Sunday, February 12, 2006
Power!
When you ain't got it, you ain't got it. The power company tells me they will send someone out - eventually. They can't even tell me if it's going to be hours or days. So I decide to start my car that's been in the garage and wait for awhile - guess what. I turn the key and and all I get is that sickening err-err-err. The tell-tale sound of a barely working battery. Finally, just before the last err, it starts. I send my friend home with thanks and she offers to let me stay the night if nothing gets fixed and the icicles on the bed are a bother. I'm not the only one of little faith in big business.
Actually it's fairly quick when a power truck stops by. I point out the dropped wire and he checks it out and says he'll need to call in the tree trimmers before he can work, but that they'll get it fixed before the night's out. Great - so I drive off to get something to eat and decide to stop at the office for a few hours to do some catching up.
I get back later (of course it's dark) and find a torn up yard and a couple piles of hacked off tree limbs and still a cable sitting on the ground. However, I do notice the heat is sort of running and most of the circuits are working in the house. Basically I'm running on two lines of my three line input. I make another call and after traversing the voice menu system looking for the correct follow up connect decide to make another cable down call. Another guy shows up and he seems to really knows what's going and lets me know he'll shut the power off and reconnect everything. At least the house is in the 50s now, so I grab my oil lamp, sweatshirt, stocking cap and book and camp out in the mostly dark kitchen reading the book I hadn't quite finished on the airplane a dateline and who knows how many time zones ago.
Finally after a few tentative flickers, all the lights come on and the furnace kicks on sounding like it should. I do have a pretty beatup backyard and piles of branches to take care off, but I have power. Thankfully the yard was frozen so I don't have a lot of deep furrows and ruts. I finally do take my long hot shower, thank the stars nothing froze, and get to bed about 1030pm.
