Brief Blackout

Apparently Scoob didn't like that Red Potato Tart as much as I thought he did. He said he liked it better without the ham, so I finished up the leftovers for today's lunch, which was kind of junky because we don't have a toaster oven in the kitchen at work, just two microwaves and a slice-style toaster, which means it was just soggy. (That just totally made me think about "two turntables and a microphone," not that they're even similar, but oh well. There you have it. Man, it's been a long time since I listened to that.)

Nothing really exciting happened today, unless you count the power going out tonight when I got home from work. Seriously, I think I'd been home about 15 minutes, was snuggled with Scoob on the sofa dreading the fact that I needed to do cat box duty because it's garbage night, and zzzzzt—no power. It was pretty strange really. It wasn't quite night time, but definitely twilight and I've never realized how dark our neighborhood could be. It was seriously strange watching flashlight beams bob around in the windows as if every one of our neighbors were being burgled at the same time.

Luckily, I have candles. And even luckier, I know where they are. So we had a bit of light to kick around the house with, thought the combination of (super, super strong) vanilla, melon, and sweetpea scented candles may not have been the best solution.

So my biggest challenge was trying to change the cat boxes by candle light without making a mess. And wouldn't you know it, even with a fresh litter box, Dozer still peed on the carpet. I don't understand this cat anymore. I've even bought those puppy pad things people use for house training puppies. When she decides to not use the box, she sort of uses them. But she plants her tuckus right at the edge of the pad. Right where there's no absorbent stuff, so the piss just hits plastic and runs onto the carpet anyhow! There are days I'm tempted to put her up for adoption. But who is going to love that pissy puke bucket at much as we do?

Anyhow, it was really eye opening to be without power. Without the television, a radio, or the internet, we had no way of knowing what was happening or how widespread the outage was. And yes, it did cross my mind that tomorrow is 9/11, not that I'm paranoid or anything. If our cellphones hadn't been charged, we would have been completely cut off. We called a few neighbors and determined it was just local thing and then our minds turned to dinner.

We debated about trying to cook or reheat something at home, then realized that that the stove has an electric ignition and even if we lit it the old-fashioned way, we'd still be cooking by candlelight. Not the best. So we ventured out for Mexican and saw that someone had hit a light pole at the intersection. Who knows whether that was the cause or a result of the blackout. At any rate the power was back on when we got home, though I could see that some of our neighbors down the way were still dark. Good thing too, because it's warmed up the past couple days and tonight would have been miserable with the fans.

We definitely need some sort of emergency kit, like with one of those crank radios.