Powerless

On Monday, Southern California was hit with the first of four powerful winter storms (we're bracing for #3 today).

I don't like driving in the rain, which seems to spur other drivers to do crazy things. It feels like taking your life in your hands. So I was perfectly happy to be staying home with the dog, while my daughter (out of school for the Martin Luther King holiday) went to a movie with friends (whose parents were doing the driving).

Of course, I had tasks that I could have done - but nothing pressing. So I thought I'd take advantage of the relative quiet and watch a Netflix DVD that had been sitting around the house for weeks.

Midway through the movie (around noon), the power went out.

It was still off when my daughter returned home at 4:00 PM. It was still out when my husband came home at 6:00 to a very dark and cold house. And it was still out at 8:00, when the entire family came home from dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. (Well, I couldn't really be expected to cook without the use of my oven or stove, could I?)

The LA DWP had estimated a 10-12 hour turnaround before a crew could come out to our neighborhood and fix the problem. That was around 1:00. It was going to be a long, cold night.

With the electricity out, we huddled in the living room around a Coleman lantern, which did not give off quite enough light to read comfortably. We listened to weather updates on a battery operated radio. I kept up on email with my Blackberry (which I used at a minimum, because I would not be able to recharge the battery). We bundled up under mass quantities of blankets, because we had no heat.

And without lights or heat or the distraction of television, we all retired to bed early.

I'd love to say that the experience brought our family closer, but that's not the case. We bickered over dinner and bemoaned about how unfair it was that the lights were on in the homes across the street. And I confess that I can't sleep without being lulled by the sound of our television droning into the wee hours of the night - so I reran the first three episodes of "Mad Men" and an old "Office" on my iPod.

And I reminded myself that it could be so much worse. We are fortunate that we were not in any of the neighborhoods devastated by fire last fall, so are not facing these rainstorms with the fear of mudslides and evacuation. It was cold in our house, but as this is SoCal, it wasn't dangerously so -- we were uncomfortable but safe under our layers of blankets. We have a (brand new) roof over our heads.

It was an inconvenience, and a temporary one at that.

The power returned early yesterday morning. I made coffee, only to discover that after 18 hours, the milk in our fridge had soured. I drank it black.

And then I made another donation to the Red Cross for relief in Haiti.