We have just recovered from 76 1/2 hours of no electricity. Our supply of candles is nearly diminished because we sat up until 9:00 each evening reading. In order to get enough light for our "senior" eyes, I lit six tapers and arranged them in a cluster so they would give off more light. The first night I propped a mirror behind the candles hoping to increase the amount of light for reading. That didn't seem to help, so after that it was just the candles and the two of us. Oh, yes. Patches was always near by. She would have preferred being on one of our laps, but at forty-five pounds she is a little big for a lap dog.
We are lucky to have a gas fireplace in our "birdhouse." The fireplace was installed in 2000, but I'm embarrassed to say that neither of us had read the manual until "lights out" last Saturday. We discovered that it is safe to run the fireplace even when there is a power outage. Not wanting to push our luck, we ran it 15 minutes out of every hour. I am happy to say that the birdhouse was quite comfortable. Because we spent many hours in that confined space, we had lots of togetherness.
Don spent some time outdoors cutting up fallen branches and dragging them to the curb for pick up. (They are still there. I hope the town will pick them up. We don't have cable, so we don't always know what is listed on the local cable channel.) We had one big branch from the Bradford pear tree that was resting on the roof of the birdhouse. Don sawed off as much as he could get to safely. Then he rigged up the block and tackle he bought at his Uncle John's household sale. With that he was able to carefully lift the branch off the roof and swing it around to a place where he could put it on the ground. Way to go, Don!
It's amazing how many times I went to a wall switch to turn on the lights. Oops! No electricity. By Sunday afternoon I was desperate for a HOT cup of coffee. Because the roads were in pretty good shape, I went to see my mother. I stopped at Pronto for a cup of coffee. The coffee out of most dispensers isn't hot enough for me, so I usually pop the cup of coffee in the microwave. As I prepared to heat up my Pronto coffee, the young man behind the counter informed me that the microwave wasn't working. I had to drink my coffee only slightly warmer that lukewarm. It didn't quite take care of my craving.
I am reading my second book by Jodi Picoult. I like her style. She really gets into the heads of her characters. Her writing keeps me turning the pages. It's hard to put down the book and cook supper, wash dishes or do other mundane chores. I first read Harvesting the Heart. Now I am reading The Tenth Circle. Give her books a try.
