Power Is ON

Quite unbelievably to me, the power came back on, just as I was starting supper. I have a gas stove so I can cook even if the power is out and I had just gotten the brown rice out and was fixing to start it up.
I was so sure that we would be without power for the entire night that I didn't even turn on the overhead light in the kitchen. Mr. Moon, when he got home, pointed this out to me.
I guess I felt as if I was destined to be in darkness tonight.

It could still happen.

When I was at Lily's with the boys today, a mysterious power outage happened. Some of the power was on in some of the rooms, and other rooms were without. So strange!
Jason got home and we did all the things you do. We flipped the breakers (I'd already done that) and he even went up into the attic looking for something there but found nothing. He was going out the front door to go ask the next door neighbors if their power was out when he saw...a huge branch which had fallen and taken a line with it.

"Snap!" he said.

Indeed.

He called the city and they said it would be several hours before they could come out and to cut off all the power in the house to be safe. He packed up diapers and clothes and formula and we got the boys in his car and he took them to his mama's. I knew the odds were real good that the power was out at my house, which it was when I got home.

I had texted Mr. Moon to stop and get ice and a battery powered coffee maker and oh, maybe some rum and he texted me back, "Got you covered!" Of course, he knew we didn't really need a battery-powered coffee maker. We have an old fashioned percolator that Lis got me which works fine in a pinch. We didn't really need rum either, but he brought some home.
I love that man.

The rain is pouring down. The ground is not going to accept a whole lot more, I fear. I remember a few years ago when something like this happened and we watched the water rise and rise and...rise. This is not a huge storm but it surely is affecting us.

Storms like this serve to remind me of how close we are to losing all semblance of civilization. Roads are blocked from flooding, power goes out, we are stranded. Branches and trees fall, it is almost as dark as night at noon, and we are left without internet or phone. After a storm that hit here the year we moved to Lloyd, cell towers were taken out as well and so there was not even that. I think of Freddy's movie, Disconnected, and I realize it's not that much of a fantasy. All of our carefully packed-away freezer stuff slowly thaws and we either cook it or lose it which can be a tragedy of small but real proportions and if we couldn't make it to grocery stores where power has been restored, we really would go hungry.

Well. Maybe it's good to be reminded. And living in a house which was built way before electricity was invented is somehow comforting. We would hardly be the first to survive without it although those people, the people who built the house, were set up for it. We most definitely are not.

My rice is almost done. I can go make a salad in the light.

Thanks for listening. It helps leak my anxiety to write about it, let it go.

Sort of.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Mama Nature Sure Can Be Bitchy

As the dearly departed James Brown might have said, "Good God, Y'all!"

Tropical Storm Fay came and squatted over us for two days, pissing over twenty inches of water. As much as I bitch about the lack of rain, I was overcome and in awe of the amount of it I saw coming from the sky in the last two days.

But we're still standing and our power's back on. I have to say that if you have water, gas, and a good camp light, life is not so bad without electricity. This is not to say that I'm not incredibly glad to have the prospect of sleeping with air conditioning before me tonight.

I raise a glass to John Gorrie, that crazy man who made AC possible.

I raise a glass to the people who built this house this house so strong and true.

And mostly, I raise a glass to the trees in my yard which are standing upright and tall.