Sunday, December 14, 2008

Sleeping Through The Storm

We had an 18-hour power outage here from Friday at 3 a.m. until 9 p.m. It was the result of an ice storm that brought down power, phone, and cable television lines throughout the area. There were an estimated 217,000 of our closest friends and neighbors in the same predicament. (Pic is from our backyard.)

The power was restored but our 3-in-1 television/ phone/Internet wasn’t restored until . I was forced to turn on the, gasp(!), radio for some entertainment.

Our furnace uses oil but it requires electricity to ignite the burner and activate the forced air. The last time a storm of this magnitude hit was back in 1987. My brother bought a gas-powered generator for himself and our house. It plugs right into the house wiring via a special plug so everything in the house works. We were able to run the heater as the temperature outside was down in the 10˚F to 20˚F range. I ran the generator for about an hour to get the house warmed up and then wait for about 3 hours before starting it up again.

In the meantime, it gets dark early so we sat in the candle light and quiet. I fell asleep at about 8 p.m. and then mother dear came in to the den and practically sat on my feet on the couch. I was trying to lay down and sleep and mom had no intentions of moving. Tired of being curled up, I said I wanted to lay down and go to sleep. I asked where she wanted to go, and she said wherever I was. I could tell she was disoriented and feeling needy. Hmm, dilemma. My mom’s bed is a California King size split into two sides where she and my Dad used to sleep. So I ended up sleeping on one side and she on the other.

It worked out well although she kept waking me up by talking in her sleep. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as I’m famous for talking in my sleep all night) It must be amazing the things she dreams about.

The best one:

Mom: We gotta get this cattle out of the road!

I can only assume she was dreaming of when she was a little girl on the family farm.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh wow , and good on her for having that generator, a dream from when she was a little girl - but how funny and sweet. Glad you guys made it through it. seriously.

"we gotta get the cattle out of the road"

Thank you so much for blogging -

you really have a gift and it is a gift for us the readers.

citygirl said...

Just catching up on my reading here...

So scary that you had this ice storm & power outage! But amazing that you had the generator for a little heat.

When I was living with my mom, I was terrified that something like this would happen and that mom would have a medical emergency and I'd be unable to get her help. Ugh, the panic attacks that I'd have imagining the scenarios.

I even had a big pile of supplies stashed away in the basement in the year 1999/2000 in case the Y2K thing ever happened.