At any other time this might have been amusing

Yesterday we had a power outage. And I was in NO mood for a power outage! There's just too much going on in our lives right now. Had it happened before the alarm went off, it might have been welcomed. But, oh no. The ever-faithful alarm went off at 5:15am, Ed got up after the first snooze (I'm a multi-snooze kind of person), and went into the kitchen to get some orange juice. Presto, the power goes out in the whole neighborhood. My thinking, of course, is what the hell! Let's just get some more sleep! But Ed is much too much Type A for that - in fact, if you Google Type A, I'm quite sure you'll see his photo.

So he hauls out two big flashlights and one small one (Costco's special package o'flashlights) and proceeds to get ready for work. Since we have a gas water heater, showers aren't a problem. And since he is a man, and a fairly hairless man, "getting ready" doesn't amount to much. His socks are organized so he knows right where the black ones are, his shirts are hanging in color coordinated fashion - well, you get the picture. Within 20 minutes he's ready for work and out the door.

I decided to get up temporarily just to go to the bathroom. By the time I get back to the bedroom, he had made the bed! Now, I know he does this every morning and I'm grateful most of the time. But not today. I wanted to get back in and just hug the pillow for awhile. But now I was up and the bed was made. So what next? The heater wasn't on (obviously) and the house was getting very cold. For a few minutes I just stood there in the middle of the bedroom freezing and wondering what to do next. I had a 7:30 meeting which I would not be able to make. Ed suggested that I at least put my sweats on and then read by flashlight for awhile. All with a "I-was-able-to-get-ready-and-I'm-leaving" look on his face. Lucky for him I was too cold and frustrated to take a swing!

Then he smugly went out into the garage to leave. Duh, garage door won't open. So he pulled some little red chain that lets the door be opened manually. However, the door wouldn't stay up - he kept pushing it up and it kept coming back down. My frozen lips smiled in glee. Somehow he found something to prop the door up so he could get his car out and then remove the prop. Dang it!

After he left I stood around some more wondering what to do next. I made some fun flashlight images on the carpet, looked outside for awhile to see if there was any light anywhere, hit the light switch in every room I entered because the senior citizen in me kept forgetting the lights don't work when there is a power outage. When Ed got to his office (which is only a mile away, but that block had power), he called me (we had to dig out our old Princess phone because the rest of our phones all require power!) and told me PGE said the power would be back on between 7:00 and 9:00 am. It was now only 6:20. I decided I couldn't just sit around here chattering for the next 2 or 3 hours. I mean, really, no computer, no tv, no lights, too wide awake to go back to sleep.

I took a shower by flashlight. That wasn't so bad. My biggest issue was drying my hair. I do NOT have the type of hair that can miss a day of shampooing. It's short, I'm Italian so it's greasy, and I have no idea what I do at night but I usually resemble a rooster in the morning. So I left my hair fairly wet, put some leave-in conditioner on it, and proceeded to try to put makeup on. Hoping that I wouldn't have a Baby Jane moment (as in Whatever Happened to.....). In retrospect I probably should have lit some candles - but I didn't think about that yesterday. I had flashlights on each side - one aimed at the ceiling, the other aimed sort of behind me. There is simply no good lighting by flashlight.

But I got most of it done and took a few items in my bag with the hairdryer and brushes to go to Ed's office. I got into my car, it was 33 degrees out, and my windshield was full of ice. Okay, not the kind of "full of ice" that those of you in the midwest or east coast might have. But the California version of "full of ice". Still annoying, and I did not have time to play the scrape and water game as my hair was torn between drying out and freezing to my scalp. So I started driving very slowly down our street with the defrost at full speed and using the wipers and window washer to peel back a place for me to see the street. Finally I had enough visual space to safely get on the bigger road. Ran into Ed's office, glared at him sitting there so calmly eating his little yogurt breakfast, and headed to the bathroom to dry my hair and finish the makeup.

I got done, went back home to get dressed by flashlight and finally got to work - only 30 minutes late. Luckily the 7:30 meeting had been cancelled due to lack of interest so it all worked out okay.