Wednesday, February 07, 2007

It's Safe To Say We're OK, If Not Alert

[Posted by reader_iam]

Overnight Sunday, a water main broke down on River Drive, causing a number of people (not including us) to be without water and leading to detours through our neighborhood, which means we have a marked increase in vehicles either wandering around like lost little lambs or flying through like bats of out hell, and in either case disrupting the usual flow. (At least our cross street got plowed fairly promptly, for a refreshing change.) I'm not sure how long that's going to last, but I'm sure we've quite the skating rink down at the bottom of our street. Given that the Mississippi is also frozen, one could probably just skate clear across to Rock Island.

But that's not why I'm up here.

Last night, my husband was outside--Lord knows why, in that weather, but anyway--and he ran into our next neighbor. They exchanged the standard pleasantries, mutually b****** about the ongoing cold, and commiserated over how far away we still are from spring.

As they parted, my neighbor said, "Well, at least they've lifted the boil order."

Uh, boil order? Missed that one. Oh, man. Wait--oh, son! Sheesh, what did I feed him the last couple of days? How many glasses of water did he have? Did he take a shower and stand with his mouth open, as is his wont? Why can't I remember what everybody had for breakfast, lunch or dinner Monday?

You know, I can recite all sorts of things that happened around the world on Monday and Tuesday. But in my own neck of the woods? Clueless.

Everyone's OK (I think we'd know by now, don't you?), but there's a lesson here, I think: Less Internets, More Local News!

Sigh.