"Mashinha mordand"

I rather like power outages.

Oh, I know they're a great inconvenience, not good for the electronics, they mess up the schedule and trap little old ladies' cars in their garages and require all kinds of explanations and promises to call back.

But the office gets so quiet. The music and machines and buzzing and whirring go silent.

The artificial lights all go out, but we have lots of windows, and can see well enough.

I can't be expected to confirm any more appointments if I can't see the appointment book on the computer, so I do what I can do and then stop.

I like being reminded that we can, in fact, survive without electricity. It's like camping, like a Sabbath, like a strange holiday.

I was talking to Angelina over lunch, and we decided the best translation for this phenomenon was "mashinha mordand": the machines died. Well, I decided that anyhow, and she laughed at my way with words. That's very standard. :-) This, too, is a nice reminder that the universe will go on perfectly happily when technology and knowledge fail. People are forever.