So lucky

Yesterday we had quite the storm in the Vancouver and surrounding areas with winds gusting up to 90km/hr and heavy rains. I was awake from around 4:30 am yesterday listening to the wind and worrying about things on my property that might get ruined (namely losing shingles from the roof). I started work (because my employer doesn't consider Remembrance Day a stat - long story) but by around 8:00am the lights started to flicker and I had heard the power was out in some areas already, so I turned off my computer and within about 10 minutes we lost our power. Dang, I just wish I had the foresight to boil the kettle as well!
For me, it wasn't so bad. First of all we have a gas fireplace so we can get heat from it and although it was blustery, there were times when it wasn't that dark outside so by opening the curtains and with a few candles it wasn't so bad. I read a novel, listened to some podcasts and knit. Jp made us some drinks using the hot water from the water cooler but it's not boiling so you know, your tea just doesn't taste the same.
By mid-afternoon we were hungry. The night before we had gone out for Chinese food and thank goodness Jp had ordered two extra dishes to go - so we had a full container of Chicken Chow Mein and a full container of Black Beans and Beef. Hmm, some intuition at play here!
We have a butane stove which has 1 burner, so first he boiled us some water for tea and coffee and then with a cast iron skillet, he cooked up the best chow mein EVER! He looked so cute outside "roughin' it"
We had a small radio that's battery powered so we listened to the news and found out that around 200,000 homes in the Metro Vancouver area were without power, and that they advised people to stay indoors - to not drive or even walk as so many trees and power lines had come down.
We played 100 questions - that's were I asked him questions about anything - and he answers. Okay, I just made up the game and it wasn't well thought out, but it did keep us both busy for about an hour.
Then my mom called and after about 45 minutes, the power came back on! So I hung up so I could turn things back on (like the filter for my fish tank - poor fish, I don't think they liked having to get their air from the surface all day)
So for me, it wasn't a bad day. Neither of us had to go anywhere so that was good. I appreciate all the police and firefighters and Hydro staff etc that had to work in the horrible weather yesterday - thank you.
And we were some of the lucky ones again because apparently some people won't get their power back for another day or two, and some don't have cable TV yet; and some people had trees that fell on their houses or cars. Whew! Let's hope that was our only storm for this winter.