Monday, July 26, 2010

I would have sucked at living in the 1800s

Nothing like a ice-cold shower to wake you up at 5:45 in the morning. And a short shower at that, since we're under mandatory water restrictions.

Power's been out at home since a killer storm turned the sky pitch black yesterday afternoon and wiped out electricity to about 300,000 PEPCO customers in my county alone. Of course, I'd just gone grocery shopping for the week the day before.

And all my summer work clothes were in the washers in the basement.

Aaand I had a crock pot bubbling away.

Embarrassingly, I also had a Twilight movie from Redbox in my DVD player. You know, I don't mind spending an extra buck or two on a Redbox movie when it's a good movie, but Twilight: New Moon? Yeesh. It's still stuck in my DVD player.

Got up to about 85F in the apartment overnight. I listened to old time radio on NPR until I finally fell asleep in a sweaty heap on the sofa (so I could be near the open balcony door.) I did love the sound of silence, save for the birds, crickets, and cicadas.

Well, I loved it until one of my neighbors got the brilliant idea to sleep in his car overnight, running the engine so he could use the A/C all night. Nothing like having some dumbass idling his car directly outside your window to make a challenging - and sweaty - situation more challenging. My upstairs neighbor had started pacing around when this guy decided to add to the problem by cranking up his radio high enough that his car was vibrating. I felt like a cop when I finally wandered outside around 1 in the morning, and tapped on his window with my Maglite. "Uhhh, dude, you know you're keeping this whole building awake?" He drove off to go sleep somewhere else. Go with god, car dude. Just go with God on another street.

Food in my fridge is ruined. My laundry is soaking wet. Power likely won't be restored until sometime Tuesday, at the earliest. I'll have to see if I can find some fresh ice somewhere tonight to save the stuff I was able to fit into my cooler. (Giant had a back-up generator running and was selling half-thawed bags of ice yesterday. Took over an hour to get a mile up the road, buy ice, and get back home.)

I know, whine, whine, whine. Things could be MUCH worse. This is true. Try imagine no electricity 24/7, all while wearing wool and/or layers of petticoats. I'm barely cut out for the 21st century. I wouldn't have lasted a week here on the swamp back in the day.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I need to go swoon.


2 comments:

Chuck said...

My nephew just got back from a mission trip in Haiti and really enjoyed returning to the land of air conditioning and hot showers. I can sympathize with you, having been without power back when Ike hit for a couple days...but I was lucky, my power was restored very early on, and I had co-workers without power for several weeks.

Unknown said...

*Tried posting this during the power outage, but it didn't work and I ran out of battery life on my laptop!*

Thanks for commenting on my Bethesda Notes blog!

I was just griping about not being able to wash my clothes and I feel your pain about having to leave wet clothes in the washer. I've forgotten them there before and had to wash them again to get rid of the mildew smell.

I work from home as a software developer and have been going out to my car to charge my laptop for mobile web surfing. Thankfully if the car doesn't move, the lights don't come on, and its super quiet.

Hang in there! We'll get through this!