Yesterday before I left to school we were left without electric power. I turned on the radio for Taylor, plugged on directly the lamp, and turned on a light, thinking the power will be back soon. Other times was back in 10-15 minutes.To my surprise when I arrived home after 9PM from school, I noticed right away that our block of houses was in complete darkness - the heavy clouds and night helped also.
In the house was even darker with the blinds shut. Taylor was barking at my footsteps scared of intruders. This was her first ever complete darkness with no lights and radio on.
First I discovered my only flashlight, which is in my car, had no batteries - charged last time when I left from Tucson in mid July 2005. I searched for candles and matches, thank God for candles. Then slowly in the candle light I discovered how electric based is my house. It was dark and cold, my heating is based on electricity also. I could not warm anything up since the stove and microwave are electric also. The fridge was slowly melting, and I even could not open a can of food - the by hand can opener broke and I bought an electric one thinking it is stronger.
I played a little with Taylor then since it was too cold we made the bed and put all candles under the night lamp and read Newsweek about Freud. What an appropriate theme for the mystery of candle light reading. I remembered the old times back in Romania when the communists were trying hard to save electricity and each day between 5-7PM everything was out of power. All shops and work places had the schedule accordingly. The only ones who had power were hospitals who had special generators (that only after many complains, and only the ER and ICU units had the power). We used to have the oil laps, candles, and flash lights handy. Slowly our eyes got used to the switch from electric light to candle light. I remember I was able to read pretty well without having sore eyes. We got around it, we even did not complain after a while, it was just annoying. I remember because of that I stayed once the entire two hours in an elevator. The power went out ten minutes before the usual 5PM ( they sometimes were trying to turn off earlier and turn on later the power). Imagine being in a elevator in complete darkness, not being able to see your hand, nothing. Being complete quiet, since everyone made sure they are in the home by 5PM. Having two hours to think about my life, and be mad at communists :-)
Last night I learned that I am not prepared for any kind of emergency. Perhaps is time to go shopping :-)