Left in the dark...

I had it all planned.

Sunday afternoon was going to be my time. I was skipping the UT baseball finale (good move as it turned out), had already gone to eat with Mom and given her a present (Happy Mother's Day!) and now had the day to myself.

I threw some laundry into the washer (sigh), put Jon Schwartz's "Sunday Show" on XM and leaned back in my recliner. Now, this is more like it!

Then I heard the clap of thunder. Tony Bennett stopped singing on the XM. The power was out.

But, wait. No clouds. Huh?

A few minutes later I heard the utility trucks. Seems the high winds had knocked down a power line. After awhile, KUB blocked off a section of Brown Gap Road while they worked.

This isn't so bad, I thought. I opened all the blinds, grabbed the issues of Sports Illustrated and Newsweek I'd neglected all week and polished them off. Somewhere in the midst of stories about Obama's pastor and the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks, I drifted off to slumber.

Woke up about 4. Still no power.

I met some friends for supper at Puleo's, hoping things would be fixed in a couple of hours.

Nope. Still black as the night. So much for watching that Sinatra special on TCM.

Instead, I grabbed the iPod and tried to listen to Charles Frazier read "Cold Mountain," a book I'd read a decade ago. But that got boring, so I managed to find a candle, then sat back in the chair, picked back up the iPod and tuned to some old time radio shows I'd downloaded a year ago.

Suddenly I was solving a mystery with Ellery Queen. After that, Marshal Matt Dillon and I helped Doc Holiday get out of a jam on "Gunsmoke." It was silly, but it was fun, and I couldn't help but wonder how many kids developed their imaginations doing this exact same thing on rainy Sunday nights of yesteryear.

Between acts, the announcer told us to "stay tuned to CBS Radio for the upcoming Democratic National Convention." I couldn't help but feel nostalgic for something I'd never known.

After "Gunsmoke" ended, I listened awhile to Miles Davis and his quintet work magic on "Flamenco Sketches." Then I gave up and went to bed.

Loud jazz music woke me up about 1 a.m.; the TV receiver was still resting in the "on" position. I shut it off and went back to sleep, glad in a way that I'd been left in the dark.