A Difficult Day

I woke up at 1:30 AM on Saturday morning and couldn’t fall back asleep (not unusual, as you know). So I read a book until about 3:30. Then I woke up just before 5:00 AM for a bathroom break. As I was standing there, the power went out. After a few moments, it came back on (yay!) and I started to reset all the digital clocks. But then it went out again (boo!)

I went into the bedroom to get the emergency flashlight, but couldn’t find it. Hey, it was dark and I was feeling for it, not looking for it! Then I remembered I’d used it while replacing my headlight. No way was I going to try and stumble about the garage for it.

So, I went back to bed. I woke up at 8:00 AM It was light enough (but still raining) so I got the flashlight from the garage.

I made breakfast by lighting the burner on the stove with a barbeque lighter. Then I heated up some water and made a cup of instant coffee (blech).

I was worried about the fridge, but not the house. It was 40 degrees F. and raining. The house was on the “overnight” mode (66 degrees) when the power went off. But it should stay warm for a while.

Outside, it was still gloomy and raining. The backyard low spots and my driveway (hemmed in by plowed snow) were turning into lakes.

I read a book in bed after opening the drapes and the blinds to let some small amount of light in.

At 10:00 AM, it was still raining, but the temperature outside was 34 degrees and the temperature inside was in the 50’s. So, I went in the garage and dug out the propane heater. Hey, it saved my ass (and my pipes) for like three days when this happened at Christmas two years ago. I placed it on the downstairs tile and fired that puppy up. I set it to medium, but by 11:00 AM, it was already 72 degrees in the house, so I turned it to low.

I can’t call DTE to check on this since I do everything, like bill paying, on the Internet. So, I don’t have a paper statement with the number to call. So, I called my friend B___ on my work cell phone and he said give him five minutes to look it up and then call back. So, I did. He gave me the number and I called.

A recorded woman’s voice answered and said. “Welcome to 1-888 Free Sex!” I hung up so fast I almost broke my finger! This was, after all, a work cell phone and they do check. I thought, “WTF? I didn’t even dial an 888 number.” So, I dialed it again (but much more carefully) and got the same lady and the same message. I hung up again and called B___ to bitch him out (if he was here, I would have bitch slapped him!

“Very funny *sshole! So what’s the real number?” He said, “Huh?” I explained and he said, “you called 4747 and got phone sex?” I checked my notepad (there’s one by every phone in the house) and I had written down 4777. Oh, my bad...

I called DTE and the recorded message said they were aware of the outage. They were reassessing the damage, had no estimation of when it would be fixed and to leave my phone number if I want to be contacted with updates. So, I did.

I wasn’t worried that much about the freezers, but I was concerned about the fridge. I thought of walking to the party store or gas station to buy a bag of ice, but I realized they were probably both shut down. So, I grabbed four of the four-cup containers of frozen soup (happened to be Lu’s bean soup I’d made) and stuck them on the top shelf of the fridge. I went back to my bed and book.

The power came back on at 11:30 AM. I waited a long while and then turned off the propane heater. I filled in the Blog entry and posted it. Then I fixed all the digital clocks (microwave, stove, programmable coffee pot, the office and my bedroom).

I took a nap. When I got up at 3:30 PM, it had stopped raining, but was noticeably colder. I walked out to get the mail.

By 4:30, it was snowing. By 8:30, there was at least one inch of snow on the ground. I warmed up another slice of lasagna that I had thawed for dinner and made a simple salad.

I went to bed around 11:00 PM. I’ll take the propane heater back out to the garage tomorrow (I kept it downstairs, just in case).