with chainsaws and a bobcat to help clean up, but imagine if our power system was destroyed on a large scale.    (I’m not telling terrorists anything they don’t already know!)  Chaos would follow.

For two and a half days I can assure you I wasn’t thinking about immigration or Iraq, or the latest from the Hillary-Obama-McCain show.   I was cut off from my addiction to the world wide web’s minute by minute news and the security it appears to provide—somehow just knowing what is going on helps one feel somehow in control (I know that doesn’t make sense). 

So, just give it all some thought and prepare your families a little.  It might not be much worse for you than me—trying to figure out what food wasn’t spoiled and could go on the backyard barbecue grill—but then again it could be very very bad and we need to be sure we are ready.  Back in January I wrote about how we all need to get a blog to save free speech and a gun to keep America safe.   To those two essentials I’ll add—-get a grill.