Wind Day Report

Woke up this morning at 6:30, still no power. One new message on the cell phone: No school today. Sweet.

I texted H to see what her situation was; her power stayed on. I got bored by myself without electricity, so I went to Ballard market and bought eggs, sausage patties, pita, oj. Went to H's place, she cooked breakfast. Yum!

Caught up on email, etc. Found out that Simbang Gabi Mass was canceled, or at best postponed. In either case, the church is closed for business tonight. Boo! Come on, it's the first night of Hanukkah... you know, the miracle of lights? Hmph. We may be going to someone's house, since a lot the food is ready to go, seems a shame to waste it...

Took a nap on H's couch. Woke up around 11, putzed around, made my way home.

Got home at noon; the clocks were blinking 2:30, so I'm assuming power came back on at 10:30 am. Stopped at Safeway for some chicken, chocolate, and emergency candles. The best kind of emergency candles, I think, are the Mexican novena candles, because they are cheap, bright, long lasting, and encased in a jar for safety. They used to be 99 cents, but today they were $1.49.

For lunch we had cous cous with peas, chicken tenderloins with green peppers stewed in some senegalaise peanut sauce in my freezer from the Soirée Sénégalaise. It was delicious, of course, with pita. I also brought over the cheese plate from my fridge, and some mini cheesecake squares from my freezer.

Then what happened? Surfed the net for a while, watched some Futurama, blogged. Blogging.

Tonight; no Simbang Gabi. Gotta stop by work to pick up my Christmas loot (a jar of jam, a pouch of salmon chowder concentrate, various other gifts-for-teacher). Faculty bowling is at 8:55, which is the way we market 9:00 pm, nowadays. I will miss Battlestar Galactica, but I will download it tomorrow and watch it on my laptop.

May the force be with you, or whatever.

bLAcK oUt

The orange parts are where the power is out.

Power is out in my neighborhood as of 10:38 last night. I'm slowly re-learning how to light my life by candle (you have to bring it with you to the next room, you have to leave it lit, you shouldn't look at the flame directly, etc.).

So now I'm at my sister's, where there is plenty of power for my cellphone and laptop batteries to charge up, plus tv and internet. What am I supposed to do at home, with no power? Practice guitar?

School was called today. There's power there, but a lot of Capitol Hill is out, and and bridges across the lake are closed. I'll go home later to check on some people. Right now my belly is full of breakfast, so I think I'll take a nap.

Blackout

I went into school at 7:30 to do morning prayer about la Santa Virgen de Guadalupe. I was up late last night writing the prayer, and I managed to catch a little of the live coverage of the festivities in Mexico city. I think coverage started at midnight, and for an hour and a half, they had popular musicians singing devotions to la Virgen. At 1:30 they finally started playing Las mañanitas; the crowd was so happy, and then all the clergy came in for the procession. At that point, I went to bed.

So anyway, as I was saying, I went into work for morning prayer. Ten minutes later, the lights flickered and then finally went black. I waited five minutes, and when they didn't come back on, I went up top to see what the administration was up to. Answer: not much. So I went back to the office and started bringing candles to classrooms.

Word came back later that if the power had not been restored by the end of that class period, students would be sent home. So then it was a waiting game of chatting with other teachers and intimidating students who were wandering the hallways in packs. Well, we waited it out, and stil now power, so the students all went home; and I went to brunch at Glo's on Capitol Hill with some other faculty. I had the corned beef hash with eggs over medium and wheat toast.

Now I'm back home. I will do a couple loads of laundry and maybe tidy up the office; I have a quiz to write for tomorrow, and that should be it. For now, I think it's naptime.