Today is day 4. My hope is running out since we live on the borderline of 2 counties, deep in the woods at the end of a power grid that supports 7 homes. Obviously, those big white Rappahanock and Dominion power trucks are busy servicing developments with hundreds of homes, so we sit and wait.
The good news is that we installed a generator right next to the heat pump when we built this house. So really I can’t complain. We have heat, hot water and even lights in certain rooms. My refrigerator is still running and so is the microwave; I can even cook on top of the gas range once we light a match. What isn’t hooked up to the generator? The laundry room, the ovens, the outside lights, my office. You might say the soul of the house is in stasis – my aviary. So I plug in the laptop in the kitchen overnight, and write upstairs on battery power.
We adjust, we accommodate in a crisis. I asked Bob if the dogs slept with us in Rumson after the NoName storm, when we lost power for 6 days in December. I remember the kids piled into our big bed since we had an electric blanket hooked up to a portable generator. Did the Corgis jump up and snuggle with us on those 2 dog nights? It was an adventure when we were living in the Berkshires and a Noreaster swept through. Cooking on the woodstove, cross country skiing in the backyard, we felt like pioneers, like rugged, sturdy New Englanders, even though we were both suburbanite refugees.
When the Bride was born, the Flapper came to stay for awhile. I proudly told her that we have this ingenious, solar powered clothes dryer. It was the 70s, passive solar was all the rage, along with woodstoves for ex-hippies. My Mother looked at my clothes line, and promptly called up the hardware store and ordered a Maytag clothes dryer. That’s the way she was, in fact listening to all the latest interviews with Sandra Day O’Connor on her book tour, I am reminded of the Flapper. Yes, she was that acerbic, that opinionated, that sure of herself.
Listening to the Justice tell Terry Gross that “NO” being discriminated against as a woman lawyer, being told by the 40 law firms she called out of law school that they didn’t hire women, and then taking a job for no pay and being put in the same office as the secretary had absolutely no effect on her deliberations as a Supreme Court Justice was downright stunning. Did you hear this on NPR? I loved this lady, she doesn’t look back.
This weekend it’s supposed to be somewhere in the 60s, and the crocus that had just popped up before the snowfall, will open their pretty blue flowers to an early spring. Bob said the Corgis didn’t sleep with us, that we invited them but they eventually jumped down. I guess it was too crowded. Since I was behind on the laundry when the storm hit, today I’ll be collecting quarters and heading to the nearest laundromat. I wonder how the Flapper did all the laundry for a family of 7 (not counting me in this) on a Monday, and the ironing on Tuesday. Do I even know where my iron is? I need to start packing for my next trip to the Music City, where I will whisper to the Love Bug about her tenacious and powerful Great Grandmother.
Here is the view since the storm hit:
