A morning without power, a day without comfort

I wonder how they did without it in the old days?

Electricity. Can't stand the high cost but can't live without it.

We found that out this morning. Way early this morning.

We awoke to a constant beeping coming from the computer's battery backup. It was still dark outside and SisIggy commented from under the covers: "The electricity must be out. Get up and close the window. We don't want to lose anymore heat from the house."

I did. And noticed it was rather chilly in the house. But not as chilly as it would get.

Heir 2 got up on his own, fumbled in the darkness to dress and wondered aloud why he couldn't run any water from his sink. He wanted to finish a paper he didn't finish last night and wanted to get to school where he could.

I helped him clean the snow off his car (we had about an inch) and then went in search of coffee for Sis. While on the road I saw why we had no power. A crew was replacing a downed pole (I'm blaming it on VDOT who wouldn't sand or salt the road even though the headquarters was less than a stone's throw from the accident scene). I went around it - three miles around it - and got coffee and a donut for my bride.

At 7:30 I called DomVAPower to report the outage and got a recording that all would be fixed by "9:15 am". We waited.

Everything I do is contingent on electricity. Simple things like looking at a clock. Watching Morning Joe or Imus while I drink my coffee (I didn't have any today) and eat my hot breakfast. And, of course, getting on the computer to work, read my three newspapers, check blogs and the weather.

Today of all days I actually had work planned. I needed to research and call in five Ms Utility tickets for work I have planned next week.

And instead, we waited.

I called for an update after 9:15 and found it was now scheduled for 10:15. Additional calls stated 11:15 and 11:45. Power came on around 11:30 -- just long enough to run a liter of water and boot the computer. And then it went dark again. And colder.

Sis was bundled in her sweater, a fleece jacket and her "bum gloves". I had on a jacket and one, two or three pups sitting on my lap.

As soon as the power went out again, I called and found out power would be restored by 1:15pm. Seems the DomVAPower crew broke for lunch. The eat lunch. We can't.

Fortunately, power came back on around 12:30.

I waited 15 minutes just to make sure before I got on the computer to start my day.