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Blogging by Candlelight
Jun. 24th, 2008 05:26 amQuite literally, in fact, though Yamadori's screen gives me enough light to type by. The candles are, strictly speaking, for things like getting breakfast and finding clothes.
I woke up this morning to a lively rainstorm outside. This was fine with me because my alarm wasn't going to go off for a few minutes and in the meantime I could lay in bed and listen to the rain come down outside my bedroom window, which is one of my favoritest things to do (though it makes me worry that I wasted the tomato fertilizer I gave my plants last night). My alarm went off at 4 and I got up and showered. Towards the end of my shower thunder had started, and I was glad that I was almost done because I have an (unfounded?) fear of being in the shower during a lightning strike. I had dried off, conditioned and combed my hair, put on a house-dress and put on a kettle of water for my tea and was just starting to wonder where my good umbrella was when there was a flash of light and a loud "crack" and the lights went out.
At first I thought it was just my bedroom lamp; it's the touch-activated type and somewhat fussy. Further investigation showed that it really was the electricity being gone, and I was now in a pitch-black apartment. Well, bother. I have a generous supply of candles, but finding them in the dark? Happily I realized that Yamadori's screen was a light source and since he had a battery I could use him to find some candles. Less happily I realized that since quitting Girl Scouts I have lost/decommissioned all my flashlights and haven't replaced them. (Memo to self: Do something about this.)
After some digging about I found some candles and got them lit. I had gone on with my breakfast preparations (gas stove=morning tea will go on) when it occurred to me that maybe I should report the outage to the electric company. Usually I don't bother, on the grounds that lots of other people will, but the outage had happened sometime between 4:30 and 4:45 am and how many of my neighbors were up then? I located a phone book and, being careful not to set the pages on fire, called up LES on my cell phone and made a report. (The cell phone was needed because my real phone won't work if the electricity is out, so I've discovered another use for the silly thing.)
I settled down to breakfast and realized that my phone needed electricity but my phone line didn't--as long as nothing had happened to my internet provider (I have a local service), I could still go online. Out of curiousity I scanned the area for wireless networks and found none. Dial-up is slow, but, apparently, robust.
So here I am, eating breakfast and blogging. I still don't know where my good umbrella is, and I'm unlikely to find it by candlelight. I think I'm going to wrap Yamadori in plastic before putting him in my book-bag, as I don't trust my not-good umbrella to keep us both (or either) of us dry. In any case, I'm guessing I'm going to get quite damp waiting for the bus, as it is still raining. So it goes, so it goes.
I woke up this morning to a lively rainstorm outside. This was fine with me because my alarm wasn't going to go off for a few minutes and in the meantime I could lay in bed and listen to the rain come down outside my bedroom window, which is one of my favoritest things to do (though it makes me worry that I wasted the tomato fertilizer I gave my plants last night). My alarm went off at 4 and I got up and showered. Towards the end of my shower thunder had started, and I was glad that I was almost done because I have an (unfounded?) fear of being in the shower during a lightning strike. I had dried off, conditioned and combed my hair, put on a house-dress and put on a kettle of water for my tea and was just starting to wonder where my good umbrella was when there was a flash of light and a loud "crack" and the lights went out.
At first I thought it was just my bedroom lamp; it's the touch-activated type and somewhat fussy. Further investigation showed that it really was the electricity being gone, and I was now in a pitch-black apartment. Well, bother. I have a generous supply of candles, but finding them in the dark? Happily I realized that Yamadori's screen was a light source and since he had a battery I could use him to find some candles. Less happily I realized that since quitting Girl Scouts I have lost/decommissioned all my flashlights and haven't replaced them. (Memo to self: Do something about this.)
After some digging about I found some candles and got them lit. I had gone on with my breakfast preparations (gas stove=morning tea will go on) when it occurred to me that maybe I should report the outage to the electric company. Usually I don't bother, on the grounds that lots of other people will, but the outage had happened sometime between 4:30 and 4:45 am and how many of my neighbors were up then? I located a phone book and, being careful not to set the pages on fire, called up LES on my cell phone and made a report. (The cell phone was needed because my real phone won't work if the electricity is out, so I've discovered another use for the silly thing.)
I settled down to breakfast and realized that my phone needed electricity but my phone line didn't--as long as nothing had happened to my internet provider (I have a local service), I could still go online. Out of curiousity I scanned the area for wireless networks and found none. Dial-up is slow, but, apparently, robust.
So here I am, eating breakfast and blogging. I still don't know where my good umbrella is, and I'm unlikely to find it by candlelight. I think I'm going to wrap Yamadori in plastic before putting him in my book-bag, as I don't trust my not-good umbrella to keep us both (or either) of us dry. In any case, I'm guessing I'm going to get quite damp waiting for the bus, as it is still raining. So it goes, so it goes.
