Saturday, May 3

We were hopeful about the power today, since the Duquene Light trucks were on our street for much of the day. But we still had to spend most of the day power-less. Andrew and Lucia went for a run in the morning and stopped at Five Points to get cardamom buns to bring home. We made coffee. 

The kids spent most of the day coloring in their Coco Wye "Girl Moments" coloring books, having hurtled back to a time without wi-fi and electricity. "It's just like New Hampshire," Lucia said happily, which isn't accurate at all since we have both wi-fi and electricity in NH, and if we lost electricity we'd have to leave since it would be absolutely terrifying to be there. But I understood what she was saying: it felt like an excuse to just do fun analog things and pretend the outside world didn't exist. 

We had bagels for lunch. Andrew and I worked on switching our winter clothes from our closet to the bureaus, and putting our summer clothes in our closet, while simultaneously selecting items to donate. We have six bags so far, with a pickup scheduled for next week. Then I had the kids go through all the coats, sweatshirts, and shoes in the mudroom and the coat closet. More items to donate. The mudroom work will have to continue, since the mudroom is going to be absorbed into the kitchen once our renovation starts this summer. This was a decent start.

We went up to the club at three so the kids could charge devices / have wi-fi and we could have a drink with Beth and Nate. (I drank iced tea. I am still not drinking alcohol. But I miss having a drink, and have decided to ease back into it at the end of May.) The kids at one point ordered chicken fingers for a snack, so we just decided to have dinner as well. The DLC trucks were still on our street; a neighbor texted that he'd spoken with a worker and our power was likely to be restored soon.

Indeed, by the time we got home around 6:30, we could see lights in our house! The power was on, and our generator had "kicked over to the regular power source" automatically (I don't have any idea what that means or if that makes any sense). This was a good thing, since the generator guy had given Andrew explicit instructions for how to make that switch manually, apparently a highly dangerous process for which Andrew should not in any circumstances actually touch the switch with his hands. 

So. We have power, Andrew did not get electrocuted by our generator, and the girls and I watched three episodes of Lost. We're back. Now we just have to figure out what to do about the Volvo, which is still in Greensburg. Of course, Andrew will be gone all week for work in Spain, so the resolution will be drawn out a bit. 

Side note: Highly recommend the Barebones LED Railroad Lantern for power outages. Andrew had gotten this random item as a corporate gift a few years ago and it finally fulfilled its destiny. It is incredibly bright and lights up an entire room, and I got to feel a little like Ma Ingalls, making my way through the dark house with the lantern dangling from my hand.