2020-08-18 Tuesday evening: Morning adventures.

Sometimes I sleep soundly through the night; more often, I'm awake at 2 or 3 in the morning and may or may not get back to sleep. Sunday night must have been one of my rare nights to sleep like a log, because it wasn't until Monday afternoon that I learned from Debbie that there had been some trouble outside our building overnight. Apparently someone had tried to break into one of the units neighboring ours and made some three separate attempts between 1 and 3 o'clock in the morning. The Hillsboro Police had been called in; we never learned what, exactly, had happened.

This morning it wasn't an intruder but my own USB power adapter that seemingly tried to kill me. I got up at my usual 5:00 and powered on my cellphone, which was plugged into the charger. A few minutes later, there was a wisp of smoke and a burning smell, and the insulation on the USB cord running to the phone was starting to melt. The cord was hot enough to blister my thumb when I gripped it. I hastily cut the power from the power strip and threw the charger in the trash bin. The phone, miraculously, appears undamaged.

And that, thankfully, is as exciting as it gets around here, although that's plenty excitement enough. I am glad I don't live in Portland anymore.