The lights are back on!

At 7:10 this evening I took a flashlight into my dimly lit bedroom to search for an ice pack I'd slept with last night to fend off the stifling heat. I wanted to drop it into the ice chest for a couple of hours to get it ready for tonight's hours of tossing and turning. As I shined the light onto the nightstand, a tiny whirring noise sent me spinning around. It was the sound of the video recorder coming to life. I turned the light back to the nightstand, where large green numerals proclaimed the time to be 12:00.

Hallelujah! Thank you God and the mighty fine linemen of Entergy Corporation.

We are SO lucky. All my family members are safe, the only casualties being one pecan tree and one wooden fence, the former having fallen on the latter, in my daughter Kelli's yard. Still, it missed the house.

Kim, my other daughter, got her electricity back at the same time I did. The others are still without power, but they are the fortunate ones who have generators. They don't have air conditioning, but they're limping along with box fans and occasional use of other appliances as needed, and they know they're welcome here.

I haven't seen or heard national news since early Monday, but I've been told that the emphasis has been on the fact that New Orleans narrowly escaped a repeat of Katrina. That was indeed good news. The bad news is that people in 22 parishes (counties) of Louisiana have had severe wind damage, and that the power grid across that entire area has taken a serious hit. To understand how lucky we are, you should know that the utilities companies are estimating power won't be completely up in the metro Baton Rouge area for 3-4 weeks, and in more remote areas of the state, 4-6 weeks.

And it's hot here, people!

The last four days have provided a wonderful opportunity for observation and soul-searching, and I've done a lot of both. I'll try to collect my thoughts and post them tomorrow. (If the lucky streak holds, the office won't get power back before Monday.)

Thanks for your prayers and good thoughts. I seem to be thanking you for those a lot lately, and I deeply appreciate them.

Tonight, we'll sleep between cool sheets, and I'll see you here sometime tomorrow.