Unfortunately I have no pictures to prove it, but I had lots of fun with Miles and Westy yesterday afternoon and evening on a visit to O-Town. Annie was interested in going to an Initial Outfitters party at Sara(h) the hairstylist's house, so I got to play with the boys while she checked out what she could have monogrammed. Flashback: Our HGE theme for 2011 was Merry Monogram. Too bad the party wasn't held sooner, Annie!
While Annie was down the street finding things to put initials on, Miles and Westy took a bath, and then Miles and I baked chocolate chip cookies from dough Annie bought at Papa Murphy's. Westy passed the time climbing in and out of a mesh laundry basket, getting stuck at one point. Dang, I wish I had pictures!
When Annie got home, we ate warm chocolate chip cookies, read a story, and the boys went off to dreamland. I stayed and yakked a while before driving home.
I got home at 10:30, came in the house, and suddenly everything looked like this:
At first I though I'd lost my eyesight, but then Larry/Dad/Paco shared an expletive to comment on the situation. I didn't think there was much of a likelihood that both of us would go blind at exactly the same moment, so I took comfort in knowing it was just an electrical failure. However, there had been no wind and no storm, and there are no above-ground electrical wires to be snapped by falling tree limbs in St. Peter anymore, so there was no reason we could imagine for the darkness. My plan to watch Damages at 11:00 was put on hold, but I had hope that the able repair guys who work for the city would get right out there and fix whatever was broken. No such luck.
Realizing that we could be in the dark for a while, Larry located our two Coleman lanterns, and we each used one so we could read for a while.
When we switched off the lanterns, the snoring on Larry/Dad/Paco's side of the bed started up almost immediately. But it was too dark for me to sleep. No streetlights, no moon (I wonder where the moon gets plugged in? Hmmm...), nothing but the glow-in-the-dark numbers on the useless tv channel changer showed up in the bedroom. So I laid there, thinking about the ridiculousness of it being too dark to fall asleep.
At about 12:30 a.m. electricity was restored, and of course the fans, lights, computer, printer, flashing clocks, etc. all started up at once. We haven't heard yet what caused the black-out, but I'm glad it didn't last longer. I had visions of finding water dripping from the frijjer-frijjer and the garage freezer, and a sudden need to grill a couple dozen brats and several pounds of hamburger and invite the neighbors over for supper. I now know that our appliances will keep food cold and/or frozen for at least two hours!
4 comments:
We must have gone to bed early that night because we completely missed this power outage. If it had occurred at 4 a.m., we'd be in the know! Glad you and Larry weren't struck by complete blindness at the same moment. Probably a squirrel in the generator...
A squirrel in the generator? That would have just been more vittles for the impromptu bbq (wonder if anyone has ever used "vittles" and "impromptu" in the same sentence?)
The answer: it was a fault on an underground distribution line. It affected houses along that line which was mainly Travers Road and part of Church Street.
Lew did not know about the outage until I read your blog. He has been home from work for a couple of days waiting to pass a kidney stone.
I love reading your blog, Jill, especially about the adventures of your grandchildren.
Wow! Weird stuff. I'm cracking up over you guys reading by the light of the Coleman lanterns. Sorry to hear about Lew's kidney stone. :-0
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