February 24, 2019 – Unexpected Power Outage

         A bad habit recently turned out to be a God send.   I like chocolate, but in the last dozen years, I can’t eat it after 10:00 a.m. in the morning unless I want to be wide awake until 4:00 a.m. that evening into the next morning.

         It puts a real damper on my style.  I screw up occasionally and that is what I did on Wednesday afternoon.  I had a Lindt – Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar. [Future blog will tell you about my temporary job at Lindor distribution center in New Jersey.]

         As I was on my luxurious last bite, I remembered  the chocolate induced wide-awake problem I have.

         So, I planned ahead, I pulled out more fabric to mark circles and cut yo yo circles until about 11:30 p.m.  We had a cold front or a warm front come through with heavy rain and high winds most of the evening, which was still raging on as I changed into my pajamas.

         Still not feeling as if I could actually sleep, I turned out the lights and crawled into bed due more to sore shoulders and tired eyes.  I lay in the darkness and the storm's high winds and heavy rain alarmed me.  I wondered if I would have a roof by morning listening to the howling winds.  Seconds later, I was greeted by “BEEP” followed by lower lever beeping that stopped in 60 seconds.

         Instantly I knew we were out of power as the first loud Beep was the computer shutting down for lack of electrical power and the second series of beeps was the smoke alarm giving it’s warning that it was going on battery power.

         I sat up in bed and confirmed the power outage as we have security utility lights in the neighborhood and they were all out.  Grabbing my trusty Cobalt Blue metal flashlight – which is more of a weapon  - at 14 inches long and about a pound in weight – easily usable as a Billy club – I snapped it on and looked out the front windows and confirmed there wasn’t a single illumination via electricity in the neighborhood.  I padded barefoot to the kitchen, pulled the emergency numbers card off the refrigerator and dialed Duke Power.

        

         In the past I am usually the only one who phones in an outage and at this hour, I doubted many of my neighbors would call it in as they might be at work [we have several night shift working neighbors]. The rest would be in bed due to having school age children and having to get up early to get them off to school.

         As usual, the customer service representative in the outage department was cheerful.  She kept me on the line long enough to find out if there was an outage and how large it was and with an estimated time of returning to full service.  She put my phone in the cue to receive auto phone updates as the repairs progressed. One thing I can say about my electrical provider – they are top shelf with customer service and forthcoming with when things will be fixed.   They also follow-up and make sure things are right.  The first estimate was 3:15 a.m. given to me by Duke Power.

         I pad back to bed – I shine the flashlight beam to the ceiling and it simply lights up the whole house as if the ceiling light is on.  Crawling back into a bed that is still warm I am concerned at the expected 32-degree low temperature and our lack of auxiliary heat.  I’ve candles, I’ve flash lights, extra batters, I’ve several 5-gallons jugs of water, drawn last fall, stashed in the bathroom closet for flushing toilets as we are on well water, not city water.

         BUT, now that I decided to going “green” for the environment as I am now using a ZERO water thing, I am down to the last half gallon of bottled water.  I’ve used up my stash of bottled water and have not bought anymore . . . now an unforeseen problem for us.  We have only half of a gallon of fresh water left for making instant coffee, brushing our teeth, and washing our hands until the electricity comes back on.

         I am laying in the dark thinking about the small amount of fresh water we have in the house. I have a cat and dog that require water as well.  Of course, due to the chocolate awake-ness situation, I lay there worrying and start to feel the cold creep in rather quickly. 

         A few hours later, I am still awake and hear the phone ring and I pad to the kitchen to answer it with my trusty flashlight aimed at the ceiling easily lighting my way. The phone line is crackling so bad I can make out Duke Power, make out lines down, but I can’t decipher the time of repairs to be expected.

         I pad back to bed and check the thermometer – we are already down to 68 degrees from 74 in a matter of a few hours.  The storm is still raging on.  Gosh, how can any lineman work in driving rain and dark like this - they simply can’t.

         I receive another phone call in the early dawn hours.  It’s still raining; I make my way to the kitchen phone and Duke power expects to have the problem solved by 10:15 a.m.  I wake the dog up and send him out to do his business so that I don’t have to get out of my warm bed in a few hours.  The temperature is down to 64 degrees in the house.

         I wipe the wet dog down and crawl back into some warmth still in my bed and this time I actually fall asleep as the chocolate awake-ness has worn off.

         The dog wakes me again, as he is awaken by the neighbors going off to day work.  I dig out the little battery lanterns and place them strategically in the kitchen and living room.

         Luckily we have a gas stove and I light the match as I turn the  gas burner on under a saucepan of precious water that I measured out by the cupful; four cups to make two cups of drip coffee. 

         I blow out the old-fashioned wooden match and watch the curl of the smoke spiral up slowly.  It’s been a long time since I’ve smelled a burnt match – sort of comforting in a way – we’ll have hot coffee at least.

         My husband is awake. I’ve brought cozy throws to toss on our respective easy chairs to take off the chill; we are down to 60 degrees in the house and it is still raining hard.  We cherish our one cup of hot coffee and pour out more of our precious fresh water for the cat and dog with their breakfast.  When the bottle is empty, my husband says,

         “Where have you moved the rest of your bottled water to?”

         “That is all we have, now that I’m on the Zero Water thing.”  I smile at him and shrug my shoulders.

         “We’ll have to go out and get several gallons . . . .” he replies.

         Duke power auto-call rings, I answer it, “ . . . power anticipated to be restored by 1:15 p.m.”  I feel like I am going to freeze to death by then.

Moral of the story:

I at least attempted to go GREEN –  now with the exception of enough bottled water for drinking during power outages.