Pakman and I were awakened by what sounded exactly like a 40-foot Rachael Ray taking a giant cheese grater to the Parmesan-colored exterior wall behind our headboard. No, that's not the deja-vu part, because quite frankly I never experienced anything remotely like that before. Being the more practical one I decided that going back to sleep was the best way to deal with the situation because staying awake wasn't really going help anything, and because 40-foot Rachael would probably soon get tired and leave on her own anyway when she realized that vinyl siding would probably not make the best topping for giant ravioli. Pakman however felt differently and has always held the belief that keeping one's self awake with worry always helps any situation to resolve itself. Plus he needed to check for floodwaters in the basement (which thankfully were absent.)Then at about 4am, the noise outside was much less noticeable, and conspicuously absent was the soft red glow from the digital clock. Great.
Around 9 I got up, and I thought that 5 hours would have been plenty of time for them to get the power restored. Lo, it was not to be. Checking out the front window, Rachael was long gone, but the wind had actually not died down that much, and was still gusting very heartily. Checking out the back window though, apparently after she got bored with the siding, Rachel tried in vain to make an origami crane out of thetrampoline, and then out of frustration crumpled it up and flung it halfway across the back yard.
“Cool”, I thought. I wondered how Pakman would take this.
With personal and tragic knowledge of what can happen when a sump pump fails, I then went to the basement to check for floodwaters, which thankfully were still absent. I then busied myself down there putting any and all things that I Did Not Want to Get Wet up on top of other things that Did Not Matter if It Got Wet. Later, I made the discovery that instant coffee made with hot tap water tastes exactly the same as instant coffee made in the microwave and then left out on a desk for 3 hours.
Ok, so here's the deja-vu part: Suddenly I was trapped in a house with a number of children with no electricity, no television, no internet, no way to cook anything and no escape. The uncertainty of when the nightmare would end made it almost unbearable. Now, this type of thing happened to us on a semi-regular basis during our stint overseas. So mentally I was prepared. I knew the drill. But that's where the parallels ended. See, being stuck without electricity when it is too cold outside is waaaay more fun than being stuck without electricity when both the temperature and humidity are 127. This time, after the initial anxiety wore off, I took inventory: We had windows that (almost) sealed, a wood-burning fireplace and some wood, enough hummus, biryani, cocoa pebbles and pepsi to make it through lunch, and a small toy battery-powered guitar. The knots in my stomach loosened a little. More searching resulted in some frozen hot dogs, baking potatoes, a fully charged DS lite, candles and a lighter (whew!).
Doing their part to conserve energy, Pakman and Weatherboy stayed in their respective beds until 12:30, leaving us girls to fend for ourselves. At first we were forbidden from starting a fire because Pakman feared we would all die of creosote poisoning since we have not yet used the fireplace and did not know if there was anything wrong with it or living in it or if it even works. But as the temperature inside the house dipped dangerously below 60 degrees, the fear of dying from creosote poisoning was quickly replaced with the fear of freezing to death, so we were allowed to finally light something. Which surprisingly, the kids thought was way better than internet or cable TV or Wii or even jumping on a trampoline. Pakman decided that before we do anything else, the origami crane in the backyard must be dismantled and put away until spring lest it sustain further damage (but not because the 7 neighbors whose yards back up to ours will think we're lazy bums if we leave the mangled mess where it is for another second).
Later, while Pakman and Weatherboy set out in the minivan to find out how widespread the outage was, and to forage for pizza, I found myself giving permission for things I had never allowed before, such as cooking hot dogs in the fireplace or using the good knife to cut branches from the (most likely) non-poisonous yard tree to fashion our own cooking implements. It felt good, imparting my own survival knowledge to the future generation, such as how to strip the bark from the tip of the stick for a clean smooth surface so that the weenie stuck on it does not end up tasting like bark. Or how to use paper towels to wipe off the greasy ash before popping said weenie into one's mouth. And that burning crayons will stink up the house and therefore is probably not a good idea. And we were all pleasantly surprised at how much better potatoes roasted in the fireplace tasted than those done in the electric oven.
Pakman and Weatherboy soon returned with the news that the older section of the neighborhood (pre 90's construction) all had power, it was just our section that was without. Pakman went on to espouse conspiracy theories and beauraucratic incompetence. They also scored a $60 propane table top grill, a dozen duraflame logs and one CSL (Creosote Sweeping Log)-as seen on TV. The grill and duraflame logs are going back to the store tomorrow. It is satisfying to know that my survival skills were enough to see us through this crisis. However even the most serious survivalist is defenseless against the perils of Creosote. So we burnt that thing in the afternoon, just to be safe. It smelt very much like burnt crayons, so maybe I was wrong about that.
As the sun sank lower and the colors intensified, while the CSL smoldered lazily, enveloping us in its magical protective powers and slight chemical aroma, the sudden whirring of the fridge heralded the restoration of power. A half-hearted cheer ensued. As my progeny left the hearth area and filtered out to various other rooms with equipped with miscelleneous electronic devices, I reflected. This wasn't nearly as bad an experience as it could have been. This weather event also produced some important geographical data directly impacting my future garden plans. Before the Saturday thaw there was about a foot of snow in the yard. By Sunday morning it was all but gone, replaced by major flooding in the exact spot near the back fence where I had intended to put in an asparagus bed. Good to know. Also, apparently the space between our house and the one next door is an amazingly efficient wind tunnel, which accelerates normal westerly wind gusts past the sound barrier. I had planned to put next year's garden at the end of this. Thanks to Rachel and her cheese grater last night, I will rethink this.
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