Power to the People

We had some hellacious wind storms on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning -- gusts as high as 70+ mph, even. I was awake listening as the gusts became more and more intense, until finally one gust started and then, rather than ebbing and falling like gusts are wont to do, suddenly increased until it was as if a freight train were about 3 inches from crashing through my bedroom wall. The windows rattled, the cats were freaked, and then -- silence. And darkness.

And no power.

So we went about our day, figuring that electricity would come back on sooner or later. But no electric = no heat, and the day -- complete with wind -- wasn't a warm one. It grew more and more cold, until late morning (T-minus 5.5 hours without heat) found me curled on my bed with my down comforter pulled over my head. My mom was similarly wrapped in a chair. We called RG & E to tell them I'm kind of sick and need to be warm and use my hospital bed and whatnot, and they were *very* receptive but not hopeful about the power thing, saying is might be as late as Sun. 1/13. By dinner time (T-minus 12.5 hours without heat) we had borrowed a generator from the Chins and were starting to get warm. Kim came over, and so we had pizza and chicken fingers by the light of a single lamp -- very glam. We went to sleep to the soothing hummmmm of the generators cranking all up and down the street.

Finally in the late night hours power came back on and the generator noise was just so much remembered white noise in the backs of our brains. SO now we thaw out and keep thanking the gods of electricity for the power that keeps us warm.