Blackouts in the Area

On Wednesday an ice storm hit and the power went out. I wrote the following in a pocket-sized Zequenz notebook with an enormous ornate Jinhao Pendragon pen on Thursday, the 23rd. It's Saturday now. DTE, the utility, first estimated my power would be back on by Thursday, two days ago, the day I wrote the following. Later they revised their estimate to Tuesday next week. Currently they are making no estimate. My place was one of over a million homes and business without power for some time this week. Yesterday over 750,000 of them still had no power.

23 February 2023 My brother said he will pick me up today after work and let me stay with him until the power is back on. DTE emailed me and said my power is estimated to be back on today. 

I don't believe DTE. 

Does my brother? I've been hoping to see my brother F2F, been a while, hope it still happens.

It was colder than a welldigger's ass last night inside my home. The night seemed very, very long. I suppose that means I didn't sleep well.

Standing on my porch around 5PM even though it's a little warmer inside, because it's too dark inside to write, writing this in my Zequenz. Capping and uncapping this Jinhao Pendragon feels like a nice little ceremony. Perhaps not an entire Japanese tea ceremony, but still. 

5:01PM, my brother called to say he's on his way. My neighbor has agreed to look out for Amazon packages, and to put them inside the porch, in case Amazon leaves them outside despite my standing instructions. Amazon usually leaves them inside the porch. But it's nice to know my neighbor will look out. She easily wins Neighbor of the year, year after year.

Visible from inside my porch: Streets, sidewalks, cars, trucks, SUV's etc, a "telephone" pole which I believe carries only electricity, grass, grass re-seeding where DTE tore it up putting in new gas lines this summer, masonry, plastic trash bins, movement of tree limbs in the wind, wooden outside staircases with wooden railings outside duplex residences, roofs, both shingles and... metal? Definitely not shingles. Street signs, chimneys. Those plain narrow metal gas exhaust pipes in roofs of buildings which run wholly or partly on gas power, are those also called chimneys?

I haven't seen any birds today.