It may be cliche, but the saying "if not for back luck I would have none" seems to apply oh-so aptly to yours truly that I can't help but use it again and again. Because I do have luck - I tend to fall into unlucky minority a lot of the time. Example: one in millions of people win the lottery - I will not be this one lucky individual. Example: one in millions of people will crack their ribs while coughing - I will be this one lucky individual.
Another thing you should know is that Toronto, much of southern Ontario and even parts of the USA went through this rather impressive blackout in the summer of 2003. In our neighbourhood the blackout lasted nearly three full days. Everywhere else in the city it lasted just 24 hours. Yes, we are lucky. Still, even though it was roughly eight million degrees out and I had food poisoning - it was much better than the new and improved...WINTER BLACKOUT 2009! That's right - on Thursday evening @ nearly precisely 22 hundred hours - the power took a mighty dive. No electricity, no heat, no refrigeration, no internets, no cooking...but we thought that the power would eventually come back on @ some point through the night. It didn't. Looking back, we should have known better. Apparently 75% of those involved in the power outage got theirs back @ 10am...so again, I'm in that lucky 25%.
I should also point out that we are also going through a pretty hideous cold snap and have been for a few days now. During our power outage - which ended up lasting just under 24 hours the temperature ranged as low as -30 [that's -22 fahrenheit]. This made it not a great day to be unemployed. Joseph got up and went to his fancy office with this fancy electricity and heat and internets. I stayed in bed until 2:30pm under blankets and trying to sleep so I wouldn't notice how freezing and starving I was. Once I heard the news that Toronto Hydro had [and I quote] "no idea" when power would be restored to us fortunate 25% I decided to put on some crazy combination of clothing and brave the -30 weather and trek on up to meet Joseph and plan our evening.
Now I know many of you hard-working employed individuals would be envious of spending 14 hours in bed...but what I really wanted to do today was spend 14 hours watching Battlestar Galactica. There's scarcely anything I love more than Battlestar and really - 14 hours of it in one day just confirms my belief that maybe my life really is going according to plan and I should be 30 years old and unemployed - just so I can savour these times. So yeah, plan thoroughly and totally thwarted...I needed a new one [much like my cylon friends]. The new plan established that we should get a hotel room for the sole purpose of watching the season premiere of BSG. Mission accomplished.
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Wow. Given the crazy cold late last week, it was a very bad time to not have heat. (This is what shopping malls and movie theatres are for).
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! I can't imagine not having power in this weather! I've had this fear of the power going out all winter. I've tried to make sure that we're stocked up on firewood and non-perishables, but we have yet to actually loose it. Stay warm!
ReplyDeleteYes, I would have gone out to a mall, but both of the malls in our neighbourhood were affected by the blackout. I had injured myself earlier in the week making walking very difficult...and the subways were affected by the blackout too! So I didn't have much choice but to stay home and freeze.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely made me want to get one of those wind-up radios and wind-up flashlights. And to pack an emergency kit. I was going to do that as one of my ETs, but never got around to it!
the blackout was totally fun. my boss had his 40th bday party and had to get generators. 2 hours in, the lights came back..but it was totally fun!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was not so much with the total fun when you had no heat and were unable to move. It sucked. Our house was such a disaster when we got back on Saturday from us crashing around in the dark and tracking snow/salt all through.
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