Fried Brain!

Er, no, that is not a menu item at a local diner, it is how my brain feels tonight. We had a busy weekend with our younger daughter in town for a couple of interviews in Nashville last Friday; older daughter was still entertaining a house guest who has since decamped for her home down under; and today we had a power failure. Of course this power failure occurred while I was loading up the fridge after grocery shopping.

I understand that in this extreme heat we have been enduring, that you might lose power. Ours was not due to the temperatures, however, but a cable that failed. DH called the electric department (our electricity is managed by the city) and repair crews were out within 20 minutes. They were able to transfer power for some of the 6 houses on our street to a different "box" while they were working on the cable, but first had to determine which cable had the issue, so the power went on and off and on and off and on again. Temps have been in the mid-90's at night with night time lows in the 70's, so it never really cools off. Older daughter was in the middle of laundry, and fortunately I had planned on cooking on the grill tonight. Fortunately, everything eventually worked out and our power was restored by about 7:30 p.m. Good thing because it sure gets dark early around here.

All this reminds me of the 2003 blackout. This is also called the Northeast blackout. I remember this vividly, as DH and I were scheduled to go to Bay City for the Tall Ships event that weekend. At the time, we had no idea how widespread the problem was because we had no power, no phones, including cell phones, which were extremely spotty at the time. You couldn't put gas in your car or do anything that required electrical power. And, boy was it hot! We cancelled the trip, since DH didn't trust the back up sump pump to work and we didn't want to leave our youngest alone in a house without power. I remember we were without power for 3 or 4 days and that some of the people on our block had generators. Lucky them. I just remember going to sit outside at night on the porch in our shorts or pajamas, because it was so dark, our neighbors couldn't see us. No street lights, no house lights, and the stars were spectacular. Being born and bred in the city, it was one of the few times I could really appreciate the night sky.

And the day the grid went down in 2003? I went grocery shopping that day too!


Copyright 2011, ACK for Gene Notes