Author: Elaine

Family gatherings just won’t be the same without the card players gathering around Johnnie: (A Eulogy for John Martin Heneghan,)

My father-in-law went into the ICU of Bethesda Naval after surgery two weeks ago.  This weekend he decided to refuse further medical treatment.  He came home from the hospital yesterday afternoon.  Jack, who flew in yesterday, was able to talk to him briefly last night.  Early this morning, surrounded by his family, he died. 

I probably won’t be posting much for a while yet.

At the grocery store today, I saw a display of these GE Emergency Lanterns on sale for $10 a piece.  I bought two of them, because the package said they would give 16 hours of lighting on 4 “D” batteries.  I was hoping they would be bright enough to read by.  They are if you keep the lantern fairly close to the book.  The light quality is much better than candlelight.

Of course, now that we have emergency lighting by which we can read, I feel certain we won’t lose power the rest of summer.  We already had several hand pump flashlights, but although they are good for making sure we don’t kill ourselves in the dark, and are safer to use than candles, they aren’t good for reading.

I am starting to feel that our valley is like poor little Joe Btfsplk: it has a permanent thunder storm overhead. Yesterday we had a storm for hours, and lost electricity for a large part of that time as well. I didn’t feed the horses until 8:00 because I kept hoping the storm would move off before I went out. I’ve lost count of how many times we have lost electricity in the past week. The more expensive electronic gear is all on uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) outlets, and I trot through the house shutting down systems when UPS boxes starts beeping.

It is getting very old.