A house without power


A house without power
By Allan Olson
It was stormy last Thursday morning in this neck of the woods, and as a result of some high winds and/or lightning strikes, several thousand residents found themselves without power, including those in my home.
It’s amazing how much we rely on electricity – our televisions, computers, radios and for those of us in the sticks, even our cell phones. It’s been so long since I had no power that even I found myself laughing at my own stupidity at the things I briefly tried to do during the short outage.
Since I can still use my laptop without being plugged in for at least for a few hours, I was just going to jump on the Internet and check on the storm that was impacting us. I clicked on the browser and – oops!— no power means no internet (SMRT, right?). No big deal. I will just use my smart phone to accomplish this simple task. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue – except that where I live I have little to no cell service, and so rely on my wi-fi to provide internet on my phone at home – again (SMRT). I went into my room for something and since the weather was providing us with some rather dark clouds, I needed a light. Of course, flipping the light switch failed to produce any light. Again I laughed at myself, but never once did I think about explaining this “no power” problem to my children.
I decided that it must be time to leave for work. My wife gave me a nasty look – I wonder why? I laughed and went on my way. Later I learned that I could have really expanded this story by focusing on how the children struggled at life without electricity.
My wife informed me that the kids were really confused about how the things they have always taken for granted were suddenly not working.
“We can’t play on the computer.”
“We can’t watch TV.”
She had to field complaints like these for the better part of two hours as they worked their way down a long list of electric-powered items. To top it off, she had to tell them, “I can’t even make you lunch if we have no power.” Of course, that wasn’t entirely true, as we do have canned goods and a propane and charcoal outdoor grills – but why disclose everything if it’s not needed? Fortunately for all, the power company was able to restore service about three hours after it went out, and life resumed as normal.
Last weekend was another excellent one (primarily because I got spoiled!).
It was my birthday and Father’s Day only a day apart, so I requested the same birthday cake I’ve had for as long as I can remember – German chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting. Mmmm! While I would have been satisfied with a box cake and frosting from the can, my wife took it up several notches and made it all from scratch. It was, of course, very excellent. For Father’s Day I had another request – peanut butter cheesecake. Once again, for some crazy reason, she honored my request and made one from scratch, and once again, it was excellent.
Father’s Day was spent lazing around in the morning, followed by a geocaching expedition in the Hobson Forest. We managed to find all of the treasures we looked for, and saved a couple others for another trip. It also appeared that we were trying to start our own wood tick colony with as many as we picked off of ourselves after we left the woods!
In all I really couldn’t have asked for a better weekend – except maybe sneak in some fishing – but that will have to wait for another time.
I’ve been informed that I will need to brush up on my baking and cooking skills, as payback will be expected next year for her birthday and Mother’s Day.
Sadly, next year my birthday and Father’s Day are at the same time, and I will be forced to choose between my love for Peanut Butter or German Chocolate – unless – perhaps I could get both?
In addition to all of that fun – we got our babysitter back! “I had to celebrate my favorite uncle’s birthday and Father’s Day with my favorite uncle,” she said. Or maybe she heard what desserts were being prepared and really just wanted a shot at them? Either way – I’m okay with it.
Please be safe on the lakes – wear your life jacket, keep the kids safe, and remember to take a picture to preserve a lifetime memory.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week. For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.

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