Dear cable guide,

"Mulder and Scully discover a government conspiracy while on the trail of a killer with superhuman powers" is not a helpful episode description.

In other news, I aten't dead yet.

We hosted two couples (one with six-year-old son) over the weekend as they live in the PEPCO-infested county of Montgomery and so lost power in the storms. Couple-with-son regained power on Sunday but the other had an estimate of a week before restoration. Fortunately, they had a trip to NYC planned mid-week so at least most of their hotel-stay was already accounted for. But JFC, this happens with PEPCO every year, sometimes several times. Cut down the damn trees, bury the damn wires, and stop inconveniencing and even endangering your customers.

It was actually quite lovely from my side, though, everyone bringing their chargers and power strips and getting all their devices up to speed again and contributing stuff from their fridges and freezers for delightfully feast-like dinner and brunch. Yay for the house av_lad bought us in April -- wonderful entertaining flow and lots of places for people to bunk down.

Speaking of which, the 4th worked out well. My brother and borgmama and their brood of 4, ishyko and her husband and their 3 sons, psu_jedi and her husband and son, i_am_racerx, and my cousin all joined us -- the invitation was "bring your own meat and beverage", we provided the grill and a ton of sides and chips -- and we all watched 1776, one of my favorite movies and a new one to several in the crowd, and some of Yankee Doodle Dandy before going outside and running from deck to front yard and back, trying to decide which local fireworks show to focus on. Front yard (Old Town Manassas) won out and it was spectacular. We'll definitely be hosting next year.