Returned Sunday from another exile to the castle due to power outage.

It began Thursday with flickering lights so I went to bed. At 11:00 pm all systems were down so I unhooked my ventilator and phoned the power company. I use a "special number" they gave me and someone picked up right away. She said 100,000 people were without power and it would be off for a day.

She suggested I go someplace else, call my doctor and stay warm. So I went back to bed and stayed there until daylight. I decided to just stay put but my friend Sue got involved and blabbed to Ellen and before I knew it had dressed me, packed me up and whisked me across the river where sensible people put their wiring in the ground.

Q was working from home and Gary was fighting snow and ice accumulation in the driveway. Q was beginning a dandy cold and graciously allowed me to force saline nose drops on her and make unhelpful suggestions. She actually wore a pair of slippers at one point in an apparent acknowledgment that she was sick. Unprecedented!

The next day she went to my house and unloaded both freezers and transferred it to her empty freezers. Then she shopped for a stranded friend and baked a cake for the friends party. While she was at the party Gary cooked maple syrup sausage links and thawed Marks homegrown sweet potatoes from my freezer. We dined at 7 pm and he did all the serving and cleaning up.

Q coughed all night. By morning she was voiceless and sick. Gary packed me and all my food up and hauled me home. Their annual tea is in six days. I don't think he can pull it off alone but whatever. He has proven once again that he ranks right up there as my favorite son-in-law.