I hate nights like last night

[thewayne]

Woke up in the very early morning hours by the dogs going nuts. Clearly our downstairs neighbors, i.e. raccoon(s), were being rambunctious, I could actually hear them scampering and some chirping. But that wasn't all. I realized they weren't the sole source of chirping, and that's when I opened my eyes.

It was completely black in the house.

We keep a light on in the back half, so if it's completely black, either the light burned out - possible, but unlikely - or the power is out. And since I could two uninterruptible power supplies complaining along with a smoke alarm about the lack of juice, I knew it was power.

The dogs continued their insanity regardless.

So I slipped into my Birks, turned on the flashlight on my cell, and trundled out to turn off the living room UPS and shut down my iMac so I could turn off its UPS. Then stumble back to bed after closing the gate to the kitchen, something my wife forgot to do when she came to bed which would also cut off one rampage area for the pooches, she was now awake.

Two chirp sources eliminated, one could not be cancelled, still insane dogs.

The house stayed warm enough, it was down to 65, I went back to bed, but the chirp kept me awake. I mentioned something to Russet, she said she couldn't hear me: she'd gone back to her ear plugs because of the noise maker. AHA! I sleep on my left side, so I put one ear plug in my right ear - problem solved! Pillow masks my left ear, which by itself has enough tinnitus to ignore the chirp.

By now it was 6am, got a bit more sleep and ended getting up at 7 when the power came back on - had to get up to turn on the living room UPS which has the wireless router so Russet could sign on to the observatory and find out if anything bad had happened there, apparently all was fine - they have good UPS protection plus a huge monster generator. Had breakfast, got a nap for another hour or so. Still feeling kinda wrecked.

Wheeeee.

Comments

[howsmyenglish]

I'm sorry your night was bad! Hope you feel better soon!

Still, I liked reading this post: I learned three new words and... well, your nightly adventures made me feel like it's me who is listening to the sounds and going to investigate, and I like things like that :) So thanks for sharing!

[thewayne]

Heh! Happy to help! I remember once in Phoenix my best friend (Audrey) and I had her chess tournament director friend (Richard) and his girlfriend over for dinner (lasagna). There was a place nearby called Take Me, Bake Me that would build lasagnas or pizzas for you that you'd take home and bake yourself or freeze for later - one of the many places that have gone out of business that I truly miss.

ANYWAY, the evening wears on and we're having fun talking and such, Richard turns to Audrey and says about me: "Does he always use a five dollar word when a one dollar word would do?" Audrey's reply: "Always!"

I refer to it as "I have a fully-loaded vocabulary and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Out of curiosity, what were the words that you learned, and how was Germany?

[thewayne]

Audrey ended up as the Best Man at my wedding, and the two of us were tournament directors at many of Richard's scholastic tournaments.

[howsmyenglish]

Audrey sounds like a great friend!

[thewayne]

She's a pretty awesome friend, huge amount of fun to be with.  I've known her for 30 years and am very happy to have her in my life.

[howsmyenglish]

Sorry for taking time to reply, but, you know, catching up...

The words I learned were: chirping, scampering and trundled. I knew chirping was some sort of sound, but never before bothered to find out which :D Like... all these words are pretty understandable from the context, and, of course, one gets that the two first ones are sounds and the last is a particular way of walking, and often, when I read a book, say, that's enough information for me. But reading this post of yours I realized that one of the reasons I'm here is that I want to broaden my vocabulary, so... I'm glad to know you and read your posts! :)

[thewayne]

Happy to help!  I frequently use somewhat obscure words like trundling, and I'll use them in conversation.  A boss from a long time ago commented when I gave him a technical paper, "Wayne, you write like you speak."  He was intending it as a slam, I said thank you. :-)

[thewayne]

I've also been known to say "Never use a monosyllabic word when a polysyllabic word will do."

When my sister was growing up, she was always bugging me with "What does THAT mean?" when I used a word that she didn't understand, and my reply was always "Look it up." I wasn't trying to be mean, I wanted her to learn how to use reference materials, and hopefully learn beyond just one word's meaning.

But I was also weird as a kid: I loved reading things in encyclopedias.

[howsmyenglish]

Oh, I have a similar streak: I keep trying to force people to speak in complete sentences and not just to wait for me to guess what they mean. You know... when my husband says: "remember that thing yesterday? so, today the guy comes to me and says, you know" - and even though I know exactly what he's talking about and even what "the guy" said, I pretend not to, because I want his brain to continue to form phrases and sentences... :D

[thewayne]

Yep.  I do use text messages back and forth with a very small group of people, but I use full sentences with correct spelling!  My English usage may not be perfect, but it's pretty darn good, and with web browsers and smart phones having built-in spell checkers, there's little excuse for bad spelling except sheer laziness.