My power went out at 1 a.m. this morning. I know this because my modem has a battery and it BEEPED EVERY BLINKING MINUTE FOR FIVE HOURS until it ran dead. Well, thankfully the earplugs blocked it out in the bedroom, though I did get up at one point to pee and it was still beeping, and I heard its last gasps around 6 a.m. Anyway, by 8 a.m. it was still not on and I had to use a vacation day for work. I guess something like 8000 people here had their power blown out and various other towns did too. Not my boss, though, go figure.

So I spent the day living off Chex Mix and reading books in the living room with the light from the screen door, checking on the batteries and flashlights, looking for blankets, what have you. It never quite rained but it was quite windy looking all day, I did hear car alarms and sirens and whatnot off and on though. My brain was pretty dead from the lack of sleep and I had no energy to do much but read anyway. It was nice and relaxing, almost like a sick day or something. I did mild things like go find a blanket and throw out old batteries and stare incessantly at one of my card decks and go, "Hey, a lot of these have similar drawing styles..."

After a certain point I hoped it would turn on at 5 p.m. since the day was pretty well blown :P It briefly turned on at 4:30 for about 15 seconds, during which the modem battery started beeping again.... and that time I finally figured out the damn thing has a volume switch. (My apologies to the neighbors.)

Anyway, the power is back on as of 5:15 p.m.! I quickly made a peanut butter sandwich (I had frozen bread in there) rather than starting something to cook, in case it went out again. The bread was somewhat softened but hopefully the entire fridge isn't ruined? She says, optimistically?

I was thinking last night that I spend 99% of my waking hours on a screen these days. I suppose it was nice to have an enforced day off, as I tried not to use the cell phone except for texting my boss and checking pge.com for outage news (never actually got any updates, mind you). It was down to 70% by 5:15. so I'm not sure if I would have had power to tell my boss "still not working" tomorrow morning!

Anyway, it was a nice unexpected day off, as it were. Very relaxing. Sat around trying to read this book on dreams that is somewhat hard going, and then switched to rereading Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. I hope they do that book right when they get to it on the TV show.

Also, I was off the Internet all day! What news went on?! Actually, nothing horrendously bad seems to have happened!!!!

In other news: I continue to love that my new phone shows "Scam Likely" on certain phone numbers. NOT ANSWERING! However....that was not a scam, that was PG&E calling to say they didn't know when power was going to be restored. Uh... it's already on here? WELP, THAT WAS CONFUSING.

Tonight's Viewing: "The Catastrophist," Lauren Gunderson's new play about her husband Nathan Wolfe, a virologist.

I'm not sure if you can read the program I got for it or not, but give it a go, it's interesting.

"My wife drags me to enough plays that I know all the tricks now."
"She makes the ending whatever she wants it to be. I can't do that."
I'm amused that he's all "my family was into plays, I thought I was out of that, then I married a playwright."
"It was a farce about a people overthrowing an island of llamas." Which play was this?!
"The risk of being a playwright: she always gets the last word. Oh god, I hope it's not a musical. She says it's not."
He notes that the men in his family tend to die of heart disease before 40 and his dad barely made it.
He hates pandemics, and no, he's not happy there's one going around! He tries to predict them so we can prevent them. They all come from animals.
"Give you a catastrophe, and I'll give you a plan! I'm a catastrophist! My wife says that's the title now. She's just changed it."
"I can't wait to be done with pandemics." God, I hope someday you.... yeah, right, never. Cutting off people's livelihood is cutting them off from their own future, he says. His wife may not agree but... "I like plays, but fuck plays." Why can't we focus on what's real?
"Do you know about micromorts?" We all should now, right? Giving birth: 210 micromorts! SO NOT GONNA. "Microlifes" is new to me. 5 hours of your life lost per pack of cigarettes you smoke. He nagged his dad not to smoke. My mom put me up to doing that with my grandpa (and he did quit, I dunno if I had anything to do with it though).
2014: his dad's dying of cancer, his wife's about to give birth, Nathan has a kidney stone, and Ebola is breaking out. His dad dies on their anniversary and his wife is "expecting to hear something adorable." "We thought having two kids close together was smart. Nothing about having kids is smart." LOL.
His team gets accused of "botching the Ebola response." Nathan gets mad about that one. He's clearly resentful about having to waste time defending himself against someone who doesn't know what he's talking about rather than prepping for the next pandemic. The story "mostly goes nowhere."
Nathan has a near death experience (his artery is blocked 100%, like the men in his family do at his age) and he rages at Lauren for making him talk about it. This is an interesting level of meta, I gotta say.
"My wife would like you to know that she is writing this right now because I can't....she is in charge of my story." He has a litany of her worries. There's one last freakout, he wakes up from the operation...and it's over.

I'm not sure what to make of this, but it's interesting. The family heart disease is more of a plotline than the virology stuff, but maybe the latter's just hard to follow for us theater noobs, I dunno. I admire that they did it, I think it's a cool idea to do a one man show about someone like that and double bonus when it's your husband and you throw in all these meta bits from yourself in it.

We'll see what my friends, if they get around to seeing it, think.

Back to Zoey: Zoey's Extraordinary Employee: "I'm starting a business venture with someone whose main contribution is summoning the otherworld."
Not really taking notes, but here is the plot: (a) After Zoey decides to have a happy day, her work is having layoffs and she has to fire people, including George who just barely started. (Sadly, Tobin the Bro is still there and fine.) Zoey feels bad and gets drunk and Mo has to drag her away and calls her "pickled ginger." Legit assessment. (b) Simon does an interview with someone else who is black (Tatiana? I think?) and is all "this place is so white it looks like a cooking show in here." Legit assessment. (c) Mo decides that the building they are renting for the restaurant is haunted and throws a party, SIGH. Max continues to work and pout. GOD, I MISS KARAOKE AND IT'S IN THIS EPISODE CRYYYYYYYYY. (d) Zoey's brother, whose name I can't recall (Josh? OH, THEY SAID DAVID) wants to stay at home with the baby and Emily is all "We got expenses." Legit assessment. Emily feels guilty. (e) That guy at Maggie's new job is flirting with her. Frankly, it seems too soon to do that plot point to me.

"How do you feel about a lychee daquiri?" "Confused, mostly."
Zoey just called a guy a "chunkamunk" and "butterball." This seems mean to me. Also, apparently he has turned into a hot rocker. I didn't feel like we needed a third dude option in this show, but apparently the show is going there. Sigh. HE IS HELLA CUTE THOUGH. And an Aussie. But seriously, show, don't throw in a third hot dude for Zoey. It feels so Anita Blake.

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