The Day the Internet Went Down

A damaged fiberoptic cable wreaked havoc with local internet, land line and cell phone service yesterday, and I was laughably lost without my connection. It's pathetic. Made me realize how many too many times a day I check my email. And even if I don't check anything: I want to be connected! We actually had this conversation: Him: I need to send the neighbor an email. Me: And how are you going to do that? Him: Oh, I forgot. I guess I'll just call her. Me: The phones are down and, um, she lives next door. Maybe we could, you know, go over there. This makes me sound like the smart one, but the parts can easily be reversed. I was the one who kept running upstairs to check the computer every hour. Remember when we used to do things like knock on the neighbor's door?

The outage lasted over 24 hours! The words fiber cut have been used. Whatever does that mean? And I can't check the news updates to see what really happened. And, segue alert, I can't google the new bug we found out in the garden.

Mr S and I were weeding our separate patches when he suddenly called me over, said go get the camera! Wow, look what he found! This creature looks like it was carved from amber--shiny, translucent, glowing. We used to call them potato bugs, but I don't think they have anything to do with potatoes. Of course I couldn't find it in my insect book--they only have bugs that don't live in my neighborhood.

I tried photographing it in its little environment, but it was on the move, looking to get back under something dark and damp. So I gathered it up and let it loose on the picnic table for a better view, but again it just frantically ran around. I kept scooping it up in my hand (it tickles!) and it kept running off and falling on its head, and finally I felt so guilty I just put it back where it belonged. This is a one-handed shot, trying to focus and trying not to freak out from the effects of a very large unidentified beetle crawling on my palm. What a story we both had to tell!


And now that the internet is working, I find it is called Jerusalem cricket. I particularly like the reference about its ability to inflict a painful bite.