Something I Discovered at 4 a.m.

I would make a terrible astronaut. Not because I get airsick if I get more than four feet from the ground. From what I hear, motion sickness is fairly common among astronauts, although NASA is keeping its lips zipped as to the physics of tossing one's cookies in microgravity.

At half past three this morning, I awoke to the sound of the generator kicking on. We've had a quarter inch of ice over everything since yesterday, so the only surprise was that it had taken this long for us to lose power. After a quick reconnaissance around the house to check for a downed wire, I picked up the phone to call the power company to report the problem.

There was no dial tone. Not even on the BatPhone which doesn't require a separate AC feed. On Apollo 8, the astronauts orbited the moon and became the first humans to be out of communication with the entire planet. Me, I was feeling uncomfortably isolated just having the land line knocked out, even though I had a cell phone in hand and other human beings just next door.