Electricity: good vs. evil
The power was out for six hours earlier this week. It blinked off shortly after 3p. At the time I was running the washer and dryer, a computer, entertainment system, a space heater, etc. so I thought I might have blown a fuse. Yeah, a fuse. My home is so old it has fuses instead of breakers. As such, it's not easy to determine if the power is out entirely or a main fuse blew.
I peeked out the window and saw my neighbor setting up some Christmas decorations on his porch. I put on shoes and walked over to ask if their power was out as well. They were both on the porch working on some lights. I probably saved them some time, because they were trying to figure out why the lights wouldn't turn on. She went inside and confirmed their power was out as well. It's not just me, about six homes were without power.
Back at my place, I gave in and shut down the computer since my UPS wouldn't do much for a prolonged outage. I'm without a computer, without internet, without radio, TV, DVDs, or anything else that's so convenient to fill time... let alone getting any work done. Perhaps more importantly, I'm without heat and without refrigeration. Why is that power always goes out the day after you buy ice cream?
It's a strange feeling, not being sure what to do with yourself. I curled up up with a comforter, bribed my cat-heater to curl up on me, and started to fill the time by reading a book. I've been neglecting Black House for a long time, and it was good to get back into it. As the light quickly faded with dusk, I lit an oil lamp and kept reading until about 7p. At that point I checked the ice cream and found it was very soft, soon to be soup. Obviously, I had to eat it. (No, I didn't eat it all, or even come close to it.)
What does one do after eating too much ice cream? You pull a Craig. Yes, you go out into the pitch black of night and walk. Walk anywhere. When I left at 7:30p, the one utility truck was joined by two more. Three trucks to fix the problem. That meant to me that either the problem was really big, or they were gathering for union meeting. An hour an a half later, I came back to my home right as the power came on. What timing!
I got the heat back on, the computer rebooted, and all the other bells and whistles turned on. I felt like I had rejoined the 21st centurty. It was nice to turn the heat on; it had gotten down to 50F, a bit chillier than I normally keep it.
One new thing I discovered is that if my washing machine sits for six hours full of water, it leaks a little bit. So the rest of the evening was designated to pulling out the washer and dryer to clean up the water underneath. Oh what fun.
Soupy ice creaml! Why must the innocent ones always suffer so greatly?
Visitors