The power was only out for TWENTY HOURS.

I am not exaggerating.

The house was fucking FREEZING, since, obviously, the furnace did not come on for 20 hours.

But, of course, the worst part were those high winds for hours and hours and hours. The whole house was shaking for a while there.

And in addition to chasing down the cat houses & lawn chairs that were blowing down off the porch and then all over the back yard or out into the street — while the wind was nearly blowing me over — I also had to chase down the panels of siding that blew off my house, so that when the roofers come back — again — they won’t have to buy new siding. Just replace the old panels.

And the other good part is that, of course, I love those Amish guys. They do great work and it will be nice to see them again. (And if you give them cash, they give you a discount!)

And on to other good news that is house-related.

Remember how I posted here the other day that my mortgage payments are going down starting in May?

On Friday, I got a check from the USDA , and it was a refund for my escrow payment on the house!!

I kept looking for any sort of fine print — you know, anything that said that if I cashed the check, they would come right over and take back my house. But no fine print was on it anywhere at all! So, off to the bank I went!

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And in all seriousness, I don’t know how I would have made it through Friday night without Valerie in Brooklyn.

You can only guess that my PTSD was in high gear for many hours, since the wind storm started while I was still over at my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man’s house. And the winds only got worse when I got back here to the village, which is in a valley surrounded by foothills and attracts wind like crazy.

Anyway, Valerie texted me, saying she was keeping her phone in her lap & to keep her updated, and that she was praying for me and for the winds to die down. And every so often, she would text: “How are you doing?”

Thank God we could still text even though the power was out for miles.

It meant the world to me, gang. And it really did pull me out of the PTSD. And when the winds finally dropped from 55 down to 34, I felt like it was her praying that was doing it and I was able to fall asleep.

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Okay.

On yet another topic having to do with Angels appearing in my life!

Tomorrow morning, I have to be at the Honda dealership at 8AM !!! Yes! They are 30 miles away from me and tomorrow is my day off… however, the Honda dealership is not far from the mall where I’m seeing the Elvis movie in the afternoon! So that’s nice…

But the Angel part–

Yesterday, I took my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man out for sashimi and green tea (no sake yesterday because he was having complications with his wooden leg and I didn’t want him to fall down). And when we got into my beloved Honda Civic to head back home, the underside of the car scraped against that little curb thingie in the parking space and it made an awful sound.

Oh shit.

So I got out of the car and tried to see what had scraped loose and immediately a man in the parking lot came right over and actually got down on the ground and looked under the front of my car.

And he not only knew exactly what had happened, he actually had a knife in his pocket and tried to fix it. But he couldn’t. But he pushed it back into place and said it would be okay until I could get to a garage and have it fixed properly.

Where the heck did he come from, right?? What a nice man! And he knew all about cars!

And sure enough, the part didn’t come loose, and I was fine driving the 30 miles back home yesterday afternoon. And, hence, the reason I have to go to Honda at the crack of dawn on my day off tomorrow…

But you know how I love those service guys at the Honda dealership! So it will be nice to see them again, too! (And they also give you a discount if you pay cash, but methinks I don’t have enough cash to be paying everybody cash this week…)

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Of course, this also means that I won’t be posting to the blog tomorrow, since I have to be out of the house by 7:15AM…

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Well, I have lots of “here’s this’s” for today because I didn’t post yesterday, but now I am running out of time here.

I need to shower, wash the gorgeous hair, and be ready to chat with Sandra before I head out later to see the retired Minister and his lovely wife and cat.

But I will post this–

I have no clue if this is true or not. Nick Cave’s boyhood home?

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And here’s this!

Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Woody Guthrie in NYC in 1954!

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And this song seems so obviously about the death of the kind of radio we used to love listening to in the old days — not sure how people could get the wrong idea about it. But anyway–

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And here’s this —

Keith backstage at Madison Square Garden in 1975!

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And now I better scoot!

Enjoy your Sunday wherever you are in the world!! (I know I sure will! The “high winds” we’re supposed to get today and tonight will only be 18 mph. Here’s hoping it doesn’t get worse than that.)

I’ll be back on Tuesday.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Let’s close with this!

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. “The Last DJ,” 2002, from the album of the same name (and also from the posthumous “Best of” collection). Enjoy, gang.

“The Last DJ”

Well, you can’t turn him into a company man
You can’t turn him into a whore
And the boys upstairs just don’t understand anymore
Well, the top brass don’t like him talking so much
And he won’t play what they say to play
And he don’t want to change what don’t need to change

And there goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
And there goes the last DJ

Well, some folks say they’re gonna hang him so high
Because you just can’t do what he did
There’s some things you just can’t put in the minds of those kids
As we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs want to see
How much you’ll pay for what you used to get for free

And there goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
And there goes the last human voice
And there goes the last DJ

Well, he got him a station down in Mexico
And sometimes it will kinda come in
And I’ll bust a move and remember how it was back then

And there goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
And there goes the last DJ

c – 2002 Tom Petty