Losing Electricity is my Vietnam

As some of you might remember, I had to go about a week without power after the hurricane last year. It was horrible:

He being Boyfriend, of course. It was dark.

It was cold.

I lost the will to live. 

So I came home from work last Thursday, and my street had no power. I had lost power for a moment or two during some thunderstorms, but my neighbors said the power had been out for awhile this time. 

 

Seriously, what is this fuckery.  

So I sat down on my futon.

  

I texted my friends and family and posted on facebook via my iphone.

I thought about all the food that was going bad in my fridge.

I reflected on my life.

I checked my phone.

I kept waiting.

And then, when all hope was lost, the lights came back on!

So yeah. I only lost power for an hour. But it FELT like a really long time and totes gave me hurricane flashbacks. What am I going to do in the fall when the hurricanes come back?!?!

Power Paranoia

Remember that storm in November that left me without power for a bunch of days and clearly traumatized me?

Yeah. Well. It’s winter, so there are winter storms coming. This is how I used to react:

Now:

What? It's my bathrobe.

This is my current candle supply for my tiny two room apartment:

I’m a candle hoarder. 

Anyway, this is me now:

I should probably work on this issue. In the meantime, I need to go shower because a storm might be coming and OMG I MIGHT LOSE POWER.

Not Having Power is Much More Unfortunate Than It Seems

As I stated on Monday, I lost power last Monday and did not get it back until Sunday afternoon. Let’s talk some more about that. And let me apologize that this post is kind of long and a bit rambly. I never thought I’d lose power for so long, so I wrote this and had to keep adding to it as I continued to not have power.

Monday was actually kind of fun and scary.  My neighbors and I hung out in our hallway and drank and ate pizza. It was like 72 degrees in my apartment. I was actually a little bit warm.

Tuesday was somewhat less fun, especially because I didn’t hear from Boyfriend.  The pizza place near me was running on a generator, so I did get a hot meal. 

No coffee though, so I had to drink a red bull.

Not good in the mornings

[Side note: Before anyone asks, my heat and hot water heater and stove are all electric, so I didn’t have anything warm. I also don’t own a grill or any kind of camping gear, so there was no way for me to make my own old fashioned coffee. Yes, I asked the pizza place if they had coffee. They told me to be grateful for the pizza. I was.]

I spent a lot of time in my car charging my cell phone. Not terribly exciting, but not awful. I lit a bunch of candles and hung out in the dark.

 Seriously, these are my candles:

It was getting a little chilly, but whatever. I like it cold and 64 wasn’t really that bad.

On Wednesday, I woke up and it was 57 degrees.

Luckily, I managed to have some hot water in my pipes. So I took a shower and went to work, where we had luxuries like electricity and coffee and internet.

I charged up all my shit, which was great. Boyfriend came over after work and we cuddled for about six hours. It was awesome.

In case you’re wondering, at that point Boyfriend offered to put me up in a hotel, if we could find one. The thing was, my utility company kept telling me that my estimated restoration time was soon (on Wed morning, it said 11 pm Wed.  Until later that night, when it switched to 11 pm Thursday….) I didn’t want to go through all the trouble if I was going to get power back shortly. He’s a very good Boyfriend.

Those are surprisingly effective.

Anyway, so I woke up on Thursday again with no power and it being 55 degrees.

That’s when it got really bad. I washed my hair in cold water and used candles to warm up.

  

I went to work again, where I found out more of my coworkers got their power back.

Apparently, if I’m cold, everyone should be.

It’s a really weird feeling, when you go to work and everything is normal with coffee and heat and internet, and you come home to a fucking post apocalyptic  nightmare.

Work: 

Home:

When it's cold and dark, you don't want to do anything. I pretty much sat in my futon, cuddling my candle.

The utility company’s website reported that I should have service restored by 11 pm that night. I went to bed, dreaming of electricity (And wine. Because come on. Wine.) 

BUT THEN. The next day (Friday morning) I remained powerless and the website now claimed it’d be restored 8 pm on Friday night.

It feels like you can see my breath.

The restoration time got pushed back to 11 pm. Boyfriend got us a hotel room Friday night, because he felt sorry for me and is the best Boyfriend in the entire world. 

Then I got notice that the estimated restoration time was 8 pm SATURDAY night.

It was pretty hard for me to leave the nice warm internet filled hotel. 

It's an elevator.

On Saturday, I shockingly did not get power. The utility company (EVIL BASTARDS) said I’d get it by 3 pm Sunday. I checked a little while later, and it got bumped to 11 pm Monday.

It was 52 degrees when I woke up Sunday morning. Suddenly, the days of it being 57 degrees didn't seem so bad. 

In the afternoon, the utility company updated my restore time back to 11 pm that night. 

Around 3 pm I came in from doing laundry at a friend's house and OMG THE LIGHTS WERE ON!!

So I turned on all the lights and the heat in my apartment. Then I texted everyone in the world. 

And then I put my bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge. 

What I learned from this saga is that it IS a big deal to lose power, I have to buy all kinds of candles and better flashlights and camping gear, and that I need to invent a battery operated coffee pot.