A Day (or a Least a Few Grueling Hours) Without Electricity
Southern California Edison turned off our power at 8:53 on June 10, to make upgrades to the electrical power sourced into our neighborhood. Since it’s very hot here this time of year (especially inland), I turned the air on at 4:30 a.m. to cool down the house. Even though we have the cool ocean air early mornings, once that sun appears, it can be scorching. SCE gave us plenty of warnings, Heaven knows. They must have called at least 10 times yesterday to let us know.
After an hour of the electricity being out, I became so thankful for the conveniences we are provided, thanks to Thomas Edison. God bless you Thomas!
Here’s my list of things I tried to do, out of habit, within the first hour, but couldn’t; however, before the power went out, I took a shower and dried my hair and remembered to move our car out of the garage so if we needed to go someplace for cooler air, we could. Fortunately, our birds are tropical, so they loved “mother” not freezing them out as I usually do.
- Make coffee
- Wash clothes
- Dry clothes that were washed before the power went out (I was determined to keep working until they totally shut us down.)
- Turn on the television
- Search the Internet (I forgot to charge my phone)
- Turn on a light
- At least I have a battery backup on my laptop to open a new Word doc to write articles for PolitiChicks.
- Took the batteries out of the remote to our mechanical Sleep Number Bed because I thought they were dead! My husband said, “Lainie, the mechanics work off electricity.” Duh!
I faired quite well, although I really missed having another cup of coffee. Oh wait! My husband told me he could have ignited the pilot on our gas stove with a match so I can boil water for coffee. Drip coffee is better than no coffee, but by that time, it was too hot to drink coffee.
We Americans are spoiled, and it’s times like these when we count our good fortune and learn to do without. After all, it’s only temporary—at least for now.
Fortunately, my husband and I are of the generation who didn’t have computers until we were in our 50s and we didn’t have cell phones until our 40’s, so we would—God forbid— if all hell breaks loose, find a way to survive. I wonder what the two or three generations behind us will do. There are websites regarding how to prepare for emergencies, but I couldn’t help you with links because I HAD NO ELECTRICITY! Hey, here’s an idea–let’s try the library, but oops, I almost forgot—they operate with computers too, so we’ll just walk up and down the rows of books to find what we’re looking for. Do they have the card catalogs anymore? Probably not.
My husband? He read most of the day from books on our bookshelves until the power was restored at 3:28 p.m., and don’t you know I was counting the minutes. Thanks to me freezing everyone out in the wee hours of the morning and the temp staying below 85 degrees, our home was comfortable all day.
