Yeah, so we're without power out here in wonderful Western Washington. Have been since Thursday night. God, in his infinite wisdom, saw fit to restore power to my office, which is where I'm blogging from now. This to me is further proof that if there IS a God, he really hates me.
It COULD be worse.
My next door neighbor had a tree slice through two floors and wedge there. It now looks like he is growing a tree out of his living room, backwards.
Down the street, my Malay neighbors lost most of thier fence, thier gazebo, planks from thier deck, and thier trashcans have DISAPPEARED. Vanished.
Two nights ago a guy the next block over suffered carbon monoxide poisoning due to the Coleman stove he was running in his house.
In the county next to Renton most of the power lines were severed. They won't be back up until Christmas.
As for me, things have reverted back to the Bronze Age...Which is kind of okay, as ages go. My wife, unable to forage hundreds of miles for food, must do as I say if she wants to eat. This has led to a sort of role-reversal in the pecking order at my house. Since I am the only member of our household who knows kung-fu, I have emerged at the top of the totem pole. My friend Gary still scavenges the periphery of our existence, in hopes of leeching a life from mine. Also, we have reverted to grunts and wild hand gesticulations to communicate with.
Actually, we're doing okay. We have a propane water heater and fireplace, so hot water and heat are not a problem (yet). Caren, who is Asian and is therefore a genius at math and the practical application of science, bought a Korean butane grill last year and a dozen cartiridges. So we can cook. Gary & I put all our refrigerated stuff in a cooler in my (frigid) garage. This is also where I'm stashing my dwindling supply of Rum and trappist beers.
We're doing good, considering we're a house of computer geeks with no computers. But every day I come home, and my poor baby is sitting there with no lights or faint humming sounds, just a dark tower of silent greatness, now a relic of what technology COULD have been sort of like the HAL 9000 after that BASTARD Dave Bowman decided to fuck with the plumbing. Just a monolith to mark the passage of God...
Um. Anyway, things should be back to normal soon.
6 comments:
Ouch, sorry to hear about this, kid.
We were lucky -- had a few widowmakers fall from our trees, but nothing hit the house, and while our power flickered on and off enough so we had to reset the clocks, we stayed warm and lit.
My son's electricity went out for a couple days. They had propane space hears and battery lamps and candles, but I think the last of the goldfish in the aquarium bought it. Their power came back on for most of the afternoon, but Saturday night a sub-station blew -- we were driving to a Christmas party and saw the flash -- sky lit up an eerie blue, like heat lighting -- and much of Beaverton-Hillsboro- Aloha went dark for several more hours.
Party we went to, the guy had a tree fall on his house, a big fir; fortunately, it was far enough away that the crown cushioned the impact and it didn't crash through the roof.
Growing up in Louisiana with seasonal hurricanes, I usually don't worry about wind, but now and then, we get enough of a storm up here to remind us that bad weather trumps technology much of the time even here in the future ...
I sort of put the news reports and your lack of posts to a easy conclusion. Sorry to hear.
Living out in the woods we've lost power for 7-8 hrs at the most but we decided just this weekend to take the financial plunge and buy that generator. I think we've dodged that blade edge too many times.
Hey Bobbe, you don'[t have to post this, just writing to you.
Don't call me until things straighten out. I didn't read anything on this til after I called last night.
If you need anything I can do, let me know. Just let me know you are really ok.
Take care, Brother.
Good to hear you're OK. We were worried.
I'm okay, thanks everybody. It's a little wierd trying to write by the light of 25 candles, but I'm managing. I stay at work overtime to do stuff on the web & get further with my books. Ironically, my muse decided to start singing opera right after we lost power. I have suddenly been overwhelmed with stuff I want to write, and no light to do it by.
I hope everyone else is well, and I will call you all when I can.
Haha, oh what the rest of the people in your area must have been thinking while you were calmly grilling in your home with hot water and heat. We always joke about what would happen to half of California if the whole place were suddenly devoid of electricity and the things most Californians rely on.
What if there were no tv,movies or computers? we might actually have to talk with each other.
What if we had no tv dinners, mcnasty drive thrus, or pizza to-go?
Well, I can't say I envy you sir. We did have a few days w/o gas, which meant no heat or hot water... but we took "red neck baths". Which meant,althoughwe couldn't light a fire under the tub, we could boil water, and add it to the freezing kind for a mildly warm bath. When this idea was suggested to our neighbor, she scoffed, and was horrified. She stated she would rather not bathe, and her children would certainly never like the idea.
*yikes*too good for boiled water eh?
Anyhow, hope all is back to normal.
Peace,
aisha
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