and I'm back

Yeah, I guess I missed some excitement. I had phone messages (city robocalls) warning of tornado watches and one warning while I was gone. And a large branch came down off my elm tree and crushed a section of the chain link fence in the backyard. (The GOOD news is it missed both the power line and the cable running in to the house; the only damage was to the fence). My tree guy has been called - he's coming tomorrow to check it out and will probably remove it Tuesday.

My yard is tall but not "oh noes" tall (and the people to the south of me have an even taller yard) and anyway, no letter from the city complaining, so. (I think a person, especially a working person, could make a valid argument that they couldn't keep their lawn mown given the amount of rain - I know I had to try to fit it in between showers before I left)

The air conditioner seems to still be working but it's having a hard time (along with the dehumidifier) sucking enough of the humidity out of the air for it to be comfortable. (Of course, our dewpoint is nearly 70 right now). I still kind of plan to replace it this summer, though now I have the cost of fence replacement. (I don't NEED a fence back there but I WANT one - it's up against the alleyway and all kinds of weird stuff goes down in that alley, and I'd rather have something to deter the weirdness from spilling over into my yard).

I need to take care of a few things (time to start practicing piano again, though I fear my teacher may not be able to get in - she's on the other side of the lake and they've closed the main bridge across it because the lake is so high).

And at some point soon, I'm gonna have to let ALLLLLLL my personal e-mail contacts know that after July or so, my good old .netcommander.com address - which I have had for 15! years - is going away, because Google apparently decided that providing a support webmail platform for third-party e-mail providers isn't worth their while. (Or at least that's what my ISP claims). I can set up a forwarding service but no idea how long forwarding will last.

My new e-mail is the one I gave a while back as my "emergency" contact: ericaacorbett@gmail.com It's also the e-mail that's linked to my Blogger account (after another case of Google being stupid) so maybe it will be more seamless, but I will say, every time some change like this happens, I again look at my ISP/cable provider and go "You find ways to increase my bill every month, while decreasing what you provide. I continue to use you why?" but I admit the other options are not as appealing to me (SO not using A T and T, don't want a satellite service....)

I did get my mail. And my new glasses. Here's a quick and messy webcam photo, I will probably take a better one later on: