Yesterday morning, about two and a half hours after posting the last entry, the power here went off. And stayed off. Genuinely cold outside, wind and snow blowing hard, me trying to get ready for tomorrow's departure for six or seven months in Madrid. What a ball.
Around 4 o'clock, with daylight waning, I rounded up all the candles I could find, deployed them around the kitchen/dining room, got 'em going. Would have been happy and festive in different circumstances.
At 6:30, I called the local power company (Washington Electric Cooperative, Inc.) to see if they could give me some idea of how much longer the juice would be off. The woman I spoke with had been given a message to pass along to customers like me (and she made it clear she was just passing it along): they'd had crews out since the previous morning and were sending them home at 7 p.m. -- in 30 minutes time. If I didn't have power before then, it wouldn't be restored until sometime today, and we would have to live with that.
Well, yes, we would. But not happily.
And the night from that point on? Not much fun. Kind of grim, really, me not a happy boy. As bleak and lonely-feeling a time as I've had in quite a while. But it passed. With the first light, I stumbled out to the car, drove into Montpelier to the gym. Nice warm gym. Nice warm shower afterward. Did some errands, drove home. Pulled into the driveway, hit the garage door opener, holding my breath. The door goes up, I immediately begin giving thanks to the universe at large. Talk about a relief.
Running water. Flushing toilets. The hum of the refrigerator at work. Lights shining happily. These are good things.
Tomorrow morning I'm out of here, arriving in Madrid mid to late afternoon local time on Monday. Back online Monday night or Tuesday.
Be well.
Yesterday, late afternoon.
rws 2:09 PM [+]