Well, blow me down!

I am a big whiner.  I have realized how ungrateful I am for the simple niceties I enjoy in my everyday life.  I assume I will have light when I flip a switch, and heat blowing from the vents.  I take hot water for granted.  I believe I deserve a high speed internet connection and a cute pink cell phone that works at all times.

And then, all of that is blown away by a super-duper windstorm and I wonder how people survive without modern technology?  My husband happened to bring home a battery-powered radio yesterday and I’d filled the two flashlights I could find with fresh batteries and placed three tea-light candle-holders with new candles on the counter.  Still.  When the power snapped off at 9:52 p.m., somehow it took me by surprise and I did not take it well.  For one thing, the kids had been up late watching “The Polar Express” on television and they had just turned it off.  Even my daughter was still awake and I had had my fill of children.  In fact, I was full to overflowing with the abundance of children.

I had so been looking forward to stretching out in the recliner with a bowl of fat-free popcorn, watching “Real World Road Rules Challenge” on MTV.  (My husband cannot stop mocking me for watching shows on MTV.  I say, hey, at least I’m not watching city council meetings on television like some people.)  Anyway, instead of watching television, I crawled into bed at a little after ten and listened to some crime show in CBS on the radio.  Then, I listened to the news at 11:00 p.m. on the radio.  Then, I listened to David Letterman on the radio as I half-slept the fitful sleep of the terrified.

Because I was terrified.  I’ve always been a big fan of storms, especially noisy storms.  I once slept my way through a hurricane.  One time, I ignored a tornado watch or warning–I can’t remember which–because I wasn’t the least bit worried.  (And I didn’t want to wake my babies and take them to the basement.)  I love storms.  I used to love storms.  I loved storms until last February when a sudden, frigid, mighty wind blew through my little town and knocked over trees right and left as if they were toothpicks stuck in a sandcastle.  A very big tree hit my neighbor’s house and her neighbor’s house, too and very nearly crushed her van while she and her children sat in it. 

Now, I’m not such a big fan of storms.  And while I listened to the news on the radio and they mentioned trees falling and gusts up to 40, 50, 60, 90 miles an hour, I feared that the enormous bursts of wind rattling my windows would knock over the trees that stand in my neighbor’s backyard. And those trees, naturally, would fall onto my roof, causing extensive damage and–just for fun–kill me.

My husband went downstairs to sleep, but I stubbornly stayed upstairs, near my two youngest children.  And I worried.  I fretted.  I could feel adrenaline coursing through my veins and my heart pumping extra hard.  I tried to do that deep breathing thing to fake myself into calmness, but really, I just knew that for sure, a tree would crash down on my house.  How much does it cost to repair a broken house?  Probably more than it costs to repair broken teeth and frankly, we don’t have the money.

Oh, and speaking of money and repairs . . . before the power went off, I noticed a wet spot on my  bedroom ceiling, a little smaller than my fist.  Yes, just what we need . . . a leaky ceiling!  Which means a leaky roof!  Which means I’m going to go sell my plasma and then my hair and eventually my kidneys.  What next?  Oh, strike that.  I didn’t ask.  I don’t want to know.

So, I hardly slept all night, but somehow I was asleep when morning came.  I was in a dream, apparently in New York and my husband had rented me a hotel room for $499 and I couldn’t get to it and furthermore, FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE DOLLARS?  Are you INSANE? 

The kids I babysit arrived right on time . . . moms and dads have to work, even if the power’s gone off.  So, I leaped from bed, ran my hands through my troubled hair and opened the front door to welcome them.  My phones didn’t work.  The temperature in the house had dipped to a chilly sixty degrees.  I took a fast shower, thankful for the hot water stored in the tank, and dressed warmly.  And so the day began.

My husband went to buy flashlights and Duraflame logs, which provide light but no heat in our worthless glass-front fireplace.  He bought milk and turkey lunch-meat, donuts and bread, crackers and summer sausage.  He rocks.  Even though I was completely crabby to him when he was here and he make a crack about never being able to retire because I am so unpleasant to be around.  Well, it’s true.  PMS happened to coincide with the absence of electricity and my lack of sleep.  I wish I could get away from me, too.

I spent the morning tidying the house . . . because if we were going to be without power for a second night, we needed to be able to walk without stumbling over things.  And because I needed some order around here.  So I cleaned up the boys’ room and piled all the laundry in one place and put away all the toys that have migrated to all corners of the house.  I also made the boys do two lessons of math so we’d be done with the unit before Christmas break next week. 

The boys were outside cleaning up the branches and mess from the storm (orders from their dad, ha ha!) and I even went out there and in a big, dramatic huff, showed them how to do it.  While I was straightening up my daughter’s room (she finds it necessary to empty her toy-box and pull all the videos from their cases at least once every two weeks), the power came back on!  Which was a direct result of my husband returning home with the aforementioned flashlights, batteries and logs and telling me, “We probably won’t have power for a second night.”  If only he’d done all that sooner!  Who knew he had such power? 

Anyway, so the kids let out a great whoop of celebration and came tumbling into the house–including two extra kids–and I started the dishwasher and the clothes washer and dryer and fixed myself a giant glass of Diet Coke and turned the heat up a notch. 

I have never been so happy to have electricity as I was today after being without it for thirteen hours and twenty-two minutes.  And I am extremely grateful that I wasn’t crushed in my sleep by a tall Douglas Fir and that the wet spot on the ceiling only got a tiny bit bigger overnight and that the rain has stopped and the sun is sort of shining through thin clouds today.  Oh, and the fact that tomorrow is Saturday?  I am delirious with joy.

Now, if I could just get all these kids (my four, two babysittees, four neighborhood boys) quiet, how great would that be?  Ha ha.  A girl can dream.