Well, last night was certainly eventful here in the Realm of Crazy People. We saw the storm rolling in about an hour or so after SuperDad got home. Dark clouds, distant thunder and some lightning. I went outside and took pictures of the clouds and just general landscape. (I will post the pics on our website soon if they turned out good.) It sprinkled on me a bit, so I went inside and fed the kids dinner. About the time they were done eating, it began really blowing here. When the storm rolled over our house, the thunder was deafening and there was lots of lightning. SuperDad logged off the internet and unplugged the modem. We briefly lost power not long after that, but it only went off for a minute. So we left the computer off and one of the kids turned the TV back on.
A little bit later (after dark), Tiny Man and I were sitting on the couch when, all at once, we saw the bright flash, heard the crackle of the lightning and then POW!! We fumbled for flashlights and SuperDad checked all the breakers in the house. Four were thrown, so he turned everything back to the ON position and still nothing. SuperDad's dad called right then, so we thought the phone was fine. Since it was dark outside, we could see that there were lights toward the trio of small towns around us. Our neighbors right next door still had lights, and the people just down the road at the ranch house looked like they had lost power, too, but we couldn't really tell. There may have been one light on inside the house. I think they had just gone to bed already when we lost power. Later on, their outside motion detector light came on and I could see our dog standing next to their house. LOL! So we got out the candles and gave the kids a flashlight (because they refused to sit in one spot).
Anyway, by this time, it was almost 9 PM, so I picked up the phone to call the power company. It was busy. Busy? A power company's after-hours emergency line was busy? No way! I tried their other numbers, but all busy. So I tried to call our cell phone. Busy. Then I tried to call my mom. Still got a busy signal. Hmmm... After walking all over the house, bobbing up and down and looking totally goofy, I'm sure, I finally found a spot with a good (two to three bars) signal and called the power company. I yelled our info to the guy and he said they'd send someone out. So with the cell phone again, I bobbed around for a signal and called the phone company and reported the problem. After I got off the phone with them, we hunted for the parts to our other corded phone. I found one piece on the desk, one part in Tiny Man's toybox, and one more under Princess' bed. So after reassembling the phone, we plugged it in and were able to call out, so I had to call Verizon back and cancel the service call. Incidentally, the estimated times for the service person's arrival were "between 8 AM and 9:32 PM." 9:32?
Tiny Man fell asleep on SuperDad in the rocking chair and we put him in his bed, then tried to get the other two crazies settled on the couches, but that wasn't happening. So I moved them to their room, but they complained that it was too dark, so I had to put a candle in there with them. Talk about scary, can you imagine Princess and flames in the same place at the same time? Hello, fire fighters, trying to rescue us from our burning house! Luckily, she fell asleep pretty soon, so I was able to breathe a little easier. This was after she screamed at me because she couldn't watch Sleeping Beauty. Big Brother understood that the power was out, but she just got mad.
Since the phone was working again, I called the power company back about 10:15 to see what was up and they said the truck was headed our way, had gone to another house before ours. They finally showed up about 10:45. (I guess it goes without saying that our answering machine is toast, too.) From the window, I watched the guy (in the pouring rain) take the fuse off the transformer pole outside and replace it. It was pretty cool. He had an extendable pole that he used to take off the blown-up fuse and put on the new one. So we had power again! We closed the windows and turned on the AC. SuperDad tried to go to sleep, but he couldn't, so we watched a movie that we rented a few days ago.
I didn't sleep much after I went to bed because our alarm clock does not have battery backup, so every time the power went out, I had to reset the alarm. SuperDad had to get up at 6 this morning since today is the first day of school for his district, and his first day teaching! I reset the clock three or four times during the night. The last time was about 5 this morning, and I didn't get much sleep after that, either. But surprisingly, I don't feel all that tired. Right now. Later on today, you might find me crashed out on the couch while Tiny Man and Princess take their naps. Zzzzzzz....
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