Thursday at about 3:35 pm we experienced a power outage. Not just a standard outage…….an entire county outage that affected over 1.4 million people here in Southern California. The feeling was eerie to say the least. Three days to September 11th there was a sense of the unknown. Thankfully it was there result of a mistake made by an employee (I bet he is not feeling the same) but needless to say we were without power and it was an experience.
The kid were at various activites, I had no groceries so I decided to get a couple of rations as they were predicting an extended amount of time without power. While I was in the grocery store I noted the hub bub and sense of panic. Ice & batteries sold out, water shelves were empty and the the raid on the Glade potpourri candles was a sight to see. As I see myself pretty calm in emergency situations I tried not to get caught up in it but I found myself grabbing the last jug of water, a bag of ice, and those all needed religious candles along with a few other items:
- chips (as they are not perishable) – Hey they are made from potatoes!
- Lucky Charms (kids have been begging me to buy them and I never do)
- crackers (again, not perishable and some substance)
- oh and a sandwich for me (I had not eaten all day)
I realized that my "Emergency Plan" the County Officials were recommending we put in action may need some fine tuning.
It was all to reminiscent of 10 years ago and that you could sense. It was the memories of past fires……In this moment I had my cell phone which rang and had texts friom many friends for me to come over. That sure felt good. I took up one friend's offer to just take in the up-dates by her pool with a glass of wine.
When the kids and I reconvened at home at 7:30 pm in the pitch dark it felt right again. My kids were home safe with me and we had nothing to do but talk and make the most of the "Pilgrim days" as they called it. It made us all appreciative of what we take for granted daily. Boy were they happy to find those Lucky Charms and dug right in. (major mom points)
and look…I am ready for some vigil now with my San Miguel candles……..
It was early bedtime for us all safe and one little girl sleeping with me who was scared. No place I would rather be. We all need times like this to ground us and make us realize how lucky we are. But let me tell you, part of me was wondering how I go about painting in the dark! Being forced to do nothing is so hard!
Thankful to wake up to the lights and hum of the modern day! And for once I realized that my empty refrigerator was to my benefit! Not many things to toss out. And a moment to laugh when Joey knocked on my door and said "Mom, the power is back on…..(pause)………can we still eat the Lucky Charms?". I should have told him, that those were for an emergency situations only.
"Life, even in the hardest times, is full of moments to savor. They will not come this way again, not in this way. ~Paula Rinehart