Stormy Weather
David and I had just started eating dinner this evening when the wind storms that had been raging all day knocked the power out. There was a little bit of daylight left, so we lit a bunch of candles, finished eating, and called the power company to report the outage. They estimated we'd be back up by 8:30, so we decided to carry on our plans for the evening, just without electricity.
(Aside: when I lived in Auburn, where I spent my last two years of grade school and four years of high school, we lost our power all the time. Not because we had crazy weather, necessarily;* more because we apparently had a spectacularly unstable power grid. The slightest wind storm would cause a blackout. [When I lived in Nebraska, where they have tornadoes, we lost power ONCE: when a tree fell on the power lines right outside the house. They had us back up and running within a couple of hours.] Anyway, in Auburn it was rather festive, because we would light a fire in the fireplace and maybe make soup on it, and generally have a jolly time. Tonight was the first time I remember having a nighttime power loss since then, and I realized once again how we're living in THE FUTURE. Not only were we able to call the power company on our cell phones, but David could still get the Internet on his phone, my gas furnace still worked to heat the place, and I was able to use both my stove top and my oven! I guess the latter two are not so much living in the future as using natural gas... but whatever.)
Our evening plans involved making an apple crisp from the box of Honeycrisps my mom sent out with David's parents, so we just baked it by candlelight. We'd peeled too many apples to fit into the crisp, so I peeled a few more and made a big pot of applesauce.
And then--back to living in the future--we started a movie on David's netbook, which has a most impressive battery.
Anyway, our lights are back up again, after an hour more than estimated of candlelit living. It was actually quite delightful.
*though this notable exception comes to mind
3 comments:
God bless technology!
I used to love power outages. Then the hurricane came. A week without power in Louisiana in August is no fun. Also, we had an electric stove, although we did have all the hot water we wanted, which wasn't very much, believe me.
It was kind of fun making scrambled eggs outside on the charcoal grill, though.
I think our power went off at work once because of a storm, but I can't reallysay for sure. I sit in the building's tornado shelter and the backup generators kick on instantly...It really takes the fun out ot thunderstorms.
Post a Comment