Keeping it Together on Day 3 With No Power

Going into the third day with no power. A freak heavy wind storm on Wednesday night did the usual of taking down much of the infrastructure in our neck of the woods and now we’re waiting for poles to be replaced while the electric and cable companies focus on more populated areas.

I’m glad @donnadavisart insisted on getting a generator delivered before the expected bad-weather season. Thursday I left work an hour early to have time to put it together and load it with oil and gasoline. You can imagine the sense of relief when it fired up on the first pull of the starter-cord. This thing is definitely a step up from the diesel beast we were wrestling with a couple of years ago.

Maybe we should have gone for a slightly larger model; the space heater is enough load to trip the breaker when the fridge compressor turns on, so on cold winter days we may be wishing for a bit more juice. And if we ever want to properly wire it into the house (instead of running extensions cords everywhere) we would definitely need more watts.

But a bigger engine would burn more gas. As it is, I’m impressed that this thing seems to be purring along at eight gallons every 24 hours. It’s expensive, and it’s a hassle to keep running to the gas station. But it’s manageable. If it looks like this outage will go on for several more days (it does) I might set up a little dorm fridge we have out here instead.

Finally got a good night’s sleep last night, despite being woken by a call at 2:30 AM from Eversource promising power would be restored within a hour. This turned out to be a lie.

The internet’s going to be another problem. Donna spoke with someone from Comcast yesterday who pointed out three downed poles and snapped wires and said he had no idea when they’d get to it. I’ve got some data on the mobile phone, but not enough for video.

So it looks like it’s text and books for the forseeable future. (Keep those uploaded images small please, folks!)

It’s all frustrating, especially coming off a month of house projects, a nasty cold, and a complete lack of free time. I get up, rush to catch the train to work, deal with a hectic job, come home, address whatever crisis has arisen that day (there’s always at least one) and then collapse into fitful broken sleep.

You know that old ethical thought experiment, where someone shows up with a button and says, “Press this and you’ll have your heart’s desire, but one random person in the world will die. Do you press it?” I was thinking yesterday I just might, in exchange for an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep. I’m stumbling around work like a drunk, but I’ve assured my co-workers I don’t have a drinking problem. Almost wish I did. Quitting booze would be a problem I knew how to solve.

But - and this is a big butt - I’ve got plenty enough to be thankful for. That generator, for one. A job in the city that comes with a warm place to crap and a toilet that flushes. A roof. Plenty of big windows that heat up the place, at least on sunny days. It’s not raining. Folks like @jlsplatts are out there working their tails off to restore power to ungrateful wretches like us. And @donnadavisart is with me, so I don’t have to deal with all this crap on my own.

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