The End Is Near...

Or at least so the rumors say. The past two or three days our road has had utility trucks casing the joint. This is the first I've seen them, so I am starting to feel oh so slightly optimistic. The rumor mill indicates most of the town should be back tonight, but we suspect that might be stretched into tomorrow--possibly into next week, with the weather reports.

Midnight tonight will be a full seven days without power. I'm about ready to have it back. Spent a good part of yesterday doing our laundry over my Favorite Parental Units' house. Then dashed back to a pitch-black house to get the stove going again, bring up more oil for the lamps, out to the shed for Coleman fuel for the lantern. And then spent the evening alone, trying to read by the Coleman. Not much fun, although the book, Leviathan--about the history of the whaling industry--is pretty good.

Amusingly enough, we're expecting a foot of snow with a storm tomorrow, and then another storm (accumulations still up in the air) on Sunday. I'm hoping to have power back before then, but who knows. I wouldn't blame the utility guys for not wanting to work in the middle of a blizzard raining down one or two inches of snow an hour. (Wimps.) On the other hand, I would like to take a real honest-to-gosh bath in my own tub for once, instead of using it as a cistern for brook water to flush the toilets. We could farm trout in there, if we had to.

Have I said that we've closed off the downstairs bathroom and use it as a walk-in refrigerator? With the power off it's that cold in the house, shut away from the stove. The water in the tub is like liquid ice, it's so cold.

People are all like oooh, a foot of snow, what are you gonna do? Answer: Pretty much what we've BEEN doing. While it's a substantial snow, a foot of snow is nothing we haven't seen before. We gave out the rest of our snowblower gas to the neighbor this weekend so he could run his chainsaw, but I got more on Tuesday, so we're set. Snow isn't really all that scary. If it were, say, a plague of Godzilla monsters instead of snow, then yes, I'd be going "oooh" with everyone else and pondering my futile defensive strategy, but a foot of snow this time of year is really not all that unheard-of, and perfectly doable.

I wondered how they were going to plow, with all the power lines down in the street. We had a mini-storm on Tuesday, two or three inches--I didn't bother to snowblow it, even if I had the time, which I don't--and they just plowed. I guess nothing happened. I would think one of those power cables could get tangled up in the plow and they'd pull down a pole or something, but whatever. Maybe I'm just paranoid. We didn't dare touch any of the trees when they first came down, all tangled up in the power lines. Then our neighbors came along--and they have something to live for, with families and all--and just opined that the lines were surely dead, and cut away with their saws. Braver than Mojo, who of course is something of a coward anyway.

Sorry for the boring weather reports, but it's been a slight preoccupation this week. At least the snow will just be snow. I've had enough ice for a while....as well as the need to stay close to the house to feed the stove. Before it was just to thumb my nose at the oil company. Now it's to stay alive, which isn't quite so much fun.

Mojo