Holidays in Washington are generally required to include windstorms.\u00a0 There’s the Columbus Day storm, of course, the big one that took out the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.\u00a0 There was the Thanksgiving storm of 1983, the Inauguration Day storm of 1993, the Easter Storm of 1996, and the Hanukkah Eve Storm of 2006.<\/p>\n
Thursday didn’t seem like a holiday, and I didn’t notice much wind, but for some reason our power went out.\u00a0 It’s been out for four hours so far but, thanks to the generator we installed after the Hanukkah event in 2006, we have lights, camera, and action.\u00a0 Our internet is up and running.\u00a0 My computer is fully charged.\u00a0 The dishwasher is gurgling away.\u00a0 All is right with the world.<\/p>\n
I’m told that down on the street there are three Puget Power Trucks with workers out there trying to make things right again, but I’m okay. Maybe one of our neighbors was trying to cut down a tree in order to improve a view of downtown Bellevue.\u00a0 If so, they got more than they bargained for.<\/p>\n
So that’s part of today.\u00a0 Thursday.<\/p>\n
![\"Books](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/2013-05-24-BellaOnThePeel-250.jpg?resize=250%2C131\" "\\"On")
Another part of today has been writing.\u00a0 I am on the banana peel of this book.\u00a0 Finally.\u00a0 Finding the banana peel has been, as Helen Reddy would say, “A long hard climb, with everything taking its own sweet time.”\u00a0 The banana peel of a book is the part of the book that, once you get there, either as a writer or as a reader, you don’t want to quit until you’re done.<\/p>\n
So having electrical problems at the house both yesterday and today was a bit problematic.\u00a0 But I’m on it now.\u00a0 And I would probably finish tonight, except I have a prior engagement.<\/p>\n
Tonight, a friend of mine, a woman nearing sixty, is graduating from a first responder chaplaincy course at the Washington Criminal Justice Training Center.\u00a0 She has had her degree in theology for many years and has worked as both a patient and victim advocate at various jurisdictions in Oregon.\u00a0 Then she took a multi-decade detour to care for a: small children and b: a terminally ill husband.<\/p>\n
Now her children are grown, and two years after losing her beloved husband, she is taking the necessary steps to live her dream. Bill and I are going to be there tonight to cheer her on.<\/p>\n
We both know a little about having our hearts broken and then somehow finding the strength to get back up and go on.<\/p>\n
In other words, this is a day of many mixed blessings.\u00a0 And that’s exactly what life is most of the time.\u00a0 Some good, some bad, but mostly more good than bad. Which reminds me of something my mother used to say:\u00a0 It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Holidays in Washington are generally required to include windstorms.\u00a0 There’s the Columbus Day storm, of course, the big one that took out the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.\u00a0 There was the Thanksgiving storm of 1983, the Inauguration Day storm of 1993, the Easter Storm of 1996, and the Hanukkah Eve Storm of 2006. Thursday didn’t seem like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3nsBA-212","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}