the hour of power

sitka had a really bad windstorm on tuesday that took out a major power line. while the repairs are being made over the next few days, our power is being rationed because the city is using diesel fuel, and because they don't have the capacity to power the whole city without the hydroelectric plants. so the downtown area has power most of the time, and the north and south ends of town have power every other hour, alternately.

it's been kind of fun.

yesterday at the grocery store all the moms were watching the clock (the grocery store has a generator). we were all calculating how much time we had before we needed to be home and ready to cook dinner when our power came on at 6:00.

i know that the city utility department has had a lot of angry customers this week, but i'm really happy that i have a warm house and cold beer, and when my power goes off, i'm fairly confident that it's going to come back on in another 67 minutes.

things we chose to do when the power was off:

• write letters to Arnold
• move Cassie's curtain rod and mirror to her new room (with a human-powered screwdriver)
• have light saber duels with emergency flashlights
• watch DVDs on the laptop
• sit in the dark and enjoy how quiet it is without the humming of appliances
• play with Arnold's night vision goggles
• shower by candlelight
• make a masking-tape mural on the wall (I didn't do this -- Cassie did)

the city expects us to be back on full power by tomorrow afternoon, but if they don't, it will be a great excuse for putting off laundry and vacuuming yet again. just doing our part to conserve electricity during this power emergency.