Well THAT Sucked

Thank you all for stepping up the comments last week. And no, I have not been off pouting in the corner about the chirping-cricket-like silence of my blog on any given day. Clearly I need to spend more time networking in the virtual world, or else become a whole lot more amusing...I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt and say the problem clearly begs the first solution. I mean, come on. More amusing? You people are damn demanding!

Anyway. So where have I been then for a week, you ask? Why, I've been all kinds of places. Where I haven't been is at home, due to the fact that Mother Nature decided to teach all of us smug New Englanders, who think they have seen it all when it comes to brutal weather, a little lesson. She dumped about twenty billion gallons of water on us Thursday night and then froze it solid - effectively shutting down all electricity in the region for days on end.

I awoke Friday morning to a dark sixty-degree house. The tornadoes and I tried to make the best of it on Friday, optimistically spending the day playing board games in front of a roaring fire. As I had already chosen to run our food supply into the ground earlier in the week and held an envelope full of coupons and a lengthy grocery list in my purse, we had to sustain ourselves on whatever nonperishables were still kicking around the pantry. Our optimism began to wear off as afternoon approached: still dark, still cold, and some very unreassuring news coming over the battery-powered radio about this situation going on for days, possibly much longer.

"Unprecedented" has become my least favorite word. There has been far too much use of the word "unprecedented" in my life in the past few months, and I can't think of one occasion where it has meant anything fun. In this case, the power stayed off for six days. Other than Friday night, which we spent huddled up in a nest of blankets in front of the ever-burning fire (there goes all my nicely stacked firewood), we abandoned ship. Mom's house, hotels, anywhere that had power. We came back to the house every day to rub some warmth into Problem Child, unpack and repack. My street vibrated from the hum of generators running at my neighbors' houses. We apparently were the only generator-less house on the street. I listened to the radio DJs urge listeners to remember to check on their neighbors and I laughed. Ha! Check on the single mother with two kids? Nonsense! (I did, in fact, call my across-the-street neighbor on Friday night to offer help as we saw her moving between her running car and her dark house, likely gathering supplies to stay elsewhere for the night. Hypocrite I am not.)

We have intermittently attended school and work over the past few days, and since the power came back yesterday we are trying to resume our regularly scheduled lives. However, my house is disgusting. Not a single present is wrapped yet. And I spent a fortune on groceries last night, only to hear that we are expecting two major storms in the next few days.

On that note, I am going now. Possibly to drink heavily.