I’m so glad we made it to Friday! It’s been kind of a weird week, but Tuesday night takes the cake.
There I was, sound asleep in bed, when I was awakened at 1:18 a.m. by what sounded like an explosion outside. The bedroom was plunged into (deeper) darkness, our white noise machine silenced, the ceiling fan no longer ceiling fanning, the digital display on the clock blank. “What the hell was that?!” I said out loud, bolting out of bed and dashing to the window, my heart thumping wildly.
Somehow, Tara remained fast asleep.
It was pretty apparent a transformer had blown, causing a power outage. I crawled back into bed but sleep proved elusive as my brain refused to settle down. I lay there, tossing and turning, thinking about all the ramifications of being without electricity. Like my aquariums, teeming with tropical fish that need a temperature of 75-80° to survive. The food in our refrigerators and freezers. Wednesday was an in-office day, and it dawned on me that I’d have to figure out how to take a shower in the dark. Then I realized I couldn’t take a shower period because we have a well, which requires a pump, which needs…yep!…electricity. That meant we couldn’t flush the toilets either. Plus, my car was in the garage, so I’d have to figure out how to open the door manually, which I have done in the past but it had been a while. Tara was supposed to work from home, but without power she’d have to switch up her days and go into the office, which was going to throw off our dinner plans. Not that it mattered, because obviously all our food was going to spoil anyway, and even if it didn’t, we couldn’t use the stove. My mind is reeling at this point, a cascade of little crises spiraling into increasingly bigger ones, and then I start thinking that all these problems are trivial anyway because I AM GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY, and suddenly, I’m in the midst of a full-blown existential crisis while my wife is slumbering away, blissfully unaware of everything.
My only hope is that power will be restored by daybreak. I Google power outages in my area but nothing has been reported. We can’t be the only affected house, right? Now I’m worried that the circuit box in our garage might have blown up (middle-of-the-night logic is notoriously faulty, okay?), so I traipse downstairs half-naked and across the cold concrete garage floor but the box is, of course, fine. Why hasn’t anyone else reported this? I mutter to myself, annoyed with my complacent neighbors. Then I remember it’s the middle of the night, and maybe they’re in dreamland like Tara, so I decide to report the outage myself, but I keep getting an error message every time I enter my phone number, which is obviously not linked to our account, and give up after half a dozen attempts.
At 2:47 a.m., Tara wakes up to use the bathroom. “Hey, it looks like the power is out,” she says sleepily. I resist the urge to say “no shit” even though I have been fretting about the lack of electricity and my own brief existence on this mortal coil for 90 minutes already.
“Has anybody reported it?” she asks.
I pull up my phone again. Still no outage reported. But then, duh, I see that I can enter my address instead of my phone number. Bingo! Outage reported, crew assignment pending. Estimated time to restore power: 5:30 a.m. Now that things are in motion, I’m able to relax a little and am just beginning to drift off to sleep when I feel a cool breeze on my face. The ceiling fan is spinning! And there are glowing red numerals on the clock, confirmation that the power is back on. Whew! 4:17 a.m. never looked so beautiful.
But suddenly it’s time to get up, I’m operating on barely four hours of sleep, and I’m still going to die.
Not the most relaxing night of my life, in case you were wondering.
Die, mosquitoes, die!
It’s finally starting to feel like fall around here. Thursday morning it dropped into the 30s for the first time this season. I have never been so excited to see my breath in the air! I suspect our mosquitoes are living on borrowed time now. Hallelujah! I’m sick and tired of itching all the time, or coating myself in Extra-Strength DEET, or–worst of all–coating myself in Extra-Strength DEET and still itching all the time. If the West Nile doesn’t kill me, all those chemicals surely will.
Our highs are still a little above normal, but there’s a huge difference between the upper 60s/low 70s and that 87° temperature we had last Saturday.
It also looks like I’ll be busting out the rake soon.
On the plus side, I haven’t had to mow in weeks. On the negative side, I haven’t had to mow in weeks. We all know how much I love riding the John Deere! I’m sure I’ll get one more ride in, if for no other reason than to use up the gas.
This also means the garden is just about finished. We haven’t had a frost or freeze yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And there are very few things left to pick anyway.
Tara is taking next week off from work for a staycation, but while she’s got the “stay” part down–she isn’t venturing any farther than the back yard–it’s a little light on the “cation” if you ask me. She’s got a list of chores a mile long, which includes winterizing the garden beds, planting bulbs and garlic, putting up gates, organizing the garages and plant room, and cleaning the house.
And that’s just Monday.
OK, that’s like four days’ worth of chores actually. Still pretty ambitious! To her credit, the only thing she wrote down for Thursday is, “pajama day.” Sounds like that’ll be well-earned! And I’m taking Friday off so we can visit a bunch of apple orchards we discovered while driving through the Driftless Area this past spring.
At first I was jealous of her time off, but then I thought about what I’m getting out of it: a short week ending with apple cider donuts and no manual labor? I think I’m the real winner here!
Mark My Words 
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