A Quiet Storm?

It could have been the plot to a decadent romance novel or the kind of slickly produced, near-porn movie you see on Cinemax. Jeff and I showered by candlelight on Friday morning then spent three nights together in a hotel room. Unfortunately, the backdrop of this scenario was the worst windstorm to hit the Pacific Northwest in a dozen years, there ends the sexy element.

Thursday night at 8:45 PM, we lost power. No big whoop, I thought. We went to bed early, and had a restless night as wind gusts got up to 90 miles per hour, and at times sounded like it was tearing the siding off the house. Friday morning, we decided to forego the call to the power company assuming that they would be on top of everything. To make sure we had enough hot water, we got in the shower together, which is one of those things that always sounds way better than it actually is. No matter how coordinated you are, someone always ends up freezing their naked, wet ass off while the other party hogs the water.

I put all of my makeup and hair styling products into a bag, and left for work with the confidence that as a resident of the richest, most resourceful country in the world, my power would be restored by the time I got home that night. It’s Monday, and there is still no power at my house. Best of all, the power company is telling me that it could be Thursday before the lights go back on at my house. The coldest week of the year, on the heels of paying a $300 power bill, and I have no fucking power!

I knew the country’s infrastructure had fallen to shit after the whole Hurricane Katrina situation, but I didn’t have a clue that this was nationwide until Friday night after work when it took me two hours to go the four miles from my house to the hotel, because no one was out directing traffic, and there were no emergency generators to power traffic lights.

Friday night, people were mainly trying to get to the store to buy batteries, fireplace logs, and other urban camping supplies. They were also scrambling to find a place to have dinner since no one wanted to open their refrigerators, because most food can keep for at least 24 hours if you don’t open the fridge. We cleaned our fridge and freezer out on Sunday. Thankfully, I had procrastinated going grocery shopping, which saved me the stress of having to trash at least $100 worth of new food.

For the past three days, we have eaten at restaurants and stayed at a local Hampton Inn. Not a bad place to stay, but I have to say that being in a small room with an energetic three-year-old is a bit of fresh hell I never expected to experience. When Jews die there is a belief that we go to a place kind of like Catholic purgatory (where do you think they got the idea in the first place) to make up for the bad things we’ve done, so that we may enjoy the afterlife as a pure soul. I would have to make the argument that spending 72 hours in a room with my toddler has to, at least, shave my time down to about half.

We are leaving for Southern California on Thursday night to spend the remainder of the year with Jeff’s family. I can only pray that we have power by then. If not, I told Jeff that we would set the house up as if we did have power, and go have a nice vacation in warm and sunny California. As for the rest of the week, we managed to get our gas fireplace going on Saturday, and by tonight the house should be at a cozy 63 degrees, so we will be sleeping on the floor in front of the fireplace hoping that at 2:00 in the morning the glaring lights from the kitchen will wake us up. Until then, I’m calling my house every hour to see if the answering machine turns on, and planning for several chilly nights.

It’s a shame that all of the country’s resources have been squandered elsewhere, and when a disaster hits; we are unable to deal with it in a timely manner. I don’t live out in the sticks; in fact, the people who live two miles away from my house have power. I’m just beginning to wonder how long our politicians will let the infrastructure of this country go before they recognize that there is a big problem. How much disaster will we have to see before we start investing in updating our emergency services? How much Iraq money would it actually take to get us up to date? How long will I have to impose on friends in order to get my family’s laundry done? When will we as a people wake up and realize that deregulating public services and letting corporations take over may be the capitalist dream, but in the end, just leaves us frustrated in a cold house with a toddler who won’t keep her jacket on?