Blackout

It rained last night. Big fat drops that came sideways at our house and hit the windows so hard that I thought the glass would break. It started right after we went to bed...figures.

I don't like storms very much. The idea is cool, but they freak me out (that's the California girl in me coming out). We really needed the rain though. Even with all the rain we got in the late spring and early summer, we need more already. My flowers have been wilting in the 100 degree heat, and brown spots have been showing up in our lawn.

As I turned off the light last night, I knew that I wouldn't get much sleep...I didn't realize exactly how little sleep it would be.

About 1am, I woke up because I was getting warm. B was up and walking around our room. Groggily, I sat up and asked him what was going on. He said that the power had just gone out. We could see constant flashes of lightening and hear thunder roaring outside. I laid back down and tried to get comfortable in our warm room.

I was just drifting off again when B sat straight up in bed, and said, "@#$^$# @#$@%$." (I can't bring myself to type what actually came out of his mouth)

I asked him what was wrong (because the curse words didn't actually tell me what was wrong). He goes, "The sump pump won't come on if the power is out." I said, "I know, that's why I told you 4 MONTHS AGO that we needed to get a back up pump installed."

"Well, that doesn't help us now, does it?" he yelled back at me. DUH! I know that...that's why I told you 4 MONTHS AGO we needed something else...but it would have done no good to say I told you so right then.

We jumped out of bed, rummaged around for candles and a lighter, and headed downstairs to see if our basement was flooding. B looked at it and said it looked fine for "a while." What's a while? I asked, but he just glared at me and went back upstairs.

It was then that I used the one wired phone in our house to call the electric company to see what was going on. After I FINALLY got through to someone, I was told that tree branches had broken off and fallen on the power lines. The woman told me they expected power to be back on by 6am. Yeah, right, I thought...they probably won't start working on it until 6am.

Now it was really getting warm in our room, so I told B to grab his pillow so we could sleep in the basement. He followed me downstairs and then turned up his nose at the futon I was planning to sleep on. He said he'd rather sleep in the heat upstairs. Whatever...more room for me.

I laid down and tried to fall back asleep. My baby (I mean dog) Lucy came down to join me in the cool basement. She and I cuddled up and finally fell asleep. The next thing I remember is B waking me up because it was 6:40am...and you guessed it, still no power.

It was not fun to put my makeup on by candlelight this morning...good thing I only had to throw on jeans and a hat since I worked from Panera Bread today. Not to mention that the 3 cups of coffee I downed this morning did nothing to wake me up and everything to make me feel shaky and jittery...or maybe that was all the sugar I consumed in my cinnamon crunch bagel. Whatever it was, I think I'll sleep well tonight.

Our power came back on about 9am this morning, and I ran home to make sure everything came back on ok. Nothing was amiss, so that's good. But, 2 of my neighbors are out of town, so I have to go check their houses for them, too.

On the agenda for the next week is to get a plumber out to quote a back up sump pump for us...lesson learned!