Cold, Dark

Last night, Tim and I were splitting a beer before dinner. The lava lamp was going, Don Braden was blaring on the CD player, the laundry was in the dryer.

And suddenly it went dark. I mean really dark. It was probably around 5:15 pm, which means it had been really dark for nearly an hour.

But we live in the boonies, and when the very few streetlights go out and all your neighbors lights go out and there is no moonlight out there, it is DARK.

So we took a couple of minutes to adjust. Tim’s phone was nearby and he found the flashlight function so we could find other flashlights and get the candles going.

In a few minutes I got a text from the power company estimating that we’d get power back at 8:08 pm. (It is always some seemingly random time.)

Meanwhile, our plan to reheat/make a dent in the massive amount of leftovers in the fridge came to a complete halt.

When we lose power, we lose everything. (Maybe someday we’ll get a generator, but we’re not there yet.) We don’t have a working fireplace. There is no heat. There is no water. There is no stove, because safety features override our ability to light the burners.

I had so much to do that I put on a headlamp, wrapped a present to mail, and balanced the checkbook. Really. I could not accept downtime.

Eventually I sat and read on the couch, which was delightful, except for the getting-colder-and-colder part.

At exactly 8:00 pm, the power came back on. We rushed to microwave lasagna and quickly restore our diminishing fat.