monday's mulling: boom, boom, out go the lights

For a couple days last week, the weather forecasters were all over the storm and high winds that were headed toward our area. 'Tis the season for spring storms and sometimes my attitude turns into, "Yeah, here comes another one." Well, this one was a doozy. Last Tuesday's storm came in fast and furious, high winds and buckets  of rain, and within 15 minutes our lights flickered and then the power went out. For 30 hours.

During the daylight hours, puttering around the house was no big deal. We dusted, looked at "stuff" in the storage room (should it stay or should it go?), Todd went through mail and had a decent pile to run through the shredder once the power came back on, in the afternoon after the rain had stopped, I went outside and pulled some weeds (easy job when the soil is wet). 

Dinner came around, no power, we went out for a bite to eat. It's moments like these that make me wish I would have chosen a gas stove for my kitchen remodel. But me, Little Miss Optimist, just knew that the power would be on once we got back from our meal. As we drove back, we saw lights shining from peoples' windows and were ready to be greeted by the lights shining from our windows. I was feeling good about pushing the garage door opener and watching the door raise on its own. We turned the corner and our hopes were dashed. One side of the street was shining brightly, the other was still dark. Our house was on the dark side. We drove around. The neighborhood behind us had power. Our street was this little dark pocket surrounded by lighted homes. A couple neighbors' generators were running. We're seriously considering buying one.

Anyway, we have lots of Hilton points so we put those to good use and reserved a room. It was nice to wake up to hot coffee and a mediocre breakfast. Amazing how inconvenience can shift your perspective.

We got home, still no power. I was concerned about the meat in the freezer so off to the store to buy some bags of ice to keep its temperature acceptably cold. The perishable food in the refrigerator had to be tossed. Thank heavens the next day was trash pick-up day. (Another little blessing in this inconvenient glitch).

We were leaving for Chicago the next day, so we got our bags packed during the daylight, not jumping the gun to get another room at the Hilton. A few utility trucks came down the street - what a joyous sight - and a little after 5:00 (1700) the "let there be light!" moment happened. I waved and yelled thank you to the linemen as they drove away and then went into the house to thaw and warm up some frozen lasagna for our after power outage dinner.