And The Band Played On

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful. In the afternoon, the sun came out, and all the ice glistened. I went out to get the mail and realized it had actually stopped raining, and that the rain sounds I was hearing was coming from the stuff falling off tree branches. The floor below the trees looked covered in smashed glass from the ice that fell there.

And then it got dark, and then it got cold.

Today we still have no power. Yesterday evening I visited PSNH's site, where they did due diligence in covering their backsides. This ice storm is SO BAD, it will take days to clean up the mess and restore power. Some say this storm is as bad as the one in 1998, and back then many people were without power 7 to 10 days.

Now, I don't mean to complain. We've got a generator. We're warm. We've got running water, a fridge full of food, and electricity. But it's all in moderation. We've got one outlet in the kitchen that works, and we rotate it between the coffee maker,the microwave, the toaster oven, and a lamp. I can't do laundry the way I used to, so that's building up. I can't run the dishwasher, but I'm optimistic enough to keep stacking dishes in there, thinking that as soon as I wash them by hand the power will probably snap back to life. We skipped baths and showers, and I'm feeling grungy - power or no power, we're washing tonight. And a little TMI, but we've become very relaxed about flushing. We have been listening to the radio, but the TV - one of those flat screen babies - takes WAY too much power, so far rivaled only by the toaster oven(?) and the water pump. Not to mention that the generator goes off at night, so the house gets cold, the baby endsup in our bed, the boys wake up crying because "It's Dark!" and they are scared.

And it's only been one day. And we have a generator.

I somehow think that, if I could just know when the power would turn ON, or if I could just figure out HOW LONG it was going to be, then I could figure stuff out, do the dishes, make things a little more permanent. But as for now we're in a kind of limbo.


As a side note, we were planning on celebrating Andy's first birthday tomorrow, Sunday (even though it's a bit early.) This is funny 'cause the last time we lost power for a number of days was on Nathan's first birthday, and we had no heat or water or electricity at all, and ended up at Lillian's. Coincidence? Or is it the coming of age of little demons that create ice storms? We'll never know.