On the glories of a hot shower ...
Some time during the night on Thursday night, our power went out. And remained out until very early Sunday morning. Nearly 80% of Seattle lost power on Thursday night, and from what I hear, there are still areas without power this morning.
If you've been watching the news, you probably heard about our storm. I only know this because my sister in St. Louis heard about it and called to see if we were OK. It was a bad storm. Winds got up to 70mph, which doesn't make it a hurricane, but gets it within spittin' range. Rains flooded the streets of a city very adept at dealing with rain. On my way home from work on Thursday, I had to drive through intersections with two feet of rushing water in them. Roads were closed, bridges were closed, trees were downed across roads and power lines, and one woman in my neighborhood actually died when she got trapped in her flooded basement and drowned. It was a bad storm.
The first night without power, Friday night, was kind of fun. We lit candles. We barbequed on the porch. Because we were cold, we mulled some red wine on the BBQ grill, to keep us warm and toasty. We watched DVDs on Ray's laptop. As night wore on, we got pretty cold. So we duct taped cardboard across our bedroom window and bundled deep under mounds of blankets. Riley looked so cute tucked up under his own heavy blanket.
By Saturday morning, the temperature in our apartment was roughly equivalent to the temperature outside (which reached a high of around 40 degrees that day). If we hadn't had an appointment at our veterinarian's we probably would have stayed in bed all morning, because that's where the warm was. Instead, we bundled in layers of clothes and bundled our pets into the car, and drove down to the vet's office (requiring one detour to go around a heavy tree laying across the main road. The vet didn't have power either, so they had moved their examining table in to their lobby and were working by the light through the store-front window. Bonus points for our vet!
Afterwards, we decided to stay warm for a while by driving, with our boys, to the part of town with power to buy some coffee and bagels. The pets didn't seem to mind.
Along the way, Ray got a phone call through to the power company's recorded message, and learned that the power might not be on until Monday, so we decided to try to buy a kerosene heater. We drove over to the Bellevue, to Lowes first. Lowes didn't have power, but they were open anyway. This Lowes location, for whatever reason, has a large number of skylights, allowing light into the dark store. They had staff meeting people at the door and asking them what they needed. If they had what the customer needed, they got another staff member to lead the customer through the dimly lit store to the item, then back to the register. It was a really nice way to handle the situation, but unfortunately, they didn't have any indoor kerosene heaters, so we moved along.
On our way over to the Bellvue Home Depot, we encounter the mad gas lunatics. I accidentally passed my turn and had to turn around. Driving back to the road I was looking for, I passed cars lined up along the shoulder for about ten blocks. Eventually, I realized they were all full of people, waiting in line for the gas station at the corner. I turned the corner and encountered the same thing for the next gas station. Lines, blocks long, of minivans, SUVs and some cars, waiting to fill up their tanks. When I tried to enter their lane to turn right at the stop light, I got blocked and then I got yelled at. I had to roll down my window to explain that I wasn't trying to get gasoline ... I just wanted to turn right.
Of course, Home Depot didn't have what we were looking for either.
Next, we went to Renton, and to Walmart. All I want to say is this 1) Walmart, in the suburbs, on the weekend before Christmas, in the midst of a natural disaster, is a special kind of hell, and 2) Walmart was the only place we tried that had the indoor kerosene heater we were looking for and we arrived just as someone was buying the last one. We did find some C batteries (which Lowes, Home Depot, Best Buy, and QFC were out of) and scored a little internet access in the parking lot at QFC, but otherwise, our mission was a failure.
When we got home we took the dog for a walk and surveyed the damage in our neighborhood. Two blocks down from us, there was the top half of a power pole, broken in half, hanging from the power lines above us. The lower half was broken away from the ground and laying across the sidewalk. (See reskusic's post from Saturday night for a picture of that.)
That night, we ordered pizza and sat by candle light, tucked under blankets. We tried to watch some more DVDs on Ray's laptop, but the computer misbehaved. Apparently, it was too cold for the DVD player to continuously recognize the DVD, or something like that. So we talked for a while, and then decided we would be warmer in bed. It was still cold, but warmer in bed. I wanted to wash my face and hair, but it was just too cold to do it with cold water, so I went to bed with my book and my flashlight and my cat, who was as cuddly as he's ever been, and read until my hands felt numb from keeping them above the blankets. So I stopped reading and slept. We tucked Riley under three blankets, and every so often I heard him making little sleep whimpers and had to get up and put the blankets back over him.
At some unknown hour of morning, I looked over and saw light under the door. The bathroom light was on, and I nearly shouted "Hooray!!!" When the sun came up, I went around the apartment turning up the heaters to try to fill the space with warmth. And then I took the most glorious hot shower in ages. To feel both warm and clean after being neither for a a period of time that felt way longer than 48 hours, is a feeling so good it's impossible to decribe without evoking sexual images.
Electricity is good. I love electricity. I love having a roof over my head and a heater to keep the temperature nice. I will try not to take my lovely electricity for advantage anymore.
If you've been watching the news, you probably heard about our storm. I only know this because my sister in St. Louis heard about it and called to see if we were OK. It was a bad storm. Winds got up to 70mph, which doesn't make it a hurricane, but gets it within spittin' range. Rains flooded the streets of a city very adept at dealing with rain. On my way home from work on Thursday, I had to drive through intersections with two feet of rushing water in them. Roads were closed, bridges were closed, trees were downed across roads and power lines, and one woman in my neighborhood actually died when she got trapped in her flooded basement and drowned. It was a bad storm.
The first night without power, Friday night, was kind of fun. We lit candles. We barbequed on the porch. Because we were cold, we mulled some red wine on the BBQ grill, to keep us warm and toasty. We watched DVDs on Ray's laptop. As night wore on, we got pretty cold. So we duct taped cardboard across our bedroom window and bundled deep under mounds of blankets. Riley looked so cute tucked up under his own heavy blanket.
By Saturday morning, the temperature in our apartment was roughly equivalent to the temperature outside (which reached a high of around 40 degrees that day). If we hadn't had an appointment at our veterinarian's we probably would have stayed in bed all morning, because that's where the warm was. Instead, we bundled in layers of clothes and bundled our pets into the car, and drove down to the vet's office (requiring one detour to go around a heavy tree laying across the main road. The vet didn't have power either, so they had moved their examining table in to their lobby and were working by the light through the store-front window. Bonus points for our vet!
Afterwards, we decided to stay warm for a while by driving, with our boys, to the part of town with power to buy some coffee and bagels. The pets didn't seem to mind.
Along the way, Ray got a phone call through to the power company's recorded message, and learned that the power might not be on until Monday, so we decided to try to buy a kerosene heater. We drove over to the Bellevue, to Lowes first. Lowes didn't have power, but they were open anyway. This Lowes location, for whatever reason, has a large number of skylights, allowing light into the dark store. They had staff meeting people at the door and asking them what they needed. If they had what the customer needed, they got another staff member to lead the customer through the dimly lit store to the item, then back to the register. It was a really nice way to handle the situation, but unfortunately, they didn't have any indoor kerosene heaters, so we moved along.
On our way over to the Bellvue Home Depot, we encounter the mad gas lunatics. I accidentally passed my turn and had to turn around. Driving back to the road I was looking for, I passed cars lined up along the shoulder for about ten blocks. Eventually, I realized they were all full of people, waiting in line for the gas station at the corner. I turned the corner and encountered the same thing for the next gas station. Lines, blocks long, of minivans, SUVs and some cars, waiting to fill up their tanks. When I tried to enter their lane to turn right at the stop light, I got blocked and then I got yelled at. I had to roll down my window to explain that I wasn't trying to get gasoline ... I just wanted to turn right.
Of course, Home Depot didn't have what we were looking for either.
Next, we went to Renton, and to Walmart. All I want to say is this 1) Walmart, in the suburbs, on the weekend before Christmas, in the midst of a natural disaster, is a special kind of hell, and 2) Walmart was the only place we tried that had the indoor kerosene heater we were looking for and we arrived just as someone was buying the last one. We did find some C batteries (which Lowes, Home Depot, Best Buy, and QFC were out of) and scored a little internet access in the parking lot at QFC, but otherwise, our mission was a failure.
When we got home we took the dog for a walk and surveyed the damage in our neighborhood. Two blocks down from us, there was the top half of a power pole, broken in half, hanging from the power lines above us. The lower half was broken away from the ground and laying across the sidewalk. (See reskusic's post from Saturday night for a picture of that.)
That night, we ordered pizza and sat by candle light, tucked under blankets. We tried to watch some more DVDs on Ray's laptop, but the computer misbehaved. Apparently, it was too cold for the DVD player to continuously recognize the DVD, or something like that. So we talked for a while, and then decided we would be warmer in bed. It was still cold, but warmer in bed. I wanted to wash my face and hair, but it was just too cold to do it with cold water, so I went to bed with my book and my flashlight and my cat, who was as cuddly as he's ever been, and read until my hands felt numb from keeping them above the blankets. So I stopped reading and slept. We tucked Riley under three blankets, and every so often I heard him making little sleep whimpers and had to get up and put the blankets back over him.
At some unknown hour of morning, I looked over and saw light under the door. The bathroom light was on, and I nearly shouted "Hooray!!!" When the sun came up, I went around the apartment turning up the heaters to try to fill the space with warmth. And then I took the most glorious hot shower in ages. To feel both warm and clean after being neither for a a period of time that felt way longer than 48 hours, is a feeling so good it's impossible to decribe without evoking sexual images.
Electricity is good. I love electricity. I love having a roof over my head and a heater to keep the temperature nice. I will try not to take my lovely electricity for advantage anymore.