Exactly as I predicted. Power was on again off again Thursday evening until 9:30 pm, when it went out and stayed out. And as I write this from the computer in my office, the power is still out at the house.
Also as I predicted, the novelty wore off very quickly. Having been without power for 84 hours, I've discarded almost everything that was in the refrigerator, run out of AA batteries for my Mighty Bright (TM) reading light, and am running out of clean clothes.
Knowing that Isabel was on the way, I did a couple of things that seemed kind of silly at the time, but which I am now happy to have thought of. On Thursday morning I ground enough coffee for several days, since my coffee grinder is electric, and I ran the dishwasher, so as not to have dirty dishes ripening inside of it. On the other hand, there were things I could have done but did not do that would have been Very Good Ideas. I could have done my laundry. I could have bought several bags of ice and filled coolers. This last item is the one thing I really do wish I had done. All of the stores sold out of ice before it occurred to me to buy some. The power company handed out free 5 lb. blocks of dry ice for which people stood in line for up to four hours, but I did not take advantage of their generosity.
On the way home tonight I'll pick up some batteries; I've discovered that while it's possible to sit at a table and read by candles arrayed near the book, it isn't possible to lounge on a sofa and read by the light of a candle, oil lamp, or lantern that is three feet away.
I've made something of a study of lighting with candles and whatnot over the past three days. Not all candles are equally effective at lighting a room. The best, I've discovered, are tapers-- tall, slender "candlelight dinner" candles. A large portion of wick stands above the wax, resulting in a large flame. The worst are the small votive candles, which suffice as night lights but are useless otherwise, since a pool of melted wax quickly forms that covers all but a small portion of wick.
Oil lamps, those made by inserting a wick holder into a wine bottle, are adjustable by the user; the size of the flame depends on the amount of exposed wick. But the best lamp of all is the kerosene lamp given to me by my grandmother some 35 years ago. I believe it was already something of an antique back then; it is the genuine article, used for light before electricity. This lamp has a woven cloth wick approximately three-quarters of an inch wide, and it produces a correspondingly large flame. To my delight, I discovered several years ago that it's still possible to buy wicks for this lamp, as well as various replacement parts.
It's possible to get sketchy information regarding the status of one's electricity by phoning the power company and listening to the recorded message. My power company, Dominion Virginia Power, uses caller ID to identify a caller's location, and after verifying ("Press one now...") that one is calling from the affected location, a message plays that is more or less discouraging. The worst message is something like: "...damage was severe, and repairs will continue over several days." Translation: "Die, sucker-- you're not even on the schedule." A somewhat more encouraging message says that a crew has been sent to your area to assess the damage. This translates as: "We don't have any idea what's wrong in your neighborhood, but we're going to take a look at it today. No estimate as to when repairs will occur." Finally, the most encouraging recording one can hear is the one I heard this morning: "A crew is scheduled to make repairs in your area today; power is expected to be restored by 11pm."
So, my ordeal may be over soon. I haven't had it as bad as some; I still have water, since my water doesn't come from a well that requires an electric pump. In fact I have hot water, since my water heater is gas. And I can light the gas burners on the stove with a match. And I have a battery-operated radio. Still, the list of things I've been without is a long one: the computer, the TV, air conditioning, or even a fan, the refrigerator and freezer, the microwave, the clothes washer and dryer, the dish washer, the blow dryer, the vacuum cleaner, the alarm clock (this is a bonus, actually), and of course light.
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