On Being Powerless

No, this isn’t about politics or the patriarchy; it’s about how I was literally without electricity on Saturday from 3pm until Sunday at 8am due to this jackass. Despite the obliteration of his vehicle, apparently he was fine, but around 450 homes had to suffer through the night without power due to his drunken recklessness. 

At first it wasn’t too bad because it had stopped raining and there was plenty of sunlight. The days are growing shorter though, and soon it became obvious that (1) the power wasn’t returning anytime soon, and (2) I needed to find some light to read by since I couldn’t watch TV. I was trying to conserve my phone battery charge, so I didn’t open the Kindle app.

I lit three candles, thinking I could read by candlelight like people did in the olden days, but that didn’t work at all because they barely made a glow. I tried to hold a flashlight to read, but that was too cumbersome. I have a camping “torch” for emergencies, and this counted, so I fired it up. Ahh! Lots of light, though still not enough for reading. I fed Inky, then contemplated my evening. SCE sent a notification that the power should return at 1am.

I decided to go out. Alone! On a Saturday night! First, I bought a ticket online to the movie Now You See Me: Now You Don’t at 8:30pm at Metro Pointe. Then I drove over to MP and decided to have dinner at Boudin, the San Francisco bread restaurant. They were out of bread bowls, so I couldn’t get the butternut squash soup I was craving. They couldn’t make my favorite brie grilled cheese either because they were out of fig jam. So I ordered a boring salad, which lived up to my low expectations. At least there was plenty of electricity. 

It was a while until the movie, so I browsed in some stores, but I really dislike shopping in meatspace after being spoiled with online shopping. I don’t even know how to shop anymore ~ where was the algorithm to show me what I might want to see? I was faced with all this stuff and no way to filter it. If I looked at an item, there was no helper showing me similar things I might like; I had to keep searching on my own. Meh. I went to the theater early, hung out, texted my kids, etc. My phone battery had recharged from the drive, so all was good.

The movie was OK. Too much action and not enough magic tricks and relationship drama. The plot was overly complicated too ~ was it trying to be a Bond flick? Idk. The first two films in the series were much better, but at least I had something to do for a few hours. There was hardly anyone else in the theater, so I switched seats for a better one. (How do they even make enough money to pay rent?) When I got out, I became a little nervous. All the stores and restaurants were closed, and MP was completely deserted. I had to walk back to my car like an old, lame gazelle on the open savanna (my foot had cramped up during the movie). Luckily, there were no lions around, so I made it back in one piece. 

Unfortunately, SCE revised their repair time estimate from 1am to 9am. I didn’t get much sleep because I was scared of all the things that could go wrong. What if the power never came back on? Around 4am, I gave up altogether and had a Diet Coke, but the caffeine hit was minimal. The torch gave off plenty of light in the bathroom for a shower, so I managed to get dressed normally, feed Inky, etc. Then I went to Starbucks for a proper jolt of java and a warm cinnamon bun. So good. I drove to the beach and back to charge my phone, and when I got home, there was plenty of light to read by.

SCE beat their own estimate and restored our power at 8am. Hurrah! They are absolute aces for working through the night. Of course, as soon as the electricity was back on, I discovered that the internet was out. Unlike SCE, Spectrum doesn’t send frequent helpful updates, and you have to hunt them down yourself to find out what’s happening. This had nothing to do with the crash; Spectrum just goes out whenever it has an opportunity. Oh yeah, it was due to “the storm,” which wasn’t even that severe here. Sure, Jan. (It was back that night.)

The rest of Sunday was normal, and my friend L came over to play games in the afternoon. I taped my kitty puzzle and hung it on my bedroom wall. If you’ve kept up with my puzzle saga, you may be interested to know that I “fixed” the missing piece by taping the matching section of the picture behind that spot. It worked great! You can hardly tell unless you know. 

My eyes were bothering me a lot on Sunday, which I attributed to missing sleep. But it turns out I caught a sicky of some sort. Monday I coughed all day, had an upset tummy, developed a fever that evening, and can barely sleep. I will stay home from work today because there will be others in the office. Boo. Being sick sucks.