I woke up yesterday, Aug. 10, and turned on my radio as usual. Then I wanted to wake up “for real,” because the radio hosts were talking about looting, rioting, and raised bridges closing most access to the Loop. Surely that was a nightmare.

No, that was waking up yesterday morning.

Then the light started getting lower and more yellow and the radio started talking about severe weather and high winds coming in. One wall of my apartment is almost covered by a window, so I picked up the radio, my battery-powered DVD player and some favorite discs, and some pillows and made camp in the bathroom, with a wall between me and that window.

The storm passed. I had my phone with me, and a friend who lives nearby sent an all-clear text before the radio news confirmed it.

So that was yesterday. Sorry, Sir Paul McCartney, but that’s not the sort of yesterday I’ll long for.

Today has been much more ordinary — apart from reading the newspaper coverage of the two miseries and hearing the radio mention that curfew wasn’t quite over when I woke up.

The light is still very normal in the afternoon. I’m getting a few things done — few, thanks to the effects of nervously waking up before 4 a.m. today. But it’s a calm, plain old day.

I love a good story. I’ve been through some big ones myself, including putting out the first edition of a weekly paper on Sept. 11 — THAT Sept. 11.

But compared to what I had to record in my diary last night, I’m glad tonight’s going to be ordinary and short: laundry; figuring out how to keep my hair under control without resorting to a haircut just yet; mailing a couple of actual letters; trying to figure out whether I can take a selfie in my mirrored closet door to be an updated, masked profile photo.

Oh, that and listening to the Blackhawks’ playoff game on the radio as I drift off to the kind of dozing I used to do in the back seat of my parents’ car.

I love hockey. Hockey in August ordinarily means listening to or watching a game I recorded during the winter, whether I was away and missing the game or just aware that this could be a game I’d like to see twice. But “live” and meaningful games are far from ordinary for August. Training camp for a new year usually starts in the second week of September — I can remember it as a consolation in 2001. But this year, the Stanley Cup playoffs will be far from finished by then. The timing doesn’t feel ordinary — but the fact of getting distracted by enjoying a game is one of my favorite ordinary things.

So it’s a game night tonight — just an ordinary playoff game. I think I’ll take it. I know I’ll enjoy it, just for being here. No storms, no looting, just a good game.

Margaret Serious has a page on Facebook.