We had a power outage this morning for just about an hour. When it first when out, I walked to the end of my driveway to confirm every one's power on the street was out as well. From the street I can look into a classroom at the elementary school and saw nothing but dark. I don't know if the kids were sitting in the classroom or if they were moved to the gym where there is emergency lighting. I'm sure the power went out when I was in school but I can't remember, so I'm assuming that things were handled so well that it was uneventful. In twelve years of school, the power had to have gone out while I was there. I guess they sent us all home, but I really don't recall.
I actually like power outages - for a short time anyway - because the house is quiet and you can hear the wind rustling and the rain falling and whoever is home is more open to conversation because all their distractions don't have any power to them. I remember one last year, when the power was out for almost the whole day but what made it good was that we had an extra container of chicken chow mein in our fridge and JP took the portable stove and cooked the chow mein (with extra butter) in a cast iron outside for lunch - it was the best chow mein I think I've ever had and not a bad memory either.
When the kid was about 3 the power went out one night when he was at our house and he just couldn't understand why we just couldn't flick the switch and have light. It was comical, and thankfully just when we were running out of ways to keep him entertained the power came back on.
In my teens I worked at a fast food restaurant and they had a rule that if the power was out for more than 2 hours we could go home. I tried this at other places of employment but many told us we had to stay anyway - surely there was some cleaning or sorting or filing we could do without our computers? And at one place, it was a little hard to complain about darkness when we were in the business of designing and importing candles, but mostly the staff sat around and talked.
I have to say that I am lucky here because we haven't had to endure long outages. When I lived in Maple Ridge we were frequently without power and sometimes for an extended period - some people would be out of power for 4 to 6 days! In fact when I bought this house I thought about the gas fireplace thinking I could stay warm during the outages, but thankfully I just haven't had as many out here as I had in Maple Ridge.
Do you have good or bad power outage memories?
3 comments:
Where I lived before our street was on a different power grid. One day the entire area had a power outage, except....our street. It was great to see all in darkness and one street with all the windows lit. Those poor people were out several hours while we enjoyed our coffee. What can you do?
we used to get power outages a lot in White Rock. At school it was the 2 hour rule- we'd all hope we could go home early!
Yesterday when ours went out we took Starry to the park & got soaked & frozen to the bone- blech! AT least it went out during the day so there was enough light to knit!
Well the kids yesterday weren't so lucky then - because it was only out for an hour.
BGF - You must have been cold when you got home!
Yes, it was good that it was during the day.
Anon- that would have been weird to see your neighbours without light - did you go over and offer them something warm to drink/eat?
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