power outage

We lost power last night, for about 2.5 hours. I think it may be the first time my daughter had experienced a nighttime power outage. She was annoyed because she wanted to watch her beloved Pistons in their play-off game, and then she was annoyed because there was nothing to do.....

She was surprised to discover that the dark isn't, really. That you could see to navigate in the house, and that, outside, it seemed more like dusk than darkness.

Then she remembered that her laptop was charged up, so we watched "Dave" (Kevin Klein and Sigourney Weaver -- a very good movie).

My favorite memory from last night is using the light from the laptop to find the candles and matches.

I am so grateful to live in a time and place where we can take for granted having all the light we want. All the clean water we need (hot and cold!). All the refrigeration, all the heat for cooking. Power for computers and televisions. Modern medicine. Modern plumbing. Tampons. I work on remembering how lucky we are to live with such plenty.

We live in town; we have water when we have no power. Our stove and hot water heater are gas, so we have hot (and really hot) water, with no power. Here is the view above my stove.....