Out of Touch

Fiorella is a creature of deliberate habits. She builds routines so she can save her active brain for more important things. Thus she arises early and takes a little gray pill, combs her hair, and brushes her teeth, the goes downstairs to read the newspaper and open up her laptop. Otherwise, dawn will not come.

Her blog is usually pre-written, sometimes a week in advance, but often she writes just after she gets downstairs--like today. On Wednesday, though, all the computers were off-line. Husband checked out every connection in the house and Fio called the server, but there was no respite--at last, God had turned off the electricity.

It was a bad scene. The telephones had been out for three days previous, with Verizon insisting the culprit was us and us insisting it was Verizon. Husband again checked all connections, and they were sound. Mysteriously, power was restored Wednesday morning--yes, just before the internet torpedoed.

All of this threw Fio for a loop. Sure, she could take her pill, brush her teeth, and comb her hair, but her communications were shot. No Fiorella Plum.

And that's what Fio saves her inventiveness for.