sigh.

Granted: the alarm clock, not the storm, woke me up. The storm hadn't quite come in yet. I could hear distant thunder. But then the storm did come in, and how. Dark sky, solid sheets of rain, a couple of hailstones off the windows, swirling winds - there were honest-to-god waves in my flooded parking lot. Breakers, you guys. I've literally never seen anything like it.

And of course the power's out. No ETR yet. I'm betting Sunday morning. It's as if the folks at Pepco didn't understand the meaning of the word "unacceptable".

in which i say, SOD IT

The past couple of times my power has gone out for days on end (latest estimate: Pepco hopes to have everyone's power back on "by midnight Friday", which is a step up from "we are assessing the damage", but we don't actually know if that takes into account the brand-new storm that's brewing right this minute), I've been fortunate to be able to stay with local friends, and I don't know what I'd have done without them.

This time, my local friends variously are also without power, don't have the free space they had last time, or still have cats, so in no case would staying with someone else be measurably superior to staying in my own dark home.

So I said FUCK IT and got a hotel room. ("Just for the one night?" "God, I hope so.") I was thinking of going out for Thai for dinner, but at this point I think maybe I'll call for a pizza. Let someone else deal with the rain. And the fact that only one of the three elevators in this joint is working.