Well, as I sat down to write my blog for the week, I realized that C.R. won’t be here this week to respond. For the past many years, C.R. always had a humorous comment on whatever I wrote about. I could always count on his comments to be fast and witty. I’ll miss him terribly. I had recently finished his latest book, and I had meant to email him to say how much I enjoyed it, but I’m sad to say that I put that off, and now I can’t.

This week has been a horrible week for Cincinnati. We lost power on Sunday afternoon due to a windstorm, the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Now of all the things I can think of, a hurricane in Ohio is about at the bottom of possibles. The storm brought 50+ mph winds and days of life without power. We lost our power (and part of our garage roof) around 2pm on Sunday. We sat outside until it got dark and then went inside and played cards by candlelight. For the record, I stink at Gin Rummy.

By Monday, we knew things were bad. No school, no work. No lights. I fortunately have 50-some books to read for the Edgar awards at the moment, so I could keep busy. I read almost all day and took care of 30-some books. (Of course, I got another 30 when UPS started running again.) By night we decided to cook out. We had chicken and potatos, in what we called an indoor camping experience.

At 4am Tuesday, the lights returned. Of course, we hadn’t bothered to turn them all out when the electricity went off, so we were immediately aware of the change. We got up and turned on all the lights in the house, just to enjoy. I have to say that running the dishwasher has never been so fun.

For the record, I’ve now read 255 books for the Edgars this year. I have another 50 to be read at this point. Phew…