Updates

Update on Sparklytree: As some of you may recall, after a snowstorm back in January, part of one of our trees was resting on a powerline, sparkling merrily in ways in which a living tree should never sparkle. The local power company said they'd send out a crew to deal with it "as soon as possible." We waited. I never heard from the electric co.; the landlord never heard from the electric co.; the tree never quite caught on fire, but never quite stopped sparking and making angry wasp noises. So last evening as the breezes kicked up, I called the company again, asking approximately when they thought they might do some tree-trimming here. Response? "Our records show that a tree limb was removed from a power line on February 3." Yeah, right. After I stifled a snort of derision, I politely explained the actual situation here and was told that a crew would be dispatched shortly.

Amazingly enough, a crew arrived about an hour after my phone call. And impressively, the man doing the trimming managed to remove quite a few nuisance branches--including one we hadn't noticed was also sparkling--on a breezy night, in the dark, without incident. So now on a windy Saturday, all our trees are buzz- and sparkle-free, which must be a great relief to the trees.

Update on health: The flu stopped feeling flu-ish and now feels like an annoying cold. I've felt energetic enough to walk two miles or more two days in a row, so that's good. My body's found another way of making me feel miserable today, but I'd rather not talk about it. Overall, I'm doing better than I was early in the week.

Update on weekend plans: For the remainder of this afternoon: Resting and reading. For Sunday: If I have the energy, I'd like to go to the 1801 K Street Borders to loot the corpse search for good deals on books & CDs.