In The Dark

Today they are saying that over 800,000 people are still without electricity due to Ike. Makes our little ordeal seem rather paltry by comparison. We didn't lose any food. Our weather then was much cooler than this past week has been. We survived quite well. But, it is now 10 days since he blew through and all those people are still trying to deal with life without power.

Back in the early hours, my mother mentioned that she grew up without electricity. It was normal for them.

Just thinking about it. I don't know how many times I flipped up a light switch, knowing full well that it wouldn't work, but completely bound by habit. We stayed outside a lot. We charged the cell phones in our car. (Another thing my mother grew up without.) We read books -- of course, we do that anyway, but since we couldn't do things like laundry and vacuuming, we just sat and read. Hummmm -- guess it wasn't all bad!

We dined on a time-table determined by the light outside. Yes, we had lanterns, but I didn't need or want to cook by lantern light so I gathered up our evening meal while it was light outside. Then we dined "al fresco," on TV trays on the driveway. We didn't lose our gas stove top or our water. We were "rich" according to some people's normal standard of living. I had prepared extra food to tide us over the time when we might be without power -- meatloaf and fried chicken -- both good cold (or cool.) I also cooked rice and found out that warming things up without a microwave is much more difficult. Mind you, all this "suffering" only lasted 15 hours and part of it we were asleep! (It all reminded me of our camping trips.)

What did I miss? Instant news updates! Sweetie dug out his old Walkman and I listened to it for a while. Were there hurricanes when my mother was growing up. Who knows -- they certainly didn't. The news didn't travel with the speed of light and sound back then, and people living out in the country didn't know what was happening 100, 200, or farther away.

ICE! We had ice but I didn't want to use it because it was keeping our refrig cool enough that things didn't spoil. I am spoiled, however, so when we went out to survey the damage I bought a large iced drink. It tasted like heaven! (That is what I missed when we visited Mexico -- very limited ice.)

My computer! Contact with the outside world. Our cells worked and we checked in with people (we used texting, mostly, because it takes up less of the power grid (or something like that) but my computer is a real link with the world. (Besides, I type MUCH faster than I text!)

What would you miss the most if you lost power for 10 days? Think about it.