BLOGGING IN THE DARK

May 1, 2011

I was told that revolution was just three missed meals away. For me, revolution would begin the first time I couldn't flush my toilet.

Luckily, the water treatment plant that services our area wasn't damaged in the storms. We've had clean, running water this whole time and for that I'm very grateful!

I've actually figured out that the lack of power doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Of course, I'm going on the assumption that the situation is only temporary, but still, most of the things I do don't require much electricity. It's inconvenient, but not terrible. I think if this had to be long term or permanent, I'd miss the internet the most. If for no other reason than because I have friends I'd never hear from again without internet access, which sucks. Oh well, that is just life in these modern times, right? Right now I've still got my iPad and iPod, which can be charged in the car to keep me from going completely technologically cold turkey, and the odd minute or so I can use Steve's phone to read Twitter or Facebook to make sure my friends are still out there. Not so bad, actually.

It's weird how empty the town feels. A lot of people got out of Dodge and off to greener, better lighted pastures once they realized how long we'd be off the power grid. I know that there are still plenty of people out here, but Huntsville is (contrary to popular belief) kind of a big town. I'm used to at least a modest amount of traffic and noise, even out here in the suburbs. The most cars I've seen in my immediate area lately have been at Target or Publix, and even then, there aren't as many as I've seen there before.

I made breakfast on a Sterno hot plate today!

We've been reduced to college dorm food. Those are
bacon bits on an egg sandwich. Oy vey.

We found one at a sporting goods store nearby, and we were very lucky to find it! Almost every piece of camp cooking equipment was snatched up long before we got there. The only reason it could even do us a bit of good was because I still had 2 leftover cans of Sterno from 2006, when I got an indoor s'mores maker. See, my magpie-like shopping habits have helped us out more than once during this ordeal! You can't find propane or sterno for love or money around here right now. I also had a little, tiny cast iron skillet that I got from my mother's house when she moved, and it fit perfectly over the flame. We keep finding little blessings around each corner these days.

We went to Mr. Lee's house again for another shower, and then over to my mom's house to take them some ice and charcoal. They'd been staying in Decatur, but had come home today to check on their dog and clean out their freezer. Poor them, they had only recently ordered a bunch of meat from Obama Steaks (actually Omaha Steaks, but my mom got confused) and she gave us some. We took a bit, but because we still have no power, we couldn't take as much as she was offering! My sister, who lives out in the willy-wags of Elkmont can take the rest, since their power has already been restored. Once again, we had steak for dinner, and we are vey blessed to have such good food, but I'll be honest, I'm getting tired of grilled meat. It's a treat most of the time, but having so much so often is getting cloying. I'd be happy to have a peanut butter sandwich at this point. We're also getting pretty good at baking stuff on the grill! We have managed not to burn anything yet, and honestly, that's a better track record than I have with the oven! :)

I think the dogs are going to be sad once everything gets back to normal. We've been giving them whatever leftover steak we couldn't keep, and they've been in hog heaven. Since we've been keeping the window in the kitchen open for the cross breeze, I've just been lifting the screen and feeding them the chunks of meat from right there. I think they have come to believe that it is some kind of magic doggie drive through restaurant.

As I had settled down for my new evening activity of crocheting in the semi-dark and listening to my iPod, at about 7:50, I was suddenly shocked into almost swallowing my tongue when the light next to my chair snapped on! It scared me! We heard cheers up and down our street as the streetlights came on, and seemingly every outside light flicked on as well. Steve and I stood in the middle of our living room just staring around. I felt like one of the monkeys at the beginning of the movie 2001: A Space Oddessy, cowering and throwing sticks at the big monolith they didn't understand.

We knew there was a chance that the power could just as easily go off again while the power company tweaked the grid, so we made sure not to run through the house flipping on everything that plugged in! I spent the next hour or so washing out the interior of the fridge, and washing dishes. Hey, you have your way of celebrating and I have mine! :) Unfortunately, we think the fridge no longer works. It makes sounds, but it isn't getting cold. Possibly, the power popping off like it did might have fried the wiring. That sucks so bad, because the fridge is not even a little bit old. Also, it's going to take me a year to remove all of my magnets and stuff from the front if we have to get a new one. :)

I'm very thankful that we have power again, and I hope it stays on instead of teasing us by going off just as we are getting used to it. I do have to admit, though, a part of me is really going to miss the quiet evenings. I enjoyed sitting in the semi-dark with the windows open, listening to the neighborhood dogs bark and not having the tv on constantly. It was nice. Don't worry, though, I didn't love it enough to go Amish or anything. I enjoy air conditioning, hot showers, and cooking without open flames too much. If I feel the need for a quiet evening again sometime soon, I'll just turn off the lights and listen to whale songs or something on the iPod. :)

BLOGGING IN THE DARK

April 30, 2011

Well, the electricity fairy didn't magically arrive in the middle of the night last night. Too bad. : ( Don't worry, we're still hanging in there. Steve and I have been incredibly lucky through all this, so I've begun to feel a little ashamed of myself for complaining about the lack of power. I mean, sure, it'd be nice to have the Internet for longer than a few minutes at a time, or the ability to watch television, but it's probably good for me to get away from some of that stuff for a while. There are so many people who have it worse.

We decided to go to Mr. Lee's house today and see if his gas water heater worked without electricity. It did! We both managed to get hot baths and we sort of looted his cabinets a bit. Steve says it's not looting if you know the person, but I still kind of felt bad. We will, of course, replace what we took. After leaving his place, we stopped by to check on one of my aunts who lives nearby and see if she needed anything. It's hard for me to believe that she is over 70 years old. All of my aunts, and my mom, are like perpetual teenagers to me. Aunt Peggy was fine and didn't need a thing, so we left her to check on my property. There is only one barn on the property, and it was fine. The only thing I saw was a couple of fence posts leaning askew. For all I know, they were like that before.

It was tough going out there, though. A lot of the roads were blocked, and National Guardsmen had checkpoints in many of the worst places.

The Military Branch of Men With Impressive Mustaches

This used to be woods.

I downloaded much clearer pictures from friends who actually went through the bad spots. Since they are on other computer at the moment, they will be uploaded later.

Even though we didn't drive through the worst of it, we still saw plenty. The landscape I knew so well has changed. Trees sheared off, houses obliterated, things just gone. It was heartbreaking. It was like going to see a friend in the hospital who's had a bad wreck and seeing them Scratched, scraped, cut, bruised, broken and hooked up to tubes. It made me so sad. I did find out that as of this writing, East Limestone hasn't been declared a disaster zone, but that is insane! More than half of it is gone! Hopefully, the homeless people in E.L. will qualify for some type of government funding to help them rebuild.

We had to completely empty both freezers and most of the fridge today, which sucked. There is no telling how much money went into the trash! I'm not even sure we should keep condiments, since I'm under the impression they have to be refrigerated for good reasons. At this point, we have mustard and a bottle of Godiva liqueur left in the fridge. The breakfast of champions! We were able to salvage a few things and put them on ice, but we won't be able to keep it all. I hate there will be so much waste, but we've had a couple of good meals out of it! We tried baking cookies on the grill.

They melded into one super-cookie, I guess.

It doesn't look like it, but they tasted good! We didn't even burn the bottoms! Woot!

It's been so nice outside lately. The humidity has been fairly low, so we've stayed outside more than usual. It would be nice if I could breathe, though. I've been sick since Sunday. I don't know of I have a cold, or if it's just my allergies. We usually have a special filter for allergens, but since the AC hasn't been running, it hasn't been doing me a bit of good. I've been snorting Afrin like it's got cocaine in it. I even tried wearing a medical mask outside, but Butler felt that he needed to lick it, so it didn't stay as clean as it should have. : )

We spent the rest of the evening sitting in the living room. Steve watched a movie on his iPod, and I listened to an audio novel while I crocheted. I have no idea what the stuff I crocheted looks like because our Coleman lantern isn't very strong. I guess I'll find out tomorrow! Also, I have a lot of scary audio novels, which aren't exactly great for listening to while I sit in the dark. Heehee!

BLOGGING IN THE DARK

April 29, 2011

I wonder how many people around here are ticked off that they didn't get to see the royal wedding? : )

For the first time ever, I kind of regret having the dogs. Well, not really regret having them, but regret that they never learned to travel without freaking out. I'd love to load up and head down to the beach while the power is off up here. It isn't that I can't stand the lack of power, but it sucks just sitting up here waiting. There isn't much to do and it's so quiet. Also, I wouldn't turn my nose up at a hot shower, either. Part of me kind of feels like I'm on an adventure, trying to figure out how to deal with everything without power. Another part of me wants to tell that first, adventurous part to blow it out of her rear.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound whiny, I'm just going a bit stir crazy, I guess. I realize that being dirty and a bit bored is a small price to pay to still have a home! Not everyone I know is so lucky. I got a chance to talk to my sister, and she told me that my nephew's girlfriend pretty much lost everything except some clothes, and it was sheer chance that neither she nor her mother were home when the house was hit. I also still haven't heard if anyone I know was killed or hurt. So far, no news is good news.

We actually did get to have an adventure today, though! We ran by and picked up Anthony, and then drove into Tennessee to locate charcoal and hopefully a hot meal. Someone had told Steve that the Wal-Mart in Tullahoma hadn't been stripped clean yet, so we set out to find it. We drove through some back roads until we reached Winchester, where we were able to fill up the car fairly easily. We couldn't fill up before then because pretty much every gas station was out of gas and The Men With Impressive Mustaches waved us away from the entrances. We actually didn't need gas that badly, and weren't even trying to pull into the stations, so we weren't in a bind or anything. We only filled up where we did because the station wasn't clogged with cars.

We didn't need to go into Tullahoma after all, because the Winchester Wal-Mart wasn't being descended upon. We didn't get any charcoal there, but we got a few other things we needed. We found plenty of charcoal at a Dollar General the cashier recommended. Since poor Anthony hadn't eaten yet that day, we went to Wendy's to get hamburgers! Woot! Sometimes fast food is the best comfort food. It was getting late by then, so we had to get Anthony home before the curfew. We got home after dusk (shhhhhhhh) and noticed that some places had already begun getting their lights back on. I'm crossing my fingers that our power grid is not too far behind.

BLOGGING IN THE DARK

April 28, 2011

I spent all morning listening to the people calling into the radio station, talking about what had happened around North Alabama. It wasn't as depressing as it had been the night before, but it was still plenty awful. Mostly, it was people talking about where you could find places with power, gas, food and of course, the people calling in to ask idiotic questions. The on air talent was beginning to get a bit punchy with some of the callers, but it was deserved. It was as if people just weren't listening to what earlier people had said.

Of course, our power was still out, and we found out that we may not have any power for as long as 7 days. We are lucky that this happened during a relatively cool part of the year. No AC during really hot weather is no joke around here. Also, I don't feel like I can complain too much about the power being off. At least we still have our home!

Both fortunately and unfortunately, I had gotten groceries before the storms hit. Fortunate, because we weren't going to starve if the power had to stay off for a while. Unfortunate, because a lot of the groceries had been meat and dairy. We drank a lot of milk today. We also have to plan a big barbecue, because we are going to lose all of the food in the fridge in next couple of days.

It turned out that both Target and Publix were open, with limited power, so Steve and I went to see if we could grab a bag of charcoal. Of course, we were very late to the party and there was no charcoal to be found. There was also no bottled water, bread, and Pop Tarts were quite scarce. We left Publix empty handed, but were at least able to get a grill plate (for things usually too small to put on the grill) some pop tarts, lighter fluid, and 3 card games at Target. Oh, and as an aside, I'd love to know why the cashier at Target, the one I'm always super nice to, never fails to treat me like I've got cooties. I've gone through is line a billion times, and he's never once been friendly to me, even though he is friendly to the people before and the people after. Poor form, cashier, very poor.

I don't know what it says about my usual ideas about my fellow man, but I was pleasantly surprised that people behaved as well as they did at the stores. I was expecting things to degrade to the point of people wearing loin cloths and setting things on fire. I mean, you had some people sniping because people wouldn't get out of their way, but there was very little, if any, really, anger or fighting about anything. At least I didn't see any. Hopefully, that will continue.

We came home and cooked our first wave of rapidly thawing food: steak, chicken, and most of a box of egg rolls.


I didn't realize the power being out would necessitate going on the Atkins diet, but there you have it. I suppose the Pop Tarts will counterbalance the lack of carbs in my other food, though!
: )

My phone stopped sending messages or calls, but it could still receive for a while. I also haven't been able to reach my mom or sister, but I'm going to assume they are doing about the same as us. Steve's phone is still working, so we are lucky on that front.

As night fell, it seemed as if we were the last people on earth. I don't know why darkness is so isolating, but it closed around us and cut us off from everything and everyone. I had to commandeer Steve's iPhone and find someone to talk to who didn't live up here. It was nice to hear that the world was indeed, still turning.

Steve and I spent the evening reading, playing card games, and being quiet. At one point, we went outside and looked at the sky. I had no idea there were so many stars above our house! It was the first time I'd ever seen the sky out here without the usual light pollution. I agree with Steve, that it almost makes the lack of electricity worth it, just to see that.