Overall Outage

It’s amazing how I take things for granted.  I’m reminded of that when they’re not around anymore.  Such as the electricity.  It went out at 7:00 pm on Wednesday and didn’t come back on until Sunday morning around 9:00 am.  Three days and four nights of nothing but cold, cold, cold.  I did some knitting and read a book, but most of the time I was huddled under a pile of blankets just trying to get warm.  I did a lot of thinking while I waited.  I had no heat, no hot water, no way to cook, no phone (battery was dead), no TV or music and no computer/internet and I was running out of food quickly.  I rationed the two fiber bars, four bagels and cream cheese, the last bit of peanut butter and saltine crackers.  Finished off my hoarded pepper jelly, too.  Everything else in the house had to be cooked.  While it was fortuitous that I hadn’t gone out and stocked up the fridge and freezer the day before the outage, it did leave me with very little to eat.  I think it would have been harder watching a lot of food spoil, though. The lack of information was difficult, as well.  Not having a phone or TV to get caught up with what was going on was excruciating.  It’s taught me that I really need to have a good radio for just such occasions.  I kept begging the PGE God to turn back on the power until finally on Saturday I realized that the power wasn’t ever going to come back on.  This was how it was going to be forever more.  Never warm, never clean, never full, and never in touch with those I love.  I was sure electricity was over for me.  I even cried a little.  I cried a little when the power came back on Sunday morning, too.  And I will never take electricity for granted again.  This was the longest I’ve gone without power in my adult life and I hope to never do it again.  The shower I took on Sunday was one of the best I’ve ever had.  It took all the heaters about five hours to get the chill out and warm up the place, for which I am very grateful.  I’m tentative, though.  I have this understandable fear that it will go right back out again.

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