Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; not light them for themselves.

I have become all too familiar with torches this summer… We have been without power since Sunday—courtesy of Hurricane Irene. And the stock answer for when it’s coming back is “By Wednesday.”


I know a lot of other folks up and down the East Coast have it way worse than us—trust me. My folks got wiped out in 1989 by Hurricane Hugo when it stalled over St. Croix Island for 12 hours. And that was a Category 5. Don’t mess with Mother Nature. I have a healthy respect for what she is capable of, believe me. I mean, the East Coast had an earthquake last Wednesday and a hurricane on Saturday and Sunday (that included floods and tornadoes.) Dang.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t gone through 2 days of no power back in June. And what makes this more frustrating is that once again, everyone around us has power. The exterior lights from the apartments on the hill above shine down and mock us at night. It’s not fair. We’re nice people, we deserve light.

Unfortunately, we will have to toss everything in the fridge—something we can ill afford. And, of course, insurance doesn’t cover stuff like that. Just like no one wanted to cover the TV we had to replace after the electrical explosion. Okay, I get it; this was an “act of god.” And the local power company had to restore power to about 1 million customers. But they brought in 4,000 workers—including people from other parts of the country. Shouldn’t they be able to bang all those restarts out by now?

I’m being a spoiled brat? Okay.

But I miss my electronica. Hell, I miss being able to see my way to the john! My bathroom is in the middle of the apartment, so it is the black hole without electricity. I got those little “tap” lights for us, so we’re walking around the apartment with those.

I’m so bored, I was in bed by 10pm for the last two nights.

And let me tell you, cold showers suck!

And I may run out of clean undies if they don’t get us electricity back soon.

I know I’m directing a show set in the early 1900s, but I really don’t need to live it to do that properly.

Well, let me go see if we can borrow a cup of kilowatts from the neighbors up the hill.

SIDEBAR:



Made a couple of attempts to contact the power company for at least a guesstimate as to when my power would come back. Had to tap dance thru 5 (count ‘me 5) “press this” options only to be left on hold for 6—7 minutes. I had to hang up and get back to work. Can we PLEASE go back to the days when a human being answered your call!!!!!!!!

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile... ~ Love's Labor's Lost, Act I

Bit of excitement at the old homestead on June 2nd. There was a power outage in my area (sadly, kinda common cause the grid is old and strains to handle 21st century electronica).

Well, something went seriously wrong when the power company flipped the switch to restore power at about 5pm, wires crossed or something. Basically, we had a power explosion in my apartment building.

My mom said there was a bang in the wall and the box fan she had on near her chair jumped about 3 inches off the floor. A lady on the 2nd floor said a bulb in her dining area chandelier popped. The guy at the end of our hall had sparks coming out of his air conditioner—his couch almost caught on fire. A girl downstairs had the surge blow a hole in her living room wall.


I met several neighbors—which was nice. Oh, and apparently our door locks are electrical. One hapless neighbor was blaming the black out for the fact he couldn’t unlock his apartment door. (He was 3 sheets to the wind, but none of us wanted to point that fact out to him).

We were without power until midnight—and then only some stuff came back. I had no a/c in my bedroom for a couple of days—torture for me. And our living room TV is fried. Guess we’ll be filing a claim with the power company.

I took my mother to the local mall that night so we could get dinner—and we wound up spending almost $200.00 at a department store. We’re gonna send the bill to the power company.