Jan 03 2016
Powerless
Look Out!
I woke up this morning to the wind chimes singing a warning, that cheery harbinger of uncheery power outages to come. I put on the heat while I could and went back to bed, watching the wind toss the trees and rain around through the skylight and waiting for the inevitable.
Although the sole source of heat in the house burns propane, it needs electricity to make it blow the feeble breaths of warmth that reach about a two foot radius from the heater, completely ignoring most of the house, especially the bathroom. A power outage renders the heater a giant, useless plastic box. It’s beyond me why James installed that rather than a wood stove or fireplace when power outages happen every winter, sometimes for days at a time, in a place where the temperatures can (and do) dip below freezing overnight.
Of course, he’s the same guy who built a house without closets or insulation, where the light switches say NO when you turn them on, and devoted a whopping three feet to counter space in the kitchen, so I shouldn’t be surprised. You do a lot of drugs, Miller? Back in the hippie days?
The power went out as expected at about 10:30 in the morning, ruining my last day of freedom before the soul crushing five days a week grind starts up again tomorrow. It seems to be a universal truth that the more time you have off, the harder it is to go back to work, and this Monday will be Mondayer than usual after a long weekend and with the start of the new boss’ reign. I have never switched bosses while having the same job before. New year, new boss!
The new year, however, has the same old bad habit of power outages. The cold and silence are punctuated by the howling wind, tinkling chimes, and my landlord’s cacophonous generator, which usually starts up about .00010 seconds after the power goes out. People say the shortest measurable time is that between the light turning green and someone honking, but I beg to differ. I’m not sure if the generator racket is more nerve-wracking than the total lack of heat and light, or vice versa.
We are slated to have rain and storms all week, so I’d better get used to those wind chimes.
3 Responses to “Powerless”
Sounds like you share the same power woes as the province of Quebec which was notorious for outages. Hoping this year is more electrifying and best of luck with Boss v.2
Lookout is right, sounds like the weather is pulling all its weight and giving us everything from strong winds, to snow storms, extreme this and extreme that. Well it is the season for all of this after all, and no we don’t have to like it but whether we do or not, Mother Nature will not change her habits and patterns for us so we better hang on, get the shovels out and dress warm, we are in for it. By the way Suzy just to make you feel you’re not alone through this, we had 25 cms of snow last Tuesday, a few inches every day since and just to tease us, it’s going to be minus 29 with the windchill tomorrow, have a great week.
Lack of heater is no fun….hope life will improve v. soon.
Good luck with Boss # 2…..
BTW…Can Mark do anything to improve things for you? He must be having problems too surely…