Perspective

I woke up to the sound of sprinklers hissing.

Sector 2 -- the one to the north of the front gate, for the impatiens, the north plumbagos, the overwatered and rusting dwarf plumeria, half of the hibiscus and half of the ixoras -- had been going since 4 a.m., and showed 5 hours left to go on the timer.

I turned it off as soon as I could, and hoped beyond hope that not many people would notice the profligate amounts of water darkening the gravel out to the street, and that the plantings wouldn't be killed.

I was pissed off that City Electric had, yet again, worked its magic on our power supply and screwed up the electronics.

And then I clicked into The Citizen and found out that the outage had killed Franko Richmond, a really fine local pianist, who was dying of cancer anyway, but had his fate sealed when his air pump went dead.