As expected the power went down for most of Astoria with last night’s storm. It’s not the only thing that came crashing to the ground. While IZ was calling me outside to admire the visible white-caps on the river I could hear Boy Wonder shouting in the Dining room.

“Mom, Mom, MOM!!! The wind is blowing down the tree. THE WIND IS BLOWING DOWN THE TREE.”

Now, our kid has inherited my tendency toward hyperbole… so I didn’t take him too seriously. However, when I stepped back inside and headed to the window where he was watching the storm, it was pretty easy to see why he was upset.

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Visibly shaken, he pelted me with his fear, “I TOLD you it was coming down! I tried to warn you! If you had only listened!” I very calmly explained that no amount of warning would have stopped this. If the wind was going to take down a tree that size, the only thing we could do was get out of the way. Then I headed to my neighbor’s house to make sure he was OK. Our 40′ Conifer was now in his backyard.

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Fortunately, the tree just grazed his siding and caused no real damage to his property. At first we couldn’t raise him and I began to panic—so, I dashed off to the backyard to make sure he wasn’t under our now down tree. He wasn’t. In fact, he was gleefully explaining to IZ ,who had located him, that he was overjoyed to have our tree down. His view is vastly expanded. He only wishes it had taken down our unsightly shed with its fall. Joy.

Miraculously, no one was hurt and as it was the only major tree in our yard, we were confident that if the roof didn’t fly off, we were going to weather this storm just fine.

We were wrong. Poor IZ. While we woke to power this morning, his fancy Mercedes Benz of a printer suffered one too many jolts with the surge before we lost power and was refusing to boot up. It too was down. And getting it repaired is going to rival the expense of removing that tree. It seems that when you drive a Mercedes Benz getting your headlamp replaced can cost a fortune, even if it does read Chrylser on the casing… He spent the better part of his day on the phone with assorted contractors and claims adjusters.

Me? Well, I had put off doing blood work that was scheduled for yesterday. One day wasn’t going to cause any harm and I simply wasn’t motivated to do it yesterday. But putting it off until Monday would yield angry phone calls from my Dr.’s Office and I’ve had just about enough of people being snarky my direction… so, off I went.

Now, I have my blood drawn on a fairly regular basis… it’s one of the “perks” of being auto-immune. However, even regularity doesn’t keep me from being a complete weenie when it comes to needles. I’m better than I used to be. I used to have to take a posse of people with me to cheer me on and then drive me home when I inevitably passed out. But, with time, I’ve discovered that I can get through a blood draw with minimal drama as long as I can go horizontal BEFORE they start brandishing needles. Imagine my shock when I was told that the portable bed they usually haul out to accommodate my weenie antics was broken. Oh yes! Unless I wanted to spend an ungodly sum to have the blood pull in the E.R. I was doing this sitting up. First the tree, then the printer, it seemed I was next to come crashing down.

There was only one thing to do: I whipped out my red lipstick and applied a quick coat. There is nothing better for boosting your courage, nothing that can help you brace for the inevitable loss of dignity like red lipstick. Besides, if you are going to find yourself prone on a linoleum floor while several people wrench their backs trying to pry you free, you might as well look good comatose.

With freshly painted lips, I had the presence of mind to scoot my ample backside to the edge of the chair and prop my head back so that all the blood in my noggin didn’t completely drain to my feet. Amazingly, I didn’t go under.

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It would seem that I wasn’t destined to come crashing down today after all. A little red lipstick and you can face the world, Dear Reader. Remember that the next time you feel like you might be gearing up to greet the linoleum face down.