Suzy Says

Good morning!

Silence.

I woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning. Not because of the Audrometer, who was adorably cuddled up to her big sister June, but because of the silence. And darkness.

Yes, the depths of the country are pitch-black at night, and almost oppressively silent, but I still sport my Marilyn Monroe sleep mask and ear plugs. The ear plugs are to ward off Audrey’s early morning pleas for escape, and the sleep mask is because the satellite internet doodads are located in the sleeping loft (for now; I’m hoping to persuade the long-suffering Rob to relocate them for me) and their weird blue light bothers me when I’m trying to sleep*.

Taking off the sleep mask, I immediately noticed that it was completely unnecessary, because the power was out. My battery-powered clock informed me that it was 5:30, so I went back to sleep for a while. When I got up, it was still dark. I had thoughtfully provided myself with an LED lamp on my bedside table, but I had neglected to observe where the power switch was, so I ended up creeping carefully downstairs in the dark anyway.

I’m pleased to report that I’m still injury-free!

Letting the girls out, I noticed that the top of a cypress tree had relocated to my front porch, yanking the jerry-rigged (Or is it jury-rigged? Discuss. And while you’re at it, is it “Not by a long shot” or “Not by a long chalk”?) electric line with it (see above).

Inside, I discovered that I couldn’t make coffee (fortunately, I’m sufficiently degenerate to drink yesterday’s coffee cold) and also that you need electricity to make water come out of your tap or shower and to flush the toilet. Who knew?

I plugged the heater into the car battery thingie devised by the boys last month, and turned it on, to Henry’s immense relief. She had been huddling against it, looking at me pleadingly as if to ask where the hell the heat was.

As the chill began to lift (though not from my coffee) and the storm continued to batter the house, I reflected on how people always say how great it is to get away from modern conveniences and rediscover nature, etc. I disagree entirely. Not only am I already surrounded by Nature, but my view is that now we’ve emerged from caves, why go back? While finding cellphones and reality TV deplorable, I don’t want to go back to pounding my laundry on a rock and chopping my own wood. I missed the modern conveniences pretty much instantly.

Fortunately for me, the Super Brothers were on hand to rescue me after just a few hours of darkness and cold. Rob and Jonathan appeared with a generator, which they placed under the little deck outside the laundry room, running the power cord under the door:

and then putting a très expensive extension cord/outlet device in the living room, so I could plug in my laptop (oh, joy!), refrigerator, lights, and other necessities:

Then they flew away to rescue other damsels in distress. Or check on Jonathan’s solar panels. I’m not sure which.

The power came back on after several hours, and it’s nice to know that I have everything ready for the next outage. And that I have the best brothers in the whole wide world.

*Basically I’m the same as my father, who grew up with total blackout conditions during WWII and also had to sleep in total darkness. Oddly, I used to be afraid of the dark until a few years ago, when I slept in a tent in my sister’s garden for a month and finally got over it. Being Me, of course I had to go to the opposite extreme.