Blarg in the night.

Posting late today. Last night was a doozy.

All day Saturday we had a real New York rain, constant, miserable, soggy, steady, but not torrential.

In the dead of night it turned into a tropical deluge.

Which wouldn't have been too bad, except there was lightning.

Which caused a power surge.

Which set off the burglar alarm.

That freaked out the dog.

Then the power went out.

But that didn't stop the alarm, which has a backup system.

But the backup system has a battery, which had run very low, so the control panel was unresponsive.

And the new battery that I had requested a week ago was not installed yet.

And now the dog had to pee from terror.

And the rain was coming down in typhoon intensity.

And all the flashlights were downstairs.

The outage lasted only half an hour, as did the dog's freakage. Dogs are great help in many ways, but in this kind of situation they are as useful as toddlers.

Reflecting back on it this morning as I slumped wearily in a pew, I thought about the old saying (I heard it was Kipling, but it doesn't seem to be) that adventure is some other poor slob having a hell of a time of it on the other side of the world.

Well, comedy is some poor slob having a frustrating time of it closer to home.

For your viewing pleasure, Exhibit A.