can anyone help translate this bit of a sentence:

... mi ekhavis la ideon, ke mi estus povinta demandi ŝin, ĉu ...

it's the 'estus povinta' part that gets me, because I don't know if there is a past particple of 'can' in english. The best I can come up with is this:

... I got the idea, that I would have been able to ask her, do ....

any expert help would be apprecitated.

dankon!

eric_vandenburg:... mi ekhavis la ideon, ke mi estus povinta demandi ŝin, ĉu ...

= The idea occured to me that I could have asked her whether...