California Storms

Power was out for nearly 35 hours. It's the longest I've been without electricity ever.

I don't like it.

My entire town lost power. Grocery stores were selling stuff, like street vendors, at their front doors...batteries, bread, salami...stuff that survived the refrigeration crash...for cash only.

Scary how quickly ATM and Credit cards become useless, isn't it?

I live on the coast, so things were worse here. They always are. "Over the Hill" (what we coast dwellers call the San Francisco Peninsula east of the coast range that separates us) the power was on by Saturday (yesterday), so I trudged over to resupply candles and lamp oil. I had to get ground coffee. I'd used up my small supply of ground beans here. My grinder runs on electricity, naturally. I had a lot of good beans but no way to grind them. I was prepared to take a hammer to them if necessary.

I eventually found everything I needed, but it was a little weird finding so many empty shelves of common items that you take for granted.

Last year I bought a battery operated radio, "for emergencies" and I had plenty of batteries. It's amazing what a difference that made. Feeling connected, in touch...not so isolated. A few years ago, I bought eight oil-burning lamps...and (what I thought was) a good supply of oil. I've used them several times during power outages. I was really glad to have them this time. Spread around my (small) house, every room was lit and habitable. I always have tea-lights and votive candles around for "atmosphere", especially for the holidays, so I had a pretty good supply.

But the power was out for 35 hours. I wasn't expecting that kind of duration. And I found myself calculating how long the oil would last, and blowing out lamps (and candles), saving the oil, carrying one lamp around with me, lighting as I went, rather than using up the oil to light rooms I wasn't in. I suppose it was the smart thing to do, but it isn't as comforting and cheery.

From now on, I'll make sure I have what would have seemed a ridiculously huge supply of both candles and oil...just in case. I certainly hope there is never a repeat of an outage this long, but at least I will be ready for it.

Oh, I didn't have a hard time, don't get me wrong. Just inconvenient. I have a gas stove, water heater and furnace. I was well-fed, clean and warm. But I realized just how much my world depends on electricity: TV, DVR, DVD, CD, COMPUTER, INTERNET, PHONE, HAIR DRYER, ---COFFEE GRINDER!

It was weird how long into the outage I was still automatically flipping on light switches every I walked into a room...

My only sadness is that I lost a young tree. One that replaced a beautiful, old, mature tree I lost in another storm a couple of years ago. That really bothers me. I'm barely over losing the first one!

Oh, and one other thing. How did I get so used to automatic garage door openers? It was like some kind of primitive ordeal having to actually lift open my garage door, and pull it down again...outside, in the weather! What a concept!

We could use a little of that global warming if anybody knows where it is.

Wherever you are, I hope winter is kind to you. But stock up on batteries, canned food, candles and lamp oil, just in case!

The Gunslinger

Oh, and I just got a great tip! If you have an electric stove...or in case the gas goes too in some bad emergency, get a fondue pot! You can use it indoors (unlike those camp stoves), boil water, heat up chili or some other canned food, MAKE COFFEE, etc. Cool idea.

I don't suppose it will be a surprise if I told you I just gave my fondue pot away, like, a year ago. You know, the one that's been taking up space in my cupboard for the last 20 years? The one I never use? The one I finally broke down and parted with? Yeah, that one. The one I have to go out and pay good money to REPLACE now. Yeah, that one. Uh-huh.