the hum

This place is hard to keep on the map… we’ve been pounded with rain for days and days and days and days and days. Water is stampeding down hillsides, bursting from ditches and filling the roads. Inspiring and swollen, the river looks like a riptide freeway in brown.

The only thing fuller than the creeks around here was our car last Sunday night. A full day in town yielded a hard working diesel toting tired children, bulk foods, and the requisite nine loads of fresh-smelling laundry. I should back up a bit…First, the power went out during Saturday’s rolicking wind and rain storm. Then we went to town for groceries. While there, the rain turned to snow on the Wildcat. By the time we headed for home, the blizzard was impassible to those of us silly enough to lack four-wheel drive or a decent set of chains. Five minutes outside of Ferndale, the snow covered road was blocked by three stuck cars and peppered with trucks left impotent in soggy ditches. Back to town we went. Whoops…we were snowed out instead of in. We drowned our homesick sorrows in sushi, baklava, and dvd’s of Six Feet Under.
The next morning, the road was clear and the tree branches tickled the roof of our car with their snow laden fingertips. It was wonderland.

When we arrived, the power was back on and the rain was in intermission. The clock was ticking.. we had 3 hours to unload the car, feed the kids, and make 20 chicken dinners for tonight’s take-out barbeque. Once again, the yeast was flying as rampaged I through 21 cups of flour, 6 packets of yeast, and ten pounds of beets to muster up some appetizing side dishes to accompany Blase’s bourbon chicken. It all came together with a lot of internal cursing and grandiose mess-making.

Then, the power went out again. Out for 3 plus days this time. Those PGE elves have been busy and now we’re basking in the hum of our refrigerator again.

I started leaving rambling messages for the Sears’ repairman… hadn’t heard from him in weeks. Just as I was about to videotape myself singing a snarky song to their seemingly abandoned answering machine, he called. The Sears’ repairman dispatcher actually called ME. He’s coming. This Saturday. He has my part. I’m beside myself with excitement.

bring your own candles

I have a really good excuse for not blogging this week… the power has been out for 5 days and word has it that the lights won’t be on for maybe 8 more. So, we’re up to our earlobes in candle butts, rotting meat, and carpet lint. Oh, and of course, DIRTY LAUNDRY. But that’s cuz of Sears. The Sears guy never came back, by the way. Must be unrequited love.

This is a delicious stolen moment on the internet. I am sitting in the generator-powered elementary school staff lounge where several kids are being reminded about behavioral expectations for tomorrow’s big field trip to town. Nola is eating a paperbag.

My next ode needs to be for PG and E. Visualize windless, dry days so that those tireless crews can get their beleaguered trucks out of the mud and keep on stitching our power lines back together.

One of Ossian’s favorite powerless activities is to “be in my pregnant tummy” and then to be born. See photo for more details.

In the meantime, life is a little more charming by candlelight (as long as you don’t open the fridge or sneak a peek at the growing puddle of dark liquid coming from it).