Nothing is better, when you are feeling just a teeny-tiny bit sorry for yourself, than remembering that you have mint chocolate chip ice cream bars in your freezer, and they’re still frozen, because you have electricity, too. What a delightful life.

My moment of self-pity really did have to be teeny-tiny, as well, because it was caused by a single solitary fire ant bite. Just one. Yay! (I mean I’d rather have zero, as anyone would, but one is so much better than any other possible number.)

Fire ants, for those who are unfamiliar, are pretty much the only creature in creation that I am willing to wreak immediate, ravaging, torturous death upon at first sight. Most critters I try to discourage first, starting with the things that make life unpleasant for them: strong pine scents, cinnamon, that kind of thing. Fire ants, though, just need to die. Immediately.

And, of course, that’s how they feel about us. Once one fire ant has decided that you are worthy of being bitten (admittedly, probably because you stepped on their nest or something) all the rest rush to attack, too. So yeah, I’m lucky, because one bite is nothing except some momentary unpleasantness. Followed, in my case, by a hot shower and a mint chocolate chip ice cream bar, both of which make me feel so very fortunate.

I think said fire ant managed to get me in the backyard. I haven’t seen any mounds back there, but I was with Sophie, admiring our fence (lack thereof.)

April’s tree fall took it out, but Milton honestly just demolished it. And unfortunately for me and Sophie, replacing it is going to take a while. On the other hand, fortunately for me and Sophie, temporary fencing is surprisingly cheap. I have no idea whether that stuff will really work, but I ordered 50 ft worth from Amazon this morning, to be delivered tomorrow, so we’ll see. The “fence” that’s been in place for the past five months was really just a couple tarps, strung up on broken boards, and Sophie was willing to accept it as a fence after being given a sharp, “NO!” the first few times she went through it, so I hope she’ll accept this stuff as a fence, too. It won’t be the most aesthetically pleasing fence ever created, but if we can still play ball, we’ll be happy.

In other news, we got our power back late Saturday afternoon, our Internet back about an hour ago, so more yay! I don’t know how long the giant piles of debris will be in everyone’s front yards, but I think (or rather my landlord thinks) that the city will be sending trucks out to collect it all eventually.

Our pile is probably the biggest on our street, but nowhere close to the biggest in the neighborhood.

In other news… nope, I got nothing. In my hurricane prep stage, I did most of the right things: I bought water, I charged my devices, I parked my car carefully, I stocked up on canned goods. However, I did not download all my work in progress from the cloud. It didn’t even cross my mind. On Thursday when I opened up the app I’ve been using on my still fully-charged computer, I had to blink at the blank screen for a couple seconds before I realized that of course all my notes were gone. Or not gone, just not actually on my computer. It’s amazing what we start taking for granted. I would not have done that in my van life days.

But today’s goal, such as it is, is to open up my various files and figure out where I was. I need to pick one of my many works-in-progess and start writing. I suppose the hurricane time could have been focused, distraction-free time, but it really didn’t work that way. This week will be more productive. And it will include ice cream. How satisfying. 🙂