Day Two of No Power

Headline for Tuesday, September 16th.  "Got Power?"  No, we do not have power.  Do you?

I must say it has been restful to go to bed and rise with the sun.  Maybe because it totals nine hours of sleep!  Do that a few nights in a row and it is amazing how ones perspective can change--about everything.  That aspect of this experience has been nice.  

If you read the sub headline on the left it informs us, "If not, you could be waiting six more days." 

Ok.  We better get going on another day in pioneer style.  Let's start our day by getting the generator roaring at 6:00 am.  We need to keep the frig and freezer juiced.  I did wake up delighted as I realized I am now able to have my beloved oatmeal.  (You can check that out here.)  With a generator, all one has to do is climb upon a chair, find the microwave cord in the cabinet, unplug it from the wall, and plug it into the heavy duty extension

cord running out the back door to the generator; put oatmeal in the bowl, season (does one season oatmeal?) with a generous amount of cinnamon and a dash of salt to bring out the flavors (thank you Food Network for teaching us all these things), set the the microwave for 1 minute and 24 seconds (because 24 is one of my favorite numbers), add 1/2 cup of the unthawed raspberries and baby, we are eating breakfast for the goddesses!  I invited folks for a 6:00 am oatmeal gathering but I had no takers.  I think everyone was either surviving and cutting fallen trees and limbs or sleeping in as we had no school...again. 

My husband was off to work...again.  Phoebe and I knew our top job of the day was to be the generator's babysitter.  I was told

repeatedly that it was a "hot" commodity.  It was suggested multiple times to purchase a heavy duty chain and lock.  Everyone in our neighborhood was happy to share their power.  Why would one take something that isn't theirs?  Our Phoeb-meister was keeping a watchful eye on the machine that was keeping her daily teaspoon of milk ice cold.   As I have mentioned these generators were making a lot of noise.  She decided she would catch her Vitamin K from the suns rays that were streaming into the protection of our home, no venturing to the patio for a sunbath today for her.

I made a huge stack of recipe books to read; what a delicious way to spend the day.

Once in a while our phone would ring.  I have always kept one of my Dad's older phones, from the last century, as a land line, meaning it is not powered by electricity in any way so it will work in a power outage. My hubby had brought

it upstairs Sunday evening to our phone center.  That old fashioned ring was quite startling and mystique shrouded each call as one didn't know who was calling as there was no caller id.

I was all tucked in with our sugar plum, for a nice, long, relaxing day of reading when we heard a squeek, a squak, a flicker....they, someone with the power company, was out there somewhere working on OUR transformer.  I have learned that it matters not one whit that we have underground wires, it is the transformer that matters.  (I have so much to learn about so many things.)  That meant soon we would be up and running.  How exciting but I hadn't relaxed in all this experience yet.  What about reading new cooking techniques and re-acquainting myself with fall recipes?  Wait, not so fast.  Could you please go to someone else's neighborhood, bring them the joy of restoring their power and return here in a few hours?  POWER!  Houston, we are up and running and ready to join the bigger world again.  I joined a few neighbors out front to clap and cheer.  Immediately, everything changed. Time to do laundry, do real housework.  Oh farts.  That kinda stinks.  I wasn't quite ready to return to all of this.  However, I was grateful to the men and women working such long hours trying to get power restored.  I called our electric company and waited patiently on hold for quite a while.  I informed the woman who answered that our power had, yes, been restored and I was calling to thank all of them for their efforts.  It is so important to have gratitude and say "Thank you!"  This has always been one of my top mothering goals, for our children to have, feel and recognize gratitude.  

We all have been extremely blessed throughout the post windy storm from "Ike."  We never received any rain, so there was no flooding; the temperatures went from the 90's to the 70's, so hopefully no one suffered in the heat.  I often thought of those in hospitals, they must have massive generators; and, the medically fragile.  We are all so blessed in so many ways.  I truly hope experiencing this enlarges our hearts to those who have or are currently experiencing disasters of any kind.  To have greater understanding that it takes a l-o-n-g time to recover from huge disasters.  Hopefully we will be generous continually to our neighbors and to the larger world, perhaps through the Red Cross.  May our eyes be opened and our hearts more in tune to others needs, seen and unseen.  

I will miss the amazing dinners we had grilling and appreciating the one lamp illuminating our dinner table and seeing the candles glow in our neighbors homes.  These have indeed been way good days.