Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
On and Off the Grid
I drove my 16-year old T-bird to Wendy’s for a #1 single with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayo and then went to Target where I bought a new pair of pajamas and it felt like I’d won a week on the Riviera.
That’s what a couple of days of serious aggravation can do. The trip was celebratory, recognition that the 50+ hours of having no electricity was over, although the giant tree that lays across our street remains, becoming our neighborhood version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon with people walking their dogs and riding their bikes through a leafed portal framed by its mammoth branches.
The rabbi’s car remains smashed beneath the tree’s enormous trunk although a tow truck pulled up to it this afternoon, the first sign of any remediation. The driver took pictures, probably immediately realizing that if he towed out the rabbi’s car, the tree would fall further. All of it seems like Pick-Up Sticks.
After I came home with my new pajamas and we had started to cook the meat from the freezer that had thawed during the power outage, the power went out again. This depressed me greatly so I went upstairs to my office and wrote get-out-the-vote postcards. My husband took a nap. His was probably a wiser use of time.
At a ridiculously early hour, we had dinner – Italian sausage, shrimp, and stuffed clams cooked on the grill outside – and then sat listlessly on the back porch waiting for it to be night. We’ve been going to bed when it gets dark, you know, like farmers in 1850, so that seemed like the next thing in our jam-packed day until, miraculously, the lights came on and we could watch TV.
Not much bothered me about the power outage except not having a fan during really hot and humid weather. It took a lot of self-talk to not be a baby about the heat. It was exhausting. As I write this, the fan is aimed right at me and I am wearing my new pajamas. All’s well that ends well.
5 Comments on “On and Off the Grid”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Ha! You want to live in South Africa! We only have one power supply company called ESKOM which has the power (pardon the pun) to just randomly and without warning switch off the power in a particular area for more than 2 hours because they’ve lost a turbine or a substation or something. It’s called “loadshedding.” I will never get used not having electricity. XxX
Was the driver of the car okay? My sister goes to bed when the power is out because she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She was amazed when visiting one time and we lost power while cooking dinner. She said later how calm and nonchalant we were as we fired up the generator, started a fire, lit the kerosene lanterns. We lit the lanterns for mood only as the generator powers the house. We were nonchalant in her eyes because where we live the power goes out a lot so we’re used to it. The worst was two winters ago when it was out for two weeks. I used to also live off grid so it was like old time’s sake…but I was sure happy when the power came back on. I’ve grown spoiled by being able to flip a switch and have immediate gratification when the lights come on.
Going without air conditioning during the summer makes me appreciate all my grandparents and their parents went through. Can you imagine farming all day in the scorching heat then coming home to a home with no cool air? It would be hell.
We don’t have air conditioning. We depend on fans – so I was beside myself, lol.
You know, I’d forgotten that when we lived in North Dakota that we didn’t have air conditioning either. I forget that Florida’s heat isn’t the norm. Anyway, hope your power stays on.