Saturday, December 02, 2006

Powerless

We live in an historic neighborhood on an ancient power grid, so every time the wind blows, we're forced to live like the Old Order Amish. That is to say, without electricity.

That's why I didn't blog yesterday. The wind blew.

The outage lasted about 14 hours. After dark, it started getting quite nippy here in the house. But my afternoon and half-night of "powerlessness" wasn't wasted because I managed to learn several important things:

Wet firewood does burn. Eventually. If you have a gas starter in your fireplace. But wet wood makes a lot of smoke. If you care about the smoke, you're not all that cold.

The light of a hurricane lamp is not sufficient for reading a novel. You need a Coleman lantern for reading.

A gas-powered camp stove works perfectly well on your kitchen table. You can heat water and make hot chocolate. You can also roast marshmallows over the flame.

An iPod makes an excellent flashlight if you need to go into your dark office and find something on the cluttered desk. And you can listen to music while you're searching.

Neighbors who phone or come to visit you when the power's off are not really trying to find out if your power is off, too, and if you've heard anything from the electric company. They're just bored because they can't watch TV or cruise the internet. Power outages promote friendship between neighbors.

And this wraps up another blogging week for me. I hope everyone out there is staying warm and has plenty of light to read by.

7 comments:

Robin Bayne said...

We had that happen so many times we bought a generator! What a help that is. Of course, since we have that we rarely lose power now. LOL

Shelley L. MacKenzie said...

Glad you got your power back. We had a small outage the other night (throughout the night) but I don't think it lasted very long.

Winter Peck said...

While I didn't lose my power, I did lose my cable and internet from the ice. Luckily, I thought ahead and bought some of those fire logs, they help greatly in burning wet wood too! Didn't need to use them, but we still have 'em just in case.

Well, my friendly snowplows blocked me in, so I can't get in or out of my driveway or garage until someone comes and plows me out.

Anyone for some hot chocolate?

Catherine West said...

Somehow I don't think my neighbours would be popping by when the power goes out. And that is a good thing!
Yes, we love our neighbours!
I hate to lose electricity. It only serves to prove I am completely addicted to my internet, computer, emails, blogging...and of course we all know that's simply not the case.
I can quit any time I like.
Really, I can.
Honest.

jel said...

we lost our do to a ice storm then snow, but thankful it was just off for a day!

sorry you lost your power! :(

Brenda Coulter said...

We survived. ;-) Thanks, everyone, for commiserating.

Brenda Coulter said...

Oh, you bet. And my sense of humor, too. I couldn't have stood it, otherwise.
;-)